Not All Elves Were the Same: The Divided Peoples of Middle-earth - Lord of The Rings Explained

[00:00:00]When people say the elves in Lord of the Rings, they usually mean tall, graceful, a bit sad, lives in the woods, and probably singing. And sure, Legolas and Galadriel and Elrond all technically fit under that umbrella, but here's the thing nobody tells you. Those three don't actually belong to the same culture. Not loosely different like regional accents, but genuinely structurally different. Different founding migrations, different languages, different histories of who did and didn't commit war crimes against each other roughly 6,000 years ago.

[00:00:37]There isn't one kind of elf in this legendarium. There are at least four major branches, several sub-branches, and an entire group that refused to participate in any of this, and mostly got left out of the books entirely. And one specific historical grudge, a language ban [music] enforced for centuries. That's the reason Galadriel speaks the way she does in the movies instead of the way Elrond does.

[00:01:04]So, let's dive right in.

[00:01:08]>> [music] >> Before we get into the video, if you enjoy the content, please subscribe, as it really helps smaller channels like this one. [music] Thank you.

[00:01:23]Part one, Children of Ilúvatar and the split [music] at Cuiviénen.

[00:01:29]Before we get into clans and sub-clans, it's worth being precise about one foundational [music] point. Elves and men are both specifically the children of Ilúvatar, made directly by Eru Ilúvatar himself without the Valar acting as intermediaries.

[00:01:46]That's different from how dwarves, shaped by the Vala Aulë, or Ents came to exist. The biggest difference that separates the man and the elves is their soul. A man's soul is described as a visitor to Arda, >> [music] >> passing beyond it after a short time. An elf's soul, the fëa, is bound to Arda forever. And that's the real mechanical reason elves are effectively immortal within the world, and it's why Aman, the Undying Lands, was their natural home, while Middle-earth, with its short seasons and mortality, belonged to men.

[00:02:21]Before there's sun or moon in this world, before men, before basically anything, the elves wake up at a place called Cuiviénen, water of awakening, under starlight only. They call themselves collectively the Quendi, those who speak with voices, because when they first explored the world, they discovered that they were the only creatures who spoke at all. Not long after waking, the elves are found by the Vala Oromë, who invites them to leave Middle-earth entirely and journey west to Aman to live in the presence of the Valar. This invitation is the single event that splits the entire species permanently, and not everyone [music] says yes.

[00:03:06]By most accounts, roughly 2/3 of the elves accept and set out.

[00:03:11]A full third refuse outright, including, tellingly, the entire first generation of elves to awaken.

[00:03:19]Part two, Eldar and Avari, those who went and those who said no.

[00:03:25]Every elf who set out on that westward march >> [music] >> gets a new name, Eldar, the people of the stars.

[00:03:32]Those who refused the summons entirely are the Avari, the refusers, also called the unwilling. And here's a detail worth mentioning because it complicates the light elves good and dark elves lesser reading that people default to. The Avari didn't see themselves as inferior at all.

[00:03:51]>> [music] >> If anything, they considered the Eldar to be deserters and thought of themselves as the true unbroken continuation of the Quendi. Their descendants eventually split into their own tribes, most bearing names directly derived from Quendi itself. It's also worth noting the Avari weren't static.

[00:04:09]Over the following millennia, some of them or their descendants >> [music] >> migrated west anyway, with some elves even making it as far as Beleriand.

[00:04:19]Part three, Calaquendi and Moriquendi.

[00:04:24]Above the clan structure sits a second cross-cutting classification, Calaquendi, elves of the light, those who behold the light of the two trees of Valinor, versus Moriquendi, elves of the dark, everyone who never saw that light, whether by refusal or by turning back mid-journey, or simply by never crossing the sea.

[00:04:46]This is not a [music] neutral, purely geographically the way it can sound. The elves who saw the light of the trees in Valinor were blessed with wisdom, power, and skill.

[00:04:58]>> [music] >> The terms also carried a real moral weight in universe, verging on outright insult. And the Calaquendi, worth remembering, are also the ones who wrote most of the surviving histories. So, the framing comes with built-in bias.

[00:05:13]There's a genuinely biting example of this in the text. Curufin, one of the sons of Fëanor, an older and prince and by definition Calaquendi, mocks the mighty King Thingol by sneering that the sons of Finarfin shouldn't run hither and thither to this dark elf in his caves. [music] It's an insult, plain and simple.

[00:05:33]Thingol himself is counted among the Calaquendi, having seen the light of the trees, despite ruling over a largely Moriquendi people. So, technically, about light exposure. In practice, frequently used as a slur.

[00:05:47]Both things are true at once.

[00:05:51]Part four, the three clans of the great journey.

