Hi I wanted to tell you I really liked your elrond and numenor meta…meme answer…whatever! Point #7 made me wonder, what do you think elrond’s thoughts about the gift/doom of men are?

vardasvapors:

Ahh thank you I’m glad you liked! Uh, I think it would probably
depend on the situation tbh, re: his children (all four of them): the
possibilities left open by the lack of any position voiced on Elladan
and Elrohir, but giving them names that invoke their heritage and
ability to choose; plus one of his big worries about Arwen being that
she personally won’t react to dying well (and he’s right, she doesn’t – but where does this worry come from),
and also depending on how much you can attribute Aragorn’s beliefs and
words in his peaceful and fearless death scene (”more than memory”) to
his upbringing. And the difference between those who are definitely
going to die anyway, and those who might possibly choose not to. It
seems probably pretty tangled, which only makes sense.

But if
you want me to just address the bit about the Numenoreans’ opinion of
human death, I do think of Elrond as strongly of the belief – in
both the philosophical and the more metaphysical sense – that the
gift/doom of men is a good thing, but that he can’t have an informed
opinion as he is not subject to it, he can only know what it’s like to observe it and what people like Elros have told him. I would say that, as
for many elves, but with a unique additional layer of entanglement, it’s
the best and worst things about being immortal while adjacent to humans
– getting the chance to know and love and remember so many different people and all their changes and all the human societal stuff I discussed here,
but also having to inevitably experience and accumulate the memories of
all their deaths and generational-overturn-based-amnesia and lost
chances and absences inherent in mortality. I’m thinking a widespread
thought among elves would run
something like “Oh, this thing reminds me that I know exactly how
Tindomiel would have reacted to it, and how much I loved her for it,
though
she has been dead for 700 years and cannot see it – but now my memory
of it will be entangled with her, and therefore all the richer.” Like,
he could say ‘uh here are xyz ways being immortal sucks’ but I
theorize he himself would totally accept all the downsides of
immortality for the sake of all the upsides, and would therefore
empathize with, if not necessarily agree with, people who felt the same but didn’t have the option?
(This is ofc guesswork.)

I guess I tend to think of him (and
Elros) being very invested in (though periodically struggling with) a
lot of the ideas adjacent to the Athrabeth, about there being a great
purpose or resonance in the different fates of elves and men – there’s also the significance that inexplicitly
underlies many of his words and actions, of Estel. And more personally, perhaps also in the more specific idea of a reunion after the end of the world – for obvious reasons. I should perhaps clarify that when I said he
would sympathize with the Numenoreans’ desires, I don’t think it would
be “yeah they’ve got a point, human death is worthless” I just mean it
in the “lol I am literally the last person on earth who has any business telling anybody what’s the right thing to want regarding immortality.” Does that make sense?