Void Elf Quotes

With the logic o f Real-as-impossible you h ave this notion of the unattainable object - the l ogic of desire, whe r e desire is structured around a pr imordial void. I would argue that the no tion of drive that i s present here c annot be read in these transcendentalist term s : that is to s ay, i n terms of an a priori loss where empiric a l obje cts never coincide with das Ding, the Thing. The vulgar example that I wo uld give here is the following. Let us s ay you are in love with a woma n . and that y o u a r e obsessed wi t h her vagin a . You do all the p o s ­ sible things : y o u p enetrate it, ki s s it, whatever - i t' s your problem; I won ' t go into tha t . Now, from a trans c endental­ ist perspective the idea is that this is a typical illusi o n : you think the vagina is the Thing itself, but really it's not, and you should accept the gap between the void o f the Thing and the contingent object filling it up. But when you are in such an intense s exual love relationship, I don ' t think the idea can be that the vagina is j ust an ersatz for the impo s s ibl e Thing. N o, I think that it is this p arti cul a r object, but that this obj ect is strangely split. There is a s elf- distance - you know it is the vagi n a , but you get never e n ough - the split is within the object itself The split is no t b etween the e mpirica l reality and the impossible Thing. No, it is rather that the vagina is both itself and, at the s ame time, something e l s e

Strange are the ways of Men, Legolas! Here they have one of the marvels of the Northern World, and what do they say of it? Caves, they say! Caves! Holes to fly to in time of war, to store fodder in! My good Legolas, do you know that the caverns of Helm’s Deep are vast and beautiful? There would be an endless pilgrimage of Dwarves, merely to gaze at them, if such things were known to be. Aye indeed, they would pay pure gold for a brief glance!’ ‘And I would give gold to be excused,’ said Legolas; ‘and double to be let out, if I strayed in!’ ‘You have not seen, so I forgive your jest,’ said Gimli. ‘But you speak like a fool. Do you think those halls are fair, where your King dwells under the hill in Mirkwood, and Dwarves helped in their making long ago? They are but hovels compared with the caverns I have seen here: immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools, as fair as Kheled-zâram in the starlight. ‘And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities. such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come. And plink! a silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea. Then evening comes: they fade and twinkle out; the torches pass on into another chamber and another dream. There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains’ heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm’s Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them.’ ‘Then I will wish you this fortune for your comfort, Gimli,’ said the Elf, ‘that you may come safe from war and return to see them again. But do not tell all your kindred! There seems little left for them to do, from your account. Maybe the men of this land are wise to say little: one family of busy dwarves with hammer and chisel might mar more than they made.’ ‘No, you do not understand,’ said Gimli. ‘No dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness. None of Durin’s race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the spring-time for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap – a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day – so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock. And lights, Legolas! We should make lights, such lamps as once shone in Khazaddûm; and when we wished we would drive away the night that has lain there since the hills were made; and when we desired rest, we would let the night return.