[00:05:56]Of the elves who accepted Oromë's summons, the migration splits into three named clans. The Vanyar, the smallest clan. The name means fair and primarily in the sense of pale [music] with beautiful arising as a secondary sense later.

[00:06:12]A reference to the predominance of golden blonde hair among them. They complete the full journey to Aman and essentially never come back. There's no Vanyar character anywhere in the Lord of the Rings and they're pure backstory as far as the third age goes. The Noldor, the name means wise or learned.

[00:06:30]Sometimes called the deep elves and genuinely fun trivia here. In Tolkien's earlier writings, before he settled on final terminology, he called them the gnomes. Nothing to do with the type of gnomes we're familiar with. It's from the Greek root for knowledge, gnosis.

[00:06:46]Reflecting their skill as loremasters and artificers. Tolkien dropped the term later, understandably, once it started colliding with unrelated fantasy tropes.

[00:06:56]This is Galadriel's clan and Fëanor's, [music] the one who forges the Silmarils and whose kinslaying of Teleri elves at Alqualondë and stealing their ships to chase Morgoth back to Middle-earth is the single most consequential atrocity of the entire first age. The Noldor's mass exile back to Middle-earth after that event is why there are still Noldor elves around third age at all, Galadriel among them, one of the few first age-born elves still walking around by the time Frodo shows up. And we have [music] the Teleri, the largest clan and also called the Lindar, the singers, reportedly because they sang before they even developed speech. Oromë is said to have found them bathing and singing near a waterfall. They're also called the High Most because on the March West, they're always at the rear of the column. A detail that turns out to matter because it's exactly [music] why they fracture into the most subgroups of any clan on the way.

[00:07:57]Part five, the Teleri scatter where most of your favorite elves actually come from.

[00:08:06]This is the messy part, so let's go slow.

[00:08:09]Being at the rear of the March, the Teleri kept losing people the whole way.

[00:08:14]The first major loss, one of their own, Lenwë, refused to attempt the Misty Mountains, which were far more intimidating at the time than in the Third Age. Those who followed him became the Nandor, those who turned back.

[00:08:28]And instead of turning east, they turned south down the Anduin. Lenwë's son led a further westward push of his own into the region later known as Ossiriand. And here's a funny piece of trivia. His name was Denethor, not that Denethor. No relation to the steward of Gondor at all, just an unrelated character several thousand years later who happens to share the name. First Denethor was killed in the first battle of Beleriand, and the survivors of his people became the Laiquendi, the green elves, named for the camouflage clothing that let them blend into Ossiriand's woodlands.

[00:09:07]Further along, the main body of Teleri reached the shores of the sea, where the Vanyar and Noldor had already been ferried across to Aman by the Vala, Ulmo.

[00:09:17]But, the Teleri's own leader, Elwë, later known as Thingol, vanished, enchanted, and lost for years in the presence of Melian, >> [music] >> a Maia who'd become his queen. Some of the Teleri who'd reached the coast stayed behind to search for their missing king rather than cross the sea.

[00:09:34]Others crowned Elwë's brother, Olwë, in his place and they waited on the shore for Ulmo to return and ferry them across. Out of that scattering come these specific [music] subgroups that eventually get lumped together as Sindar, Grey Elves. Though it's worth being precise that Sindar wasn't even a name they used for themselves at first. They had no need of one being the only Elves in that part of Beleriand for a long time. The name only gets applied millennia later when Noldor exiles return to Beleriand and start using it as a catchall.

[00:10:09]The actual original subgroups were the Eglath, the Forsaken.

[00:10:13]Those who stayed on the coast searching for Thingol and never made the crossing, later settling in Doriath under his eventual rule.

[00:10:21]The Falathrim, those of the Maia Ossë persuaded to stay on the coast [music] of Falas rather than cross because they'd grown to love the shore too much.

[00:10:31]Círdan, the Shipwright, still alive and running the Grey Havens by the Third Age. The one who ferries Frodo, Bilbo, and Gandalf west at the very end of Return of the King, he comes from this group. The Mithrim, the Grey Folk, those who migrated further north into cooler, mister country and took to wearing grey to blend into the landscape. These are reportedly the first Elves the returning Noldor exiles actually [music] encountered in Beleriand, which is likely why Sindar, Grey Elves, ended up being generalized as the name for the whole group.

[00:11:04]The Sindar get classified explicitly as Middle Elves, not the high, noble Elder of Aman, but also not simply Dark Elves either. Their king had seen the light [music] of the Trees and their queen, Melian, was herself of Aman's own order of being.

[00:11:20]And the Sindar stand in the middle of both geographically and spiritually, connected to that light through the rulers without ever personally crossing the sea to see it.

[00:11:31]Part six, First Age mixing, where Gondolin and Rivendell come from.

