Curious to hear more. I do think that at least it seems like the almost complete lack of emotion of some of the Elves in the PJ movies obviously added to the ethereal perception. I.e. Legolas being completely unphased by many things like in the drinking competition with Gimli. It made them almost cyborg like at times.
So this is the comment I'm referring to:
It’s a good example of how PJ twisted the lore to such an extent that self-proclaimed Tolkien experts now seem to use the PJ films as their touchstone for what is true to lore, rather than Tolkien’s works.
Tolkien himself did not write Elves as these ethereal beings. They are very much physical. They love to party, to eat and drink. They are passionate and arrogant, vain and prideful, and aren’t above a bit of Kinslaying here and there. People like Galadriel are repeatedly described as desiring kingdoms of their own to rule. They have a strict social hierarchy with noble Lords who rule over the common people, and exist in a patriarchal society where Elrond had the power to forbid Arwen from marrying Aragorn until he met Elrond’s conditions. They value beauty to such an extent that they will fight wars over it.
But somehow the fandom has acquired this view of Elves as universally wise pacifist egalitarian vegetarians.
1) They love to party, to eat and drink is mostly accurate.
2) As for very much physical, it depends. There are many "unbodied elves." Elves who naturally fade or unnaturally fade, when their hroa (body) is consumed by their fea (spirit) and they essentially become ethereal, transparent or translucent beings, incapable of fully interacting with the material world. Most Elves who "die" choose to answer the calls of Mandos and become reincarnated in Aman with a new hroa. Some choose to ignore the call of Mandos and instead roam Middle Earth as free-spirits separated from their body.
This is explained in Volume 10 of the History of Middle Earth, entitled Morgoths ring.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edit...AGYzEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
3) As for being passionate and arrogant, vain and prideful and aren't above kingslaying. No, this is not the case for most elves.
This is only the case for a specific house, of a specific sub-group of Elves. Most specifically, the Noldorin house of Finwe had these tendencies. Feanor, the sons of Feanor, Galadriel, Fingolfin, Finarfin had some of these tendencies, with the most displayed by the House of Feanor. This is because the house of Finwe were extremely powerful, talented, and they knew it. The Noldorin were powerful, both physically and in spirit, had an indomitable will (they fought and defeated Morgoth's armies against all odds multiple times), and were the pre-eminent military power in Middle Earth and Aman. Even then, there were many Noldor who were not like this. Finrod is a great example, as is Aegnor.
The other two subgroups, the Teleri and Vanyar were incredibly nature bound and peaceful. For example, even during the height of the first age wars, the elves of Doriath choose to hide in their forests and caves and not participate and be protected by the girdle of Melian even as the world around them is slowly being destroyed. Elu Thingol is portrayed at first as arrogant and vainful but very quickly realizes the folly of his ways and opens up. The other main non-Noldor Elven kingdom is Nargothrond, which is a huge deep under-mountain cave, and again they barely leave and isolate themselves from the outside world until they finally realize that they must do something. To put into perspective, at Nirnaeth Arnoediad (Battle of Unnumbered tears), the Elven alliance lost by a needlethread. Had Thingol and Doriath committed their forces, Melkor would have been defeated. However, even then, the Sindarin's of Doriath preferred isolation.
Even then, by the third age (by the time LOTR happens), the Noldor have mellowed out. They have realized that their ways have led to their destruction and have mellowed down. They become reclusive, such as Lorien and most of the Noldor have left exile and return home to Aman, no longer fuelled by desires of adventure and power. The rest of the non-Aman elves, broad Sindarin and Avedui elves who never went to Aman live in solitude and enjoying life in the forests of Middle Earth.
4) There is no strict social hierarchy. Many powerful Elves exist well outside the hierarchy, in most ages. Even in the First and Second ages, you have elves like Eol who did their own thing. People like Finduilias, and Aredhel did their own thing and such and Turgon of Gondolin allowed them to. They were female and the high king of the Noldor did not tell them what to do. Finrod, Galadriel, constantly disobeyed their High King and people like Celeborn just left Doriath without caring and did what they wanted. The only two cases of patriarchy were Elu Thingol and Elrond, but both were exceptional circumstances, their daughters had fallen in love with mortals and would literally die, so the fathers stepped in trying to protect them when they could.
5) No, they did not just fight wars over "beauty". They fought wars over the last three pieces of what remained of the two trees of valinor in the Silmarils, enchanted to completely entice most people into desiring it by the way it was built by Feanor. To reduce that to "beauty" is hilariously oversimplified. Imagine someone found a stick of god that could create life and change creation. And then people say, "these people are literally fighting over a stick."
By the 3rd age, the Elves were indeed incredibly pacifist peoples who did not care or bother with the broader geopolitics of Middle earth.
