Statesman wrote: β
May 12th, 2025, 15:58
7Trickster wrote: β
May 12th, 2025, 05:56
It's not about grooming, the portrayal of elves even in your holy Tolkien world gives pussy vibes. Slender bodytypes, very long hair all the time, no beard, it's the total absence of masculine traits.
Hair-length isn't inherently tied to a particular gender, but mostly to cultural trends/fashion preferences born out of practicality. The lack of beards is meant to match the image that Tolkien's Elves are
"eternally young, pre-original sin" humans, but nowhere does Tolkien state they are meant to be androgynous. In fact, we don't even have a single example of female elves being confused for male elves while First Age/Heroic men are frequently confused with male elves. It seems your perception of Elves has been colored by decades of fantasy writers (and Peter Jackson) corrupting Tolkien's portrayal.
This is the second time I've seen this in the thread, here it's even in quotes, it's wrong. If you have an actual quote from Tolkien stating that he viewed Elves as pre-fallen Men, or analogous to Men in that way at all, please provide, I'd love to read it. They aren't and weren't, and even thinking of them in that fashion via death of the author would be ******** - because Elves in the Legendarium are obviously just as fallen as Men. The most famous of all the Elves in Middle-Earth, Galadriel, made a name for herself (not deliberately, perhaps) out of thumbing her nose at the Valar in the Second Age, for example.
Tolkien didn't intend Elves to be prototypical or perfected Men, he intended them to be analogous to our original myths of the Fey - inextricably tied to nature and the caretaking and nurturing of the natural world, and alien in being to Men. They were the Firstborn because they were meant to nurture the world in preparation for what Iluvatar had ordained would come later - Men. Although Tolkien obviously made his Elves more "civilized", in the sense that he made them more able to commune with things outside their nature (Men, for instance) than the Fey of our original myth. I think the departure was in service to his idea that the Elves would hand over the mastery and the caretaking of the world to Men, in a similar fashion to parents and grandparents handing a familial legacy to sons and grandsons. Or of the founder of an organization handing its leadership to a trusted lieutenant.
Thinking of them as "Men but more perfect and with superpowers" turns most of the story behind for instance The Lord of the Rings completely on its head and cheapens it. That's essentially what Jackson did, and look at the result. Elves are basically Numenoreans but "cooler" (I didn't find them cooler, I personally hated their characterization in the trilogy and in the Hobbit, but I recognize that most people slurped up Legolas skiing on an elephant trunk with delight) in the movie trilogy, and Aragorn is turned into some by-blow mulatto instead of being what he actually was - the resurgence and, in some ways, the fulfilment, of the line of True Men.
Anyways True Elves TM C aren't gay and 7Trick is a hack.