[Amlee]

What is the ratio between the age of an elf and the age of men?

If an elf is 10 how old would that put the elf in human years?


For the record I hate math and math hates me. So please don't say it's equals to 2.5 years. Because I see it as it's equals to alakfjadfkajfk years. So if someone is out there that can break it down to idiot math please do so.

[Aewithen]

Hey Amlee-

It all depends on how you view Elvish age. Do you think they are fully mature at 50 years, or at 100 (see LACE for this explanation)?

Generally, what I like to use is the ratio of 50 Elvish years to 18 Human years. That would say to me, "Yes, humans are seen as grown in body at 18, but not necessarily in all ways." Or you can use 100 Elvish to 21 Human years...

For a ten year old Elf (that is ten in Elvish years):

If you know anything about math, the equation would be like this-
X/18=10/50. Kind of hard to explain through this source, but this is basically what you do.

(Elvish age of Maturation) x (Corresponding human age,X)= (Human age of Maturation) x (Age of the Elf)

Using the numbers above:
It would be 50X= 18(10).
This would equal 50X=180.
You would then divide 180 by 50 to find your X.

SO....

At the 50 to 18 ratio, your Elf being 10 yrs. old would be at about the growth rate of a Human 3 1/2 year old.

At the ratio of 100 to 21, your Elf would be at about the growth rate of Human 2 yr old.

Of course, this is all just my easy way to figure out the correlation between Elvish and Human age. Nowhere does Tolkien explicity say that this is how it is figured out. We can only guess by his notes in Laws and Customs of the Eldar.

Hope this helps, though I am sure I sounded more like a math text book than anything.

Ann

[DarkElfChilde]

I was wondering about the age difference in Tolkien's world...


But that confused me...wow...my head hurts. Let me read that 100 more times.


Blah, I hate that kind of math.


I went to this one site - rp site and not LoTR related - but it gave me a good idea of the age of elves...but good news and bad news. The bad news is, I forgot the link to that site, but the good news is, I saved the stuff on the elves.

Here's the ages:

Infants: 0-30
Children: 31-100
Adolescent: 101-164
Adult: 165-infinity.

To me, that's easy enough.

[Aewithen]

[Viv]

As a writer, I always avoid mentioning a ratio. As a reader, when I read somehting like "Floofiwen was 97 -- that's 17 in human years" I inevitably stop reading. Because, well, there is no correlation.

Elves have an entirely different developmental process. It isn't comparable to human development, especially not on a numerical ratio.

Certain things developed incrediby quickly in elves: their speech, their balance, etc. Within years after birth, those things were fully developed, even though the children were still physically very small. So you'd see this thing-that-looks-like-a-two-year-old who can climb trees like a monkey and hold fairly sophisticated conversations. In other words nothing like a two-year-old human.

Misrepresentation of elves as simply very pretty humans is one canon point that really gets my goat. Elves aren't human. At all. They are wholly different and should always come across that way in fic (so long as the author is writing Tolkien based fic).

I think the thing to keep foremost in mind is ... how much would an elf care about his or her age? Ageless beings probably don't stress about their developmental stages the way we mortals do. No way would an elf, upon meeting another elf, ask "So, how old are you?"

[Aewithen]

I agree with all that, Viv. People often misrepresent Elves as very beautiful humans when they use a ratio. And they definitely aren't human. I only use a ratio to figure out where they might be developmentally, but comp in certain Elven attributes like you explained. It's kinda like the whole female writing a male's perspective. I don't know how the male mind works, but I do have insight. I've never really had much exposure to children, so I wouldn't even have a base on how to start writing a relatively young Elf.

A good point you make is that Elves wouldn't care about age, being the "ageless beings" they are. And I suppose that is important to consider, especially if you are making a point of age in the story. I've done that in my story, but only at the end and in my notes so that people may get an idea of where I came from in my writing. The only ages that anyone would really be safe alluding to (not specifically stating) would be 50 or 100, especially if they are writing some type of coming of age story. Or something having to deal with becoming full-grown.

Definitely good things to think about.

[Viv]