Elves that become mortal

[Sheeana]

Yes, they were mortal. It was their doom (or salvation, depending on how you look at it) to eventually die, and share the fate of men, in that they had forfeited their right to stay in the halls of Mandos, to be reborn.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Anglorfin
"Mortal" Elves would still have their immunities to sickness and all that.

There is no text to support that,nor can any statistical case be made for what little we know (no meidcal reports at all, good or bad) about the handful of elves who made that choice, particulalr as special aloowances of long life and race were granted to them as mortal, like all the Numenorians, and they were all royalty, with the best of eveything. I see no basis for this conclusion, that after having been made mortal, they retained 'elvish health' as opposed to upper class with special grace 'human health'.

[Arien the Maia]

Originally posted by Thingol's new Wife
Then they weren't truley mortal.?

I think that's the true diffenition of "mortal" in Tolkien's world.....release from the world.....Men weren't supposed to be sickly and all but Melkor corrupted them in the beginning and the became a fallen race so to speak.....at least that's my impression after reading the the story of Finrod and Andreth

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally posted by Arien the Maia
I think that's the true diffenition of "mortal" in Tolkien's world.....release from the world.....Men weren't supposed to be sickly and all but Melkor corrupted them in the beginning and the became a fallen race so to speak.....at least that's my impression after reading the the story of Finrod and Andreth

Good point, but we also have to remember that a lot of the information that Andreth imparts to Finrod is handed down from legends. Also in the Tale of Adanel. We can not be sure of what is fact in those accounts.

I think that Tolkien put much imphasis on the difference in Elves and Men being the spirit. Finrod trys to explain that to Andreth. He tells her that their fates are divided by a gulf. He also speaks of the Eldar and mortals joining in marriage and sharing the fate of the other, that death would be the least cruelest thing to befall that marriage. So the big difference is in the spirit, not in the body. When an Elf became mortal, he/she would still be an Elf.

[Anglorfin]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola
There is no text to support that,nor can any statistical case be made for what little we know (no meidcal reports at all, good or bad) about the handful of elves who made that choice, particulalr as special aloowances of long life and race were granted to them as mortal, like all the Numenorians, and they were all royalty, with the best of eveything. I see no basis for this conclusion, that after having been made mortal, they retained 'elvish health' as opposed to upper class with special grace 'human health'.

That is only my speculation as there is no evidence to either support it or conflict with it. The main point I guess I screwed up was that in any case being Mortal really only means spiritual release from the circles of the world. Any other biological changes that would be made "however unlikely I see it" would be insignificant to that fact anyway.

[Ulmo]

I don't know if I can say this emphatically enough:

Arwen was not an elf. She was never an elf.

She is explicitly stated to be a half-elf - who are mortal by nature, as is any creature containing any amount of mortal blood - that simply gave up her option to be immortal. She was not immortal to begin with - from the moment she was born she knew she had to make a choice by/around the time that her father left for Valinor. She and her brothers aged as elves did before they made their choice, but they were not elves.

Don't take my word for it though...listen to Tolkien.

Letter No. 345

Arwen was not an elf, but one of the half-elven who abandoned her elvish rights.

I don't know if he could have said it any clearer.

Luthien was an elf though - she's referred to as such. She was "half-Ainu" by blood, but because both races are immortal, there was no question as to what her fate was. Tolkien stated that she was 'greatest of the Eldar' and as such, she considered a part of the Elven race. She is the only elf that became mortal.

[Thingol's new Wife]

What about Luthien? I realize she was not full elf either, but when she came back with Beren after their death, did they die as just mortal deaths, or did they die as humans? Old, and happy?

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally posted by Thingol's new Wife
What about Luthien? I realize she was not full elf either, but when she came back with Beren after their death, did they die as just mortal deaths, or did they die as humans? Old, and happy?

Well, Luthien was an Elf. She was born to Thingol and Melian. Although Melian was a Maia, she took Elven form and lived as an Elf. When Beren died, Luthien grieved to death and went to the Halls of Mandos, where she sang to Mandos and moved him to pitty. Mandos gave her a choice of returning to Valinor, or returning to Middle-earth with Beren. Had she chose to return to Valinor, she would still have been counted among the Eldar. However, when she chose to return to Middle-earth with Beren, she became mortal, meaning that at death her spirit was no longer bound to the world. She was an Elf, but shared the mortality of Beren who was of the Atani, meaning human in Elvish.

[Thingol's new Wife]

SGH, do you have proof of this? a quote from the boooks maybe? What you are saying is the same thing you have been saying. I don't think there is proof either way. If there is "SHOW ME".

[Artanis]

Originally posted by Thingol's new Wife
SGH, do you have proof of this? a quote from the boooks maybe? What you are saying is the same thing you have been saying. I don't think there is proof either way. If there is "SHOW ME".

I became interested to see 'proof' too, so I found this from HoME 11 - The Grey Annals, year 469:

In this year, it hath been [thought >] said, Beren and Lúthien returned to the world, for a while. For Lúthien had won this doom from Manwë that Beren might return to live again, and she with him; but only so that she too thereafter should be mortal as he, and should soon die indeed and lose the world and depart from the nimbers of the Eldalië for ever. This doom she chose.

Ulmo, nice to see you here again.

This is my first post after vacation. It feels good to be back.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Here is also a quote from the Silmarillion, Chapter 19, Of Beren And Luthian, Houghton Mifflin edition, 1977

For the spirit of Beren at her bidding tarried in the halls of Mandos, unwilling to leave the world, until Lúthien came to say her last farewell upon the dim shores of the Outer Sea, whence Men that die set out never to return. But the spirit of Lúthien fell down into darkness, and at the last it fled, and her body lay like a flower that is suddenly cut off and lies for a while unwithered on the grass.
Then a winter, as it were the hoar age of mortal Men, fell upon Thingol. But Lúthien came to the halls of Mandos, where are the appointed places of the Eldalië, beyond the mansions of the West upon the confines of the world. There those that wait sit in the shadow of their thought. But her beauty was more than their beauty, and her sorrow deeper than their sorrows; and she knelt before Mandos and sang to him.
The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall ever hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and the listening the Valar grieved. For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.
Therefore he summoned Beren, and even as Lúthien had spoken in the hour of his death they met again beyond the Western Sea. But Mandos had no power to withhold the spirits of Men that were dead within the confines of the world, after their time of waiting; nor could he change the fates of the Children of Ilúvatar. He went therefore to Manwë, Lord of the Valar, who governed the world under the hand of Ilúvatar; and Manwë sought counsel in his inmost thought, where the will of Ilúvatar was revealed.
These were the choices that he gave to Lúthien. Because of her labours and her sorrow, she should be released from Mandos, and go to Valimar, there to dwell until the world's end among the Valar, forgetting all griefs that her life had known. Thither Beren could not come. For it was not permitted to the Valar to withhold Death from him, which is the gift of Ilúvatar to Men. But the other choice was this: that she might return to Middle-earth, and take with her Beren, there to dwell again, but without certitude of life or joy. Then she would become mortal, and subject to a second death, even as he; and ere long she would leave the world for ever, and her beauty become only a memory in song.
This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world. So it was that alone of the Eldalië she has died indeed, and left the world long ago. Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, though all the world is changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost.