math and Elven populations

galadriel · 03-20-2002, 06:50 PM

This is a ridiculous question, but it has been bothering me.

In Middle-earth, Elves have two primary means of population control: going over Sea, and the occasional war. However, neither of these are applicable to their relatives in the West. Sure, there was the first Kinslaying and casualities from the war that destroyed Beleriand (Finarfin and Ingwe led their people to fight, remember?) but since then, everything's been grand.

Take, for instance, a population of 100 elves. Assuming that, say, 80% of them get married (I have no idea if this is a reasonable estimation, but it works), and each couple has an average of two children, you have a net total of 80 children. In turn, 80% of the new generation gets married and has children. The numbers get weird from there, since there can be intermarriage between generations, but my point is, this process would repeat iself endlessly. Eventually, wouldn't even a slow rate of reproduction create quite a large population?

Since there is not just 100 elves in the West, but thousands, wouldn't they start running into overpopulation problems?

Just how big is Aman, anyway?

No need to take my question over-seriously. Any insight would be interesting, though.

Wayfarer · 03-20-2002, 07:02 PM

The average elven family will only have one child. Although I suppose two would work nicely.

So it would go (by generation)

100
80
64
50
40
33
26
20
16
13
10
8
7
5
4
3
2
1

You'd end up with 481 elves.

However, what if someone from generation 1 married someone from geteration 4? And what about the fact that you can't inbreed?

I don't think it's really applicable.

Comic Book Guy · 03-20-2002, 07:15 PM

Elves don't breed in times of conflict and war, and I can only guess that they only reproduce every century or so.

Wayfarer · 03-20-2002, 07:42 PM

Or less...

Ñólendil · 03-20-2002, 08:20 PM

Where do you get that about having one child, Shannon? In Laws and Customs Among the Eldar it's said that an Elvish family has four children "as often as not".

Somewhere there's something about Elves reproducing less and less as the Ages go by in Middle-earth, that may be true of the Elves of Aman also.

This may be covered in Michael Martinez's "Elves by the numbers", which can be read on Suite101.com..

bropous · 03-20-2002, 08:21 PM

One elf plus one elf equals one elf.

One child per elven family would be a certain negative population growth, since only one of the male/female parental pair will be replaced. That would make the Elves a non-sustainable population and a dying race very quickly.

You have a large variation, I imagine, in the number of elven offspring. Finwe, Feanor's pop, had three kids (one by Miriel and two by Indis). Feanor had seven kids altogether. Fingolfin had three, and Finarfin had five. Albeit not as profound in reproduction as the ready trigger of long term fecundity, the randy Mr. Samwise Gamgee, Elves still were capable of multiple children beyond the twain.

The Elves simply could not have sustained a population had their procreation been limited to singular issue, even considering their very low death rate [although this rose considerably during times of war].

Ñólendil · 03-20-2002, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Feanor had seven kids altogether.

Tolkien says in one of his essays that Feanor holds the record for most children, out of all the Elves.

bropous · 03-20-2002, 08:40 PM

Well then I am sure there were at least a few elven families with six kids, though most probably not commonly. Imagine 2-4 was more the norm. I'm sure there's a dusty Tolkien essay out there that says I'm wrong.

Ñólendil · 03-20-2002, 09:05 PM

Maybe, but I don't know of one. I was just contributing comment, it certainly doesn't make what you say untrue.

Nibs · 03-20-2002, 09:22 PM

Interesting thought, but it's a really strange comparison because they're immortal. In effect, there would be no real need for the term "generations." I'd start thinking about it, but my head would hurt.

Is "randy" a real word, bropous?

Ñólendil · 03-20-2002, 10:06 PM

"Randy" is used by the British for "lustful".

Wayfarer, Lelondul, or other visitors from the Vault, if you say anything I will hurt you.

mirrille · 03-20-2002, 10:51 PM

I always kind of wondered about the population dynamics going on with the elves. I'd imagine they just breed reeeaaallly slooooowllly.
But if it's true that alot of them only die in war, and there's no breeding in wars, then their population has probably gone through quite a few bottlenecks. Ahhh! Inbreeding inbreeding everywhere! Not good. Inbreeding also results in lower viability (fewer offspring) and a less vigourous population, so then the population growth slows down even again. So these things probably help to suppress the population.
Hmmmm...Interesting.

afro-elf · 03-21-2002, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Comic Book Guy
Elves don't breed in times of conflict and war, and I can only guess that they only reproduce every century or so.

I think that your statement is non-sequitor

for it was asked of the elves aman i believe

The White Rider · 03-21-2002, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mirrille
Ahhh! Inbreeding inbreeding everywhere! Not good. Inbreeding also results in lower viability (fewer offspring) and a less vigourous population, so then the population growth slows down even again. So these things probably help to suppress the population.

But problems from inbreeding don't count because Elves don't have sickness and disease [

AHHH... No disease, no colds, no sickness, that's the life...

