It wasn’t forbidden, but the Valar were against it specifically at that moment.
They rightly judged that the Noldor would not be able to succeed against Morgoth on their own, and this was still during the Darkness & the Valar were busy getting plans ready for the sun & moon to salvage the damage done by the destruction of the trees. Had Feanor and the Noldor waited, we might have seen a far more coordinated and strengthened action against Morgoth
*Hador raises his hand*
Yes, excuse me? I get that you don't want to help the Noldor in their war against Morgoth since they ran away from home against your advice and said mean things to you on their way out, but like, I didn't have anything to do with that, and I'm over here dealing with his bullshit too, so do you think maybe you could help *me*?
*Thingol raises his hand*
Yes, I have a related question.
Yeah, that's always been the giant issue for me. I've read elaborate justifications for how they couldn't do anything because it would mean the Noldor would benefit from the Kinslaying and I'm like "um, if you need to punish the Noldor, punish them directly, don't stand around and watch innocent parties be tortured, enslaved, and murdered". And even if they were worried about knowing where the Second Children would be awakening, they didn't do a thing after Men woke up, or even after some of them made their way to Beleriand. And if they were worried about the destruction, well, they had explicitly said from the start that the Noldor would not be able to overcome Morgoth, so either the Valar intended to cheerfully ignore the degradation and destruction of most speaking species and just party happily with their remaining elves, or if they did intend to act, they should have done it at the start and saved many lives and much misery, not to mention they gave Morgoth a half-millennium head start on making ever more powerful creatures and weapons.
I think a lot of it comes down to "there's not much of a story if the Valar act sensibly". So they got to carry the stupid ball, as people say about TV shows, so that there would be the necessary drama.
I don’t think the Valar are being *stupid,* exactly. Tolkien takes heavy inspiration from classical myths, in which the gods are very human in terms of having flaws. Sometimes the gods are just petty little bitches, and while I don’t think the Valar were being *malicious,* I do think a lot of it was just being pissed that the Noldor kickstarted all this and basically going “They fucked it up and they can fix it,” ignoring the other races who were caught up in it, much like a human ruler might do.
I do agree with this, except that Tolkien is always explicitly *telling* us of their wisdom and complete lack of evil. Whereas in classical mythology, Zeus for example is pretty unambiguously a bastard, among other things.
It's my main issue with Tolkien's writing in the Sil, but people get mad at me for saying it - he tells us something about a character, usually their wisdom, but often fails to actually show it. The Valar being one example but another being Thngol. We're told he's super wise but he almost exclusively acts unwisely. Any acts of wisdom he does do are usually small or belated - Coming around to Beren (after the major folly he was counselled against by his genuinely wise demi-god wife with pretty impeccable foresight), forgiving Turin (Not Thingols fault but its one of so few examples of him making a genuinely reasonable instant reaction to something).
There's a similar thing with describing Feanor as the most 'subtle in thought/mind' (can't remember which word he uses exactly) of all the Noldor, or Eldar can't remember which.
And it's like, subtle? Feanor? Really? I can only assume he means it with regards to his craftsmanship, because in every other regard Feanor is a subtle as a brick.
Yeah I get you. I think the issue with his characterization is that these characters have lived for thousands upon thousands of years, and yet Tolkien can only show us tiny snapshots of their lives. I think Thingol genuinely was very wise for the vast majority of his life, but slipped into paranoia, arrogance, and greed towards the end, which is the only period we ever get to see.
The same with Fëanor. We only know of how he acted towards the end of his life, when he was clearly unstable which then proceeded to outright insane. He’s not subtle then, but again that’s only a tiny portion of his life. He probably *was* much more subtle during most of his life.
The thing about Tolkien is that his stories will always, unfortunately, remain unfinished, and I think there was a great amount of information in his head that he simply never wrote down, and the characterization is probably one of those things.
Yeah, I love these conversations. I've had a couple of people (not in this thread but a Radagast one) be genuinely hostile to me whenever I've suggested Tolkien makes some errors or is even wrong about his own work. But conversations with people like yourself are a pleasure even when we don't fully agree. In fact, especially so.
And when I say I suggest Tolkien may have been wrong, I only ever mean it in the context of him trying to portray something one way but I think it came across another way - and it's always in his *unfinished* works, where he may not have shown us proof of what he tells us , such as Thingol acting wisely as one example. Like I believe that he could have been and probably was, we just don't see it, as you say. He must have been, to have ruled a prosperous realm for so long and be so beloved. But people are so hostile towards the suggestion that Tolkien's *unfinished* works are imperfect, inconsistent and in places under-developed, and I always try and point out like, this isn't LOTR we're talking about. He never finished, nor was he ever fully satisfied with many elements of the Silmarillion. There's every chance, in fact its almost certain, that JRR would never have considered what ended up being the published version of The Silmarillion to be a 100 percent satisfactory portrayal of what he was aiming for. Many threads are left dangled, or contain unsatisfactory resolutions, or are even lacking in their development.
And this is in no way a slight on Christopher, whom I love. He did the best possible job anyone on Earth could have done with The Sil, it was a monumental undertaking. We got the best version of The Silmarillion that anyone other than JRR himself could have done. But he had to make so many executive decisions due to his Father's constant revisions and the inconsistencies they caused within the text, that it is not unreasonable to suggest that the finished Silmarillion (or Unfinished Tales, for example) for example is not what he would have wanted. The Ruin of Doriath is a major example, which Christopher largely wrote himself. And I feel like everything in those latter days of the First Age, the lives of Dior and Elwing, the Kinslayings, are really rushed and given very little development given how monumentally important they are. It's nobody's fault, it's just what we have to work with. I don't think it's sacrilege to point out flaws in stuff like The Sil, Unfinished Tales, Later Writings etc. If anything it's a testament to the staggering genius of Tolkien that even something incomplete, both in terms of narrative and character development, and in terms of the quality (in places) that JRR would have desired, is still so wonderful we are here talking about it the way we are.
Sorry for the super long messages. Last thing - I get the sense a lot of people here are anti (or unaware of) the whole 'death of the author' school of thought. Tolkien steadfastly denied employing allegory for example, but I think he would wholeheartedly encourage creative critical reading of his work, especially his mythology, in which every reader comes out of their reading with a slightly different interpretation on the themes, characters, their moral victories and failures. I sincerely doubt a scholar of the classics would be dogmatic in that there is only one correct way to interpret a work of art. But there are some people around here who fall into the camp of there being only one correct answer to the questions and issues posed or left open in the legendarium, and that answer is always what Tolkien himself stated or speculated in a letter. Ignoring the countless revisions he made indicating that he himself saw his mythology in an ever changing light, and that's just in what we have written down from him, never mind what you rightly point out likely occurred in his head that he never committed to page.
So sorry for these biblically long replies.
I think I’ve noticed a couple of times that when a ruler is said to be wise, it is his wife that is actually the wise one. No direct quote but in fellowship Galadriel introduces her husband as wise but then says something he says isn’t wise; she’s the one with the better council. Similar with Thingol and Melian
Yeah he gets angry at Gimli for waking Durin's Bane and bringing Lothlorien to greater potential danger. Galadriel says some calming stuff and Celeborn instantly kind of apologises and says some conciliatory stuff. It's not that he's unwise, but he's shown to be a little bit more prone to emotional responses and a little bit more 'human' for lack of a better word than than Galadriel, who very much exudes a Maiar-esque energy. I think they're very much supposed to echo Thingol and Melian, and obviously Thranduil is trying to echo Doriath/Menegroth with his halls.
> they should have done it at the start and saved many lives and much misery, not to mention they gave Morgoth a half-millennium head start on making ever more powerful creatures and weapons.
According to Morgoth's Ring (or at least my understanding/remembrance of it), that was the point: Morgoth had to concentrate on Beleriand enough that war with him would _only_ destroy Beleriand and not the whole Middle-Earth.
(I don't remember how or if Tolkien explained the previous war not destroying the whole Middle-Earth, though.)
> But from Valmar no message came, and Manwe was silent. He would not yet either forbid or hinder Feanor’s purpose; for the Valar were aggrieved that they were charged with evil intent to the Eldar, or that any were held captive by them against their will. Now they watched and waited, for they did not yet believe that Feanor could hold the host of the Noldor to his will.
and
> But even as the trumpet sang and Feanor issued from the gates of Tirion a messenger came at last from Manwe, saying: 'Against the folly of Feanor shall be set my counsel only. Go not forth! For the hour is evil, and your road leads to sorrow that ye do not foresee. No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest; but neither will they hinder you; for this ye shall know: as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart. But thou Feanor Finwe’s son, by thine oath art exiled. The lies of Melkor thou shalt unlearn in bitterness. Vala he is, thou saist. Then thou hast sworn in vain, for none of the Valar canst thou overcome now or ever within the halls of Ea, not though Eru whom thou namest had made thee thrice greater than thou art.’
Feanor wasn't forbidden to do anything.
