Tolkein's Elves and pointed ears

[cjoepar]

Just curious: does anyone have a quote anywhere from the body of Tolkein's works that says elves have pointed ears? I've been looking and looking but cannot find anything. I'm just wondering, because anytime you see art done, Tolkein's elves always have pointed ears.

ps: I'm glad I have a life where I can spare the time and effort to worry over something like this, and that I live in a day and age when I can jump on the internet and quickly ask people all over the world about it.

[Colin]

First link from a Google search of "tolkien elves ears pointed" gives you all the information you could ever want on the subject, including quotes from JRRT's letters.

There's real debate on the issue, but most of it stems from:

"I am afraid, if you will need drawings of hobbits in various attitudes, I must leave it in the hands of someone who can draw. ... I picture a fairly human figure ... fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown)."
JRRT - Letters #27, writing to Houghton Mifflin circa March-April 1938

While he's describing hobbits, he's also noting that pointed ears are 'elvish'.

Colin

[mythfish]

Why do elves have pointy ears?

There has to be *some* point to elves...

[finarvyn]

It's sometimes hard to get a real handle on what JRRT had in mind with his elves and one thing I find interesting about Tolkien's elves is the number of inspirations he draws them from.

At times you get the idea that his elves in The Hobbit are more like fairies, yet the elves from The Silmarillion seem more like the Sidhe or the elves in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword. And in the Book of Lost Tales I doesn't he call them "gnomes" in his early drafts? That certainly conveys a different image of elves from his other sources. I know at some point (in "Letters", I think) JRRT commented about how he wished he'd used a term other than "elves" for them because of the way the word could be stereotyped.

That's one thing that interests me about the "Tolkien doesn't reall fit Appendix N" discussions I see on boards occasionally. I think his style of elves changes so much from one source to another....

Anyway, a bit of a ramble.

[ragboy]

That's one thing that interests me about the "Tolkien doesn't reall fit Appendix N" discussions I see on boards occasionally. I think his style of elves changes so much from one source to another....

I don't know about the pointy-ear issue, but Tolkien's work definitely fits neatly into Appendix N, on the "magic is powerful and horribly dangerous" point alone. Hell, Lord of the Rings is a half-step and a tone change from being a post-apocalyptic story....but "they" say I'm crazy.

[GnomeBoy]

...but "they" say I'm crazy.

"They" being the voices in your head, eh?

[finarvyn]

Tolkien's work definitely fits neatly into Appendix N, on the "magic is powerful and horribly dangerous" point alone. Hell, Lord of the Rings is a half-step and a tone change from being a post-apocalyptic story....but "they" say I'm crazy.

I agree with you, but there seem to be quite a few posts on various boards which are "pro Appendix N, anti Tolkien" and suggest that the only way to go back to a "true" Appendix N style RPG is to de-Tolkien the rules.

Tolkien's style isn't the same as Howards, but it's just as important to DCC style play.

[Raven_Crowking]

Tolkien's work definitely fits neatly into Appendix N, on the "magic is powerful and horribly dangerous" point alone. Hell, Lord of the Rings is a half-step and a tone change from being a post-apocalyptic story....but "they" say I'm crazy.

I agree with you, but there seem to be quite a few posts on various boards which are "pro Appendix N, anti Tolkien" and suggest that the only way to go back to a "true" Appendix N style RPG is to de-Tolkien the rules.

Tolkien's style isn't the same as Howards, but it's just as important to DCC style play.

Agreed!

[KnightErrantJR]

I think elements of Tolkien fit, but the overall tone of most of the books aren't as similar to other Appendix N stories. In fact, the more I think about it, I think the Hobbit fits into Appendix N a lot more than the LOTR trilogy does. Bilbo is a hapless 0-level character that gets caught up in an adventure scheme for fun and profit, wherein he manages to survive by cultivating adventuring skills he didn't know he had.

Heck, even the elves and dwarves that appear in the Hobbit are less heroic types.

The LOTR books are much more epic is scale, with guys that are already established butt kickers showing up to save the world. I'd argue DCC and most of Appendix N has adventurers that save the world on the way to doing something else (like getting rich), or that are way in over their heads in trying to save the world against completely weird and chaotic things they have no right even interacting with.

But, that's just my take on the thing, and I freely admit that others might have their brains calibrated differently . . .

[catseye yellow]

doesn't cirdain the shipwright have a beard?

[Ravenheart87]

doesn't cirdain the shipwright have a beard?

And what about dwarf women?

[finarvyn]

doesn't cirdain the shipwright have a beard?

And what about dwarf women?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that Cirdain the Shipwright had all of the dwarf women that he wanted.