Re: Answer to Sally's Question: Elves, Neste

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Sally Caves <scaves@F...> wrote:

 > It's as if a force majeure
 > wanted not only to discourage belief in fairy lovers and elves, but to
 > deride them as well,

A force majeure such as the Church, I assume?



 > The talk came at a
 > fortuitous time, because I've been asking you all what you meant by the
 > "Elvish."  It does indeed seem to go back much further than Tolkien's
use of
 > it, but Tolkien neatly removed his Elves from all taint of the sexually
 > dangerous, while restoring them to proper size and to an original
 > Otherworldliness.  He turns them into almost angelic figures whom mortal
 > women cannot possibly fear or desire!  This was one of the great
 > frustrations about LotR for me when I encountered it at fourteen.

Yes, this air of holier-than-thou virginity isn't something
I admire about the elves...  But then again, there's very
little romance and next to no allusion to even the existence
of sexuality in the whole book.



 > Glorfindel was obviously off-limits... just too unavailable.  Legolas was
 > too bonded with Gimli; Elrond had a mother and a daughter who looked no
 > older than he did.  What interest would he have in a mortal woman?
 > Miscegeny was verboten (except in a few notable cases), and so, I
imagine,
 > was anything less legal.  LOL!  (remember, this is my teenaged self
 > thinking.)

Well, if you complain about the inaccessibility of Elven
men, guess how they guard their daughters?  ;-)  Even
the peak of Human evolution (AKA Aragorn), born to be
king, uniting the best blood of Númenor and the Elves
themselves, had to prove himself in many years to be
considered worthy of Arwen...  guess how unworthy that
makes the average unkingly male reader feel!  /=P

I was very grateful for the Faramir/Éowyn romance.  At
last two normal realistic people finding happiness
amongst each other!  =)

BTW, in my first reading I hadn't even noticed that you
had used a German word in there...  funny how the mind
works.  (Or then, funny how sloppy a reader I am.)



 > I speak as a heterosexual FEMALE conlanger and conworlder, but
 > I wondered if the popularity of the concept of the Elf, and the word
itself,
 > conjured up a people that were sexy because they were Other.

Well, inaccessibility is in a way sexy all by itself...
albeit in an unsatisfactory way.

As for just being "other", I don't think that suffices.
Tongue and lip piercings are "other", but profoundly
unsexy IMHO.



 > In inventing my early Teonim, I wanted them
 > to have an "otherness" to them, but I did NOT want to copy Tolkien.

Ah, sounds familiar.  My Obrenaj also have many Elven
traits (social, musical, lithe, beautiful...), but on
the other hand they also have very secular sides, such
as their human mortality and their appreciation for
worldly pleasures.  =)



-- Christian Thalmann

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