Do elves have souls?

[Elf Girl]

I was born 4000 years ago in Lorien and I definetely didn't have a computer.

[Falagar]

Originally posted by Sister Golden Hair
Falagar, you better watch it. My stick is at hand buddy.

Oh no! Not the infernal stick of the Master Mod!

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Falagar
Nope, Finrod is even more evil C'mon, you all know it

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Ruinel]

Elves really do not like change. But that has nothing to do with having a soul.

[Kalile]

Originally posted by galadriel
I'm glad that I'm not the only person in the universe who was reminded of Elves when I reread The Little Mermaid, especially with the whole otherworldly-being-falling-in-love-with-human deal.

Oh, Good. Someone else made that connection too. That story depressed me when I was five, and I really haven't read it since - it's amazing how things just spring from the back of your mind.

Good argument Kalile, but i think they do change, even personality-wise. They're just really old people, and old people are ussually old fasioned. They're all old enough to have found a lifestyle they like so they're sticking with it.

In many ways, they stick with it too much! In fact, they have so little interest in many things that they will not even stay to fight for their land, but "pass beyond the cares of Middle Earth." In a lot of stories this refusal to change their way of life (as a race, rather than as an idividual) has, or almost has, resulted in disaster. Even in the Lord of the Rings, it didn't help that they all left. If they had stayed, it would have been a lot easier to defend the land.

Ruinel, I think that change is part of what makes up a person, and that a soul is all of the nuances of a person, faults, growths and virtues. Without change and growth, you are like stagnant water that does not change. Something like that doesn't die or grow old, but it doesn't live either. If you've ever read Tuck Everlasting, maybe you see what I mean by this, and the reasoning that change and growth are so important.

[Willow Oran]

I must disagree with you're theory that change is what makes up a person and their soul. I think it is more that the soul is made of the parts of a person that don't change. The things about their personality that remain constant throughout their life no matter what happens, is what determines who someone is. All the change happens on the outside. Growth on the other hand does occur, a soul can grow and remain the same, but it would be an older, clearer same, if you know what I mean.

As for comparing the Little Mermaid with the Elves of Middle earth, I have never ever made that connection. The two are completely different. The elves were originally designed to live forever, or "until the end of the world, after which their fate was unclear." Their souls were designed to last the same amount of time as their bodies because the two were never meant to be seperated.
Very different situation from the mermaid's. She didn't have any soul at all even from the start. And when she failed to be accepted permanetly by her human lover she forfeited what immortality she had and turned to foam, and then it ends with her becoming an air sprite and being given a second chance at gaining a soul.

Basically, the elves were designed so that both their body and fea(soul) would last until the end of arda.

The mermaids were immortal but in body only, if they were killed they would cease to exist because they had no soul.

The elves obviously did not cease to exist after being killed. Re-embodiement would be rather difficult if that were the case.

[Elf Girl]

Thank you Willow. Very well said. *pictures zombie soul-less reembodied elves running around everywhere*

[Sister Golden Hair]

Their souls were designed to last the same amount of time as their bodies because the two were never meant to be seperated.

Well, they could be killed and they were total spirits in Mandos, but it was considered a grievous thing for them to have body and spirit seperated because of their immortality.

[galadriel]

Originally posted by Kalile

In many ways, they stick with it too much! In fact, they have so little interest in many things that they will not even stay to fight for their land, but "pass beyond the cares of Middle Earth." In a lot of stories this refusal to change their way of life (as a race, rather than as an idividual) has, or almost has, resulted in disaster.

I'll agree that Elves tend to stick to their guns as far as what their preferred lifestyle... but they've changed drastically otherwise. They weren't always uninterested in the fate of Middle-earth; they fought an entire war to protect their right to live there freely. It was only after their experiences in this war that they resigned themselves to becoming insular and detached.

Originally posted by Kalile

As for comparing the Little Mermaid with the Elves of Middle earth, I have never ever made that connection. The two are completely different.

I didn't say the two were identical. Clearly they are very different stories. But some of the general themes are the same, that's all.

Of course, oddly enough, if you've read Morgoth's Ring, you'll find that Tolkien *did* have a notion about the immortality of men (beyond the confines of Arda) saving Elves from ultimate destruction at the end of the world. Maybe there's more of a resemblance than meets the eye....

[Kalile]

I must disagree with you're theory that change is what makes up a person and their soul. I think it is more that the soul is made of the parts of a person that don't change. The things about their personality that remain constant throughout their life no matter what happens, is what determines who someone is. All the change happens on the outside. Growth on the other hand does occur, a soul can grow and remain the same, but it would be an older, clearer same, if you know what I mean.

