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elven population

Over on EKT, there was some discussion about why no one likes to write about females and why everyone assumes that everyone who doesn't have a wife listed (and most of those who do) are actually gay.

I made the comment that it had to be noted that there was a large gender disparity between males and females in ME, and that probably accounted for a lot of it. I gave the figure that is often quoted, which is that there is a 3:1 ratio of males to females.

Immediately, I get thrown to the wolves who tell me that there's no way it could be that. The ratio had to be equal, they said, and gave as their reasoning the statement that just because Tolkien didn't write about other women doesn't mean they didn't exist, and just because he never said these Elves weren't married doesn't mean they weren't.

One member said that even if the tendency was for an overbalance of males, that would have balanced out because only men would have died in the wars. Another piped up and added that, yes, but women would have died in childbirth. No amount of my pointing out that the women were of equal prowess as warriors and went to war the same as men, or that Elves did not die in childbirth because the reasons that humans die in childbirth could not affect the Elves, helped the matter -- they staunchly held to their beliefs that Elves were just as frail and brutal as humans.

So, to try and bring some order, I chose to catalog the Elven population as we know it. I spent three days going through all the books picking out every Elf named and as much family information as possible. I put all of this into a database.

On the first pass through the data, out of 126 Elves, 27 are female. That gives a roughly 4:1 ratio of males to females. The next step was to take the family information that I gathered and fill in some of the gaps. For instance, Legolas is the son of Thranduil who is the son of Oropher. No women are named in there anywhere, but two must have existed, so they will be added to the total. Similarly, any Elf without parents will be given a mother and a father. (I only went back 1 generation on any of these -- more than that becomes supposition as the possibility of overlap grows.) Once that was done, I had a much larger and more accurate sample size to draw from.

So, after going through the population sample as provided in the books and making a couple of pretty basic assumptions, I think I have a fairly decent set of results.

Starting with a sample of 126 named Elves, 99 male and 27 female...

1. Assume that no relationship exists between Elves other than that stated canonically.

2. Assume that all Elves with no listed parents each had a distinct mother and father.

3. Assume that every father with children and no wife had exactly one wife.

Working from this basic set, we find 38 Elves with no parents and 22 fathers with no wives. Adding 38 more males into the sample along with 60 more females (38 + 22), we wind up with a total sample of 137 males and 87 females, which works out to a male to female ratio of around 5:3, which is just shy of 2:1.

IOW, given a sample of 100 males and 50 females, and assuming that everyone pairs off, that gives 50 het couples and 25 m/m couples. (Of course, this also assumes that there are no f/f couples or unpaired Elves, but you get the idea.)

The point is that if you believe that Tolkien intended the Elves to be 100% heterosexual, then there are going to be a loooooot of lonely Elves out there.

The conversation has been furthered, though...

Really intersting information - many thanks for all that hard work! Do Middle Earth elves have a low sex drive? I know there are some humans out there who are genuinely happy being celibate for lengthy periods (sometimes there whole life), but they do not have any psychological problems and function well as ordinary humans. Are some elves like this?

There really isn't much written on the subject of the Elven libido, and understandably so. The closest we come to really describing the mating habits of the Elves is in the LACE, and even that represents an ideal not often (if ever) attained in practice. It's my personal feeling that any creature with a dick is subject to being governed by it on an intermittent basis, regardless of that creature's own desires.

What we do hear about in the LACE is that most Elves never had more than 4 children, had a "mating season" in the Spring (so that of course, the births would also occur in the Spring), and then after having children, they felt no further desire to mate in any form. I just can't accept that, especially when the LACE also states that it is a pleasurable time in their life (the exact quote is "the union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy"). I have difficulty accepting the notion that any sentient being would lose sexual desire after being genetically predisposed to enjoying it. And what of those leftover males that would never get a chance to procreate? Would their libido never be shut off because of that? If that's the case, then it's little wonder that homosexual relationships would form, because they would continue to have that craving for sexual release.

(Of course, keep in mind that in his letters, Tolkien continually stated that he was very unhappy with the way the LACE turned out and had been wanting to revise it again.)

I thought that those that were part of the kinslaying were not permitted to return to Valinor. Is that true? Or is that basically what you said, and I didn't get it?

Yeah, that was basically what I meant. That was part of the Doom of Mandos. However, when Earendil came to Valinor to plead the case of the Elves and Men, the Valar relented and rescinded the ban, so that following the War of Wrath, any Elf that wished to return was allowed to. Even the Avari were called home, and a great number of them boarded the ships, too.