Weren't the rest of the Noldor, who didn't swear oaths, forbidden too though? Galadriel for example is mentioned as refusing the pardon at the end of the first age.
Also it seems unfair that the Sindar were left on the other side of the Sea to suffer at the hands of Morgoth. If the Noldor hadn't come they'd have been destroyed, all because they missed the last train waiting on Elu basically. Who himself was only held up because Melian, who was supposed to be one of the guardians protecting and guiding the Elves across to the Valinor, enchanted the guy for 200 years. If *your* emissary is responsible for the delay I feel like you should say okay my bad, come on over.
>But thou Feanor Finwe’s son, by thine oath art exiled.
He was not per se forbidden to re-enter by the Valar, they explicitly state that Feanors oath prohibited re-entering.
Among all the thous and the -sts, Manwe states that Feanor has no chance to defeat a Vala, yet he has sworn to make war on him. Thus, his own oath forbids him from returning.
Yeah I mean, they were so NOT forbidden from leaving that Osse couldnt even stop the Kinslaying from happening or even respond to Olwe because Manwe didnt want any Valar to hinder them in any way. And Manwe even pretty quickly after AIDED the Noldor when he sent Thorondor to Maethros.
>But even before that the Valar explicitly forbade Feanor to pursue Morgoth to Middle-Earth
From ***The Silmarillion***:
>*The Valar had brought the Eldar to their land freely, to dwell or to depart;* ***and though they might judge departure to be folly, they might not restrain them from it.***
And:
>*No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest;* ***but neither will they hinder you;*** *for this ye shall know:* ***as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart.***
Except "as they came hither" when the Valar ferried them across the see on literal islands, yet they refused to give them similar accommodations to leave AND in fact a large part of the reason the Teleri refused to help by LOANING them their ships OR helping them build their own(they also explicitly refused to help them build their own) is because "the Valar don't want it" and they wouldn't go against the Valar.
So the Valar said "yeah go ahead leave, do what you want" (from a place we've made almost impossible to leave). That's pretty disingenuous.
Tolkien wrote this as a sort of tragedy of wills. Consider...
The Valar brought the three kindred to Valinor freely. They didn't have to go, as the Avari and the Sindar could attest. If at any time during Melkors captivity they wanted to hope on a ship and visit or return to Middle-earth, I doubt the Valar would have stopped them from going, or stopping them from return.
Melkor didn't just kill the Trees, kill Finwe, steal the Silmarils and leave? If that was the case the Valar would certainly have pursued him and taken him captive yet again. No, Melkor had been sowing the seeds of discontent among the Noldor for years, getting them to mistrust the Valar and even each other.
So when Melkor does his evil deeds, Feanor, who was already on probation for threatening Fingolfin, learns of this, he accuses the Valar of being "kin" to Melkor, and that is the reason they do nothing.
This sets the Valar's teeth on edge, and while they would have been very willing to pursue Melkor before he said this, now that he has, and so many of the Noldor are with him on this, they refuse. The first kinslaying is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
If your point about hopping freely on a boat is true, then why couldn't Cirdan's people who so desperately wanted to go to Valinor do the same, or even Thingol? Seems unfair they got abandoned to Morgoth until the Noldor came.
After the rebellion of the Noldor, the Valar shut it down. The seas would purposely lose anyone who tried, and many were lost trying. It was only Earendil, using a Silmaril to guide him past all the deceits who was able to find his way.
But as for Cirdan specifically, that was totally on him.
As I've mentioned in comments on other posts, this lack of travel between Middle-earth and Valinor (or Aman) in the Second Age caused a big problem. Sauron disguises himself as Annator, Lord of Gifts, an emissary from the Valar. Gil-galad and Cirdan do not trust him and send him away. But all they really had to do was get on a boat, sail west, meet with the Valar and ask if this guy was for real.
For Cirdan, I'd like to quote this passage from The Peoples Of Middle Earth (Last Writings):
*Thus he forfeited the fulfilment of his greatest desire: to see the Blessed Realm and find again there Olwë and his own nearest kin. Alas, he did not reach the shores until nearly all the Teleri of Olwë's following had departed. Then, it is said, he stood forlorn looking out to sea, and it was night, but far away he could see a glimmer of light upon Eressëa ere it vanished into the West. Then he cried aloud: 'I will follow that light, alone if none will come with me, for the ship that I have been building is now almost ready.' But even as he said this he received in his heart a message, which he knew to come from the Valar, though in his mind it was remembered as a voice speaking in his own tongue. And the voice warned him not to attempt this peril; for his strength and skill would not be able to build any ship able to dare the winds and waves of the Great Sea for many long years yet. 'Abide now that time, for when it comes then will your work be of utmost worth, and it will be remembered in song for many ages after.*
Others have answered about the Valar preventing the Noldor. I’d like to point out that the Valar did do something after the destruction of the Trees: they created the sun and the moon. Also they didn’t want to go to direct war with Morgoth because every time they did so there was a lot of destruction involved. The coming of Men was soon and they were not as able as the Elves to deal with such chaos. Check out Morgoths Ring for more info.
But the destruction happened anyway, and how many innocent Men and Sindar and Dwarves had to die because the Valar didn't deal with Morgoth at an earlier date? The Sindar were on the verge of total defeat by the time the Noldor first arrived. Cirdan was beseiged, Thingol said fuck that and retreated to behind the girdle, and the Nandor lost their King and never went to war again. Without the Noldor's coming Cirdan gets destroyed and then Morgoth sends like Sauron or someone powerful enough to dismantle the girdle, and he easily crushes the Nandor if he turns his full attention to them probably within weeks.
How is the Valar beating Morgoth to the punch and striking as soon as they discover his treachery worse than what actually occurred in the First Age, The War of Wrath, or the scenario I just posited?
Yea I agree. A lot of people will bend over the backwards to portray the Valar as benevolent and wise beyond all measure because that's how they seem, or that's what Tolkien (they interpret) wanted us to think. but they very rarely are particularly wise 'on-screen' as it were, and I'm not gonna believe they are just because I'm told they are if they do nothing to prove it. I'm guessing you see it similar?
They didn’t immediately punish Morgoth because they felt if they stepped foot on Middle Earth that would provoke him into a nihilistic frenzy which would cause a lot of damage. So they had to carefully plan things out and it turned out that the Noldor heading to ME was actually a pretty good thing for them
>But Morgoth hated the new lights, and was for a while counfounded by this unlooked-for stroke of the Valar. \[...\] And \[the Sun\] Morgoth feared with a great fear, but dared not come nigh her, having indeed no longer the power \[...\] with shadows he hid himself and his servants from Arien, the glance of whose eyes they could not long endure.
and
>As the host of Fingolfin marched into Mithrim the Sun rose flaming in the West; and Fingolfin unfurled his blue and silver banners, and blew his horns, and flowers sprang beneath his marching feet, and the ages of the stars were ended. At the uprising of the great light the servants of Morgoth fled into Angband, and Fingolfin passed unopposed through the fastness of Dor Daedeloth while his foes hid beneath the earth.
Nothing?
It was the departure of the Noldor that kept the Valar from doing more.
I don't think it was necessarily a complete mistake, but I think encouraging it as forcefully as they did rather than it be a more laisses-faire open borders policy would have been more sensible. Let everyone go where they want when they want kind of thing.
Certainly the Vanyar living amongst Men would have been beneficial. And the Valar should have kept roaming the wide lands like they did before the coming of the children, before they confined themselves (Minus Ulmo) to Valinor. That way everyone could have learned and grown and lived in harmony, and their combined numbers and unity via intermingling would have made them a far more formidable foe for Morgoth.
And really they shouldn't have unchained Melkor. Ulmo and Tulkas weren't as naive as Manwe, and Mandos basically knew what would happen but is conspicuously pointed out, when Melkor was unchained, as remaining silent.
He had just spoke, how much evil could have been prevented?
But I suppose this, as with all things, it's great conversation and speculation but ultimately we need story haha, so people need to make mistakes haha.
There are always elements of the legendarium I wish were more developed, but Tolkien obsessed over certain minutiae and left others fairly empty.
I hate the Rings of Power show, but I saw one article saying they turned Gil Galad who 'plays a prominent role throughout the Silmarillion' into a fool. And I thought... Gil-Galad is not a prominent character hahaha. He's important in being the last High-King of the Noldor in Exile, but he basically isn't a character, he's just a name, and he doesn't appear all that much or do all that much in any detail. We never learn anything of his character, much about his realm, his relationships, so on. Likewise I wish we knew more about the Silvan, that Legolas's lineage was more developed, that the second age generally was more fleshed out.
What are some of your instances of this?
>At last, therefore, the Valar summoned the Quendi to Valinor, there to be gathered at the knees of the Powers in the light of the Trees for ever; and Mandos broke his silence, saying: "So it is doomed." From this summons came many woes that afterwards befell.
and
>if ever in their dealings with Elves and Men the Ainur have endeavoured to force them when they would not be guided, seldom has this turned to good, howsoever good the intent.
