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| Don't Explain by Gwidhiel | 1 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 5/5/2008 |
| Now that's a shocker for Indis! Seriously, I think Tolkien made up some of this stuff as he went along and had to patch together an explanation for this marriage. What do you make of Elven memory? Is it so perfect, they'd remember what a garden looked like several thousand years ago? I know their long memories can be a burden to them, but I'd always thought that was because of all the suffering and change they'd seen, not necessarily the details. I can hardly remember in detail something I saw 10 years ago, but then, I'm not an elf. Author Reply: I totally agree about Tolkien having to patch together an explanation of how the 2nd marriage came about. It shouldn't have been allowed, according to his rules, and while he came up with an explanation about how one exception was allowed, I always found it curious that he didn't seem to think that Indis should have been ... chastised? ... for loving Finwë even when he was wed to another. I don't think he thought this through very well, as with a lot of his story developments involving women. As for Elven memory, when I was imagining them in the garden, I was imagining that what was surprised was what is sometimes called "procedural memory" -- not fully conscious memory of how to get from A to B in a place you've been before, for example. Like, if you visited a hotel years ago and stayed for 2 nights, and then visit it again, you probably will have a sense of where the hotel restaurant, elevator banks, etc. are in relation to each other, even if you're not consciously thinking about it. If they renovated in the meantime, your inclination to bear right when coming out of the elevator might yield unexpected results. I'm not in the camp that Elves have picture-perfect memories covering the whole of their existence. | |