Subject: Yeah, you're right.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-04-29 16:58:00 UTC
While the only thing I wanted to do was offer an alternative perspective to the Twilight Is The Worst parade that (quite rightly) tends to happen in communities like ours, I didn't do so in the right way and I'm sorry for causing offence.
So here's something that's been bugging me: If Elves don't weigh enough to sink into powdery snow, how much do they weigh? And furthermore, how on earth do they fight? Anyone who managed to get a good grip on them could shake them around like a rag doll.
-Alleb, who is way too obsessed with details for her own good, and yet has probably overlooked some vital canon source that says Elves are just cool like that and weigh a normal amount when they aren't walking on snow
1/ From an out-of-universe perspective, it's pretty clear that Legolas running over snow was an off-the-cuff addition, designed to make him more 'elvish'. It's not reflected anywhere else in the Legendarium that I can think of. So Tolkien probably didn't think deeply about the details.
2/ From an in-universe perspective, July has the right of it: it's not lightness, it's nimbleness. We know Tolkien had a bit of a thing for tales of American Indians, with their bows and arrows - and their ability to walk through long grass without bending it (and to track by looking for bent grass, a la Aragorn). So Legolas is a super-Native - he's so nimble-footed that he doesn't even make a dent in snow!
2a/ Also, bear in mind it's not like Aragorn and Boromir sank as such. They deliberately carved out the avenues they did, through quite packed snow. If they tried to walk over it, they'd probably be ankle-deep, and in danger of a wrong-foot plunging through a soft patch.
3/ The most fun answer: how much would he have to weigh?
Okay. Snowshoes let you walk on snow. A picture I found online shows a snowshoe with 4.5 x the area of a human foot. Since pressure = force x area, the force exerted by the foot must be reduced to 1/4.5 x the norm by the snowshoe.
Weight is a force. Therefore, to naturally walk like a human in snowshoes, Legolas must weigh roughly 1/4 as much as a human.
For a six-foot human, the ideal body weight is apparently about 170 lb (~80 kg, or 12 stone). A six-foot Legolas would weigh a mere 40 pounds (20 kg, 3 stone). The ideal body weight of a child in kilograms is twice their age plus ten; working this backwards, Legolas would weigh as much as a five-year old.
Since I happen to have a five-year-old, I know that this means Aragorn could pick him up by one arm easily. For that matter, a hobbit could probably manage it. It also means he will never hurt himself by tripping over, unless he actually hits a rock - he's too light to bruise himself much.
He's not in danger of being picked up by the wind (okay, he's got a larger surface area for that mass, but even so), but... yeah, don't let a fighter get in range. Chucking a snowball at him would probably knock him over.
Oh, there's fic in this, for sure...
hS
Well, if you think July is right in-universe, then I suppose I shouldn't write all my fanfic with the fanon/assumption that Elves weigh practically nothing. But dangit, I'm gonna write some of them like that! There needs to be some sort of downside to being an Elf.
Now I'm imagining Feanor being drilled in the head by a snowball and sent flying.
Alternatively, with the proper use of a cloak and a stiff wind, Legolas might have an emergency exit from any situation. (And now I'm imagining Gimli holding onto his ankle and flying him like a kite with a very short line. Elf-flying: The new official sport of Erebor.)
Actually, I didn't know Tolkien had a thing for Native American stories; that's quite interesting. I suppose I should have noticed the influence before. I wonder which ones in particular he fancied.
Thanks for figuring this out, hS! I shall make diligent use of this new information. ^_^
-Alleb
No better schadenfreude than Elfin schadenfreude.
Also, I like to think that snowballs are so powerful against Elves, they actually carry the Elf along.
Like in those action movies, when one of the mooks gets hit by a car, and is stuck to the front of it, and is shooting the bloke driving the car?
Like that, but with an Elf and a snowball.
I agree. Darn Elves, floating about all cool and stuff. Bah.
That would have to be a pretty big snowball, thrown by a pretty powerful arm, but it could be done. ^_^ Well, add that to the list of other things I need to write.
-Alleb
Either that or elves are ridiculously strong. Say, hS, you've got a five-year-old. Reckon he could use a longbow with an 80-pound draw? =]
You never know! ^_~
But we're running into the question of what Little Elves are Made Of. Did Iluvatar starts with a massive heap of snips, snails, puppy-dogs' tails, sugar, spice, and everything else nice he could think of? Or did he (to take the other extreme) build them out of carbon nanofibre and titanium composites? (It's like birds. What are birds? We just don't know.)
We know that it's possible for an elf to catch fire and turn to dust after dying. We also know that it's possible for their bodies to stay undamaged for long periods of time after death. Neither of those were in normal circumstances, but the fact that they're immune to disease might indicate that they're generally unpalatable to bacteria.
The upshot of this is, there's absolutely nothing that says Elvish muscles have to work the same as human ones. So they could well be ridiculously strong. Why not?