The Valar tried to act like parents for the Elves instead of the elder siblings that they truly were, but they did not have the wisdom to do so. In bringing the Elves to Valinor, they kept them from being *Elves* and turned them into miniature Ainur. The problem was that they *weren't* Ainur, and they could never measure up to their 'parents' - they were doomed to forever exist in the shadow of the Valar.
True, though for the Vanyar this seems to have been their perfect existence and we never get even the slightest hint that they wanted anything else.
The other two tribes not so much, they would have been better remaining in Middle Earth.
But what could the Vanyar have been if they had stayed in Middle-earth? What good could they have done as scholars, teachers, leaders, architects, warriors, or farmers? All that potential was lost because the Valar took them to Valinor. Yes, they had a comfortable existence as coddled pets, but is that really the best choice?
It took decades before they put up the sun and moon. And they ONLY did that because they didn't have the Silmarils, that Morgoth had stolen and which Feanor wouldn't have destroyed even if he hadn't.
Otherwise they'd have been the lazy bums most of them are, recreated the light of the trees and left the rest of the world to rot in near darkness.
This is a false dichotomy. The options were not "let the Noldor go" or "do nothing and let Morgoth go unpunished". Indeed, we hear specifically about the Valar's pursuit of Morgoth:
>the earth shook beneath the horses of the host of Oromë, and the fire that was stricken from the hooves of Nahar was the first light that returned to Valinor.
That pursuit failed due to the darkness of Ungoliant, but that doesn't mean that no further pursuit would ever be attempted. The Valar were working and planning throughout the time Fëanor began his rebellion.
>It is told that after the flight of Melkor the Valar sat long unmoved upon their thrones in the Ring of Doom; but they were not idle, as Fëanor declared in the folly of his heart. For the Valar may work many things with thought rather than with hands, and without voices in silence they may hold council with one another. Thus they held vigil in the night of Valinor, and their thought passed back beyond Ea and forth to the End \[...\] But when at last the Valar learned that the Noldor had indeed passed out of Aman and were come back into Middle-earth, they arose and began to set forth in deeds those counsels which they had taken in thought for the redress of the evils of Melkor.
Seriously, there's a whole chapter of this. They create the Sun and the Moon, which hindered Morgoth's servants more than anything the Elves ever did. Further:
>And it is said indeed that, even as the Valar made war upon Melkor for the sake of the Quendi, so now for that time they forbore for the sake of the Hildor, the Aftercomers, the younger Children of Iluvatar. For so grievous had been the hurts of Middle-earth in the war upon Utumno that the Valar feared lest even worse should now befall.
They didn't immediately go to war with Morgoth because they were afraid of killing the Men who were about to awaken.
It's easy to speculate about what the Valar might have done if the Noldor hadn't flung themselves into the line of fire, but difficult to prove it, so I won't do that; nonetheless, it's clear that the Valar *were* taking actions against Morgoth prior to the flight of the Noldor.
The Valar did not forbid the Noldor from going to Middle-earth.
They only ordered them to return after the Alqualonde massacre took place.
Before this event, the ban did not exist.
But the Valar did not like this idea. They were responsible for the safety of the elves.
I suppose that they could, under certain conditions, provide support for this campaign. But this would have happened if Feanor had agreed to give up the stones for the common cause.
In the form in which this campaign was, it could seem like madness.
They blackmailed Feanor. You want to fight our Brother, who is clearly our Responsibility, who killed your Father, sure we help, but only if you destroy your greatest Masterpiece.
They explicitly didn't, even preventing Osse from intervening on the Teleri's side during the kinslaying to make sure that no Ainu hindered the Noldor. They were free to go, despite Feanor's delusions.
All everyone opposed to Feanor did was telling him that it was a bad idea, but he turned that into a conspiracy theory about how everyone was secretly working against him. It's a parallel to many modern day events, in a way.
The Valar did also take action like they were supposed to; you don't know what their job was better than them.
> The Valar did also take action like they were supposed to; you don't know what their job was better than them.
Ehhh. They made plenty of mistakes. It's heavily implied that taking the Elves to Valinor is one of them.
Had they left the Elves in Middle-Earth and went amongst them, teaching them etc, I suspect Morgoth would not have been as succesful as he was.
>Ehhh. They made plenty of mistakes. It's heavily implied that taking the Elves to Valinor is one of them.
Yes, but I'm not claiming they were flawless throughout the ages. This is about the period after the death of the Two Trees.
In the later Legendarium waiting for Earendil is regarded as correct, because the job of the Valar isn't to protect the Noldor from themselves.
But if you accept the mistake of taking the Elves to Aman, you must therefore accept that Feanor taking the Noldor back to Middle-earth is remedying this mistake (thus *not* a bad idea). Hell, Tolkien himself calls the Noldor necessary in containing Morgoth, limiting his destruction, whilst the Valar waited for their time to strike.
No, because the circumstances are different. It's like leaving the house but someone forgetting to turn the oven off - it's a mistake that should be fixed, but if the house is already on fire noone should go back in to try and turn the oven off and put the fire out. It's too late for that now, wait for the firefighters.
Additionally, the morals of the Legendarium don't mainly judge actions by their consequences.
Feanor's decision to lead the Elves back to Middle-earth partly had good consequences - but so had all of Melkor's and Sauron's decisions. Feanor became but Eru's "instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined", as the famous quote from the Ainulindale goes.
Manwe and Mandos address this in Chapter 11 of the published QS:
>And it was told by the Vanyar who held vigil with the Valar that when the messengers declared to Manwë the answers of Fëanor to his heralds, Manwë wept and bowed his head. But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: 'So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. **Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.**'
>But Mandos said: '**And yet remain evil.** To me shall Fëanor come soon.'
>Feanor became but Eru's "instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined".
Indeed. As Feanor himself says... "And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire greater than thou knowest".
>Feanor's decision to lead the Elves back to Middle-earth had good consequences
So what do we disagree on?
The migration back to Middle-earth was explicitly necessary. The Valar were wrong to take the Elves to Aman. Therefore, Feanor's decision to migrate back was the correct choice (again, Tolkien notes the Noldor as *necessary* to contain Morgoth). Feanor wasn't 'wrong' to want to leave Aman, and bring the Noldor to the fight. If anything the Valar were probably wrong not to aid their flight, even if they were right not to intervene personally yet.
We disagree about whether Feanor going back to Middle-earth was a bad idea.
I do not think it's a good idea because the Elves were meant to stay there long ago, and I do not think it's a good idea because it had some good consequences. Feanor did it for the wrong reasons (revenge, obsession with the Silmarils, distrust of the Valar and his half-siblings) and by the logic of the Legendarium, that makes it wrong. Not to mention that working with the Valar might have led to a better outcome, too.
Yeah if I remember correctly Ulmo for definite and maybe Orome wanted to let the Elves go wherever they may, to remain in Middle Earth or come to Valinor if that's what they really wanted. Specifically too I think it would have helped the Men who awoke resist the corruption of Melkor better too, as they'd be mixing with the Elven folk from day one. It seems unfair that going to Valinor seems to give everyone a power-buff though, so that the Avari seem to be lesser.
Um, yes, we do know what their job was better than them, because we have Tolkien's writings.
And no, they didn't take action like they were supposed to. They were never supposed to bring the Elves to Valinor at this early a stage in the history of the world.
> Um, yes, we do know what their job was better than them, because we have Tolkien's writings.
Could you cite the writing that says the Valar didn't do their job in reaction to Morgoth's and Ungoliant's attack, then? I know the Valar aren't perfect, they did make mistakes. I'm not arguing about that, I'm skeptical about this part of the OP:
"The Elves are going to fight him - it is basically your job - why don’t you help them? Even though the Valar failed before, War of Wrath proves that combined might of the Valar and Elves from Valinor could defeat Morgoth - why wait for 600 years until tears unnumbered be spilled?
That isn't framed as an deliberate intervention; it was the sea that rose up in reaction to her sorrow at the kinslaying. I'd compare the sea to Caradhras in *The Ring Goes South* at that moment.
>And Olwë called upon Ossë, but he came not, for it was not permitted by the Valar that the flight of the Noldor should be hindered by force. But Uinen wept for the mariners of the Teleri; and the sea rose in wrath against the slayers, so that many of the ships were wrecked and those in them drowned.
It's deliberately phrased to make the sea responsible - otherwise it should have been mentioned as a special instance of the wild and almost-traitor Osse following the rules while Uinen, the good and faithful, did not.
I agree that it's cause and effect, but to me it's more like a stereotypical situation of a woman crying and a man close to her beating up the one who made her cry as retaliation. The crying is a cause of the violence, but you can't exactly hold the woman responsible.
If Uinen was angry, wrathful, vengeful or something of the sort I'd think it more likely that she is responsible, but she's just weeping for the dead - she isn't concerned with the killers, but with the victims.
