bloodygranuaile (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodygranuaile) wrote2003-05-15 04:26 pm
bloodygranuaile) wrote2003-05-15 04:26 pm
Suvian delusion.
On the PPC Board today, we came across something that's... well... it's way too damned short to be a fic. It's sixty-one words long, by our Board's count (have not actually counted). Here it is in its entirety--summary, info, all:
Title: "Who I really am"
By: "moondancer"
Summary: "I have told many kids at school that i am not human but a elf they do not understand what i mean. Hopefuly some one will..."
Text: "I am a elf born a human I sadly live in your world I never knew I was a elf until I saw your world I saw your world a desolate place I knew I did not want to be part of it so I sought my woods my hiding place I listened to the quite sounds I loved to hear the peace, then I knew I am a elf born a human"
That's it. Possibly it was supposed to be poetry but the formatting got screwed up, as FF.N does things like that. But even with that, there are many canonical discrepancies in it which bug me. First of all being grammar and spelling-- it's "an Elf", not "a elf"-- and past that, it doesn't explain anything.
The continuity makes no sense whatsover, seeing as the storylet seems to imply that she (and I use she because 95%+ of fic writers are females) was born a human in our world, in which case, there's no one depressing moment when you see the world for the first time. It'd be when she was too young to remember it. It also seems to imply--although there's really not much here to read into--that preferring the solitude of the woods to the way humans have messed up the world is the only requirement to being one of the Eldar. Actually, all this means is that you have good taste in your surroundings.
However, it got me thinking--if I were to go and write out the reasoning behind my Suvian delusion that I'm a reincarnated Elf, I'd have more stuff, and I'd try to make it fit with the canon. Which is what I feel like doing about now, and here, because it's not a story and the authors on FF.N wouldn't bloody care. So I have my binders full random notes and my binder with the two spiffy articles by Tyellas and lots of odd puristy knowledge in my head, and almost all my canon is in the next room. Should probably go get it. *runs and grabs Silm, then comes back* Unfortunately, I only have on HoMe book, which is not Morgoth's Ring--it is Lost Tales Part One--so I do not have a copy of Laws and Customs of the Eldar, which roughly means I have no idea what I'm talking about and am relying on Tyellas for LACE info.
Anyway.
So, Elves are meant to be immortal. However, they can be slain, or can die of grief. Then they hang out in the Halls of Mandos for however long they want to, and then are reincarnated. (Reincarnation is fun.) Since they do not have to be reincarnated immediately, it's possible that an Elf that died back when Elves actually died--since there's not supposed to be any grief or war in Valinor these days--could have hung about Mandos until now. And it wouldn't really work being reincarnated in an Elven body. I believe Elves were never reincarnated as a different gender, so I'm still allowed to be militantly feminist, and that Tolkien said that the Elder were pretty androgynous (androgynousness is spiffy), and that the women were nearly as strong as the men before they had kids, and then childbirth weakened them a bit. (I'm seeing distinct similarities to Anne Rice's writings on the Taltos here. (Taltos are spiffy.))
Elves are supposed to be pretty. *is egotistical* (Don't mind that...)
Jumping from Tyellas' article to the uberspiffy Helge Fauskanger's, we have a nice long internal history of Sindarin--which basically says that the Elves made sure that when they mutated Common Eldarin into Sindarin, they did it regularly, and once they had Sindarin the way they liked it, they kept it that way, because they really wanted the language to be pretty. Then, when the Calaquendi came back over with Quenya, they delved into the etymology and came up with the Sindarin version of all the Quenyan names. When they first awoke, they named themselves the Quendi, meaning that they used words. In short, Elves like languages. (Languages are spiffy.)
The Elves also seem rather into pretty things--the unsurpassed beauty of the Silmarils eventually got to them, and messed stuff up tremendously (see--oh, the whole Quenta Silmarillion...). Tolkien also makes the Elves sound like a quite industrious people--when hanging about in Valinor, they spend all their time making gems and songs, and sewing, and creating letters, and other stuff. And everything associated with the Elves must be "fair". This sort of fits with my whole oddness thing on everything being pretty--the addictions to color and detail, and love of cool-sounding languages and cool-looking alphabets. Admittedly, I'm rather lazy, but I'm not as lazy as I seem-- I just happen to be more entertained learning about stuff they don't teach in school, and prefer to study things on my own, except I don't have the time or the energy ever, so I print lots of stuff out and read it when I'm feeling well enough to, or when someone assigns me something. I mean, I did go translate (or at least Sindarize) the insults section in that damned Grelvish phrasebook, and have resolved to some day do that with the whole damned phrasebook so that people stop using it. And shiny stuff is cool.
