# Legolas, Gimli and the seeds of Men



## Andreth (Jan 6, 2013)

_'We will come', said Imrahil; and they parted with courteous words.'That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,' said Legolas. 'If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising'.'And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,' said Gimli. 'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.''Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,' said Legolas. 'And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.''And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,' said the Dwarf.'To that the Elves know not the answer,' said Legolas
_
.What do you think about this passage of Lotr? I always found it bewildering: the elf and the dwarf seem to know what the purpose of Mankind is, or at least they speak as if the knew. With this, I want to point out the fact that the two of them, speaking as such, seem to have a pretty clear idea of what Mankind should do in this world, just as Finrod in the Athrabeth claimed that the purpose of Mankind might be to deliver them from the Marring of Arda... While, all Mortals seem to have not even the vaguest idea of what they are or what their goal might be: what is the force that makes them go ahead? To what exactly Legolas and Gimli are referring to? Do you have any clue about what makes them utter such an incredible speech?


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## Andreth (Jan 6, 2013)

Oops! In the Title I intended the deeds, of course, not the seeds  but it seems to be fitting anyway.


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## Dís (Jan 6, 2013)

To me mankind always seem to hold more possibilities than Elves and Dwarves in the books. The Elves, at least in the Lord of the Rings, are utterly and beyond any doubt good people. I read LofR before I read The Hobbit and was a bit taken aback by the description of the Elves there, a bit mischievous at Rivendell and, to me, downright beastly in Mirkwood, at least towards Dwarves. I couldn't understand why Bilbo wanted to defend the Elvenking in battle ;*). This makes the Elves - in the later perspective - similar to angels in judeochristian mythology. They have had their chance to decide and abide by that decision: for good or evil. So that's one possibility less for them.
The Dwarves are a separate race with a separate fate. Their relationship to Arda is different. They are much more than Elves and even Men made from the earth itself, from stone, made by Aule the Vala, who was designed to Middle-Earth, while the Elves, the Firstborn, were made by Iluvatar and thus are bound to a fate beyond the borders of this world. Not so the Dwarves. It might even be debatable if they will "survive" the Dagor Dagorlad and be part of the renewed world save by a special grace of Iluvatar. This is how their possibilities are limited.
But men, ah, they can be everything. They can be as elvenlike as Aragorn and the other remnants of Numenor. They can be noble in their own way like the Rohirrim. They can be proud and steadfast as the Dunedain and proud and prone to downfall as Denethor. They can be simple like Butterbur and wicked like Bill Ferny (so can Hobbits, by the way, being rather more "human" than other races in ME), they can be everything and there is no certain way to tell how the individual will turn out nor the whole race. They may have the ability to mend the marred world when they choose to be good, and they can mar it even more when they choose the dark side ;*) and the choice is given to each individual. No wonder, Elves and Dwarves do not know the outcome.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Jan 6, 2013)

Dís said:


> Not so the Dwarves. It might even be debatable if they will "survive" the Dagor Dagorlad and be part of the renewed world save by a special grace of Iluvatar.



From what I've read of the Dagor Dagorath, the Dwarves are supposed to help rebuild Arda after the battle is over, which would make sense to me. Maybe the Ents will help regrow forests and things in the new Arda.


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## Maiden_of Harad (Jan 7, 2013)

I wonder if the passage might mean that men are capable of revitalizing themselves and their works, but since they are imperfect, they are prone to failure? Out of all of Tolkien's peoples, for instance, it is men who recover most quickly from tragedy ( so it seems to me ). It was men who rebuilt Dale and Laketown, dared to live between the Misty Mountians and Mirkwood, rebuilt the northern kingdom, among other things. Dwarves seem to take much longer to recover from tragedy ( especially in population ), and Elves it seems, on Middle Earth at least, dwelt on the past so much that they forgot there was a future in which to rebuild. But maybe it was the calling of men, not elves, to rebuild on Middle-Earth.


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## Andreth (Jan 7, 2013)

Maybe the Elves like Legolas acknowldged the abitility of Mankind to create the greatest things, maybe bad at times, but great nonetheless, like an extraordinary jewel engraved in a crown: their greatest Gift is in memory after all, no wonder they like the story of their world to be great and splendid. But the Dwarves are a bit more down-to-earth: evil is evil, and being prone to failure overshadows all of your deeds: the great and splendid Gondor was a simbol both of the magnificente and courage of men, and their arrogance: remember, the dunedain were always considered not only enemies of Sauron, but conqueror of his power; they, in fact, wanted his power, to rule fairly maybe, if they were like Aragorn, but for the lust of power nonetheless.
and still, Legolas and Gimli seem to refer not only to the present moment, but to something already foreseen: maybe its just the habit of " Doomed " peoples to consider men that way, even if they knew men didn't came under the Doom of the Music, and so they were the only ruler of their fates...


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