(Though obviously not made from titanium. That's dwarves.)
hS
Tolkienian elves are immortal, yes? Immortal beings that crumble to dust when dying, can only really die by a violent death or through massive angst er, grief, and apparently lie in a semi-dormant state for years without decomposing or expiring? And they are described as fair, which might mean exceptionally attractive, or it might mean exceptionally pale, or it might mean both.
Elves are vampires.
More than that, they're vegetarian vampires.
They're MEYERPIRES!!!
The first Twilight book was published after the LOTR movies, actually. This means that Elves aren't Meyerpires; Twilight is LOTR badfic.
. . . Would it meet our sporking criteria?
"Bella Swan, AKA Beren of Dorthonion-"
"What?" Bella struck a confused pose. "I don't understand."
"You wouldn't, rip-off." Acacia glanced at her, then swung her gaze back to Edward when the vampire shifted slightly. "Don't even think about it, sunshine."
"On my authority as a Protector of the Plot Continuum, I charge you with..." Jay trailed off, looking down at her stack of notebooks. "... honestly? With just about everything."
"I've done nothing wrong!" Bella cried. "I just wanted," her voice caught, "someone to-" She cut off in a strangled sob.
Jay rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, we've seen it a hundred times already. Look, if you didn't want to be violently murdered by the PPC-"
"I said don't," Acacia snapped as Edward took a step forward. She raised her sword to point at his chest. "This disguise can match your reflexes, and I've tested this sword; it can slice you to ribbons."
"-you shouldn't have been the most character replacey character replacement ever to... character replace." Jay frowned. "I think that went wrong somewhere."
"Oh, you think?" Acacia scowled at her partner for a moment. "Just charge her already."
"I already did." Jay tossed her own sword from one hand to the other. "Weren't you listening?"
"I was more worried about the vampire figuring out we've already dismembered his bunch-of-Sues family," Acacia growled. "He- oh, drat."
Edward cried out and lunged for her. He was faster than the wind, faster than sight - but Acacia was faster. She swung her sword - honed sharp by the morning sunlight of the Discworld - and Edward's head fell away from his body. Acacia sidestepped, and the corpse collapsed at her feet.
She kicked his arm and grimaced. "Edward Cullen," she said, "AKA Luthien of Doriath, you're charged with being a total genderbent replacement transposed to the modern era, with mucking up your story's timeline something fierce, and with getting me in trouble with the Flowers again for killing you too soon." She looked over at Bella, who had crumpled to the floor and was cradling Edward's severed head. "Do something about her, will you?"
"Yeah, yeah." Jay took a step forward and impaled Bella through the chest. "I feel kind of bad about this," she admitted. "They'd changed so much they were almost an original story."
"A very bad one," Acacia pointed out. "And have you forgotten the part where they shoved all the real canons into a giant plothole to fight it out?"
"... fair point." Jay stretched, arcing her back, then bent down and pulled Bella's corpse over her shoulder. "The werewolves ought to be turning back into the real thing now that the replacements are gone - think they're hungry?"
"It's fine. You mob hate Twilight and its series. I get it. I really do. I know it's badly written, and I know it's melodramatic, but to me? That's the point. The Twilight Saga is a series of books about being a teenager in love written from the perspective of a teenager in love! Of course it's melodramatic! Of course it's hammy and overwrought and veers wildly between urple and beige prose! Of course Eclipse's treatment of Jacob stems largely from the author figuring out that leaving him as he stood was going to torpedo the OTP sooner or later! It's written in the style of a teenage girl who in real life is nowhere near as smart as she thinks she is, which is a hell of a lot of teenage girls! And even then, even if you can't get past all that, it's total fantasy. I don't see any of you giving this kind of treatment to the collective works of Mills And Boon, do I? No. Of course I don't. Because it's an easy target, regardless of how much people might actually unironically enjoy the series as a tale of genuine, innocent teenage love, told from that perspective. I want that. I lived through a story in which things happened all the time and that's why I like Twilight so much, I need a break, y'know? I need a break from suffering and death, I need to go back to a time and place where romantic love wasn't a side-story but the main focus and all the quote-unquote interesting supernatural whatever was relegated to the background. I want a love story. I got it. So I've got to ask, would it kill you to stop hating on my goddamned primary fandom? Please? Thanks a friggin' bunch."
Given that a) the ficlet was a response to your idea, Scapegrace, and b) alternate!J&A were charging them as spectacularly OOC character replacements of Beren and Luthien.
I didn't say anything about the quality of the books. Neither did Cat-on-the-Keyboard - they said the same thing, that as a Lay of Leithian adaptation, they [would] really suck.
So send Lola to go shout at someone else.
hS
While the only thing I wanted to do was offer an alternative perspective to the Twilight Is The Worst parade that (quite rightly) tends to happen in communities like ours, I didn't do so in the right way and I'm sorry for causing offence.
