David G. Durand wrote:
>
> At 2:46 AM -0500 11/23/99, Grandsire, C.A. wrote:
> There
> >was also a small article in this booklet that went against the belief
> >that the Elves of Tolkien had pointed ears (by the way, do anyone knows
> >what they are doing for the movie? Will the elves have pointed ears?). A
> >small article but a lot of fun (with though a serious background on folk
> >fairy tales and such).
>
> I've never understood the pointy-ear obsession. There's no textual support
> for the presence on pointy ears on Hobbits or Elves or any of the Races of
> middle-earth, and there are also long physical descriptions that would
> include such a detail if it were in fact intended.
>
It's the word "Elves" that mistakes people. Tolkien used it to refer to
a people that had nothing to do with the common "Victorian" Elves, but
people didn't get used to it.
> Furthermore, in "On Fairy-Stories" he expresses distaste for the concept of
> the diminutive Victorian fairies most frequently associated with pointy
> ears.
I know that. It was also one of the points of the article.
In fact, I believe that in some of Tolkien's pictures of Bilbo, you
> can even see that his ears are round. I'd have to check to be sure, though.
>
The problem here is that in The Hobbit, Tolkien describes Bilbo as
having ears "less pointed than Elvish ears" or something like this. But
as The Hobbit was more a fairy tale written for children than LotR, it
seems normal that at that time Tolkien didn't want to make something too
different from the common fairy tales and gave "little pointed ears" to
Bilbo to content children raised with other fairy tales. But as LotR is
absolutely not a fairy tale, the idea of pointed ears was not necessary
anymore and Tolkien could describe people more in the way he liked them.
> -- David
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