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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    Morality works differently in LotR then in modern conception. It is corruptive, so committing small acts of evil lead the doer into larger and larger acts. It is why small time crooks and bandits so easily fall into full throated supporters of universal enslavement in setting, because the tipping point came when they chose to steal a piggy bank 20 years ago and everything naturally progressed from there.
    In the Silmarillion. and Unfinished Tales, small-time bandits actually can become slightly better people over time:

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    when they're being influenced by Turin Turambar.

    Unfortunately, him being a Doom Magnet, means that them getting a bit better doesn't lead to a happy ending for them.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    Morality works differently in LotR then in modern conception. It is corruptive, so committing small acts of evil lead the doer into larger and larger acts. It is why small time crooks and bandits so easily fall into full throated supporters of universal enslavement in setting, because the tipping point came when they chose to steal a piggy bank 20 years ago and everything naturally progressed from there.

    Melkor making bad music wasn't exceptionally evil, it is was the choice to do it at all that seals his fate. This comes up later with the Elves, Gollum, etc. Once the initial choice is made it is all but impossible to stop the corruption from spreading.
    I'm sorry but that's lame as heck. Goodness, Mr Tolkein.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    Morality works differently in LotR then in modern conception. It is corruptive, so committing small acts of evil lead the doer into larger and larger acts. It is why small time crooks and bandits so easily fall into full throated supporters of universal enslavement in setting, because the tipping point came when they chose to steal a piggy bank 20 years ago and everything naturally progressed from there.

    Melkor making bad music wasn't exceptionally evil, it is was the choice to do it at all that seals his fate. This comes up later with the Elves, Gollum, etc. Once the initial choice is made it is all but impossible to stop the corruption from spreading.
    I think that's too bleak a reading, while evil is corruptive, we have several examples of characters committing evil acts but remaining on the side of the angels, so to speak.

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    The people of the Houses of Finarfin and Fingolfin who take part in the First Kinslaying remain heroes. Elu Thingol betters himself by overcoming his prejudice against Men. Tůrin remaining a good guy of sort despite all the killing he's done.

    And we all remember Boromir, right?
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  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I'm sorry but that's lame as heck. Goodness, Mr Tolkein.
    It's really more historically normal then the current take on the subject, but I can't go into the hows and whys on this forum. Suffice to say it makes a lot more sense under its own paradigm.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    I think that's too bleak a reading, while evil is corruptive, we have several examples of characters committing evil acts but remaining on the side of the angels, so to speak.

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    The people of the Houses of Finarfin and Fingolfin who take part in the First Kinslaying remain heroes. Elu Thingol betters himself by overcoming his prejudice against Men. Tůrin remaining a good guy of sort despite all the killing he's done.

    And we all remember Boromir, right?
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    Agreed, there is redemption stories in the LotR. Aragorn is one in point of fact, he overcomes the legacy of his forefathers. Sauron and Morgoth both are temporarily redeemed by people who can see into your intent, its just that the step by step seduction of evil is very real in the story.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    I have faith in y'all. Now, granted, that faith may be more in the direction of "surely these good people won't make me do more work", but faith nonetheless.
    For the context of board rules is Paradise Lost allowed as a reference point similar to discussing the fictional Thor of OOTs and the like?
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grim Portent View Post
    That would be me.
    irst off is that during the singing the Ainur are basically unaware of what they're doing. Illuvatar has them create a world without actually informing them that they are creating a world, so all the discord Melkor has added was done without any informed ill intent.
    Melkor may not have known he was creating a world, but he knew what Eru was trying to do and he knew that he was going against it. He knew that he was creating discord, but he did it anyway. I think it's fair to describe that as "ill intent".

    To steer this away from real-world religion, may be a better analogy is real-world crime. As I understand it, very few people start off as cold-blooded serial killers. They start with torturing animals and other things, only over time stepping up to bigger and bigger crimes, if they are not checked by conscience, friends, or the legal system. Melkor's following the same trajectory. He started out good but he continued to follow his base instincts and desires over his better nature, becoming worse and worse, training himself into evil, and bringing others down with him.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonus45 View Post
    For the context of board rules is Paradise Lost allowed as a reference point similar to discussing the fictional Thor of OOTs and the like?
    Let me break out the red text for this one.