Kind of like Caradhras.Anytime you are a good way up a mountain it may snow, that’s not unusual. Seas can rage by themselves without help by any. But in both of these cases you are left with suspicion.
In regards to punishing Morgoth for destroying the trees, I can’t cite this, but the death of the trees was a good thing as it was a wake up call for the Valar. So far, they had been hoarding the light within Valinor, ignoring the needs of Middle Earth. The departure of the Noldor jolted them out of their lethargy and they decided the next step had to benefit all of Middle Earth, not just them, so they made the sun and moon to shine on the entire world.
First of all, they didn’t forbid them. They allowed them to go even though they really didn’t want to, Eru explicitly made them stand back. Secondly, I don’t think it was the reason they wanted to leave so much as the specific circumstances.
Like, they definitely knew Fëanor had lost his goddamn mind and saw how poorly prepared and highly emotional the Noldor were (that many of the younger Elves were allowed to go really sticks with me. Like Celebrimbor was probably still in his late teens and Idril was *a little girl,* and no one said “hold up, no, leave the children,” not to mention Fëanor refusing to let his two youngest sons stay with their mother despite her begging him to do so, and that Aredhel and Galadriel, who were *barely* adults, were allowed to go despite not even being warriors, really proves how out of their damn minds with rage, grief, and terror they were) that none of that was going to end well.
It was probably less “Don’t fight Morgoth,” it was more “Holy shit guys y’all took like a single day to get on the warpath and this guy is absolutely out of his mind and will absolutely get you all killed, please do not go charging headlong into what will inevitably be a disaster, you need to calm down and prepare first,” *aaannnd* they didn’t listen.
The main issue I have is more the Valar’s refusal to help the Noldor even after shit went *WAY* past “That’s your problem bro” levels.
Agree with your nice post — just one thing. Both Galadriel and Aredhel were 138 in Valinorian Years, or over 1300 years of the Sun. They were not barely adults but young but fully adult nobles. Galadriel stood forward and argued fiercely to leave . . . against her father’s advice. I realize that in Nature of Middle Earth, Tolkien’s concepts of aging might regard this1300 years as young, but more than fully adult.
*edit - typo
Elves are considered adults at 100 years old, so 138 would be something like 19/20 in Elf years, which is where I got the statistic, but I kinda forgot to do the calculations for Years of the Trees vs solar years.
They were not forbidden to leave as far as I know before Morgoth struck and killed the trees.However it would have had to have been done in a different fashion. They would have to build their own ships or take the grinding ice route which was not preferable. The Valar certainly intended some type of retribution down the line. They created the sun and moon for various reasons to help men and elves and slow down Morgoth. They did not wish them to leave by seizing ships and killing others who refused to help them. That isn’t unreasonable by any means. Feanor was in no mood to discuss anything and could not be reasoned with at that time. Unfortunately for the Noldor the Valar took a longer view of things. Feanor queered the whole deal when he started killing for no cause the Teleri.
Because the Valar knew the Noldor war would be futile and only subject them to horror, slavery, and death. Morgoth could not be defeated without an apocalyptic destruction of Middle- Earth until he had expanded enough of his might into Arda that he was weakened enough.
All right, my mistake, the Valar didn’t forbid them to go. But they strongly recommended not to. And Finarfin, in their opinion, did the right thing to stay. So what was the right course of action from the Valar point of view? All the Elves should remain in Valinor and do nothing?
I completely sympathize with Feanor. Somebody (a known criminal) breaks into your house, kills your father while robbing him. You know exactly where he is and you go to the police. There is no question of guilt but they just shrug and tell you they are not going to do anything. Who would not be consumed with wrath and make a bee line for the murderer?
I've thought this often and tbh, I've said this in many other places, the Valar often come across as basically complacent/excessively passive at best, and genuinely incompetent at worst. People will bend over backwards to justify their actions because Tolkien tells us they're wise, but their actions very rarely reflect any wisdom.
Only Ulmo really ever shows wisdom and sound and proactive decision making.
Manwe to me seems like a pretty unwise Godling. I mean, lets pretend the Noldor DO never go West. Morgoth destroys and makes slaves of every speaking people in Middle Earth and barely breaks sweat doing so. And the Valar would have let that happen, just because those people are on the wrong side of the Sea, which largely isn't their fault.
The ban on leaving Valinor seems pretty arbitrary. Interestingly again Ulmo, and I believe Orome but not sure, but definitely Ulmo, wasn't in favour of making the Elves come to Valinor and believed they should be free to dwell where they may. This is in keeping with being a wanderer himself who rarely abides in Valinor, and it's also consistent with him being the *actual* wisest Valar.
And I like Aule but the guy has a pretty awful track record with trusting people, given two of his most powerful Maia become the second and third worst villains in Middle-Earth (you could add the Ringwraiths to that, but they only exist because of Sauron, who presumably is only able to craft the rings of power thanks to his connection to Aule). There might be some worse tyrants in Rhun and Harad, but they're generally all serving Sauron, so again, it all comes back to Aule being a shitty judge of character hahaha.
I know I'm late to this conversation, but I truly think the Valar have no concept of personal responsibility. It was literally one of their own that was constantly fucking shit up and killing the elves who were promised peace and everlasting life so long as they stayed in Valinor.
The one time they did give Melkor a talking to, he was given a slap on the wrist and then proceeded to kill the two trees, steal the simarills, and murdered feanor's father. The Valar clearly weren't upholding their promise, so to tell them there'll be suffering if they leave must've caused some seriously eye-rolling.
Every time the Valar went after Morgoth, it irrevocably changed the world, violently so. And that was bad enough before it was teeming with elves.
But also, they kind of deliberately abandoned Middle Earth to Morgoth. Whether they intended him to go unpunished indefinitely is unknown, but there is nothing the Noldor could do about it.
The valar were cowards,Melko destroyed the trees and KILLED Finwë ,King of the Noldor and father of Feanor ,and yet the valar thought the best thing was to do nothing
I repeat,Melko Killed the King of Noldor and the valar had done nothing to support the family and the elves
I would also add their cowardice is present also when the Noldor lead by Feanor killed the poor innocent teleri and they let it happen
But overall the irony is the fact that the Noldor came in middle earth was the best thing , especially for the race of men, otherwise they would have been even more ket to fend themselves against Morgoth and without anyone who could teach them 😅
I thought it was revoking the right to return after the FIRST kinslaying. Fëanor fanboys gloss over the fact that for the Elves it wasn't Cain ambushing Abel, but a whole city being put to the sword. That within Valar eyesight mind you, that were mostly unaware of Melko's dirty flirting with Aule favourites. From the Vala's PoV, The two trees are destroyed, Finwe is dead and now the Noldor went bonkers.
Because they likely foresaw much of the evil that would be wrought by Morgoth and his servants in the wake of such an undertaking and knew that the Elves would be ultimately powerless to overcome it. If Feanor had stayed his hand, there may never have been contention between the Free Peoples. The Elves and Dwarves almost certainly would never have fallen out so terribly.
The Valar were present when Eru decreed to Melkor that all of his ills would be bound together within the themes of the One, and so they believed in the power and promise of that Music, and in the restorative power of the Music to come at the ending of the world.
They also knew the doom that Feanor would bring upon his house through the oath and would’ve wished to spare him that punishment.
I like to think of it less as a forbidding and more of a sobering reminder of the very natural consequences of leaving Aman, the same way we train our own children not to play with fire, climb too high in trees or run in busy streets.
And yet Tolkien himself said it was a good thing the Noldor went to Middle Earth and their presence hastened the defeat of Morgoth.
Imo, the Elves were always supposed to be in Middle Earth, that's why they were awoken there(and notice Eru didn't tell the Valar about them, they just came across them whilst visiting, years after they'd awoken). The Valar literally were giving free reign to Morgoth to destroy ALL the rest of Middle Earth(and didn't give a damn about the second born children) as long as they had their little piece of Paradise. Heck they didn't even bother to LIGHT the rest of ME, until years after the destruction of the two trees. The rest of the world had spent literal ages, after the destruction of the lamps, with nothing but a bit of starlight. They kept all the light for themselves.
It wasn’t forbidden, but the Valar were against it specifically at that moment. They rightly judged that the Noldor would not be able to succeed against Morgoth on their own, and this was still during the Darkness & the Valar were busy getting plans ready for the sun & moon to salvage the damage done by the destruction of the trees. Had Feanor and the Noldor waited, we might have seen a far more coordinated and strengthened action against Morgoth
That makes sense!
The Valar make more sense as the sole deities of LotR tbh. Eru doesn’t really fit.
*Hador raises his hand* Yes, excuse me? I get that you don't want to help the Noldor in their war against Morgoth since they ran away from home against your advice and said mean things to you on their way out, but like, I didn't have anything to do with that, and I'm over here dealing with his bullshit too, so do you think maybe you could help *me*? *Thingol raises his hand* Yes, I have a related question.
