Are these REALLY the Same Elves from The Lord of the Rings? : The Hobbit #8

[@ellietobe]

Wasn’t The Hobbit originally written by Tolkien as a children’s story? I really do not understand why so many people have problems with that book. It is written much more simply than LOTR but it is interesting. Most kids do not want a long commentary on what the land looks like as they are traveling for many days. In LOTR when Frodo asked Sam about the elves he had met since he had been in Rivendale Sam answered him by saying, ‘there are elves and there are elves.’ He goes on to comment on how they can be very different from each other. There are different types of elves just as there are different types of humans. There were humans that wanted to be free and there were humans that joined with Sauron. Why do you find that so difficult? In The Hobbit the silly elves sang to Bilbo and the dwarves as they entered Rivendale but then inside there was Elrond who was described as being, “as kind as summer.” Elrond also was the only person who could read the old writing on the map. Obviously Elrond was not a silly elf and WHY would any silly elf marry a serious human or visa versa? Even in the Hobbit Elrond was very kind, wise, and educated. He had been married to an elf. Tolkien did describe the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves somewhat. Bilbo enjoyed the trip until they went into areas that were less green and prosperous than the Shire. The weather changed. It rained. They ran into some rough territory especially as they were approaching Rivendale. How much description do you need of the territory? In England most places are the same! How many days worth of description of the land do you want? They traveled for many days. Should he have told how many miles they traveled each day? Kids don’t need a detailed description of the entire journey. The chapters of The Hobbit are pretty self contained. They are perfect for kids. You can read a chapter before bedtime at night and then pick up the next night and not be lost. Tolkien tried to change The Hobbit to go along with LOTR. Maybe he should have made them two completely separate stories so people do not have to stress themselves out about scenery and elves.

[@aaronbaron3155]

Even the silliest possible descriptions of elves pale in comparison to how literally simple minded and petty the elves are in RoP

[@rimservices]

Google Lauterbrunnen view, from dell mouth it is exactly Rivendell. I went there this April to see myself. It is glacial ravine, immense sheer cliffs smoothed by millenia of glaciers. Tolkien hiked there for 2 weeks with family friends and wrote "the journey... including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods... is based on my adventures in Switzerland in 1911"

[@rikhuravidansker]

Of course, since Rivendell is in "the north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea," Lauterbrunnen only visualized it: Rivendell would look more like Snowdonia.

[@aleksandrh.4251]

To answer the question in the title of the video: more no than yes. But elves are different. Here's a small piece of Sam's description of the elves of Rivendell: "And Elves, sir! Elves here, and Elves there! Some like kings, terrible and splendid; *and some as merry as children.* '' I cannot say if the "merry as children" ones are childish enough to sing silly songs and good-naturedly make fun of Thorin's beard as he crawls across the bridge, but at least it's a step in that direction.

[@Etlelele]

The Rivendell elves in LOTR have silly traits, though, like when they poke fun of Bilbo's poetry. I think they're decently in line with the Hobbit elves. The Silmarillion is another matter.

[@Atanalcar]

It is my head-canon that all the silliness of the Rivendell Elves in the Hobbit is just Lindir and his mates. Lindir singing the song as they go down into the valley, then when Bilbo returns he orchestrates the "lullaby" under his bedroom window. The decades pass, and when next we see Bilbo in Rivendell it is Bilbo doing the singing, and Lindir critiquing it with nonsense. His name lends itself to this interpretation, being "Song Man", and it's not that hard to connect him with the instances of Elves playfully teasing Bilbo with song. Some Elves are goofballs, just like with people, and Bilbo just happened to get adopted by them.

[@Tinyfangs-xyz]

Hmm.. I always see it that The Lord of the Rings elves are very much in keeping with the Irish Tuath Dé. Yes, also in Ireland the 'fairies' were blamed for all sorts of things, sick cows and so forth, but in Irish mythology the fairies were taller than humans, stunningly beautiful and very powerful. They were a warlike people and highly advanced (they landed with their sky ships on the mountain of iron, and I am living on the slopes of that mountain). The Hobbit elves seem more like taken from other periods of fae belief, or other regions, but I'd say that is also in keeping with that The Hobbit was written for children, while The Lord of the Rings became a far darker tale.

[@haleyschreiter9746]

One interesting distinction I noticed on this read - The Hobbit refers to Rivendell as "the Last Homely House west of the Mountains." But in LotR, it's referred to as "the Last Homely House east of the Sea."

[@jspringer86]

Corporate wants you to find the differences in these two pictures.

[@pwmiles56]

In The Hobbit I could only find "the Last Homely House".

[@haleyschreiter9746]

@@pwmiles56 On the second page of the chapter, Gandalf simply calls it "the Last Homely Hours," but then the following paragraph of prose adds "west of the Mountains." At least in my 1966 edition 😊

[@pwmiles56]

@@haleyschreiter9746 Quite right, I missed that (I have the third edition, 1971 printing).

[@PilgrimofIthilien]

Good catch. I wonder if there is any significance to it e.g., if Rivendell in The Hobbit represents the last safe haven before the real peril begins in the Misty Mountains en route to the Lonely Mountain; if Rivendell in LOTR represents the final haven of the Elves before they depart to the Blessed Realm (therefore the reference to the Sea).