But somehow Galadriel was allowed after so long.

That one still confuses me, because it's never really stated why she was under some geis not to return until she'd passed some sort of test. All that the Silm says is that of all the Elves that led the Noldor into exile, only Galadriel remained following the War of Wrath (and this was mainly because all of the other Elven leaders were dead). The whole thing about her having to pass a test is only alluded to in LOTR. It's part of one of the stories about her in UT, but Christopher states that tale was discarded.

Interesting concept that Glorfindel could have been part of the kinslaying as well. That makes sense.

It's never explicitly stated in the Silm that he was there, but it's inferable from the fact that he is always associated with Turgon, and it is Turgon's host that came upon Feanor's host in battle with the Teleri and just stormed into the fray without really knowing how the fight began. Now, in both LR and PoME, it is stated that Glorfindel was present at the Kinslaying, and implied that he took part, if only in defense of his king and kin.

I wish that Tolkien had done more with him. I have heard so many critical reviews of him from others saying that they feel he was left so one dimensional (kind of a himbo) and it would have been interesting to read more depth on him.

I'm always surprised when people say this, because if you take the whole of the HoME together, there is probably more written about Glorfindel than just about any other single Elf except for Feanor, and perhaps Maeglin. And I'm also surprised when people say that they wish Tolkien had said more about his return, because in the last Glorfindel essay that was reprinted in PoME, Tolkien went into great detail about when, where, and why.

I think that when most people say "I wish Tolkien had written more about Glorfindel", what they really mean is "I wish Tolkien had described Glorfindel's personality and really given him a rich background and deep characterization". But Tolkien was creating a mythology and a history, not a traditional novel where you are introduced to a limited character set that grow and change. So, I can't really blame him for the way he went about it.