Yes, I do see what you mean, and that's a very good point. Change isn't all that makes up a person's soul, but I think that in order to grow and to be the "older, clearer same" it must first undergo that change, the influx of ideas that come every day. The elves seem much more similar to eachother than humans are, and while that guarantees greater harmony, it also gets rid of that change that helps you stay the same.
(kind of an oxymoron, but I think it works)

Originally posted by Kalile

I didn't post that! I think the similarities between the two stories, while they don't run on a parallel, are there.

Of course, oddly enough, if you've read Morgoth's Ring, you'll find that Tolkien *did* have a notion about the immortality of men (beyond the confines of Arda) saving Elves from ultimate destruction at the end of the world. Maybe there's more of a resemblance than meets the eye....

That's yet another thing that I didn't know, although that backs up what I wondered, about elves having souls. Maybe that's where Tolkien got the idea. Who knows?

[galadriel]

Originally posted by Kalile
The elves seem much more similar to eachother than humans are, and while that guarantees greater harmony, it also gets rid of that change that helps you stay the same.

Are Elves really all that similar to one another? From a human perspective, maybe. But, to Elves, mortals are all the same. When Bilbo recites his poem in Rivendell, the Elves can't tell the difference between his writing and Aragorn's. They do have more consistent social values than humans - the univeral ban on Kinslaying, the probably-universal aversion to divorce - but that doesn't mean they have similar personalities.

I do like this idea of change that nevertheless helps you to remain yourself. Reminds me something from the novel Demian - the idea people don't change, but become more of what they are.

[Kalile]

But, to Elves, mortals are all the same. When Bilbo recites his poem in Rivendell, the Elves can't tell the difference between his writing and Aragorn's.

That is true. And, as they said "To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different" They are still a lot more similar to eachother than humans are, I think.

[Willow Oran]

Of course, oddly enough, if you've read Morgoth's Ring, you'll find that Tolkien *did* have a notion about the immortality of men (beyond the confines of Arda) saving Elves from ultimate destruction at the end of the world. Maybe there's more of a resemblance than meets the eye....

Yes, I have read it, several times actually. It was quite a bit more than a notion. It was a full fledged theory worked out in the Athrabeth. It still has nothing to do with the themes in the little Mermaid. The themes in the little mermaid are that if you are an immortal being without a soul you can gain one by being loved by someone with a soul or by doing good deeds for a certain amount of time. The Athrabeth is discussing what will happen to the souls of Elves and Men after Arda marred ends and Arda re-made is begun. The entire theory rests on the fact that both races have souls and bodies and the two are supposed to be in balance with eachother.

[Ararax]

well elves souls are usually with their body, though with men it is more often not sicne they die often, glorfindel came back, so between the time he died and the time he came ack he must ahve been somewhere.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally posted by Ararax
well elves souls are usually with their body, though with men it is more often not sicne they die often, glorfindel came back, so between the time he died and the time he came ack he must ahve been somewhere.

He was in Mandos, without body.

[Ararax]

yes the soul is a persons essence it was his soul if he can be bodyless he has a soul

[Melko Belcha]

I am posting this is respone to if Elves are naturally good.

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #154
"But the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron: as becuse with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasaunce, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' - and they were overburdend with sadness and nostalgic regret."

[Ararax]

well being Good in that sense is about being in tune with the will of eru which was for the elves to go west. their lingering because they loved the place was not a sin yet shows that they were not totally free from self interests.

[galadriel]

Originally posted by Willow Oran
Yes, I have read it, several times actually. It was quite a bit more than a notion. It was a full fledged theory worked out in the Athrabeth. It still has nothing to do with the themes in the little Mermaid.

I'm not arguing against Elven souls, or making the case that these two stories are particularly similar... but they do have the same thread of an idea running through both of them. The stories themselves are very different in conception and execution, and the "thread" is woven through them in different ways. But it's still a peculiar, if vague, similarity.

While we've wandered off-topic, might as well get this thought in: I think the connection between the two stories is what they say about the role of religion in fairy-tales. The fairy world is generally intrinsically pagan. (Not the case for Elves, but they are certainly not Christian, the other end of the scale in Western storytelling... Christianity does not yet exist, and they are not human.) And the very word "soul" has religious connotations. So it's almost logical, if not valid in the Elves' case, to assume fantastic creatures are soulless. These stories explore the relationship between the human, Christianize-able world and the, if not pagan, then at least "unsaved" world of Elves/mermaids/what have you.

Ahem. But moving on....

[Ruinel]

Soul and spirit are not Christian concepts, actually. Many religions believe that people have a spirit or soul that lives on after the body dies or is reborn again in a different body.

Then it would not be so far fetched for Elves, non-humans, who are sentient beings, to have a fëa (or spirit) that lives on after the hroa (or body) dies. Even without the existence of a Christian god.