Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-26322120-20160123032212/@comment-26298013-20160129010636

...First awakened, Catfish. The Elves were envisioned and created long (As in, before Arda was created) before the Dwarves.

The Elves are Eru's Firstborn, they are almost the same as an Ainur. They have spirits of fire (See Feanor for the extreme case) like the Ainur, kindled by the Flame of Iluvatar (I forget the name, so I'm going to refer to it as Iluvatar's Flame), they can be returned to life from the Halls of Mandos, like Olorin (Gandalf), a Maia.

This makes them physically tougher than Dwarves or Men, they tend to be stronger, they have magical power (Especially the Calaquendi---the original, Tree-Light-seeing Calaquendi [Galadriel, Glorfindel]---they are powerful almost on the scale of Elrond or Gandalf), and various physiological advantages (Sight, hearing, etc)

We do not, in fact, know Legolas' age. I've heard it estimated at 580 years, I've heard less, more, everything. He is, however, a Moriquendi, having never seen the light of Aman.

Elves are meant to be superior, to use a blunt word, to Men and Dwarves. They, however, do not change as much as the others and they are less common than Men or Dwarves. The advantages of the Dwarves and Men is that they will always return, claw their way back out of the dust---especially Men---and this is actually a discussion between Gimli and Legolas in the books. Elves, however, are not so common, and are almost dependent on the past, because the future, for them, is one where they do not exist. Elves do not take part in the final changing of the world. Nobody but Iluvatar knows where and what Elves will be and do at that time.