Hmm, Tolkien didn't say this as far as I'm aware... but if you have a quote (please note the source if so) I would love to see it

Couldn't find it. . Probably read it somewhere else and it got mixed in with everything else

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I think they have pointed ears. I really, really really like Elves and I write stories about Elves, (both origanal and LotR fanfics) and all the Elves in my stories have pointed ears. It's how they're distingused from humans.

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Married the Tenth Doctor 2/26/12

Well in your stories you can distinguish them that way of course, but interestingly...

'This is strange in you Voronwe,' he said. 'We were long friends. Why then would you set me thus cruelly between the law and my friendship? If you had led hither unbidden one of the other houses of the Noldor, that were enough. But you have brought to knowledge of the Way a mortal man - for by his eyes I perceive his kin'. JRRT, The Fall of Gondolin, Unfinished Tales

Which obviously doesn't prove anything about Elvish ears in general in any case, but as I say, interesting.

Letter #27



I think that is what everyone was thinking of. In that segment he is giving advice to the American publishers who needed illustrations for The Hobbit.

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I posted this earlier in this thread:

I would say Tolkien probably did think of his Elves as having ears that were more pointed and leaf-shaped than humans... at this point in time anyway (mid to later 1930s, early 1940s, and perhaps earlier). Did he retain the notion later? That's a slightly different question I think, especially given WPP.

We can most definitely assume, however, that he didn't want ears like handlebars on the elves' heads.

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dreaming fifi: I agree that ears like that just look stupid. (and they feel silly to draw....) (btw, I like your website....)

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Doctor banner by Crutchie! Avatar by Erin Vanya!
Married the Tenth Doctor 2/26/12

(thanks)

They do look funny, don't they? It think this version is from WOW, which can have some funny over-the-top designs. I've always been confused by everyone making Elf-ears more and more extreme.

As far as Tolkien-Elves go... I think Tolkien didn't care much about the ears as far as telling humans from elves. There are other traits that are more noticeable. Like height. If you meet someone who is 7 feet tall and has a very nice voice, you can guess that you're meeting an Elf.

Or a basketball player.

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i think that's one of the characteristics that will define an elf as an elf. I could never imagine an elf without pointy ears..

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It is mentioned Elves (and Hobbits too) have leaf-shaped ears, and leaves are usually pointy, right? I'm sure Tolkien didn't mean this

when he wrote that lol

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Nai andúnë elen
Siluva lyenna,
Nai írë mornië lanta
Órelya nauva sanda.

~Sírelindë~

Yes, but I submit that the mention you are referring to here (about the Elves) was arguably superseded by a very similar, but much later text in which Elvish ears are not mentioned at all. I am not saying the idea in the earlier source was necessarily rejected by the later text (then again it doesn't necessarily survive either), but that the later text should have more weight when it comes to this question.


I could post various and contradicting mentions of how tall the Elves are compared to Men for example, which kept changing throughout the years, or even two very late quotes about how tall Elves are generally, where each one says a different thing! or that Elves are reborn as children, as well as text that says they were not reborn as children.


Tolkien wrote a lot of things he never expected anyone to see, and he changed his mind often enough. And since a lot of his writing that is now public was private and known only to him, there would be no reason to constantly note 'to himself' that a given idea supersedes an earlier one -- in other words, he would not need to note he is rejecting some earlier idea, he would simply write the new idea of course, and if it contradicted an older one (or even simply left out an unwanted idea perhaps), then for all he knew no one would ever know the older one ever existed in the first place.

Sometimes he might jot a note to himself as to which idea was later for example, or 'correct' at some point in time, or whatever, and even in one instance he wrote 'most of this fails' on an essay, because he had forgotten something already published. In general this sort of thing can help keep things less confusing, but the point is he will not necessarily do so, because he doesn't anticipate that we will someday be reading something, and wondering about that something.

Nor would he have reason to think a letter he had sent to one person would ever appear in a book someday and possibly shape his Subcreated World in the eyes of his much larger readership. No doubt I am one of the first to quote all these things, and enjoy reading them, but the rather large pile of posthumous writing can be tricky sometimes.


Of course I could raise a statement like 'maybe Tolkien changed his mind' about anything! and so that very general statement is only so compelling; but in this case we have an interesting and specific something: a later text which I think at least casts some measure of doubt on this earlier mention.

Tokien mentioned, when Gandalf recited the Mordor verse at the Council of Elrond, that the "evles upturned their ears". This, in my interpretation, assumed that they have erected, more controllable ears; however, this ability is not mentioned within any other part of the book.

So I guess we'll never know.

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Isn't this the quote? Or do you mean something else?

'A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves stopped their ears. 'Never before has any voice dared to utter the words of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey,' said Elrond,...'

The stopped their ears rather, if that's what you meant.

I read that more as they put their hands over their ears.

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And probably their own hands over their own ears


Yes I can't imagine it means anything else.