Tra-la-la-Glorfindel?

[amysrevenge]

This came up in the last class, and I've been stewing over it for a few weeks now.

There was some concern raised in the chat about whether Glorfindel would have been one of the "Tra-la-la-lalley" Elves in the Hobbit.

I posit that he very much would have been.

This notion of great Elf Lords being all dignity and somberness is, I think, a relic of the bird's eye history text feel of the Silmarillion. If you read the Silmarillion, all you see page after page is Elf Lords making Important Decisions and undertaking Heroic Deeds and demonstrating Intense Emotions.

But if you read any survey history text from the real world, that is also all you see about humans. In a "history of the United States in the early 20th century" text book, you would never find out if FDR played board games with his grandkids, or if Woodrow Wilson sang in a choir (I don't know either, I'm just making up examples). All we see are Important Decisions, Heroic Deeds, and so forth. So, can we conclude purely from history texts whether humans ever behave in a silly manner? Of course not.

So, given the Silmarillion we have, we don't see a lot of examples of how Elves act when there isn't Serious Business afoot. But we do have some examples elsewhere, even outside the... questionable authenticity of the Hobbit story.

Consider Gildor and his people. As a group, they are the highest High Elves we see in one place at one time this side of the First Age. And what do we learn of them? "...so old and young, and so gay and sad ..." is what Sam points out, and we are immediately led to believe that this is a very perceptive insight. Based on all the laughter, and especially on the quick transitions from gaiety to seriousness and back that we see in Gildor's discussion with Frodo, I think it's reasonable to conclude that Gildor and his people, if they were in Rivendell 77 years ago, would have been among the Tra-la-la-lalley Elves. I think we can confidently predict that the most impressive of Elves would, in general, while being doughty in deeds and derring-do, also be mighty in mirth and merriment.

(Testing out a bit of alliteration there at the end, it feels good.)

So, I think that Glorfindel, as one of the mightiest Elf Lords still around, would not have just sung the Tra-la-la-lalley song, he would have *initiated* the Tra-la-la-lalley song.

 

[Katriana]

I will admit that I rather regret inadvertently raising this topic in the last class with my somewhat flippant comment about Glorfindel not being one of the tra-la-la-lally elves. Not because I haven't found the ensuing conversation illuminating, because I have, and upon considering the arguments I tend to agree with the view that he could have and quite possible would have joined in the chorus. It did make me evaluate what I really meant by the comment, and in doing so I consider the would-he-or-wouldn't-he discussion to be largely irrelevant to the point I had in mind, which to put it briefly is that Glorfindel is not a "common" elf. I shall try to explain my thoughts.

By calling Glorfindel, Elrond, etc. "Elf Lords" it implies that there is a noble class among elves beyond the Noldor/Sindar distinctions. Further, by implying there is a nobility, it also implies there is a "peasantry" of "common" elves. These would be the ordinary elf who doesn't concern him/herself with Important Things or Great Deeds but who is instead content to just weave tapestries, throw pots, make music, carve or polish the elegant marble banisters, etc. The "John Q. Public" elves that just live their lives, joyously living in the moment without much care for things outside Rivendell or their own personal sphere. This is greatly oversimplifying things of course, because I don't have the impression that class distinctions matter all that much among the elves necessarily aside from the degree of respect that certain individuals are given due to their personal qualities and past deeds. I'm sure there are plenty of the "peasantry" that become just as involved in outside matters at need just as there are likely plenty who would qualify as nobility based on birth that choose not to involve themselves. Perhaps it's more useful to simply think of them as "those whose names we learn" and "those who remain anonymous" rather than to speak of them in terms of real world class systems that don't entirely apply.

It is the group of anonymous elves that I was referring to as the "tra-la-la-lally" elves, and Glorfindel is clearly not one of them. This is not to say that he doesn't enjoy ordinary pursuits such as singing, dancing, creating artwork, etc. during all the centuries of time when things have been fairly peaceful and Great Deeds were not needed, just that he is one of those who have been set apart from the others by virtue of the fact that we've been told his name and his personal history.