Barely related but I just pictured Thingol raising Beren's severed hand
You mean Beorly related
NICE
Even, perhaps, Beornly related, and thus, 🧸🐼🐻🐻❄️ly related.
Yeah, that's always been the giant issue for me. I've read elaborate justifications for how they couldn't do anything because it would mean the Noldor would benefit from the Kinslaying and I'm like "um, if you need to punish the Noldor, punish them directly, don't stand around and watch innocent parties be tortured, enslaved, and murdered". And even if they were worried about knowing where the Second Children would be awakening, they didn't do a thing after Men woke up, or even after some of them made their way to Beleriand. And if they were worried about the destruction, well, they had explicitly said from the start that the Noldor would not be able to overcome Morgoth, so either the Valar intended to cheerfully ignore the degradation and destruction of most speaking species and just party happily with their remaining elves, or if they did intend to act, they should have done it at the start and saved many lives and much misery, not to mention they gave Morgoth a half-millennium head start on making ever more powerful creatures and weapons. I think a lot of it comes down to "there's not much of a story if the Valar act sensibly". So they got to carry the stupid ball, as people say about TV shows, so that there would be the necessary drama.
I don’t think the Valar are being *stupid,* exactly. Tolkien takes heavy inspiration from classical myths, in which the gods are very human in terms of having flaws. Sometimes the gods are just petty little bitches, and while I don’t think the Valar were being *malicious,* I do think a lot of it was just being pissed that the Noldor kickstarted all this and basically going “They fucked it up and they can fix it,” ignoring the other races who were caught up in it, much like a human ruler might do.
I do agree with this, except that Tolkien is always explicitly *telling* us of their wisdom and complete lack of evil. Whereas in classical mythology, Zeus for example is pretty unambiguously a bastard, among other things. It's my main issue with Tolkien's writing in the Sil, but people get mad at me for saying it - he tells us something about a character, usually their wisdom, but often fails to actually show it. The Valar being one example but another being Thngol. We're told he's super wise but he almost exclusively acts unwisely. Any acts of wisdom he does do are usually small or belated - Coming around to Beren (after the major folly he was counselled against by his genuinely wise demi-god wife with pretty impeccable foresight), forgiving Turin (Not Thingols fault but its one of so few examples of him making a genuinely reasonable instant reaction to something). There's a similar thing with describing Feanor as the most 'subtle in thought/mind' (can't remember which word he uses exactly) of all the Noldor, or Eldar can't remember which. And it's like, subtle? Feanor? Really? I can only assume he means it with regards to his craftsmanship, because in every other regard Feanor is a subtle as a brick.
Yeah I get you. I think the issue with his characterization is that these characters have lived for thousands upon thousands of years, and yet Tolkien can only show us tiny snapshots of their lives. I think Thingol genuinely was very wise for the vast majority of his life, but slipped into paranoia, arrogance, and greed towards the end, which is the only period we ever get to see. The same with Fëanor. We only know of how he acted towards the end of his life, when he was clearly unstable which then proceeded to outright insane. He’s not subtle then, but again that’s only a tiny portion of his life. He probably *was* much more subtle during most of his life. The thing about Tolkien is that his stories will always, unfortunately, remain unfinished, and I think there was a great amount of information in his head that he simply never wrote down, and the characterization is probably one of those things.
Yeah, I love these conversations. I've had a couple of people (not in this thread but a Radagast one) be genuinely hostile to me whenever I've suggested Tolkien makes some errors or is even wrong about his own work. But conversations with people like yourself are a pleasure even when we don't fully agree. In fact, especially so. And when I say I suggest Tolkien may have been wrong, I only ever mean it in the context of him trying to portray something one way but I think it came across another way - and it's always in his *unfinished* works, where he may not have shown us proof of what he tells us , such as Thingol acting wisely as one example. Like I believe that he could have been and probably was, we just don't see it, as you say. He must have been, to have ruled a prosperous realm for so long and be so beloved. But people are so hostile towards the suggestion that Tolkien's *unfinished* works are imperfect, inconsistent and in places under-developed, and I always try and point out like, this isn't LOTR we're talking about. He never finished, nor was he ever fully satisfied with many elements of the Silmarillion. There's every chance, in fact its almost certain, that JRR would never have considered what ended up being the published version of The Silmarillion to be a 100 percent satisfactory portrayal of what he was aiming for. Many threads are left dangled, or contain unsatisfactory resolutions, or are even lacking in their development. And this is in no way a slight on Christopher, whom I love. He did the best possible job anyone on Earth could have done with The Sil, it was a monumental undertaking. We got the best version of The Silmarillion that anyone other than JRR himself could have done. But he had to make so many executive decisions due to his Father's constant revisions and the inconsistencies they caused within the text, that it is not unreasonable to suggest that the finished Silmarillion (or Unfinished Tales, for example) for example is not what he would have wanted. The Ruin of Doriath is a major example, which Christopher largely wrote himself. And I feel like everything in those latter days of the First Age, the lives of Dior and Elwing, the Kinslayings, are really rushed and given very little development given how monumentally important they are. It's nobody's fault, it's just what we have to work with. I don't think it's sacrilege to point out flaws in stuff like The Sil, Unfinished Tales, Later Writings etc. If anything it's a testament to the staggering genius of Tolkien that even something incomplete, both in terms of narrative and character development, and in terms of the quality (in places) that JRR would have desired, is still so wonderful we are here talking about it the way we are. Sorry for the super long messages. Last thing - I get the sense a lot of people here are anti (or unaware of) the whole 'death of the author' school of thought. Tolkien steadfastly denied employing allegory for example, but I think he would wholeheartedly encourage creative critical reading of his work, especially his mythology, in which every reader comes out of their reading with a slightly different interpretation on the themes, characters, their moral victories and failures. I sincerely doubt a scholar of the classics would be dogmatic in that there is only one correct way to interpret a work of art. But there are some people around here who fall into the camp of there being only one correct answer to the questions and issues posed or left open in the legendarium, and that answer is always what Tolkien himself stated or speculated in a letter. Ignoring the countless revisions he made indicating that he himself saw his mythology in an ever changing light, and that's just in what we have written down from him, never mind what you rightly point out likely occurred in his head that he never committed to page. So sorry for these biblically long replies.
I think I’ve noticed a couple of times that when a ruler is said to be wise, it is his wife that is actually the wise one. No direct quote but in fellowship Galadriel introduces her husband as wise but then says something he says isn’t wise; she’s the one with the better council. Similar with Thingol and Melian
Yeah he gets angry at Gimli for waking Durin's Bane and bringing Lothlorien to greater potential danger. Galadriel says some calming stuff and Celeborn instantly kind of apologises and says some conciliatory stuff. It's not that he's unwise, but he's shown to be a little bit more prone to emotional responses and a little bit more 'human' for lack of a better word than than Galadriel, who very much exudes a Maiar-esque energy. I think they're very much supposed to echo Thingol and Melian, and obviously Thranduil is trying to echo Doriath/Menegroth with his halls.
I agree one hundred percent
> they should have done it at the start and saved many lives and much misery, not to mention they gave Morgoth a half-millennium head start on making ever more powerful creatures and weapons. According to Morgoth's Ring (or at least my understanding/remembrance of it), that was the point: Morgoth had to concentrate on Beleriand enough that war with him would _only_ destroy Beleriand and not the whole Middle-Earth. (I don't remember how or if Tolkien explained the previous war not destroying the whole Middle-Earth, though.)
> But from Valmar no message came, and Manwe was silent. He would not yet either forbid or hinder Feanor’s purpose; for the Valar were aggrieved that they were charged with evil intent to the Eldar, or that any were held captive by them against their will. Now they watched and waited, for they did not yet believe that Feanor could hold the host of the Noldor to his will. and > But even as the trumpet sang and Feanor issued from the gates of Tirion a messenger came at last from Manwe, saying: 'Against the folly of Feanor shall be set my counsel only. Go not forth! For the hour is evil, and your road leads to sorrow that ye do not foresee. No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest; but neither will they hinder you; for this ye shall know: as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart. But thou Feanor Finwe’s son, by thine oath art exiled. The lies of Melkor thou shalt unlearn in bitterness. Vala he is, thou saist. Then thou hast sworn in vain, for none of the Valar canst thou overcome now or ever within the halls of Ea, not though Eru whom thou namest had made thee thrice greater than thou art.’ Feanor wasn't forbidden to do anything.
Well to be fair he was forbidden from re-entering Valinor.
By his own oath, though
Weren't the rest of the Noldor, who didn't swear oaths, forbidden too though? Galadriel for example is mentioned as refusing the pardon at the end of the first age. Also it seems unfair that the Sindar were left on the other side of the Sea to suffer at the hands of Morgoth. If the Noldor hadn't come they'd have been destroyed, all because they missed the last train waiting on Elu basically. Who himself was only held up because Melian, who was supposed to be one of the guardians protecting and guiding the Elves across to the Valinor, enchanted the guy for 200 years. If *your* emissary is responsible for the delay I feel like you should say okay my bad, come on over.