And possibly the only quote I'm going to use as is instead of paraphrasing comes up now:
"All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness)."
Really Long Citation: This was taken from What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex by Tyellas, from the section Give Me Lots of Hair, Shoulder Length Or Longer, and Tyellas says it's from The Shibboleth of Fëanor, The Peoples Of Middle-earth, History of Middle-earth. (I have to say that "Shibboleth" is a very spiffy-sounding word.) Tyellas adds: "Beautiful voices are also implied to be attractive." And I say that that's because they are. And everyone probably knows my thing with long hair. *g*
Elves tend to view humans as inferior, and don't like them very much. They especially don't like their Elf-women marrying short-lived, smelly mortal men with stubble, unless they're the King of two kingdoms-- as in the story of Aragorn and Arwen, and Elrond's claims that Arwen could not marry Aragorn unless he was King of both Gondor and Arnor ("Ah, Arnor. They Buy One, Get One Free Kingdom." ~Bagenders). I generally don't much like the human race either (between The Queen Of The Damned and FanFiction.net, there's just no hope), and generally don't view the people that I love and glomp as being humans--they're whoever they are, and usually rather strange.
So basically, thinking you're an Elf takes more than just depression at the state of the world--it takes depression at the state of the world and some really odd personality quirks. But gah, the whole thing seems so Suvian to me... at least I've read Silm and know that M-e was this world in Europe and the WotR was seven thousand years ago... but still, I'm shutting up now.
In other news, Matt has adopted me as his little sister, so that he can glomp me and throw stuffed animals at me. I nearly died laughing.
Lunch today was amusing, as had Beky sitting on my lap until she had to go back to Stat, and then Pat came and sat on me, and everyone started asking me if I could breathe and I said yes because I *can* bloody breathe with people sitting on me, and then Pat had Matt sitting on his lap while he was still sitting on me, and nobody believes I can breathe with two people sitting on me but I *can*. And it was fun. And my hands have been cold all day, and only Moody's hands were colder than mine--everybody else was generally warm. Beky and Pam were very warm so I was sort of clinging to them all day. And I'll shut up 'cos I'm just rambling about absolutely nothing because my brain ran away at some point; but I can't pinpoint exactly when 'cos I didn't notice it when it did, unlike when my handwriting left me in the middle of taking notes in Science, and I did just say I was going to shut up so I probably should.
Namárië! *huggleses*
~Agent Claudia
Title: "Who I really am"
By: "moondancer"
Summary: "I have told many kids at school that i am not human but a elf they do not understand what i mean. Hopefuly some one will..."
Text: "I am a elf born a human I sadly live in your world I never knew I was a elf until I saw your world I saw your world a desolate place I knew I did not want to be part of it so I sought my woods my hiding place I listened to the quite sounds I loved to hear the peace, then I knew I am a elf born a human"
That's it. Possibly it was supposed to be poetry but the formatting got screwed up, as FF.N does things like that. But even with that, there are many canonical discrepancies in it which bug me. First of all being grammar and spelling-- it's "an Elf", not "a elf"-- and past that, it doesn't explain anything.
The continuity makes no sense whatsover, seeing as the storylet seems to imply that she (and I use she because 95%+ of fic writers are females) was born a human in our world, in which case, there's no one depressing moment when you see the world for the first time. It'd be when she was too young to remember it. It also seems to imply--although there's really not much here to read into--that preferring the solitude of the woods to the way humans have messed up the world is the only requirement to being one of the Eldar. Actually, all this means is that you have good taste in your surroundings.
However, it got me thinking--if I were to go and write out the reasoning behind my Suvian delusion that I'm a reincarnated Elf, I'd have more stuff, and I'd try to make it fit with the canon. Which is what I feel like doing about now, and here, because it's not a story and the authors on FF.N wouldn't bloody care. So I have my binders full random notes and my binder with the two spiffy articles by Tyellas and lots of odd puristy knowledge in my head, and almost all my canon is in the next room. Should probably go get it. *runs and grabs Silm, then comes back* Unfortunately, I only have on HoMe book, which is not Morgoth's Ring--it is Lost Tales Part One--so I do not have a copy of Laws and Customs of the Eldar, which roughly means I have no idea what I'm talking about and am relying on Tyellas for LACE info.
Anyway.
