#also theres thranduil and his dwarf-abducting magic-light forest feasts with white deer and concussion rivers

[sesamenom]

The elves of Lothlorien are absolutely analogous to wolves. Amdir, for one, is a possible Doriath survivor who brought a massive army to the Dagorlad and died in the charge. Amroth led a host of the Sindar in the War of Elves and Men, and later succeeded in besieging Angmar. Galadriel kinslayed on the side of the Teleri and led the Host over the Helcaraxe!

However, the elves of Third Age Lothlorien are more like vaguely-human-accustomed nature park wolves. They're still just as creepy and terrifying (Galadriel's whole Lady Of The Golden Wood sorceress legend is definitely A Thing, to the point where even neighboring kingdoms refuse to believe that she's actually pretty nice), plus the fact that they live smack dab in the middle of the crossroad between Moria, Dol Guldur, and Isengard, but the older Doriathrim have mostly figured out methods of communication that do not involve violence, and the younger generations are generally pretty welcoming to established friends. If you're a stranger, they don't seem that much different from regular wolves, but if you're a regular visitor of that particular nature park, they probably won't mind you pointing and staring a bit from the pathway, provided you aren't aggressive about it.

Modern fantasy seems to have shifted to a midpoint between Quendi and garden-gnome elves, with the "enlightened vegetarian" vibe. Personally, I am of the belief this is at least partially, if not mostly, due to the fact that superficial pop culture only really views the heavily selection-biased late-TA elves, where the really violent ones are dead, dead, and extremely extra dead, and the remaining ones have spent the past ten thousand years learning (mostly through trial and error, it seems) problem-solving methods that include zero kinslaying and minimal screaming.

In the context of the wolf-dog analogy in relation to Middle-Earth and the greater Legendarium, the YT and First Age elves are the wolves, fell and fey, with white fire in their eyes and blood on gleaming blades, who have slain great beasts of fire and iron and fear no Shadow. The kinslayers are even moreso these wild monsters of legend, coming unto a great city in the night and leaving only blood and embers in their wake, whose cruel servants steal away children in the night.

The Second Age elves have mellowed a bit, like wolves that have learned to exist in the same general region as humans. They are just as fierce, but they concern themselves mostly in their own matters, and keep to their long-established territories. When unbothered, they are willing to open dialogues of trade or diplomacy, but little could save the Enemy from the face of their wrath, lingering ever-present under the skin of the Exiles.

By the Third Age, all those inclined to war are long-dead, save the few most powerful of their kind. There are small pockets where those ancient elves still dwell, but they are reserved to the point of being near-mythical in some regions. Hobbits tell tales of the Elf they swear the great-aunt's fourth cousin once saw in the Old Forest in much the same way people argue whether the animal the neighbor's grandfather saw crossing a suburban yard was a wandering wolf or a coyote. The Rohirrim warn of the fey Lady of the Wood, who none, they say, have laid eyes upon and yet lived, and the people of Gondor sing of the mighty deeds of the Elves, lamenting that urban sprawl has diminished the strange woods in which the Elves once dwelt.

The few Elves who are not feared are the wisest and kindest of all, akin to a particularly friendly wolf who hunts alongside its spear-wielding allies, an ambassador of its kin. Being the most visible in the records of Men, they become the most well-remembered of elves as peaceful and generous, who more readily take up pens than swords, and who hunt for food more than sport. These records distort to the modern assumption of "enlightened vegetarians", while the seldom-encountered folk of Lorien and Mirkwood Sail and Fade away.

Peredhel are rare beyond measure, with less than ten true peredhel known to date. They are strange to both kinds, more frail than a true elf, far more powerful than a Man, and uniquely gifted in entirely new ways. There are some claimed "half-elves" who perhaps had some Numenorean heritage two thousand years ago and just happen to be unnaturally tall and sharp-eyed, but they can still be firmly categorized as Men, albeit of a unique appearance.

True half-elves, though, cannot be easily classed as either. They are like to wolfdogs of very recent ancestry, tall and powerful yet sleek, eyes just different enough to be uncanny. They are swift and strong, not truly hampered by physical possibility, but they are still bound to Arda, their bodies and spirits just as secure in Middle-Earth as they are in Aman. They do not Fade, but they still bear the weight of mortal weariness; they are suited for both worlds and none. Their eyes are bright with inhuman fire, shining with the force of the Sun and the cold of the Moon, but it is not the light of the Flame Imperishable behind them: it is something entirely their own. They are their own type of being: the Line of Luthien, the Peredhel, the Sons of Elrond.

Random story thought: What if a fantasy story where there's humans and elves, who are less like different nationalities and/or "human, but in a different font", but more like the difference between dogs and wolves? Like they resemble humans, but are very, very clearly not human. And half-elves, like wolfdogs, are known to be theoretically possible, but so improbable and rare that they might as well be a myth. Like everybody's school had that one kid who loves lying for attention who keeps insisting that they actually know somebody who's a real half-elf for real.

And in the extremely rare case where their friend of a friend who's "totally actually a real half-elf" even exists at all, 99 times out of 100, the aforementioned suspected hybrid is just a 100% full human who's unusually tall, beautiful and autistic. Something that can definitely fool someone who's never seen a real half-elf, and is willing to believe that this friend's mom actually for real fucked an elf (instead of getting hunted for sport, and possibly eaten, which is the more likely outcome of encountering elves in the wild). But it's almost always just a full human with vaguely 'elvish' features.

But once in a blue moon, there actually is a real half-elf, and once you've seen one, you won't mistake a full human for one of them again. They're gangly, not just tall but long-limbed in a way that humans are not, their speech is strangely composed as if they learned their first language as a second language, and their eyes are piercing, wild, inhuman eyes, with a gaze full of strange instinctive wisdom that humans were never meant to know. Secret elvish thoughts that even they, personally, wish they didn't have.

And it sinks in to you that elves, that are so alien to you, would also find this poor creature just as strange and unsettling as you do.