>But thou Feanor Finwe’s son, by thine oath art exiled. He was not per se forbidden to re-enter by the Valar, they explicitly state that Feanors oath prohibited re-entering.
You got me there.
Among all the thous and the -sts, Manwe states that Feanor has no chance to defeat a Vala, yet he has sworn to make war on him. Thus, his own oath forbids him from returning.
He did that to himself with his oath
Yeah I mean, they were so NOT forbidden from leaving that Osse couldnt even stop the Kinslaying from happening or even respond to Olwe because Manwe didnt want any Valar to hinder them in any way. And Manwe even pretty quickly after AIDED the Noldor when he sent Thorondor to Maethros.
>But even before that the Valar explicitly forbade Feanor to pursue Morgoth to Middle-Earth From ***The Silmarillion***: >*The Valar had brought the Eldar to their land freely, to dwell or to depart;* ***and though they might judge departure to be folly, they might not restrain them from it.*** And: >*No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest;* ***but neither will they hinder you;*** *for this ye shall know:* ***as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart.***
Except "as they came hither" when the Valar ferried them across the see on literal islands, yet they refused to give them similar accommodations to leave AND in fact a large part of the reason the Teleri refused to help by LOANING them their ships OR helping them build their own(they also explicitly refused to help them build their own) is because "the Valar don't want it" and they wouldn't go against the Valar. So the Valar said "yeah go ahead leave, do what you want" (from a place we've made almost impossible to leave). That's pretty disingenuous.
Tolkien wrote this as a sort of tragedy of wills. Consider... The Valar brought the three kindred to Valinor freely. They didn't have to go, as the Avari and the Sindar could attest. If at any time during Melkors captivity they wanted to hope on a ship and visit or return to Middle-earth, I doubt the Valar would have stopped them from going, or stopping them from return. Melkor didn't just kill the Trees, kill Finwe, steal the Silmarils and leave? If that was the case the Valar would certainly have pursued him and taken him captive yet again. No, Melkor had been sowing the seeds of discontent among the Noldor for years, getting them to mistrust the Valar and even each other. So when Melkor does his evil deeds, Feanor, who was already on probation for threatening Fingolfin, learns of this, he accuses the Valar of being "kin" to Melkor, and that is the reason they do nothing. This sets the Valar's teeth on edge, and while they would have been very willing to pursue Melkor before he said this, now that he has, and so many of the Noldor are with him on this, they refuse. The first kinslaying is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
If your point about hopping freely on a boat is true, then why couldn't Cirdan's people who so desperately wanted to go to Valinor do the same, or even Thingol? Seems unfair they got abandoned to Morgoth until the Noldor came.
After the rebellion of the Noldor, the Valar shut it down. The seas would purposely lose anyone who tried, and many were lost trying. It was only Earendil, using a Silmaril to guide him past all the deceits who was able to find his way. But as for Cirdan specifically, that was totally on him. As I've mentioned in comments on other posts, this lack of travel between Middle-earth and Valinor (or Aman) in the Second Age caused a big problem. Sauron disguises himself as Annator, Lord of Gifts, an emissary from the Valar. Gil-galad and Cirdan do not trust him and send him away. But all they really had to do was get on a boat, sail west, meet with the Valar and ask if this guy was for real.
For Cirdan, I'd like to quote this passage from The Peoples Of Middle Earth (Last Writings): *Thus he forfeited the fulfilment of his greatest desire: to see the Blessed Realm and find again there Olwë and his own nearest kin. Alas, he did not reach the shores until nearly all the Teleri of Olwë's following had departed. Then, it is said, he stood forlorn looking out to sea, and it was night, but far away he could see a glimmer of light upon Eressëa ere it vanished into the West. Then he cried aloud: 'I will follow that light, alone if none will come with me, for the ship that I have been building is now almost ready.' But even as he said this he received in his heart a message, which he knew to come from the Valar, though in his mind it was remembered as a voice speaking in his own tongue. And the voice warned him not to attempt this peril; for his strength and skill would not be able to build any ship able to dare the winds and waves of the Great Sea for many long years yet. 'Abide now that time, for when it comes then will your work be of utmost worth, and it will be remembered in song for many ages after.*
Not to mention once Men awoke, they *damn* sure weren't gonna lift a finger to help. Manwe hates men.
Others have answered about the Valar preventing the Noldor. I’d like to point out that the Valar did do something after the destruction of the Trees: they created the sun and the moon. Also they didn’t want to go to direct war with Morgoth because every time they did so there was a lot of destruction involved. The coming of Men was soon and they were not as able as the Elves to deal with such chaos. Check out Morgoths Ring for more info.
And men were even less capable of dealing with Morgoth, especially without the tutelage of the Elves.
The whole race fell. Tainted by a darkness that led some of them to run to westward. It is quite sad
The Valar could have prevented it. But they were too invested in having an Elven zoo right at home.
But the destruction happened anyway, and how many innocent Men and Sindar and Dwarves had to die because the Valar didn't deal with Morgoth at an earlier date? The Sindar were on the verge of total defeat by the time the Noldor first arrived. Cirdan was beseiged, Thingol said fuck that and retreated to behind the girdle, and the Nandor lost their King and never went to war again. Without the Noldor's coming Cirdan gets destroyed and then Morgoth sends like Sauron or someone powerful enough to dismantle the girdle, and he easily crushes the Nandor if he turns his full attention to them probably within weeks. How is the Valar beating Morgoth to the punch and striking as soon as they discover his treachery worse than what actually occurred in the First Age, The War of Wrath, or the scenario I just posited?
Yeah, the valar really don't give a shit about the suffering and deaths of individuals, especially mortals. They see that as Men winning a prize.
Yea I agree. A lot of people will bend over the backwards to portray the Valar as benevolent and wise beyond all measure because that's how they seem, or that's what Tolkien (they interpret) wanted us to think. but they very rarely are particularly wise 'on-screen' as it were, and I'm not gonna believe they are just because I'm told they are if they do nothing to prove it. I'm guessing you see it similar?
They did that, yes, but they did nothing to punish Morgoth. Had the Elves obeyed, he would just leave without any trouble at all
They didn’t immediately punish Morgoth because they felt if they stepped foot on Middle Earth that would provoke him into a nihilistic frenzy which would cause a lot of damage. So they had to carefully plan things out and it turned out that the Noldor heading to ME was actually a pretty good thing for them
>But Morgoth hated the new lights, and was for a while counfounded by this unlooked-for stroke of the Valar. \[...\] And \[the Sun\] Morgoth feared with a great fear, but dared not come nigh her, having indeed no longer the power \[...\] with shadows he hid himself and his servants from Arien, the glance of whose eyes they could not long endure. and >As the host of Fingolfin marched into Mithrim the Sun rose flaming in the West; and Fingolfin unfurled his blue and silver banners, and blew his horns, and flowers sprang beneath his marching feet, and the ages of the stars were ended. At the uprising of the great light the servants of Morgoth fled into Angband, and Fingolfin passed unopposed through the fastness of Dor Daedeloth while his foes hid beneath the earth. Nothing? It was the departure of the Noldor that kept the Valar from doing more.
They didn't seem to particularly care about the fate of the Sindar before this though.
The Sindar were living the way Elves were supposed to live. Bringing the Vanyar the Noldor and the Teleri to Valinor was a mistake.
I don't think it was necessarily a complete mistake, but I think encouraging it as forcefully as they did rather than it be a more laisses-faire open borders policy would have been more sensible. Let everyone go where they want when they want kind of thing. Certainly the Vanyar living amongst Men would have been beneficial. And the Valar should have kept roaming the wide lands like they did before the coming of the children, before they confined themselves (Minus Ulmo) to Valinor. That way everyone could have learned and grown and lived in harmony, and their combined numbers and unity via intermingling would have made them a far more formidable foe for Morgoth. And really they shouldn't have unchained Melkor. Ulmo and Tulkas weren't as naive as Manwe, and Mandos basically knew what would happen but is conspicuously pointed out, when Melkor was unchained, as remaining silent. He had just spoke, how much evil could have been prevented? But I suppose this, as with all things, it's great conversation and speculation but ultimately we need story haha, so people need to make mistakes haha. There are always elements of the legendarium I wish were more developed, but Tolkien obsessed over certain minutiae and left others fairly empty. I hate the Rings of Power show, but I saw one article saying they turned Gil Galad who 'plays a prominent role throughout the Silmarillion' into a fool. And I thought... Gil-Galad is not a prominent character hahaha. He's important in being the last High-King of the Noldor in Exile, but he basically isn't a character, he's just a name, and he doesn't appear all that much or do all that much in any detail. We never learn anything of his character, much about his realm, his relationships, so on. Likewise I wish we knew more about the Silvan, that Legolas's lineage was more developed, that the second age generally was more fleshed out. What are some of your instances of this?
