The White Council

Re: The pointy-ear thing

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : In a discussion about Merry, Goodgulf said that elves have : : : pointy ears. : : : Quote: "No where in the book does Tolkien describe pointy : : : ears. blah, blah, blah...And then I had to swallow my word : : : when I saw Tolkien's discription."

: : : I found this strange as I have never seen or heard of elves : : : as having pointy ears.

: : : Does anybody have a quote confirming this? : : : Thanks.

: : In one of his history books (Unfinished Tales, one of the books : : in the history of Middle-earth, I can't remember). Tolkien : : described them as leaf-like. He kind of expanded but I can't : : recall right now. But I think the general idea was an oval : : type leaf with some type of point at the end.

: Actually, what Tolkien wrote was that Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than ????. Unable to decipher the "????" part, Christopher Tolkien put in "[human]" to indicate he was taking a wild, uncertain guess.

: Many people have erroneously used this entry (found in "The Etymologies" in THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS) to argue that Elven ears were pointed. Elves looked just like Men. Men were occasionally mistaken for Elves. No one ever said anything like, "I see by your ears you are an Elf".

: So Tolkien Elves do not have noticeably pointed ears, but some people (most, according to the poll I ran on the LOTR/HOBBIT MOVIE site) feel they should have pointed ears.

I agree, Tolkien Elves probabaly do not have noticeably pointed ears. If they had ears ala Vulcans, Tolkien would have no doubt mentioned it. If they did have any pointedness to their ears, it would be so subtle that you wouldn't notice, unless you were devoting all you attention to studying their ears.

In my opinion, the belief that elves have pointed ears comes from books, role-playing games and movies that post-date LOTR. The majority of these either blatantly state or depict Elves with pointed ears. Once visually engrained, it's hard to forget. FYI~ My daughter, now twenty-one, was born with both her ears folded flat against the side her head. As she was growing up, her ears had a very noticeable point. This gradually diminished as she grew older. Today, her ears appear no different than mine, unless you look very closely at them. The point is still there. Very, very subtle and slight, but still there.