: : : You ARE aware that Glorfindel of Rivendell was the same : : : Glorfindel who killed a Balrog outside of Gondolin, aren't : : : you? And he came back stronger than before, not weaker.
: : I am not. Where is it said?
: Christopher Tolkien first revealed this point in "At Rivendell" in THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW, Volume VI of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH, but the two "Glorfindel" essays from which he derived the information were finally published in THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH, Volume XII of HOME.
Thanks for the reference.
: : : The Noldor were formidable warriors, and Elrond implied at : : : the Council that they would have been the best warriors ever : : : to take the field. But they still would have been : : : insufficient to defeat Sauron at the end of the Third Age.
: : I am not saying they could have done that. : : All I am saying, is that TA Elves were not as formidable as FA. : : I think it is said many times in the Silm that the elves wane : : in ME, it is said for example in the First prophesy of Mandos : )
: Yes, the Elves wane, but the power of the Elven nations diminished because of their decline in numbers as well as because of the removal from Aman. It's not all entirely straight-forward. I think that's a great part of the beauty of Tolkien's creation. The depth isn't always transparent to us. There are layers upon layers of "fact" and "legend" intertwined together to produce the whole.
: : Also it is said that in Arda marred everything high becomes low : : or something like that. The same goes for humans, not as much, : : but still. Usually the first generations are more formidable : : than their descendants. To me it just is ridiculous to say that : : the TA heroes were as formidable than the first age ones. Best : : fighters of both men and Noldor lived in the FA or before that.
: Maybe. But then, Sauron was defeated in physical combat by Elendil and Gil-galad at the end of the Second Age, when he was at the height of his personal power, whereas Sauron defeated Finrod in a contest of sorcery in the First Age.
: And don't forget that the Orcs of the First Age also managed to slaughter multitudes of Elves, including many Noldorin warriors. And Tolkien went to great pains to emphasize that the Numenoreans became greater in mind and body than their Edainic ancestors had been.
: I'm not saying there is no merit in your point of view. Rather, it's not quite so cut-and-dried. Hurin Thalion was probably the greatest human warrior ever to live, but that doesn't mean he was typical of his generation.
No it doesn't, as I said in Humans the waning is not so obvious. The people of Numenor lived longer than Hurin's contemporaries for example. Dunedain obviously declined in not only numbers but strenght and knowledge and longevity since the second age. But I don't think this happened to the rest of ME:s people. In elves the waning in not only numbers but also in individual's attributes especially physical is again quite clearly stated.
