dentists in Beleriand?

Posted on Saturday, 2002 June 01 by Anton

“Jane Galt” (Megan McArdle) remarks in passing that “our bodies aren’t really up to the strain of physical labor for our new, improved lifespans.” Which reminds me of a puzzler: In all those stories where a drug/virus confers immortality, what about wear on teeth? Do Tolkien’s Elves grow a new set every century or so, or are their teeth simply made of stronger stuff?

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2 Responses to dentists in Beleriand?

  1. Anton says:
    Wednesday, 2008 April 30 at 16:02

    Matt has to will his jaw to unclench and discovers as he does so that a long-loosening molar has finally let go. He reaches into the back of his mouth, tugging and twisting, and wrenches it out. His head fills briefly with pain, his mouth with an iron taste. He swallows blood and tongues the empty socket. He can’t quite feel the replacement tooth pushing out, but he knows it’s there. This particular tooth has regrown two or three times already [in two hundred years]. Dental replacement isn’t even part of his inadvertent immortality; it was one of the earliest genetic hacks he ever bought, and it hasn’t let him down yet.

    Ken MacLeod, Dark Light, chapter 11.

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  2. Anton says:
    Monday, 2016 September 05 at 00:52

    Elves probably stop bothering to eat after N ages. Maedhros survived being stapled to a cliff for years during which Melkor probably didn’t feed him.

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