#can’t wait to be reminded of a single line from some unpublished draft that explains it

[domini-porter]

can’t sleep because I am once again obsessively wondering how there were so many elves in Aman when they started from a total of 144 elves—72 breeding pairs, assuming 100% gender parity and exclusive heteronormativity and no problems conceiving or producing young—and also the elves are monogamous, bear children extremely early in their lifespans, and average what, two kids? three? (not including outliers like Fëanor’s meathead sons) and just sort of chill forever after that; that’s maybe reaching replacement levels (they’re immortal, yes, but they get mowed down in wars, like, all the time and then hang out on a magic island with the god of death waiting to respawn at some point?) but tens of thousands of elves? after like six wars, including one against the devil himself??? especially the Vanyar, of whom there were initially seven monogamous breeding pairs and they were huge on racial purity. again: yes elves live forever(ish) but 99.5% of it does not involve making more elves. and even if the math maths, it seems like there haven’t been any elf kids for a long time, because everyone stopped fucking like 4000 years ago??? like, I’m fine with a child-free society and I know the Age of the Elves is diminishing and soon will come the Age of Man but it bothers me so much