Subject: Are you talking in-universe or out of it?
Author:
Posted on: 2015-06-01 12:42:00 UTC

Because out-of-universe, yes, Tolkien created elves to be (superficially) 'just better', and that's the end of it. But out-of-universe, you can't ask them for advice, or determine the size of their egos, or go defoliate Lorien, because they don't exist and are fictional creations.

In-universe, you can't draw on 'what Tolkien knew about and/or intended', or even 'what the narrator describes' - you have to assume there's a world being written about, and that world may differ significantly from what Frodo thinks it is.

hS

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