The reason Legolas can see that far is because the curvature of Earth doesn’t exist for elves. It is the same reason they can sail off into the Undying Lands without circling back around.
If you get 50m above the ground and have nothing in the way, you can see 5 leagues away as well. Good luck counting individual people from that distance though. The anime eyes are a necessity
That, or he’s got absolutely bonkers retinas that have truly incredible sensory density, and an absurdly developed visual cortex to support it.
Argument basis: DSLRs. Compare the detail you can extract from a 1MP sensor to a 100MP sensor, shooting through the same optical setup at the same target.
I think the pupil size calculation is based on defraction, so it doesn’t matter how dense your retina is, if your pupils are smaller than that you still wont see enough detail. This is one of the reasons why we keep building bigger telescopes and especially telescope arrays. The bigger the effective apeture, the finer the detail it can resolve.
no, that’s not why. it’s because elves can just see better. it’s the same reason they can walk on top of snow. they are slightly outside the laws that apply to ordinary humans. even aragorn is a hair over the line.
the world was flat until numenor made war on the undying lands. at that point, numenor sank and the world was made round and the undying lands were placed somehow outside them, so that elves could still sail west along the straight way and get there, but everyone else just sailed west around the globe.
later, tolkien changed his mind about a lot of this and played with it, trying to turn it into an always roundworld (scientifically accurate myth was his goal at this point) but couldnt really figure out how it’d work and he was old and then he died
It’s neither, it’s the Will of Eru Illuvatar that determines whether you can travel the Straight Road or not. Ælfwine travelled the Straight Road and landed at Tol Eressëa in 869AD after fleeing the Danes, and he was a Man, not an Elf.
The reason Legolas can see that far is because the curvature of Earth doesn’t exist for elves. It is the same reason they can sail off into the Undying Lands without circling back around.
If you get 50m above the ground and have nothing in the way, you can see 5 leagues away as well. Good luck counting individual people from that distance though. The anime eyes are a necessity
That, or he’s got absolutely bonkers retinas that have truly incredible sensory density, and an absurdly developed visual cortex to support it.
Argument basis: DSLRs. Compare the detail you can extract from a 1MP sensor to a 100MP sensor, shooting through the same optical setup at the same target.
I think the pupil size calculation is based on defraction, so it doesn’t matter how dense your retina is, if your pupils are smaller than that you still wont see enough detail. This is one of the reasons why we keep building bigger telescopes and especially telescope arrays. The bigger the effective apeture, the finer the detail it can resolve.
no, that’s not why. it’s because elves can just see better. it’s the same reason they can walk on top of snow. they are slightly outside the laws that apply to ordinary humans. even aragorn is a hair over the line.
You mean the curvature of middle earth, right? RIGHT?!
Middle Earth is canonically our Earth, in the past
Didn’t Middle Earth lore say the Earth was flat, but was made spherical later? Had that happened by then?
the world was flat until numenor made war on the undying lands. at that point, numenor sank and the world was made round and the undying lands were placed somehow outside them, so that elves could still sail west along the straight way and get there, but everyone else just sailed west around the globe.
later, tolkien changed his mind about a lot of this and played with it, trying to turn it into an always roundworld (scientifically accurate myth was his goal at this point) but couldnt really figure out how it’d work and he was old and then he died
Yes, but it’s not spherical for the elves, just the other races, which is why elven boats can sail to the undying lands, but human boats can’t.
Wait, is it the boat that ignores the spherical attribute or the entity that commands the boat?
Can an elf sail to the undying lands commanding a human built vessel?
I think you have to be an elf building a ship and convince each plank individually that the world is flat
It’s neither, it’s the Will of Eru Illuvatar that determines whether you can travel the Straight Road or not. Ælfwine travelled the Straight Road and landed at Tol Eressëa in 869AD after fleeing the Danes, and he was a Man, not an Elf.
Gimli and Frodo both also were able to sail to the undying lands
Yeah but Ælfwine got there by accident, and wasn’t escorted by elves.