]. Also, they won't marry to someone within 4 relations/generations, following the fact Maeglin wanted to marry Irdril, yet they were too closly related being cousins (Idril's father was Turgon who was Maeglin's uncle).

bropous · 03-21-2002, 01:06 PM

"Elves don't breed in times of conflict and war..."

Huh? EVERYBODY breeds during times of war....

Seems to me the time when the elven lasses would have the greatest chance of being "with elf", so to speak, is in times of warfare.

"Baby, I'm leaving in the morning for the great battle to the North. I may never return." Gee, what did they do that night.....play tiddlywinks?

Precisely the reason for the baby boom starting in World War Two.....

afro-elf · 03-21-2002, 06:25 PM

the non conflict breeding elves is in one the books that you would give less support for not being directly mentioned in LOTR or the HOB

I think it is in one of the HoME

emplynx · 03-21-2002, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bropous
"Baby, I'm leaving in the morning for the great battle to the North. I may never return." Gee, what did they do that night.....play tiddlywinks?

Hey bropous! They're young ears in the room! We are not all old married men like you!

Wayfarer · 03-21-2002, 07:23 PM

Ok... I seem to have mistated something.

The average elvish family would have had only one child at a time. Since the child would move out after a few hundered years, they might have another about that often.

bropous · 03-21-2002, 07:55 PM

oh come on, emplynx, you innocents hear far worse in the first hour of prime time network TV......LOL

Okay. The night before a battle, mommy elfses and daddy elfses have two choices: They can use the local pay palantir to phone up the stork to drop a new bundle of joy in three trimesters, or they can find the nearest cabbage patch and start looking under cabbage leaves.

Better?

galadriel · 03-21-2002, 08:49 PM

I don't think you would have to worry too much about inbreeding, because we're not actually talking about a population of one hundred, but rather thousands. It's just like human reproduction, except much slower, and all of your ancestors stay around.
As for the whole no-reproduction-during-war thing, they tried to *avoid* having kids during dangerous times. Obviously they didn't always succeed....

03-20-2002, 06:50 PM	#1
galadriel Elven Warrior Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: a castle made of clouds Posts: 459	math and Elven populations This is a ridiculous question, but it has been bothering me. In Middle-earth, Elves have two primary means of population control: going over Sea, and the occasional war. However, neither of these are applicable to their relatives in the West. Sure, there was the first Kinslaying and casualities from the war that destroyed Beleriand (Finarfin and Ingwe led their people to fight, remember?) but since then, everything's been grand. Take, for instance, a population of 100 elves. Assuming that, say, 80% of them get married (I have no idea if this is a reasonable estimation, but it works), and each couple has an average of two children, you have a net total of 80 children. In turn, 80% of the new generation gets married and has children. The numbers get weird from there, since there can be intermarriage between generations, but my point is, this process would repeat iself endlessly. Eventually, wouldn't even a slow rate of reproduction create quite a large population? Since there is not just 100 elves in the West, but thousands, wouldn't they start running into overpopulation problems? Just how big is Aman, anyway? No need to take my question over-seriously. Any insight would be interesting, though. __________________ Human kind cannot bear very much reality. dreamflower - for all things Lady Galadriel

03-20-2002, 07:02 PM	#2
Wayfarer The Insufferable Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 3,333	The average elven family will only have one child. Although I suppose two would work nicely. So it would go (by generation) 100 80 64 50 40 33 26 20 16 13 10 8 7 5 4 3 2 1 You'd end up with 481 elves. However, what if someone from generation 1 married someone from geteration 4? And what about the fact that you can't inbreed? I don't think it's really applicable. __________________ Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned

03-20-2002, 07:42 PM	#4
Wayfarer The Insufferable Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 3,333	Or less... __________________ Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned

03-20-2002, 08:20 PM	#5
Ñólendil Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: California Posts: 60,865	Where do you get that about having one child, Shannon? In Laws and Customs Among the Eldar it's said that an Elvish family has four children "as often as not". Somewhere there's something about Elves reproducing less and less as the Ages go by in Middle-earth, that may be true of the Elves of Aman also. This may be covered in Michael Martinez's "Elves by the numbers", which can be read on Suite101.com.. __________________ Falmon -- Dylan

03-20-2002, 08:21 PM	#6
bropous EIDRIORCQWSDAKLMED DCWWTIWOATTOPWFIO Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Littleton, CO Posts: 1,176	One elf plus one elf equals one elf. One child per elven family would be a certain negative population growth, since only one of the male/female parental pair will be replaced. That would make the Elves a non-sustainable population and a dying race very quickly. You have a large variation, I imagine, in the number of elven offspring. Finwe, Feanor's pop, had three kids (one by Miriel and two by Indis). Feanor had seven kids altogether. Fingolfin had three, and Finarfin had five. Albeit not as profound in reproduction as the ready trigger of long term fecundity, the randy Mr. Samwise Gamgee, Elves still were capable of multiple children beyond the twain. The Elves simply could not have sustained a population had their procreation been limited to singular issue, even considering their very low death rate [although this rose considerably during times of war]. __________________ "...[The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, fogotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless." Letters of JRR Tolkien, page 160.

