Why do elves live so long

Posted - 02 Apr : Make the best use of the system that's there, then modify the mechanics that don't allow you to have the fun you are looking for. Seravin Master of Realmslore Canada Posts.

Labelas Enoreth gifted them with longevity, that's why. I still don't see how DNA is a factor, here. Starshade Learned Scribe Norway Posts. As an example, certain color varieties of butterfly wings dont get shown if some parts of the DNA is damaged or missing since its better to not have the defective looking camouflage, than look like, a flying "Eye of Sauron" or something.

Edited by - Starshade on 02 Apr I always went with the theory that elves still lived as long as they used to in 1e, but the character age in later editions reflected the age range elves could be playable as PCs. At a certain point in their long lifespan elves, PC and NPC, would act upon the spiritual tug to return to a more Fey place.

Imagine living in a world where most other living things are born, live, and die with such rapidity. After a couple hundred years of being living witnesses to friends dying, cities and nations crumbling to ruin, etc, elves would rightly want to Retreat from the world of mortals. Fellfire Master of Realmslore Posts. I'd have to dig out my Silmarilion, wasn't Lady Galadriel a 3rd generation elf and something like 8, years old?

Misanthorpe Love is a lie. Only hate endures. Light is blinding. Only in darkness do we see clearly. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but.. The shadows betray you because they belong to me. Barastir Master of Realmslore Brazil Posts. Why do elves live so long? Because goblinoids are incompetent! Now seriously, Tolkien elves didn't age. Lead by example.

Let your deeds speak your intentions. Goodness radiated from the heart. Roseweave Learned Scribe Ireland Posts. Posted - 03 Apr : Fae are simply infused with more "life", and are in touch either with arcane Fae energies like High Elves Eladrin or the spirit and power of nature Wood Elves , though most are a mix of both to varying degree in a way humans aren't.

That's not to say humans can't be in touch with those things - and they often are, and in some cases they also live very long times if they wield powerful magic.

Better mechanisms are possible, and the elves have them. They breed late in their lifecycle - either driven by economy, religion or customs they are not allowed to breed until late in their life time. This gives evolutionary pressure as only those who lived for long time in relative health are given opportunity to have offspring.

Make the age of breeding related to average lifespan to drive it even further. There is a known trend that organisms that live in extremely cold conditions tend to have longer lifespans than organisms that don't. If you wanted to create an ultra long lived organism, having them live somewhere cold might be a good place to start. Successive rounds of evolution could then extend this life time, if for example organisms tended to reproduce later in their lifetimes instead of earlier.

This is partly why Gallapagos Turtles have evolved to live so long; they can reproduce right up until the time they die. According to Morgan Freeman extended lifespans are a product of a hostile environment. Extending the span of mature competency gives a creature a greater chance of survival than just reproducing quickly or having an early appointment with death which gets rid of the aged when food gets scarce.

It's much easier for me to believe that elves show great restraint in their a petites, and are not very physically active. If you run out of this extra, you start getting into coding DNA presumably causing issues with cell function which lead to programmed cell death apoptosis. Accumulation of mutations: random chance events cause mutations of long time periods.

Look up how cancer cells form on google for more information. And next, we get into what the other posters have addressed. Humans never really had evolutionary pressures to fix any of these problems, cause we were gettin' banged all up on by saber toothed tigers and also killing each other en masse since we found out which end of a bone club to hold. If those pressures existed, it is not unreasonable to assume that long lived humanoid species could exist.

We're already pushing the limits at like years old That's pretty insane compared to years ago when you had 10 babies just to have two that lived to adulthood and break even on the population of the next generation. How: Why do turtles live long? Their metabolism is a bit slower than us and they continue to grow very slowly almost all of their life. That why elves are a bit taller than humans. Evolutionary pressures : Their knowledge has become too complexe to handle a long time ago and the expression of it is what attract them sexually.

This was the time before writing was invented by men at least we did that. It basically takes a century for them to master their native langage properly and begin higher educations. That repetitive learning process stuck them as "child" for a hundred years, meaning it takes this amount of time for their first gametes to appear. Biological immortality means that a creature's annual mortality rate does not increase with age after it reaches adulthood.

Biologically immortal creatures will eventually die from accident or disease, but they never "get old. You have to understand where fantasy comes from and from who it comes from to understand the metaphors involved, along with knowing all world history and Biblical history helps — so buckle up and enjoy :. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of a Rings, is usually credited for creating this fantasy world with the different traditional fantasy races, humans, elves, orcs, dwarfs and hobbits.

Tolkien was very much a Catholic, meaning that his identity and his relationship with God combined with the entire old Jewish roots are what allowed him to create these great worlds of brilliant imagination.

For example, the ring in LOTR represents sin, so when one is in a state of sin, or when one puts on the Ring, they spiritually are now very visible to the dark forces. Naturally, orcs are spawns of these dark forces, as was depicted in them spawning out of the earth in the LOTR series. Biblically, in the time of Adam and some years after, humans were hundreds of years old; this is the time of the Oddessy and Illiad and great giant humans cyclops, Nephilim — all the legendary stories were true.

Great warriors like Achilles danced and dominated their way around the battlefield. Then, at about the same time as The Flood, God had enough and said decided that humans will not live longer than around years.

God Speaks, and it happens. Elves then are a metaphor for a race of better humans that existed in the past. Historically this was when God literally walked with Adam on the earth. This is why in LOTR, the elves are seen as never changing, never aging; they hearken back to a better time in history who also had special magical powers. I'm sure oceans of ink have been spilled in this path we are going down, books even who can explain this much better and more accurately in all its details that I can.

Enjoy and God bless. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How do I explain the long life spans of Elves? Ask Question. Asked 1 year, 9 months ago. Active 1 year, 8 months ago. Viewed 9k times. Note: Magic does not exist in my story. Improve this question. Starfish Prime 48k 5 5 gold badges 93 93 silver badges bronze badges. Pan-adaptationism is a rather silly view of natural evolution. Members Current visitors New profile posts Search profile posts. New posts.

Search forums. Welcome to The Tolkien Forum! Connect with fellow Tolkien enthusiasts and join a community that is nearly two decades old, and still going strong. We look forward to meeting you. Forums The Works of J. Tolkien "The Lord of the Rings". JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

How Long do Elves live? Thread starter esrbl Start date Apr 30, Tags elves. Are they have similar lifespans to humans? Sailawen New Member. Tolkien Gateway said:. Elves are not considered full-grown until they are one hundred years old, but by then most Men would be dead.

They are also immortal. Click to expand Elthir Active Member. In my opinion Tolkien Gateway at least in the section I read is simplifying the matter of Elven maturity a bit. Luthien is a notable exception, and died leaving the world and its time. Elves who remain "too long" in Middle-earth will also live until the world ends, but at some point their bodies will "fade" and become invisible to "most" mortal eyes [needs more explaining but moving on for brevity].

Some Elves who "die" in Middle-earth can remain as spirits there. Also, the Elves have various theories about what will happen to them after the world ends. That's my brief summation anyway. Last edited: Apr 30, Alcuin of Zarkanya. One of the things Tolkien does in his legendarium or mythology is explore various aspects of the humane, of living and dying.