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Re: The pointy-ear thing

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  Posted by Michael Martinez on September 25, 1999 at 04:09:47
In Reply to: Re: The pointy-ear thing posted by neithan on September 25, 1999 at 03:12:22:



: : : The Hobbits were not conceived of as anything other than : : : creatures of fantasy, and Tolkien only later on decided to : : : merge the two worlds. One might as well cite Collingwood : : : on the ancient Germans as use this letter to establish that : : : Tolkien's Elves had pointed ears: the two sources have : : : equal relevance.

: : Then I assume that Tolkien later retracted his discription? : : If so I'm happy to hear it, since I've spent most the last : : thirty years thinking Elves looked just like us. Of course if : : Gary Gygax is acting as consultant, which way will the "ear" : : question go? Do D&D Elves have pointy ears? I've played D&D, : : but can't remember how they were described.

: They have pointy ears alright.... I like pointy ears about as : much as Michael does, what reason for them? They even look : silly.

Well, people aren't looking at the greater picture here. Tolkien told Houghton Mifflin that his Hobbits had pointy ears like the Elves of folklore. He also wrote (perhaps around the same time) that Quendian ears were more leaf-shaped and pointed than [something]. No one knows what the something was.

By the time Tolkien wrote THE LORD OF THE RINGS, however, he didn't bother to menion ears in describing either Hobbits or Elves. Why? We talk about the beardlessness of Fallohides and the hairy feet of Hobbits based on the description in the Prologue. What happened to the ears?

I don't know of any reference in THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH to Hobbit ears. So, what the pro-ears camp has to offer is Tolkien's comparison of pre-LOTR Hobits to Elves of European folklore and an indecipherable comparison of pre-LOTR Quendian ears. All discussion of ears ceases with THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But Hobbits, Elves, and other creatures were radically altered by Tolkien during the years 1938-1952. Any arguments for the pointedness of Elven ears prior to that period no longer apply (and they are weak anyway).

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