It was really good to hear the perspective of someone who likes the books. And I liked that you did it in character as one of your agents (her wiki page doesn't say that Twilight is her primary fandom; does that need updating?). Actually, I liked it so much that I've been putting off replying to it until I could write a decent response in-character as one of my hypothetical agents (this counts as an RP, right?), but I'm not getting it done quickly enough and this thread is in danger of falling off the front page, so I'm dropping this note to say in my case, apology not needed.
--Cat
I wish Twilight was a LOTR badfic so someone could slaughter it. The book kind of deserves sporking.
Mervin, Hammer of Sues, sporked the whole series. Other spork-worthy works, like 50 Shades, Hogwarts Exposd, Nanoha Lyrical Force, and many other, original or not, are there.
Learnt almost all I know about writing from that site.
Still, we can but dream. =]
But would anyone visiting Das Sporking have any news about Mrs Hydes' rewrite?
It couldn't be offcal, but the pieces she showed until now all single-handedly throw back Meyer's... writing to the rank of unofficial badfic. (I refuse to call that work.)
You'd never catch a Meyerpire cannibalising it's mate who just died in front of it, before making earrings out of his bones and wearing them, would you?
Because if you're attacking sparklepires yu're automatically a good guy. Except if you're a sparklepire too.
Is it too late for joining te true good fight?
... that Sauron was Lord of Werewolves.
... which means that the story of Beren's capture by Sauron, and his rescue by Luthien, is pretty clearly time-reversed and genderbent fanfic of the whole Jacob-Bella-Edward love triangle. Luthien is Edward, Beren is Bella.
And Dior Eluchil is Renesmee or whatever the name was. Yeah, I can see that...
(Voting Finrod for Crazy Alice; he's got the prophecy thing going on and all.)
(Also, does this mean we need to make Team Luthien and Team Sauron banners?)
hS, having waaaaaaay too much fun
... what happens when people give me ideas.
Choose your side.
hS
Thuringwethil, maybe? I don't know, but I'd pick it for the irony value. =]
(also, an idle Google search reveals that Tinuviel translates as "daughter of the starry twilight". i rest my case.)
What have we done? Dear Eru and Tolkien, please obliterate this.
Would you like to introduce yourself, repent your trollish ways, and become a proper member of the Board? With a name?
The IP matches the IP on one of the deleted posts.
Here is a post by a troll.
Ingenious...
Quick! Delete the post before they pull out Paranoia!
Lord knows what fate will befall us should they bring out Call of Cthulhu.
Outwitting Friend Computer is at the same level as outwitting the vanilla glitterbag: a walk in the park.
And if they try to bring Cthulhu here, We've got Old Man Henderson on speed dial. Nothing to fear.
...of which we have none, so nothing to worry about.
(Also—did you see the new Paranoia edition they're making? I backed it on Kickstarter. It's supposed to be ready soon. I'm pretty excited.)
could damage us all more than Toroll could even dream of.
I am very interested to see the PPC's stance on him. I mean, he was designed to derail plots, even if everything he does is technically canon.
They've got to at least have a file on him somewhere, right?
..not that they weigh so little, so much as that they're so light of foot and graceful.
There are specific ways you can place your stepping to avoid sinking further into things like, say, mud and muck, or through heavy grasses, and also not leave as much an imprint or proof that you had passed through in the first place. Just like if you're trying to step quietly to avoid a squeak in the floorboards or the movement of a loose time, or something, and like there are ways you can walk on a rocking ship and continue in a straight line without ramming into anything or anyone.
Still, it doesn't seem possible--egads, I'm applying logic to Elves, what's wrong with me--that that alone would let them run on top of a fairly fresh snowfall. But, I suppose they can, 'cause they're Elves. *sighs* They have to have some sort of downside somewhere.
-Alleb
I personally consider Tolkien Elves to just have hollow bones, like a bird's. That explains why they are so light. And who said that we couldn't shake elves around like a ragdoll? Elves simply just leap around, never getting into arm's reach while slashing like crazy with their light weapons. That's why we don't see elves with warhammers everyday.
At least, that's what I think. I've never tried fighting an elf before, so I wouldn't know how easily they break.
Unless--well, unless their swords were absurdly sharp, which they... were... Hm. Maybe that's why Elves are so good with weapon-forging: Their blades have to be ridiculously sharp, because they can't put enough force behind them to actually get through anything but butter. Alternatively, maybe Elvish armor is incredibly heavy, which weighs them down enough to keep them from being flung into the air by any Orc that comes their way and lets them put some more power behind their blows.
-Alleb
Can you imagine all the ways that could be exploited?
Tossing a snowball at one would be like launching a cement brick!
Or maybe people could make special elf-proof doors that have walls of snow right behind them, which the Elves can't pass through.
Perhaps the Elves themsElves could exploit it, and make a bridge which is nothing but rope and snow, and everyone else just falls through it.
The possibilities are practically falling from the sky!
Now I'm just imagining some little rascal of a kid finding an Elf during the winter and relentlessly pelting him with snowballs.
-Alleb