[ SECRET POST #3405 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3405 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #487.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - random picture of a dog ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. http://i.imgur.com/Y1paGtK.png

[silverr]

I've heard this idea tossed around before, and I agree. Within the context of a darker fantasy I can see this type of mutilation happening to ensure permanent ostracism for the most severe crimes.

[(Anonymous)]

not in this fandom, but I saw a dark-fic for Biker Mice from Mars [of all things] that had that occur [if memory serves, it was done to Vinnie, of all people] I'll be damned if I remember the title tho. I want to say something Justice

[(Anonymous)]

That's a cool idea tbh. Because...wait, this suddenly makes me wonder - since elves are immortal, wouldn't it be feasible for them to very slowly grow back amputated body parts (like ears) over time, like a gecko? IDK it just seems like the sort of thing that would be REALLY helpful or even necessary for an immortal species, since you'd expect the vast majority of them to get mutilated in accidents, not to mention violence, at SOME point in their thousands of years of life, it just seems like after several thousand years you'd wind up with a race chock full of awfully battered and disfigured people if they didn't have powers of regrowth. I assume Maedhros never regrew his hand but he died only something like 600 years after getting it cut off and also a hand is a lot more complicated than ears so...

and in this context, it could be like "you will have suffered adequate punishment for your crime and be accepted back into society after your ears grow back." Or cutting off larger portions that would take longer to grow back for the worst crimes and smaller ones for somewhat less severe ones...?

Or maybe regrowth is possible but only in Aman?

(loool Sorry for hijacking this secret OP)

[(Anonymous)]

OMG, gecko elves = my new headcanon. That rationale makes perfect sense - what are the ridiculously steep odds of going for thousands of years without ever *once* getting into a severe accident or attack that leaves you maimed or disabled? It's just really really unlikely now that I think of it.

[(Anonymous)]

Aaand now I've got a strong visual of Arwen doing a slow, deliberate gecko walk on the ceiling of someone's hotel room.

Thank you VERY much :-P

[(Anonymous)]

OP's secret is great but your ramblings on it are even better. I'd totally read a fic where this was theme.

[(Anonymous)]

I love worldbuilding stuff like this! Tolkien was fantastic at a lot of things when it came to his species' cultures, but IMO he missed a lot of opportunities for playing around with how their physical differences from humans would lead to cultural things that have no direct human equivalent. (Though I do love that he had the Sindarin word for "ear" be the same as the word for "leaf" because elf ears are shaped like leaves. I wish he had done more stuff like that.)

[(Anonymous)]

That screencap actually also makes me wonder if the part-human elves who can choose to become mortal, like Arwen and Elros, would wind up having their ear-tips kind of...start flaking off and become rounded after they made their choice. Sorry that's kind of gross but it popped into my head.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, isn't pulling out or shaving off a beard supposed to be like, the ultimate dishonor for dwarves? I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in the Hobbit book. It would make sense for elves to have something similar, but obviously just cutting off hair isn't much of a penalty for a species that lives for thousands of years.

[(Anonymous)]

I always felt like in fantasy, elves would look way less human than they can look in movies, like you wouldn't look at an elf and go "oh hot human with pointy ears" you'd be like "that is a completely different species." I always imagine them much more eerie and strangely proportioned.

[(Anonymous)]

I do too, I like the idea of elves being just clearly not human, not due to drastic physical differences like aliens in Star Trek or something, but having strange proportions, strange bone structure, a strange way of moving, strange hair texture, strange eyes, etc.

But I think that in this sort of situation it would be more symbolic than anything else. Like the above poster's comparison to dwarves' beards - a beardless dwarf is still clearly a dwarf, but a beard is kind of what defines a dwarf as a dwarf, is that makes any sense? It's kind of like the old outdated ideas about men, the idea that a castrated man is not really a man, that sort of thing.

[(Anonymous)]

ah yes yes i see!

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Some time look up Dungeons and Dragons Elves. They totally went that route with them.

Myself, I prefer to think that Tolkien Elves at least are very human-looking, but an idealised version that humans can never manage to reach, or if they ever had, it was only at the height of Númenor, and they have been going downhill ever since.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a thing in the Borrible books! They're not elves (they're like immortal feral children? Kind of?) But having their ears clipped when caught by the police is a constant threat and I think one of the villain borribles used it to punish those who disobeyed him.

[(Anonymous)]

IIRC, Chalotte threatened to do it to Spiff in Book 2, when she thought he had doublecrossed them.

[diet_poison]

Ooh, I really like this headcanon.

Is this for a particular canon with elves or just all elves in general?

[(Anonymous)]

OP

I had Tolkien elves in mind when I got the idea, since I'm not strongly familiar with any other canons' elves, but it definitely doesn't need to be restricted to just them.