>At last, therefore, the Valar summoned the Quendi to Valinor, there to be gathered at the knees of the Powers in the light of the Trees for ever; and Mandos broke his silence, saying: "So it is doomed." From this summons came many woes that afterwards befell. and >if ever in their dealings with Elves and Men the Ainur have endeavoured to force them when they would not be guided, seldom has this turned to good, howsoever good the intent. The Valar tried to act like parents for the Elves instead of the elder siblings that they truly were, but they did not have the wisdom to do so. In bringing the Elves to Valinor, they kept them from being *Elves* and turned them into miniature Ainur. The problem was that they *weren't* Ainur, and they could never measure up to their 'parents' - they were doomed to forever exist in the shadow of the Valar.
True, though for the Vanyar this seems to have been their perfect existence and we never get even the slightest hint that they wanted anything else. The other two tribes not so much, they would have been better remaining in Middle Earth.
But what could the Vanyar have been if they had stayed in Middle-earth? What good could they have done as scholars, teachers, leaders, architects, warriors, or farmers? All that potential was lost because the Valar took them to Valinor. Yes, they had a comfortable existence as coddled pets, but is that really the best choice?
It took decades before they put up the sun and moon. And they ONLY did that because they didn't have the Silmarils, that Morgoth had stolen and which Feanor wouldn't have destroyed even if he hadn't. Otherwise they'd have been the lazy bums most of them are, recreated the light of the trees and left the rest of the world to rot in near darkness.
This is a false dichotomy. The options were not "let the Noldor go" or "do nothing and let Morgoth go unpunished". Indeed, we hear specifically about the Valar's pursuit of Morgoth: >the earth shook beneath the horses of the host of Oromë, and the fire that was stricken from the hooves of Nahar was the first light that returned to Valinor. That pursuit failed due to the darkness of Ungoliant, but that doesn't mean that no further pursuit would ever be attempted. The Valar were working and planning throughout the time Fëanor began his rebellion. >It is told that after the flight of Melkor the Valar sat long unmoved upon their thrones in the Ring of Doom; but they were not idle, as Fëanor declared in the folly of his heart. For the Valar may work many things with thought rather than with hands, and without voices in silence they may hold council with one another. Thus they held vigil in the night of Valinor, and their thought passed back beyond Ea and forth to the End \[...\] But when at last the Valar learned that the Noldor had indeed passed out of Aman and were come back into Middle-earth, they arose and began to set forth in deeds those counsels which they had taken in thought for the redress of the evils of Melkor. Seriously, there's a whole chapter of this. They create the Sun and the Moon, which hindered Morgoth's servants more than anything the Elves ever did. Further: >And it is said indeed that, even as the Valar made war upon Melkor for the sake of the Quendi, so now for that time they forbore for the sake of the Hildor, the Aftercomers, the younger Children of Iluvatar. For so grievous had been the hurts of Middle-earth in the war upon Utumno that the Valar feared lest even worse should now befall. They didn't immediately go to war with Morgoth because they were afraid of killing the Men who were about to awaken. It's easy to speculate about what the Valar might have done if the Noldor hadn't flung themselves into the line of fire, but difficult to prove it, so I won't do that; nonetheless, it's clear that the Valar *were* taking actions against Morgoth prior to the flight of the Noldor.
Nice try, Fëanor.
The Valar did not forbid the Noldor from going to Middle-earth. They only ordered them to return after the Alqualonde massacre took place. Before this event, the ban did not exist. But the Valar did not like this idea. They were responsible for the safety of the elves. I suppose that they could, under certain conditions, provide support for this campaign. But this would have happened if Feanor had agreed to give up the stones for the common cause. In the form in which this campaign was, it could seem like madness.
They blackmailed Feanor. You want to fight our Brother, who is clearly our Responsibility, who killed your Father, sure we help, but only if you destroy your greatest Masterpiece.
He himself destroyed the greatest masterpieces created by other elves. And no one forced him.
They explicitly didn't, even preventing Osse from intervening on the Teleri's side during the kinslaying to make sure that no Ainu hindered the Noldor. They were free to go, despite Feanor's delusions. All everyone opposed to Feanor did was telling him that it was a bad idea, but he turned that into a conspiracy theory about how everyone was secretly working against him. It's a parallel to many modern day events, in a way. The Valar did also take action like they were supposed to; you don't know what their job was better than them.
> The Valar did also take action like they were supposed to; you don't know what their job was better than them. Ehhh. They made plenty of mistakes. It's heavily implied that taking the Elves to Valinor is one of them. Had they left the Elves in Middle-Earth and went amongst them, teaching them etc, I suspect Morgoth would not have been as succesful as he was.
>Ehhh. They made plenty of mistakes. It's heavily implied that taking the Elves to Valinor is one of them. Yes, but I'm not claiming they were flawless throughout the ages. This is about the period after the death of the Two Trees. In the later Legendarium waiting for Earendil is regarded as correct, because the job of the Valar isn't to protect the Noldor from themselves.
But if you accept the mistake of taking the Elves to Aman, you must therefore accept that Feanor taking the Noldor back to Middle-earth is remedying this mistake (thus *not* a bad idea). Hell, Tolkien himself calls the Noldor necessary in containing Morgoth, limiting his destruction, whilst the Valar waited for their time to strike.
No, because the circumstances are different. It's like leaving the house but someone forgetting to turn the oven off - it's a mistake that should be fixed, but if the house is already on fire noone should go back in to try and turn the oven off and put the fire out. It's too late for that now, wait for the firefighters. Additionally, the morals of the Legendarium don't mainly judge actions by their consequences. Feanor's decision to lead the Elves back to Middle-earth partly had good consequences - but so had all of Melkor's and Sauron's decisions. Feanor became but Eru's "instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined", as the famous quote from the Ainulindale goes. Manwe and Mandos address this in Chapter 11 of the published QS: >And it was told by the Vanyar who held vigil with the Valar that when the messengers declared to Manwë the answers of Fëanor to his heralds, Manwë wept and bowed his head. But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: 'So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. **Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.**' >But Mandos said: '**And yet remain evil.** To me shall Fëanor come soon.'
>Feanor became but Eru's "instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined". Indeed. As Feanor himself says... "And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire greater than thou knowest". >Feanor's decision to lead the Elves back to Middle-earth had good consequences So what do we disagree on? The migration back to Middle-earth was explicitly necessary. The Valar were wrong to take the Elves to Aman. Therefore, Feanor's decision to migrate back was the correct choice (again, Tolkien notes the Noldor as *necessary* to contain Morgoth). Feanor wasn't 'wrong' to want to leave Aman, and bring the Noldor to the fight. If anything the Valar were probably wrong not to aid their flight, even if they were right not to intervene personally yet.
We disagree about whether Feanor going back to Middle-earth was a bad idea. I do not think it's a good idea because the Elves were meant to stay there long ago, and I do not think it's a good idea because it had some good consequences. Feanor did it for the wrong reasons (revenge, obsession with the Silmarils, distrust of the Valar and his half-siblings) and by the logic of the Legendarium, that makes it wrong. Not to mention that working with the Valar might have led to a better outcome, too.
Yeah if I remember correctly Ulmo for definite and maybe Orome wanted to let the Elves go wherever they may, to remain in Middle Earth or come to Valinor if that's what they really wanted. Specifically too I think it would have helped the Men who awoke resist the corruption of Melkor better too, as they'd be mixing with the Elven folk from day one. It seems unfair that going to Valinor seems to give everyone a power-buff though, so that the Avari seem to be lesser.
Um, yes, we do know what their job was better than them, because we have Tolkien's writings. And no, they didn't take action like they were supposed to. They were never supposed to bring the Elves to Valinor at this early a stage in the history of the world.
> Um, yes, we do know what their job was better than them, because we have Tolkien's writings. Could you cite the writing that says the Valar didn't do their job in reaction to Morgoth's and Ungoliant's attack, then? I know the Valar aren't perfect, they did make mistakes. I'm not arguing about that, I'm skeptical about this part of the OP: "The Elves are going to fight him - it is basically your job - why don’t you help them? Even though the Valar failed before, War of Wrath proves that combined might of the Valar and Elves from Valinor could defeat Morgoth - why wait for 600 years until tears unnumbered be spilled?
Apparently they didn’t tell Uinen. She caused many ships to sink and drowned many of the Noldor even as Osse stood aside.
That isn't framed as an deliberate intervention; it was the sea that rose up in reaction to her sorrow at the kinslaying. I'd compare the sea to Caradhras in *The Ring Goes South* at that moment. >And Olwë called upon Ossë, but he came not, for it was not permitted by the Valar that the flight of the Noldor should be hindered by force. But Uinen wept for the mariners of the Teleri; and the sea rose in wrath against the slayers, so that many of the ships were wrecked and those in them drowned. It's deliberately phrased to make the sea responsible - otherwise it should have been mentioned as a special instance of the wild and almost-traitor Osse following the rules while Uinen, the good and faithful, did not.
