More Babble Than Clash?

I just posted my first “Babel Clash” entry, this one modestly titled “Enge v. Elves”.

About JE

James Enge is the author of the World-Fantasy-Award-nominated novel Blood of Ambrose (Pyr, April 2009). His latest book is The Wide World's End. His short fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Tales from the Magician's Skull, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and elsewhere.
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6 Responses to More Babble Than Clash?

  1. marycatelli says:

    eh

    While I agree that elves can be dangerous — (I ramble about the great question Is this elf necessary? — and Tolkien was a bad influence on me there — I don’t see where you can claim that Tolkien presented them always as the good guys. Where in The Hobbit does Tolkien present the elves’ nasty deeds as something good?

    Though, to be sure, reading The Silimarillion ensured that I knew he knew how bad they were. (One explanation of the relative niceness of elves, later, is that all the bad ones got themselves killed.)

    • JE says:

      Re: eh

      It’s not that JRRT presents (in The Hobbit) the bad things that the elves do as good things–it’s that he presents them as being “Good People” irrespective of whether they are doing good or not. It’s his phrase, not mine, and that’s a free pass Tolkien doesn’t usually give his non-elvish characters.

      I like the elves in Silmarillion much better for that very reason: they don’t get a free pass. “The Flight of the Noldor” is one of my favorite stretches of Tolkien’s writing.

  2. burger_eater says:

    Why do you hate fun?

  3. Anonymous says:

    There was a long-running ad in White Dwarf somewhere in the mid-to-late 80s. The eye-attractor was “Best of all, no elves!”

    I, however, am not above using them. Trust me, you’ll like them. I insist, and I am the author.

    –Jeff Stehman

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