The elves who came to Helm's Deep to relieve the forces of Rohan were a bunch of weenies who just wanted to jump the line to Valinor, there I said it

• Lothlórien sent a contingent of brave elves to aid their ancient allies in Rohan in their hour of need.
• Or — and I need you to hear me out — some elves don't care for boats.
• All I'm saying is an arrow to the neck also gets you to Valinor.  

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, which means one thing and one thing only: a bunch of your friends are re-watching The Lord of the Rings.

The origins of this tradition are unclear, but the trend is incontrovertible. Ignoring the peculiarities spawned by the Amazon show, every December sees an annual peak of interest in streaming The Lord of the Rings.

Perhaps it's the memory of the December theatrical releases, perhaps it's all the seasonal elf-talk, perhaps it's the canonical reality that the Fellowship set out from Rivendell on December 26, or perhaps it's one of the only corridors of the year where you can get twelve consecutive hours to watch the series. The why is not the issue here.

What matters is that we need to talk about the Elves who came to the aid of Rohan at the Battle of Helm's Deep, and why they may have unlocked the first #travelhack ever.

Here's what the elves want you to believe

The arrival of a regiment of elves to assist in the defense of the Hornburg fortress at Helm's Deep is an invention of the adaptations, and no such force appears in the original works by J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the Peter Jackson adaptation, Rohan has retreated to the relative safety of Helm's Deep, a secured mountain fortress deep in the White Mountains.

"I bring word from Lord Elrond of Rivendell. An Alliance once existed between Elves and Men. Long ago, we fought and died together. We come to honor that allegiance," said Haldir. Aragorn accepts the offer, welcomes him, and Haldir says, "We are proud to fight alongside Men once more."

This regiment stands shoulder to shoulder with their allies among the forces of Rohan, serving as not just an essential ranged combat force but also one waiting on the walls to bear the initial brunt of the assault of Isengard. By all appearances, they valiantly perish, and little to no remnant is seen of them in the aftermath of the battle. It's a noble sacrifice, underscoring an ancient alliance and the necessity of the age in which the West finds itself yet again.

Or so you thought!

That's a crock of coneys — they just wanted to skip boats

First, a brief summary of where elves are in March of 3019.

Namely, they're leaving town. They have been called by the Valar to leave Middle-earth to come back to Valinor. They're all rather tired, and so they're, en masse, hiking to the Grey Havens, getting on to boats, sailing the Sundering Sea to the Undying Lands, and then going about their business in Valinor. The journey is onerous and can have its perils, and it involves quite a bit of time sailing, both in actuality and in the metaphysical and metaphorical sense.

Second, a brief summary of the elves' life cycle. Here's a handy chart from Wikipedia:

Elves don't get sick and they don't die of old age, so there's no natural death for elves. One way for elves to get to paradise in Valinor was to ride a boat there. Elves can die by violent acts, though, and often did in their generations-long campaign against Melkor and his various lieutenants. When elves die in battle, they pass to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor, where they wait for a period of time, cleansing themselves. Elves are judged, and those who have rebelled against the Valar or done heinous deeds will be indefinitely detained there, while those who lived well and sacrificed much can be re-incarnated into an identical body. In Valinor! The very place they rode boats to!

Do you see what's happening here?

Hear me out: What if elves get seasick

So let's say you're one of the elves who is weary of Middle-earth but also gets seasick on long trips.

You hear there's some suicidal horse enthusiast who's backing himself into a corner right between the anvil of the White Mountains and the hammer of Isengard. Your pothead friend Mithrandir is pretty stressed about the whole situation. Now, you've always wanted to vacation in the Halls of Mandos, and you could set yourself up for a pretty solid layover with a quick orcish arrow to the neck.

"Oh, but come on," you say. "For one who is so long-lived to sacrifice their very life is an unspeakable tragedy, the closing of not one book but a library of Middle-Earth," you say.

Obviously. We're all watching Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, too. Do you think I haven't contemplated the tragedy of immortality?

But don't be so naive, or as Fëanor would spell it, naïve.

That ignores the reality of the Elven situation in Middle Earth in the waning days of the Third Age. Namely, we're talking about a civilizational going-out-of-business sale, a society that has given its two weeks' notice, and where only a few are going to stick around to shut the lights off and make sure the liquidators can take hold of the stock.

Every one of the elves in Middle Earth is actively bailing out. The ones who aren't are essentially hanging around because if they bail now, the new tenant won't be able to handle the Isildur's Bane problem and might even find out about the Balrog infestation. That screams a land-title lawsuit if you don't pitch in on the amelioration.

Yes, beyond their inherent interest in the health of Middle Earth, from an Elvish perspective, much of the events of The Lord of the Rings are little more than a last-ditch effort to ensure Círdan the Shipwright will be able to recover the Elves' security deposit from Tom Bombadil before sailing off their new home in Valinor.

So, if Haldir of Lórien wasn't leaving already, he and his crew would be leaving soon. Why bother waiting in line for some boats when you're one Uruk-hai scimitar away from an Elvish TSA Pre-Check?

Brave? Sort of, but in the same way that a skip-lagger is. Selfless? Hardly.

Clever? Absolutely.