But yeah, I understand what you're saying. Orcs really aren't all that bad unless there are a great many of them being directed by something smarter and more evil than they are, and it would be fairly odd for a couple of even marginally competent elves to be taken down by a random handful of them.

I still think it sounds like a contrived excuse for Tauriel being extra-specially passionate about fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way the destruction of evil, though, especially with her apparently being a contrived excuse for extra Legolas plot already. Not only does she have to exist in the first place, she has to have an angsty backstory that makes her superior in passion and warrior-ness to everyone around her (assuming the rest of Mirkwood's population are less interested in fighting evil, more interested in drinking wine, partying, and being jerks to any passing Dwarves), and there's something between her and Legolas. Orc-murders being vanishingly rare instead of common doesn't really help her case.

~Neshomeh

In the form of irreverent summaries of each mythos:

ALTMER

In the beginning God created lesser gods, who created their own lesser gods. One of these last was basically Loki, and he persuaded the gods to make the world for them to live in. But, being Loki, this was a trick to make them all separate beings and mortal. This is called the Sundering.

The sun and the stars were created by gods fleeing the world and tearing holes in reality. Some of the gods sacrificed themselves to become the laws of nature. The others invented boinking and became the ancestors of the Altmer. Then Loki invented humans to be a malleable army for him.

The oldest of the gods talked to God and asked to come back, but there was no ‘back’ to go to, because it had been made into the world. This was a very bad thing. So instead God gave him weapons and told him to stop everyone killing the Altmer (since there were at least two splinter groups by this time).

Loki’s armies conquered all the Altmer lands, destroying them in the process, but then an Altmari champion killed Loki and cut his heart out. The heart was shot into the sea, men outnumbered elves, and the stage was set.

The oldest god finally found away to escape, and promptly did, apparently to show the way to all the Altmer after. The elves really wanted to go back to the (destroyed?) continent(?) of Aldmeris, but, uh, couldn’t find it.

The Altmer underwent speciation (apparently with some help from a few gods) and built themselves a society. Their cities are individual states led by petty kings, intermarrying and so on, all under the nominal rule of one High King in Alinor on the Summerset Isles. They have a three-class system, with the lowest level being made up of, um, goblins, for some reason.

Altmer live for about a thousand years. They are very formal and, well, stuck-up, and apparently have species-wide Asperger’s, because they can’t read facial expressions at all. They have a Standard Fantasy Religion, like mucking about with art, and are magic.

ELDAR

In the beginning God created the lesser gods, one of whom was basically Satan. God got all the gods to sing together (seriously); Satan tried to ruin the song, so God had to introduce new themes to counter him. When the song finished, God revealed that their song had actually created a model of the entire history of the world - a world which he then created. The lesser gods went down and started to work on making the world like they’d seen it would be.

To light the world, they first built a couple of gigantic oil lamps, but Satan knocked them down and destroyed the gods’ first home. Then they moved to a new continent - Valinor - and planted two Trees of light. Satan stayed behind on the old continent.

A fair while later, God created the Eldar and placed them on the old continent. The lesser gods discovered them and invited them to come to Valinor. Some refused, most began the march west. At the same time, the gods declared war on Satan, captured him, wrecked his stuff, and dragged him back to lock him up.

Eventually, most of the Eldar reached Valinor, although a fair bunch had dropped out on the way. They were all very happy in the light of the Trees until Satan was paroled: he promptly killed the trees and fled back to his old base.

Because of drama, a bunch of the Eldar followed Satan. The gods told them not to go, then banished them when they refused to listen. Meanwhile, the gods made the sun and moon from the last fruit and flower of the Two Trees.

When the sun first rose, God created men, also down on the old continent. Meanwhile the Eldar were setting up shop in the old lands to fight Satan (and to meet some of their kin who’d never reached Valinor). They basically fought for hundreds of years, meeting humankind along the way (and allying with them), before they lost miserably.