03-20-2002, 07:15 PM	#3
Comic Book Guy Best Ex-Administrator ever Join Date: May 2001 Location: Ireland Posts: 60,547	Elves don't breed in times of conflict and war, and I can only guess that they only reproduce every century or so.

03-20-2002, 08:40 PM	#8
bropous EIDRIORCQWSDAKLMED DCWWTIWOATTOPWFIO Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Littleton, CO Posts: 1,176	Well then I am sure there were at least a few elven families with six kids, though most probably not commonly. Imagine 2-4 was more the norm. I'm sure there's a dusty Tolkien essay out there that says I'm wrong. __________________ "...[The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, fogotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless." Letters of JRR Tolkien, page 160.

03-20-2002, 09:05 PM	#9
Ñólendil Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: California Posts: 60,865	Maybe, but I don't know of one. I was just contributing comment, it certainly doesn't make what you say untrue. __________________ Falmon -- Dylan

03-20-2002, 09:22 PM	#10
Nibs Head Hollara Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 751	Interesting thought, but it's a really strange comparison because they're immortal. In effect, there would be no real need for the term "generations." I'd start thinking about it, but my head would hurt. Is "randy" a real word, bropous? __________________ "People used to ring up and say 'Don't quit your day job' or 'sell your synth', but the joke's on them: we were fired and the synth is broken!" -John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants Ever heard of Mormons? I'm one. Click here to know more about us.

03-20-2002, 10:06 PM	#11
Ñólendil Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: California Posts: 60,865	"Randy" is used by the British for "lustful". Wayfarer, Lelondul, or other visitors from the Vault, if you say anything I will hurt you. __________________ Falmon -- Dylan

03-20-2002, 10:51 PM	#12
mirrille Elven Warrior Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Canada Posts: 479	I always kind of wondered about the population dynamics going on with the elves. I'd imagine they just breed reeeaaallly slooooowllly. But if it's true that alot of them only die in war, and there's no breeding in wars, then their population has probably gone through quite a few bottlenecks. Ahhh! Inbreeding inbreeding everywhere! Not good. Inbreeding also results in lower viability (fewer offspring) and a less vigourous population, so then the population growth slows down even again. So these things probably help to suppress the population. Hmmmm...Interesting.

03-21-2002, 01:06 PM	#15
bropous EIDRIORCQWSDAKLMED DCWWTIWOATTOPWFIO Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Littleton, CO Posts: 1,176	"Elves don't breed in times of conflict and war..." Huh? EVERYBODY breeds during times of war.... Seems to me the time when the elven lasses would have the greatest chance of being "with elf", so to speak, is in times of warfare. "Baby, I'm leaving in the morning for the great battle to the North. I may never return." Gee, what did they do that night.....play tiddlywinks? Precisely the reason for the baby boom starting in World War Two..... __________________ "...[The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, fogotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless." Letters of JRR Tolkien, page 160.

03-21-2002, 06:25 PM	#16
afro-elf Hoplite Nomad Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 3,931	the non conflict breeding elves is in one the books that you would give less support for not being directly mentioned in LOTR or the HOB I think it is in one of the HoME __________________ About Eowyn, Does anyone know what her alias Dernhelm means? She was kown as dernhelm because of her exclaimation when she realized that the rider's headgear was heavy and obscured her sight. 'Dern Helm" Culled from Entmoot From Kirinski 57 and Wayfarer.

03-21-2002, 07:23 PM	#18
Wayfarer The Insufferable Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 3,333	Ok... I seem to have mistated something. The average elvish family would have had only one child at a time. Since the child would move out after a few hundered years, they might have another about that often. __________________ Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned

03-21-2002, 07:55 PM	#19
bropous EIDRIORCQWSDAKLMED DCWWTIWOATTOPWFIO Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Littleton, CO Posts: 1,176	oh come on, emplynx, you innocents hear far worse in the first hour of prime time network TV......LOL Okay. The night before a battle, mommy elfses and daddy elfses have two choices: They can use the local pay palantir to phone up the stork to drop a new bundle of joy in three trimesters, or they can find the nearest cabbage patch and start looking under cabbage leaves. Better? __________________ "...[The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, fogotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless." Letters of JRR Tolkien, page 160.

03-21-2002, 08:49 PM	#20
galadriel Elven Warrior Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: a castle made of clouds Posts: 459	I don't think you would have to worry too much about inbreeding, because we're not actually talking about a population of one hundred, but rather thousands. It's just like human reproduction, except much slower, and all of your ancestors stay around. As for the whole no-reproduction-during-war thing, they tried to avoid having kids during dangerous times. Obviously they didn't always succeed.... __________________ Human kind cannot bear very much reality. dreamflower - for all things Lady Galadriel