Do Elves Dream of Eclectic Sleep? - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
Wheeras in the Second Age the Eldar had hoped to exercise their art upon all of Middle-earth -- or at least a great portion of it -- in the Third Age they elected to confine their art to small regions protected by th Theree Rings of Power they still controlled. The Third Age Elves remembered all the great stories that the First and Second Age Elves had made.
The transition from making the past to remembering the past was undoubtedly a slow one. The Elves did not simply decide in a day that they would seek to accomplish no more. Rather, they must have gradually settled down to enjoy life and celebrate their achievements. But as the world grew dark and lonely, the Elves elected not to expand. For a brief time the Silvan Elves of Lothlorien became the most prominent champions of freedom in the West, but with the departure and subsequent death of Amroth their king, they withdrew into their forest and were seldom heard from again.
All choices made by the Elves were fraught with the gravest peril. Everything they did, everything they touched, was ultimately consumed by the consequences of their actions. They tried to avoid suffering the fate which had been set before them. Instead of destroying the Rings of Power, the Eldar used them in the Third Age. And when the One Ring was finally destroyed, all that the Eldar had achieved in the way of preserving and healing was undone. They could no longer think in terms of building up a future. They only wanted to preserve a past which was ideal for them.
The shadow the Eldar saw upon their horizon must therefore have loomed large over them all toward the end of the Third Age. Sauron's rise and return to Mordor were inevitably a result of the Elves' failure to resolve their conflicts in the past. Middle-earth's change in power and structure was just another mark against them. The candle could only burn down so far, and then there would be no more wick. Despite their best efforts to hold back change, they had really failed to hold it back. It continued without them. Time simply dragged the Elves back into the natural course of things once the Rings were out of the way.
And once the Rings of Power were gone, the Elves had no choice but to face their future, which to them seemed like no future. To a mortal Man, the uncertainty of immortality would be an opportunity to make new stories. But to an immortal Elf, the certainty of the end of that immortality meant there was less and less time to celebrate the great stories of the past. Crowding them out with new stories might only deprive the tales of their dutiful audience. Or, worse, living a new tale might bring on more grief and suffering, and so add to that burden of regret which grew heavier year by year.
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