[00:11:38]Once the exiled Noldor returned to Beleriand, the previously splintering pattern reverses. Groups start mixing rather than dividing further. Gondolin's people, the Gondolindrim, are a straightforward Sindar and Noldor mixture. And that same blending pattern is exactly why later Noldor and Sindar strongholds like Rivendell read as culturally unified rather than two separate camps living side by side.

[00:12:05]After the sinking of Beleriand at the end of the First Age, more mixing follows as displaced elves migrate east.

[00:12:12]A majority of Noldor and some Sindar settle around the newly formed Gulf of Lune by Ossiriand, [music] which in the Second Age became Lindon. Look, I I know it's confusing. Among them Círdan, Celeborn, and Galadriel, the Noldorin High King Gil-galad, and Elrond. Many of these groups then move further east still, merging with the Nandor who had already settled in the Vales of Anduin, the Silvan Elves or Wood Elves, among whom there were at this point even some Avari as well.

[00:12:46]Part seven. Mirkwood and Lothlórien.

[00:12:51]Two specific Elven peoples come out of that reunion, and they're the ones that matter for anyone who's only watched the films. The Elves of Mirkwood, alongside the existing Silvan population, Oropher, Thranduil's father, and Legolas's grandfather, brought a group of Sindar into Mirkwood the Great, and took the local throne. The twist? Rather than imposing Sindarin culture on the Silvan people, Oropher's people became almost entirely assimilated into Silvan culture and language instead. That's the actual mechanical reason Legolas can be accurately described at different points as Sindar, as Sylvan, as a Wood-elf, and as Moriquendi, all at once, and all correctly.

[00:13:34]The Galadhrim of Lothlórien, the tree people, the Sylvan population on the eastern side of the Anduin, over the second and third ages, Noldor and Sindar came through Moria's tunnels and settled among them. And much like Mirkwood, they took a Sindarin king, Amdír.

[00:13:50]After Amdír's son, Amroth, was lost, the tragedy tied to Nimrodel, rule of Galadhrim passed to Celeborn and Galadriel, a Sindar Noldor pairing rather than Amdír's own bloodline continuing.

[00:14:05]When Eregion fell, another wave of Noldor escaped through Moria and took shelter in Lothlórien, shifting the Galadhrim's makeup once more.

[00:14:17]Part eight, language as a grudge. Why Galadriel and Elrond don't quite speak the same way.

[00:14:25]Favorite piece of trivia in whole script. After the Noldor's Kinslaying at Alqualondë, Thingol, ruling in Doriath, is horrified enough to enact a formal ban. Quenya, the Noldor's own high tongue, [music] is forbidden in his kingdom. Sindarin, the everyday language of his own Teleri descended people, becomes the practical language of elves in Middle-earth going forward. While Quenya survives mostly as ceremonial and liturgical, the way Latin got used in later human history, names, poetry, formal inscription, not conversation.

[00:15:00]That's why, by the Third Age, Quenya shows up [music] mostly in names and set piece poetry.

[00:15:06]Everyday Elvish dialogue in Rivendell and Lothlórien leans Sindarin. The linguistic fallout of one specific [music] massacre, enforced by one specific king, still shaping how elves talked to each other thousands of years later.

[00:15:22]Part nine, a few loose threads on what dying even means for an elf.

[00:15:29]Circling back to part one's point about the fair being bound to Arda. When an elf is killed in battle or dies of grief, their spirit goes to the halls of Mandos in Aman rather than simply ending. Some, not all, and Tolkien stays vague on the mechanism, are eventually re-embodied and sent back to Middle-earth. Glorfindel, the elf lord we talked about when it came to erasing him from the movies in the Fellowship script, is the textbook example. Killed fighting a Balrog in the first age, later walking around Rivendell in the third. And then there's the separate, stranger category, the half-elven.

[00:16:08]Elrond and his brother Elros and their ancestors before them, who aren't a type of elf so much as a one-time-only loophole. Individuals of mixed elf and man descent personally granted a choice of which fate to share.

[00:16:24]Elrond chooses elfkind and Elros [music] chooses to be counted among men and becomes the first king of Numenor. Same parents, same household, permanently different [music] species by the end of it.

[00:16:37]So next time someone says the elves like it's one homogeneous group, they're not entirely wrong. They're all Quendi, descended from the same handful of people, people, [music] elves, who woke up under starlight at Cuiviénen. But by the time you get to Rivendell or or Lothlórien or the Grey Havens, you're looking at the tail end of about a 5,000, 6,000-year-old split and re-splice. Still visible in who rules over whom, what language gets spoken in which house, and which first age grudges are quietly still being honored without anyone in the room saying so out loud.

[00:17:16]Anyway, that's the elves. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one.