[@LordTelperion]

Noldor for the win!

[@terrystewart1973]

25:00 Yes, elves and Fairies were definitely considered sinister beings historically in British folklore. A good modern representation of one would be *The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair* from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. They are cruel and dangerous and treat mortals as playthings Highly recommend the BBC miniseries if you haven't seen it

[@KleinKore]

I guess thats why he is inspired heavily by norse elves. They also have more dangerous elves, the svartalfar and dökkalfar, but the are portrayed as dangerous not as sinister. Most of the time they want to be left alone and through the lenses of a childrens book you can recognize them in the mirkwood elves. Still this really doesnt mean its healthy to cross them by chance.

[@rikhuravidansker]

@@KleinKore The depiction of Svartalfar in folklore as having blackish skin clearly inspired Jackson's portrayal of orcs (although Jackson's orcs were also inspired by Dungeons and Dragons having orcs look like the Pigsy-like creatures who work for Maleficent, these creatures actually being "terrors," which would also comprise Mephistopheles/Krampus creatures and giant toads with horns all over their bodies: the Green Goblin didn't help), but unlike the orcs from Dungeons and Dragons onwards, the Svartalfar and Tolkien's orcs are implied to look like humans/elves/dwarfs/hobbits: i.e. unattractive humans, not mutants, with Tolkien saying orcs looked like "the most repulsive and degraded versions of the (to Europeans), least-lovely Mongol-types," which would technically not refer to Asians, but to actual Turco-Mongols and Turco-Persians (including the Mughal clans and the Hazaras), and taking hyperbole and such into account, speakers of East Slavic languages. Dark elves are also the same as dwarfs.

[@michaelgrumbine1971]

Great comparison, @terrystewart1973! I almost brought up The Gentleman in the podcast when we were talking about how elves were dangerous. My family LOVES Jonthan Strange & Mr. Norrell!

[@celebnorz3noldoli]

I think the closest reference are Tuatha de Danann, they're basically Tolkien eldar.

[@terrystewart1973]

@@celebnorz3noldoli Tolkien's elves certainly appear closer to the Tuatha than anything else.

[@bradjensen4927]

One change from the book, that I am 100% happy with!

[@Luke-kj1rj]

Thanks Gents, very enjoyable

[@ozlemdenli7763]

thank you

[@katherineboone999]

I always read the "in the valley" song to the tune of the song in the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hWbZpmusip6sedksi=XtzkSFGA8uCVJh26

[@hyvakoira]

Thank you for all the details! I've always thought the silly elves the travelers met in Rivendell were young elves, teenagers who entertain themselves with pop songs and pranks. The elves of Mirkwood drinking themselves to oblivion were more surprising though they were mere 'peasants' in the elven ranks, I guess, least knowledgeable and enlightened of them all.

[@Chociewitka]

well, if you think Bilbo's tale was one for told by Bilbo to hobbit children - the depiction of elves had to entertain hobbit children, not be an actual depiction...

[@rikhuravidansker]

Galadriel in "The Mirror of Galadriel" chapter acts eclectic and frivolous, giggling like a schoolgirl and being airy-fairy, whilst also being wistful. I don't see a difference: Elrond acts like friendly rather than solemn in the Hobbit and LOTR, and Luthien was dancing in a field of hemlocks. Legolas is friendly and wistful. Fantasy elves being solemn would seem to derive from Dungeons and Dragons, which is very loosely based on Tolkien and the Lovecraft Circle, the solemnness being an exaggeration of Elrond's, Legolas's, and Galadriel's, personalities.

[@rikhuravidansker]

@@Chociewitka Hobbit children would know what elves were like: Fallowhides knew elves, and Bilbo and Frodo often met them in the woods as children.

[@Chociewitka]

@@rikhuravidansker still this was the exception, most just knew tales, and their tales were mostly caricatures - see Frodo's view of the "Big Folk" before he met any in real life - not compltely wong but exagerating those traits that were made a good ridicolous interesting story making the hobbit audience feel a bit superior to anyone and good about themselves. Frodo: "I didn't know that any of the Big People were like that. I thought, well, that they were just big, and rather stupid: kind and stupid like Butterbur; or stupid and wicked like Bill Ferny. But then we don't know much about Men in the Shire," Same with their comon view of elves - some parts of elvish attitude hobbits conside ridiculous - and this they tend to stress in their whimsical children's stories.

[@glennross85]

​@@ChociewitkaThat makes no sense to me, why would he change that, but not other things that are way less child friendly?

[@murtbuggy1]

Will they ever make a Silmarillion movie

[@meta_haha]

I find it disturbing that you all use rings of power footage in your intro, having been such critics of the show.

[@TheOneRingcom]

😱 I find it disturbing that you think we actually used rings of power footage in the intro!! I guarantee you. We did not use ANYTHING from them in the intro! You can see the same video clips (except for the final clip) in this episode (before we renamed it to "Exploring Tolkien") that was out BEFORE The Rings of Power: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4GmY3tvZ5d8a80

[@g.t.werber4476]

They don't use anything from Rings of Power

[@PilgrimofIthilien]

I find TROP disturbing.

[@MaraJadeSkky]

If you find something not even factual as "disturbing", maybe the internet is not the place for you.