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I like my world tangible. Math and science are concrete. Literature? Not so much. But ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dj_writes did give me a plausible, yet frustrating, explanation for the elves final journey to the west.
It's a traditional mythic structure.
The West is mythicly associated with death, with passing on to whatever the next plane of existance is (as most cultures have some manner or fashion of an afterworld). It gets this reputation for nothing more complex than this: the West is where the sun "died", where the day ends. The ancient Egyptians were strong proponents of these beliefs, often being buried west of the nile, facing west. The Aztecs had a similar slant, as do Native American myths. Irish mythology also uses the West as the land of the dead. This sort of belief has its own adaptations in our own popular culture - the popular 'riding off into the sunset' motif in westerns, for example (even Indiana Jones heads into the west at the end of his last film...)
Tolkein had multiple influences in his works, and being a very highly mythic work, that the west would stand for an ending isn't unusual. But it's not a literal thing - it's a metaphorical element. The Elves aren't' commiting mass suicide. They're moving on to the next plane of existence, whatever that might be, because all things come to an end. It simply is. Their time is done, as the ages before theirs have ended.
It's as mythic as warriors killing each other all day and then partying all night to do it all over again the next day at Valhalla. And it simply is - as much as an evil ring that resizes itself to the wearer, a fiery eye at the top of a tower, and an army of the dead that is non-corporeal and yet a very effective killing machine.
So that all makes sense in a very elvish and abstract way but I still want to know what it looks like and what they do there.
ETA: Okay, I've been bugging people at work, too. So, it's heaven but I'm applying too many human ideas of heaven and the unknown. The elves know exactly where they're going and "life" there far surpasses Middle Earth. (A guy also gave me a long explanation about why the elves actually came to Middle Earth in the first place and their true sacrifice when they came to help at Helm's Deep.) I think I need to stop thinking about this now.
dj_writes did give me a plausible, yet frustrating, explanation for the elves final journey to the west.It's a traditional mythic structure.
The West is mythicly associated with death, with passing on to whatever the next plane of existance is (as most cultures have some manner or fashion of an afterworld). It gets this reputation for nothing more complex than this: the West is where the sun "died", where the day ends. The ancient Egyptians were strong proponents of these beliefs, often being buried west of the nile, facing west. The Aztecs had a similar slant, as do Native American myths. Irish mythology also uses the West as the land of the dead. This sort of belief has its own adaptations in our own popular culture - the popular 'riding off into the sunset' motif in westerns, for example (even Indiana Jones heads into the west at the end of his last film...)
Tolkein had multiple influences in his works, and being a very highly mythic work, that the west would stand for an ending isn't unusual. But it's not a literal thing - it's a metaphorical element. The Elves aren't' commiting mass suicide. They're moving on to the next plane of existence, whatever that might be, because all things come to an end. It simply is. Their time is done, as the ages before theirs have ended.
It's as mythic as warriors killing each other all day and then partying all night to do it all over again the next day at Valhalla. And it simply is - as much as an evil ring that resizes itself to the wearer, a fiery eye at the top of a tower, and an army of the dead that is non-corporeal and yet a very effective killing machine.
So that all makes sense in a very elvish and abstract way but I still want to know what it looks like and what they do there.
ETA: Okay, I've been bugging people at work, too. So, it's heaven but I'm applying too many human ideas of heaven and the unknown. The elves know exactly where they're going and "life" there far surpasses Middle Earth. (A guy also gave me a long explanation about why the elves actually came to Middle Earth in the first place and their true sacrifice when they came to help at Helm's Deep.) I think I need to stop thinking about this now.
