Me again.....it's hot here...well for a Scottish guy..anything above 10DEG is hot
Elves as we know are immortal and are tied to Arda. When there body dies , their spirit returns to Mandos and may be re-housed. They are ageless and suffer no disese.
Man's spirit moves on...somewhere else
But here's my point...
Elves are mortal and men might be immortal.
The elves are tied to Arda, for as long as it remains...but in time all things will pass, even Arda. When Arda passes , so do the elves...it's finite.
Where as men aren't tied to this inevitability....they pass on and beyond.
So what I'm proposing is that elves seem to be immortal in the short term. The spirits of men , just might go on........past Arda.....who knows!
Hmm well for myself I can't agree that the Elves cease to exist at the end of the World. Their 'ultimate death' awaited in the future yes, but not certainly knowing the ultimate fate of Elves does not mean that they will end, of course.
'Therefore in the last resort the Elves were obliged to rest on 'naked estel' (as they said): the trust in Eru, that whatever He designed beyond the End would be recognized by each fea as wholly satisfying (at the least). Probably it would contain joys unforeseeable. But they remained in the belief that it would remain in intelligible relation with their present nature and desires, proceed from them, and include them.' Author's Commentary to the Debate of Finrod And Andreth, part 7, Morgoth's Ring p. 332
Also, Finrod had as a vision Arda Remade, for example, and '... and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there, walk, maybe, with...' Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth, Morgoth's Ring p. 319
See also note ii to Laws and Customs of the Eldar, on the suppositions of the fate of Men (which touches upon New Arda), Morgoth's Ring, p. 251.
Yep, what Galin said. Although Elves do indeed 'last so long as Arda will last' it means in their current form and setting. After that there will presumably come a different form of life, away from earth and perhaps physical embodiment, that Iluvatar has not revealed.
But Tolkien's definition of 'death' is the severance of the body and spirit, thus in Arda Elves are immortal, unless slain, as they do not have an obligatory severance from their bodies as do Men.