The gods showed up again - with an army of Eldar who’d never left Valinor - and took Satan prisoner again, then shoved him out of the world entirely because they were fed up with him. At that point, most of the Eldar sailed back to Valinor, and the world slowly became the domain of men.

The Eldar live basically forever, and, yeah, are a bit stuck-up. They have no real religion (because they lived alongside the gods for ages, you know), are fond of art, and have… a sort of magic, but not one most people recognise as such. Politically, they have a High King and petty sub-kings and other rulers, but due to the geography of the places they’ve lived, the High Kingship is pretty ceremonial. By the time of The Hobbit/LotR, there are basically four Elven domains left: Lord Elrond in Rivendell, Cirdan the Shipwright in the Grey Havens, Celeborn and Galadriel in Lorien, and Thranduil in Mirkwood. Thranduil is the only one who calls himself a king.

---

So basically, in terms of their mythology? Other than the world being created and there being a bad god, there's not a lot of similarities. In terms of social and cultural stuff, which I haven't covered in as much detail... well, the Altmer look like fairly Generic Fantasy Elves. A lot of the stuff that gets stuck on those comes from Tolkien originally. So the fact that they're monarchist - stuck-up - long-lived - artsy-magicky - fond of trees - associated with the sea... that's adapted from Tolkien.

hS

I have learnt that not a whole lot of elves are known to have parents killed by orcs. However, some of them do get killed in rather creative and different ways...

Secondly, the death rate for random orc ambushes is at most, 10%.

Thirdly,

Vanyar (live in central Valinor with the Valar) > remnant Noldor (stayed behind in Valinor and never followed Feanor) > Finarfin's Noldor (turned back to Valinor before fully leaving the Undying Lands) > Valinorian Teleri (live outside Valinor proper, but in the Undying Lands, never left) > Returned Noldor (now living on the Lonely Isle in the vicinity of Valinor) > Exilic Noldor (followed Feanor, but were Caliquendi, after all) > Sindar (the Grey-elves, obviously better than the Nandor, because of Elwe/Elu) > Nandor (Wood-elves in general - totally dark) > Avari (who never left Cuivienen, so basically the darkest of the dark)

The Avari never leaving Lake Cuivienen is a relatively new piece of information to me. I always thought the Silvan were part of the Avari.

And lastly, Tauriel's parents were most probably hiking through Moria when they were killed.

A few questions still stand unanswered. Eg. Will Thranduil look down at Tauriel as a lowly Silvan Elf? Will Tauriel be a 'Sue? What really happened to Tauriel's parents?

December 13th, everyone! The Hobbit: Peter Jackson's Very Own 'Suefic! Desolation of Samug!

~Autumn

Dying of old age isn't really a thing for Elves. The oldest one we know of is Cirdan, and he just grew a beard ;). Luthien and Arwen both died of old age, true (which I think I referenced), but they were mortal at the time because reasons.

(Tolkien's actual view on what happened as the Eldar grew very very old is that their physical bodies would fade away entirely before the flame of their spirits. We don't talk about it much. ;))

Elves are totally better than humans :D. But yeah, the trick here is that I've been discussing named elves. Hithlum, Gondolin, Nargothrond, and Eregion - to name but a few - all fell to armies of orcs. They were often backed up by balrogs, dragons, or both, but the bulk of those armies were orcs.

The Eldarin 'hierarchy' Nesh and I referred to isn't a formal thing; it's basically constructed on, yes, closeness to the Valar. It's essentially in two parts: how close they got to the Two Trees when they were still alive, and how much they did what the Valar said after the Trees were killed. So the Noldor, for instance, all saw the Trees in flower. I split them into four: those who never disobeyed the Valar, those who left but came back before the final banishment, those who left entirely but returned at the end of the First Age, and those - like Galadriel (and in fact, at that point in time, pretty much only Galadriel) - who didn't go back until after the Third Age ended. Like I say, it's less of a heirarchy, more of a 'who thinks who is a rustic' thing.

I will try and look at the Altmer thing tomorrow; it sounds like a comparison could be interesting. But not tonight - I have NaNo to do!

hS