So, Elves are meant to be immortal. However, they can be slain, or can die of grief. Then they hang out in the Halls of Mandos for however long they want to, and then are reincarnated. (Reincarnation is fun.) Since they do not have to be reincarnated immediately, it's possible that an Elf that died back when Elves actually died--since there's not supposed to be any grief or war in Valinor these days--could have hung about Mandos until now. And it wouldn't really work being reincarnated in an Elven body. I believe Elves were never reincarnated as a different gender, so I'm still allowed to be militantly feminist, and that Tolkien said that the Elder were pretty androgynous (androgynousness is spiffy), and that the women were nearly as strong as the men before they had kids, and then childbirth weakened them a bit. (I'm seeing distinct similarities to Anne Rice's writings on the Taltos here. (Taltos are spiffy.))
Elves are supposed to be pretty. *is egotistical* (Don't mind that...)
Jumping from Tyellas' article to the uberspiffy Helge Fauskanger's, we have a nice long internal history of Sindarin--which basically says that the Elves made sure that when they mutated Common Eldarin into Sindarin, they did it regularly, and once they had Sindarin the way they liked it, they kept it that way, because they really wanted the language to be pretty. Then, when the Calaquendi came back over with Quenya, they delved into the etymology and came up with the Sindarin version of all the Quenyan names. When they first awoke, they named themselves the Quendi, meaning that they used words. In short, Elves like languages. (Languages are spiffy.)
The Elves also seem rather into pretty things--the unsurpassed beauty of the Silmarils eventually got to them, and messed stuff up tremendously (see--oh, the whole Quenta Silmarillion...). Tolkien also makes the Elves sound like a quite industrious people--when hanging about in Valinor, they spend all their time making gems and songs, and sewing, and creating letters, and other stuff. And everything associated with the Elves must be "fair". This sort of fits with my whole oddness thing on everything being pretty--the addictions to color and detail, and love of cool-sounding languages and cool-looking alphabets. Admittedly, I'm rather lazy, but I'm not as lazy as I seem-- I just happen to be more entertained learning about stuff they don't teach in school, and prefer to study things on my own, except I don't have the time or the energy ever, so I print lots of stuff out and read it when I'm feeling well enough to, or when someone assigns me something. I mean, I did go translate (or at least Sindarize) the insults section in that damned Grelvish phrasebook, and have resolved to some day do that with the whole damned phrasebook so that people stop using it. And shiny stuff is cool.
And possibly the only quote I'm going to use as is instead of paraphrasing comes up now:
"All the Eldar had beautiful hair (and were especially attracted by hair of exceptional loveliness)."
Really Long Citation: This was taken from What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex by Tyellas, from the section Give Me Lots of Hair, Shoulder Length Or Longer, and Tyellas says it's from The Shibboleth of Fëanor, The Peoples Of Middle-earth, History of Middle-earth. (I have to say that "Shibboleth" is a very spiffy-sounding word.) Tyellas adds: "Beautiful voices are also implied to be attractive." And I say that that's because they are. And everyone probably knows my thing with long hair. *g*
Elves tend to view humans as inferior, and don't like them very much. They especially don't like their Elf-women marrying short-lived, smelly mortal men with stubble, unless they're the King of two kingdoms-- as in the story of Aragorn and Arwen, and Elrond's claims that Arwen could not marry Aragorn unless he was King of both Gondor and Arnor ("Ah, Arnor. They Buy One, Get One Free Kingdom." ~Bagenders). I generally don't much like the human race either (between The Queen Of The Damned and FanFiction.net, there's just no hope), and generally don't view the people that I love and glomp as being humans--they're whoever they are, and usually rather strange.
So basically, thinking you're an Elf takes more than just depression at the state of the world--it takes depression at the state of the world and some really odd personality quirks. But gah, the whole thing seems so Suvian to me... at least I've read Silm and know that M-e was this world in Europe and the WotR was seven thousand years ago... but still, I'm shutting up now.
In other news, Matt has adopted me as his little sister, so that he can glomp me and throw stuffed animals at me. I nearly died laughing.
Lunch today was amusing, as had Beky sitting on my lap until she had to go back to Stat, and then Pat came and sat on me, and everyone started asking me if I could breathe and I said yes because I *can* bloody breathe with people sitting on me, and then Pat had Matt sitting on his lap while he was still sitting on me, and nobody believes I can breathe with two people sitting on me but I *can*. And it was fun. And my hands have been cold all day, and only Moody's hands were colder than mine--everybody else was generally warm. Beky and Pam were very warm so I was sort of clinging to them all day. And I'll shut up 'cos I'm just rambling about absolutely nothing because my brain ran away at some point; but I can't pinpoint exactly when 'cos I didn't notice it when it did, unlike when my handwriting left me in the middle of taking notes in Science, and I did just say I was going to shut up so I probably should.
Namárië! *huggleses*
~Agent Claudia
no subject
Isn't reincarnation great? That way I can declare that I have a Romulan soul and no one can prove me wrong!