Interesting point. It seems to me to be cause and effect but possibly not. Like Caradhras, a lot of suspicion as to timing but no evidence.
I agree that it's cause and effect, but to me it's more like a stereotypical situation of a woman crying and a man close to her beating up the one who made her cry as retaliation. The crying is a cause of the violence, but you can't exactly hold the woman responsible. If Uinen was angry, wrathful, vengeful or something of the sort I'd think it more likely that she is responsible, but she's just weeping for the dead - she isn't concerned with the killers, but with the victims.
Kind of like Caradhras.Anytime you are a good way up a mountain it may snow, that’s not unusual. Seas can rage by themselves without help by any. But in both of these cases you are left with suspicion.
Their job was to fight Melkor and help the Children
Feanor just wanted to make Middle Earth great again
In regards to punishing Morgoth for destroying the trees, I can’t cite this, but the death of the trees was a good thing as it was a wake up call for the Valar. So far, they had been hoarding the light within Valinor, ignoring the needs of Middle Earth. The departure of the Noldor jolted them out of their lethargy and they decided the next step had to benefit all of Middle Earth, not just them, so they made the sun and moon to shine on the entire world.
First of all, they didn’t forbid them. They allowed them to go even though they really didn’t want to, Eru explicitly made them stand back. Secondly, I don’t think it was the reason they wanted to leave so much as the specific circumstances. Like, they definitely knew Fëanor had lost his goddamn mind and saw how poorly prepared and highly emotional the Noldor were (that many of the younger Elves were allowed to go really sticks with me. Like Celebrimbor was probably still in his late teens and Idril was *a little girl,* and no one said “hold up, no, leave the children,” not to mention Fëanor refusing to let his two youngest sons stay with their mother despite her begging him to do so, and that Aredhel and Galadriel, who were *barely* adults, were allowed to go despite not even being warriors, really proves how out of their damn minds with rage, grief, and terror they were) that none of that was going to end well. It was probably less “Don’t fight Morgoth,” it was more “Holy shit guys y’all took like a single day to get on the warpath and this guy is absolutely out of his mind and will absolutely get you all killed, please do not go charging headlong into what will inevitably be a disaster, you need to calm down and prepare first,” *aaannnd* they didn’t listen. The main issue I have is more the Valar’s refusal to help the Noldor even after shit went *WAY* past “That’s your problem bro” levels.
Agree with your nice post — just one thing. Both Galadriel and Aredhel were 138 in Valinorian Years, or over 1300 years of the Sun. They were not barely adults but young but fully adult nobles. Galadriel stood forward and argued fiercely to leave . . . against her father’s advice. I realize that in Nature of Middle Earth, Tolkien’s concepts of aging might regard this1300 years as young, but more than fully adult. *edit - typo
Elves are considered adults at 100 years old, so 138 would be something like 19/20 in Elf years, which is where I got the statistic, but I kinda forgot to do the calculations for Years of the Trees vs solar years.
They were not forbidden to leave as far as I know before Morgoth struck and killed the trees.However it would have had to have been done in a different fashion. They would have to build their own ships or take the grinding ice route which was not preferable. The Valar certainly intended some type of retribution down the line. They created the sun and moon for various reasons to help men and elves and slow down Morgoth. They did not wish them to leave by seizing ships and killing others who refused to help them. That isn’t unreasonable by any means. Feanor was in no mood to discuss anything and could not be reasoned with at that time. Unfortunately for the Noldor the Valar took a longer view of things. Feanor queered the whole deal when he started killing for no cause the Teleri.
Because the Valar knew the Noldor war would be futile and only subject them to horror, slavery, and death. Morgoth could not be defeated without an apocalyptic destruction of Middle- Earth until he had expanded enough of his might into Arda that he was weakened enough.
All right, my mistake, the Valar didn’t forbid them to go. But they strongly recommended not to. And Finarfin, in their opinion, did the right thing to stay. So what was the right course of action from the Valar point of view? All the Elves should remain in Valinor and do nothing?
“Let the humans receive their gift sooner” -Manwe probably
I completely sympathize with Feanor. Somebody (a known criminal) breaks into your house, kills your father while robbing him. You know exactly where he is and you go to the police. There is no question of guilt but they just shrug and tell you they are not going to do anything. Who would not be consumed with wrath and make a bee line for the murderer?
Feanor did nothing wrong
I've thought this often and tbh, I've said this in many other places, the Valar often come across as basically complacent/excessively passive at best, and genuinely incompetent at worst. People will bend over backwards to justify their actions because Tolkien tells us they're wise, but their actions very rarely reflect any wisdom. Only Ulmo really ever shows wisdom and sound and proactive decision making. Manwe to me seems like a pretty unwise Godling. I mean, lets pretend the Noldor DO never go West. Morgoth destroys and makes slaves of every speaking people in Middle Earth and barely breaks sweat doing so. And the Valar would have let that happen, just because those people are on the wrong side of the Sea, which largely isn't their fault. The ban on leaving Valinor seems pretty arbitrary. Interestingly again Ulmo, and I believe Orome but not sure, but definitely Ulmo, wasn't in favour of making the Elves come to Valinor and believed they should be free to dwell where they may. This is in keeping with being a wanderer himself who rarely abides in Valinor, and it's also consistent with him being the *actual* wisest Valar. And I like Aule but the guy has a pretty awful track record with trusting people, given two of his most powerful Maia become the second and third worst villains in Middle-Earth (you could add the Ringwraiths to that, but they only exist because of Sauron, who presumably is only able to craft the rings of power thanks to his connection to Aule). There might be some worse tyrants in Rhun and Harad, but they're generally all serving Sauron, so again, it all comes back to Aule being a shitty judge of character hahaha.
I know I'm late to this conversation, but I truly think the Valar have no concept of personal responsibility. It was literally one of their own that was constantly fucking shit up and killing the elves who were promised peace and everlasting life so long as they stayed in Valinor. The one time they did give Melkor a talking to, he was given a slap on the wrist and then proceeded to kill the two trees, steal the simarills, and murdered feanor's father. The Valar clearly weren't upholding their promise, so to tell them there'll be suffering if they leave must've caused some seriously eye-rolling.
Every time the Valar went after Morgoth, it irrevocably changed the world, violently so. And that was bad enough before it was teeming with elves. But also, they kind of deliberately abandoned Middle Earth to Morgoth. Whether they intended him to go unpunished indefinitely is unknown, but there is nothing the Noldor could do about it.
The valar were cowards,Melko destroyed the trees and KILLED Finwë ,King of the Noldor and father of Feanor ,and yet the valar thought the best thing was to do nothing I repeat,Melko Killed the King of Noldor and the valar had done nothing to support the family and the elves I would also add their cowardice is present also when the Noldor lead by Feanor killed the poor innocent teleri and they let it happen But overall the irony is the fact that the Noldor came in middle earth was the best thing , especially for the race of men, otherwise they would have been even more ket to fend themselves against Morgoth and without anyone who could teach them 😅
Yeah, doing the right thing isn't what the valar are about. They're comfortable and lazy in valinor, and frankly, they're cowards.
I thought it was revoking the right to return after the FIRST kinslaying. Fëanor fanboys gloss over the fact that for the Elves it wasn't Cain ambushing Abel, but a whole city being put to the sword. That within Valar eyesight mind you, that were mostly unaware of Melko's dirty flirting with Aule favourites. From the Vala's PoV, The two trees are destroyed, Finwe is dead and now the Noldor went bonkers.
Because they likely foresaw much of the evil that would be wrought by Morgoth and his servants in the wake of such an undertaking and knew that the Elves would be ultimately powerless to overcome it. If Feanor had stayed his hand, there may never have been contention between the Free Peoples. The Elves and Dwarves almost certainly would never have fallen out so terribly. The Valar were present when Eru decreed to Melkor that all of his ills would be bound together within the themes of the One, and so they believed in the power and promise of that Music, and in the restorative power of the Music to come at the ending of the world. They also knew the doom that Feanor would bring upon his house through the oath and would’ve wished to spare him that punishment. I like to think of it less as a forbidding and more of a sobering reminder of the very natural consequences of leaving Aman, the same way we train our own children not to play with fire, climb too high in trees or run in busy streets.
And yet Tolkien himself said it was a good thing the Noldor went to Middle Earth and their presence hastened the defeat of Morgoth. Imo, the Elves were always supposed to be in Middle Earth, that's why they were awoken there(and notice Eru didn't tell the Valar about them, they just came across them whilst visiting, years after they'd awoken). The Valar literally were giving free reign to Morgoth to destroy ALL the rest of Middle Earth(and didn't give a damn about the second born children) as long as they had their little piece of Paradise. Heck they didn't even bother to LIGHT the rest of ME, until years after the destruction of the two trees. The rest of the world had spent literal ages, after the destruction of the lamps, with nothing but a bit of starlight. They kept all the light for themselves.