	Disclaimer This site contains content of an adult nature, both in written and graphical versions. If you are under the age of consent in your city, state, country, or province, please click here and exit the site. Site Map home lotr fanfiction elvish rants inspiration artwork links Section Links Canon vs AU/Non-Canon Children and Music The Civil War Debunking Evil!Thranduil Elven Haircolor 101 Elvish Names 101 Elvish Names Continued Elven Population Elven Rebirth Fanon, Part One Free Speech Independence Day Bullshit Musings On The Movie "Supersize Me" The Mysterious Glorfindel Nazi Germany Symbols and Words Voting Rights Act Who Is Gildor Inglorion? Why Gay Christian Is Not An Oxymoron		Essays elven population Over on EKT, there was some discussion about why no one likes to write about females and why everyone assumes that everyone who doesn't have a wife listed (and most of those who do) are actually gay. I made the comment that it had to be noted that there was a large gender disparity between males and females in ME, and that probably accounted for a lot of it. I gave the figure that is often quoted, which is that there is a 3:1 ratio of males to females. Immediately, I get thrown to the wolves who tell me that there's no way it could be that. The ratio had to be equal, they said, and gave as their reasoning the statement that just because Tolkien didn't write about other women doesn't mean they didn't exist, and just because he never said these Elves weren't married doesn't mean they weren't. One member said that even if the tendency was for an overbalance of males, that would have balanced out because only men would have died in the wars. Another piped up and added that, yes, but women would have died in childbirth. No amount of my pointing out that the women were of equal prowess as warriors and went to war the same as men, or that Elves did not die in childbirth because the reasons that humans die in childbirth could not affect the Elves, helped the matter -- they staunchly held to their beliefs that Elves were just as frail and brutal as humans. So, to try and bring some order, I chose to catalog the Elven population as we know it. I spent three days going through all the books picking out every Elf named and as much family information as possible. I put all of this into a database. On the first pass through the data, out of 126 Elves, 27 are female. That gives a roughly 4:1 ratio of males to females. The next step was to take the family information that I gathered and fill in some of the gaps. For instance, Legolas is the son of Thranduil who is the son of Oropher. No women are named in there anywhere, but two must have existed, so they will be added to the total. Similarly, any Elf without parents will be given a mother and a father. (I only went back 1 generation on any of these -- more than that becomes supposition as the possibility of overlap grows.) Once that was done, I had a much larger and more accurate sample size to draw from. So, after going through the population sample as provided in the books and making a couple of pretty basic assumptions, I think I have a fairly decent set of results. Starting with a sample of 126 named Elves, 99 male and 27 female... 1. Assume that no relationship exists between Elves other than that stated canonically. 2. Assume that all Elves with no listed parents each had a distinct mother and father. 3. Assume that every father with children and no wife had exactly one wife. Working from this basic set, we find 38 Elves with no parents and 22 fathers with no wives. Adding 38 more males into the sample along with 60 more females (38 + 22), we wind up with a total sample of 137 males and 87 females, which works out to a male to female ratio of around 5:3, which is just shy of 2:1. IOW, given a sample of 100 males and 50 females, and assuming that everyone pairs off, that gives 50 het couples and 25 m/m couples. (Of course, this also assumes that there are no f/f couples or unpaired Elves, but you get the idea.) The point is that if you believe that Tolkien intended the Elves to be 100% heterosexual, then there are going to be a loooooot of lonely Elves out there. The conversation has been furthered, though... Really intersting information - many thanks for all that hard work! Do Middle Earth elves have a low sex drive? I know there are some humans out there who are genuinely happy being celibate for lengthy periods (sometimes there whole life), but they do not have any psychological problems and function well as ordinary humans. Are some elves like this? There really isn't much written on the subject of the Elven libido, and understandably so. The closest we come to really describing the mating habits of the Elves is in the LACE, and even that represents an ideal not often (if ever) attained in practice. It's my personal feeling that any creature with a dick is subject to being governed by it on an intermittent basis, regardless of that creature's own desires. What we do hear about in the LACE is that most Elves never had more than 4 children, had a "mating season" in the Spring (so that of course, the births would also occur in the Spring), and then after having children, they felt no further desire to mate in any form. I just can't accept that, especially when the LACE also states that it is a pleasurable time in their life (the exact quote is "the union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy"). I have difficulty accepting the notion that any sentient being would lose sexual desire after being genetically predisposed to enjoying it. And what of those leftover males that would never get a chance to procreate? Would their libido never be shut off because of that? If that's the case, then it's little wonder that homosexual relationships would form, because they would continue to have that craving for sexual release. (Of course, keep in mind that in his letters, Tolkien continually stated that he was very unhappy with the way the LACE turned out and had been wanting to revise it again.) I thought that those that were part of the kinslaying were not permitted to return to Valinor. Is that true? Or is that basically what you said, and I didn't get it? Yeah, that was basically what I meant. That was part of the Doom of Mandos. However, when Earendil came to Valinor to plead the case of the Elves and Men, the Valar relented and rescinded the ban, so that following the War of Wrath, any Elf that wished to return was allowed to. Even the Avari were called home, and a great number of them boarded the ships, too. But somehow Galadriel was allowed after so long. That one still confuses me, because it's never really stated why she was under some geis not to return until she'd passed some sort of test. All that the Silm says is that of all the Elves that led the Noldor into exile, only Galadriel remained following the War of Wrath (and this was mainly because all of the other Elven leaders were dead). The whole thing about her having to pass a test is only alluded to in LOTR. It's part of one of the stories about her in UT, but Christopher states that tale was discarded. Interesting concept that Glorfindel could have been part of the kinslaying as well. That makes sense. It's never explicitly stated in the Silm that he was there, but it's inferable from the fact that he is always associated with Turgon, and it is Turgon's host that came upon Feanor's host in battle with the Teleri and just stormed into the fray without really knowing how the fight began. Now, in both LR and PoME, it is stated that Glorfindel was present at the Kinslaying, and implied that he took part, if only in defense of his king and kin. I wish that Tolkien had done more with him. I have heard so many critical reviews of him from others saying that they feel he was left so one dimensional (kind of a himbo) and it would have been interesting to read more depth on him. I'm always surprised when people say this, because if you take the whole of the HoME together, there is probably more written about Glorfindel than just about any other single Elf except for Feanor, and perhaps Maeglin. And I'm also surprised when people say that they wish Tolkien had said more about his return, because in the last Glorfindel essay that was reprinted in PoME, Tolkien went into great detail about when, where, and why. I think that when most people say "I wish Tolkien had written more about Glorfindel", what they really mean is "I wish Tolkien had described Glorfindel's personality and really given him a rich background and deep characterization". But Tolkien was creating a mythology and a history, not a traditional novel where you are introduced to a limited character set that grow and change. So, I can't really blame him for the way he went about it.