Can I just mention that, when I started talking about the birthspacing thing, I didn't say that Dawn's Elves weren't elvish enough, only that I personally see the average Elven family differently--although of course Feanor's family can be an exception.
Likewise, everything in this comment should be read as My Impression Only.
It seems to me that Tolkien doesn't really describe Elvishness explicitly, outside of LaCE, so we are left with observing the Elves in his stories. And these are about the only conclusions that I can draw with complete certainty:
1) Elves fetishize hair. 2) Elves go crazy for shiny jewellery.
I am not sure why people would think of them as slow, ponderous types, as pretty much all the Elves we read about--including the King in the Hobbit--seem rather quick-thinking. And definitely passionate. They quarrel as much as humans do, but... and this might be a genuine difference... they seem to think of murder as not just horrible, but rare and unexpected. And of course they are less prone to rape, too. So in a sense they seem morally superior to humans, or at least have different drives. And this brings me to one of the things that really break my suspension of disbelief: when an Elf rapes and/or murders outside of war, and everyone around seems, at best, angry, rather than completely horrified.
And then there is this (http://oddlots.digitalspace.net/rawaths/immortals.html). A bit pretentious, no doubt, but the idea of Elvishness concealed behind the 'commandments' is close to my own. To my mind, Elves all share a love of lore, and art, and nature, to lesser or greater degree, and a special sensitivity to such things. And the second thing that really throws me out of a story is a motif rather common in badslash, where an Elf is ridiculed for being 'merely a scholar' or 'merely an artist' instead of a warrior. That seems completely the wrong way round to me.
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Likewise, everything in this comment should be read as My Impression Only.
It seems to me that Tolkien doesn't really describe Elvishness explicitly, outside of LaCE, so we are left with observing the Elves in his stories. And these are about the only conclusions that I can draw with complete certainty:
1) Elves fetishize hair.
2) Elves go crazy for shiny jewellery.
I am not sure why people would think of them as slow, ponderous types, as pretty much all the Elves we read about--including the King in the Hobbit--seem rather quick-thinking. And definitely passionate. They quarrel as much as humans do, but... and this might be a genuine difference... they seem to think of murder as not just horrible, but rare and unexpected. And of course they are less prone to rape, too. So in a sense they seem morally superior to humans, or at least have different drives. And this brings me to one of the things that really break my suspension of disbelief: when an Elf rapes and/or murders outside of war, and everyone around seems, at best, angry, rather than completely horrified.
And then there is this (http://oddlots.digitalspace.net/rawaths/immortals.html). A bit pretentious, no doubt, but the idea of Elvishness concealed behind the 'commandments' is close to my own. To my mind, Elves all share a love of lore, and art, and nature, to lesser or greater degree, and a special sensitivity to such things. And the second thing that really throws me out of a story is a motif rather common in badslash, where an Elf is ridiculed for being 'merely a scholar' or 'merely an artist' instead of a warrior. That seems completely the wrong way round to me.