    This would be very similar to how we've handled La Divina Commedia in in the past - it is explicitly a work of fiction, but unlike other fictitious works based on real-world religions figures (eg. Marvel's Thor), it stays incredibly close to the real-world religion such that it often does not work to keep the fictional and nonfictional parts separated. As such, while it is possible to discuss it within the confines of the forum rules, it is also very difficult to do so, and we would strongly recommend (but not mandate) that a safer alternative be used.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2021-12-07 at 02:06 PM.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I haven't seen the show, but doesn't the protaganist of Breaking Bad follow a similar trajectory downward? From what little I've gathered , he started out as chemist who had bills to pay, and so set up a meth shop. He eventually devolved into a crime lord, if memory serves.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I haven't seen the show, but doesn't the protaganist of Breaking Bad follow a similar trajectory downward? From what little I've gathered , he started out as chemist who had bills to pay, and so set up a meth shop. He eventually devolved into a crime lord, if memory serves.

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    Brian P.
    Walt didn't lose his morals, though, he just lost his pretense that he had them in the first place. It was never about paying his bills/providing for his family once he's gone or all the other justifications he kept making for himself, it was about his pride, as is evident by his turning down a huge load of money in episode 2 and him admitting to it i' the second-to-last (or near that, I'm not sure) episode.
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Yeah. Breaking Bad was about the yolk of raging ego and pride coming out of the cracked facade of good citizen shell.

    Terminal illness being the applied pressure sufficient to crack the equilibrium.
    Last edited by Bobb; 2021-12-07 at 03:15 PM.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bobb View Post
    Yeah. Breaking Bad was about the yolk of raging ego and pride coming out of the cracked facade of good citizen shell.

    Terminal illness being the applied pressure sufficient to crack the equilibrium.
    Not terminal illness per se, but the financial instability resulting from the terminal illness (not entirely, but not insignificantly, stemming from the inability to afford treatment for said illness, all but guaranteeing the "terminal" part to be sooner rather than later).
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Not terminal illness per se, but the financial instability resulting from the terminal illness (not entirely, but not insignificantly, stemming from the inability to afford treatment for said illness, all but guaranteeing the "terminal" part to be sooner rather than later).
    The terminal aspect of the illness played a big part in helping him self justify at first on top of the pressures of the financial situation. A lot of very terrible bad things can be justified when you think you are going to die anyways, and WW's personal belief that life had both owed him more then he got and then punished him with cancer anyways let him sort of pretend he was just doing evil to earn a punishment he had already been given. I think a financial problem on it's own wouldn't gave done it.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonus45 View Post
    The terminal aspect of the illness played a big part in helping him self justify at first on top of the pressures of the financial situation. A lot of very terrible bad things can be justified when you think you are going to die anyways, and WW's personal belief that life had both owed him more then he got and then punished him with cancer anyways let him sort of pretend he was just doing evil to earn a punishment he had already been given. I think a financial problem on it's own wouldn't gave done it.
    I agree, but also if he had a hefty life insurance policy then the show similarly wouldn't happen. It was the specific straights he was in (about to die due to not being able to afford better treatment, and also leaving his family destitute afterwards) that made him rationalize it enough to dip his toe in the water.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I'll be getting to the next section of this as soon as my neck stops hurting and I can relax, possibly as early as tomorrow.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Melkor didn't try to disrupt the music just once though. Once could be seen as an honest mistake. But he did it three times and each time he was basically told to stop and yet he kept doing it, griefing the others trying to take part to the point some just game up. Three times is enough to show that he was meaning to mess it up for everyone and try and take over.

    As to Eru designing it so that Melkor did rebel, I don't quite see it that way. As someone has GMed a lot, players are always doing crazy things and messing up the plot. A good GM can adapt to that and work it into the story, improving it. That is what I see Eru doing. Being an omnipotent all powerful creator helps, but he also jsut took what Melkor was doing and worked it into the plot as well.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Thing is that Melkor and the other spirits were essentially children, and Illuvatar was letting them play with a gun without telling them it was real.

    The song was of supreme significance to the future lives and wellbeing of every mortal creation and those among the Ainur who chose to move to the world. Every discordant note added by Morgoth and those who joined him was the addition of war, murder, sickness and other such unpleasantness that would affect the lives of the Ainur and of beings who didn't even exist yet, and Eru didn't stop them after the first time and actually tell them that. He just adjusted his song to incorporate the evil and kept going. He didn't try to stop the evil that was being added to his creation, he just used it as a springboard to create the next step of bittersweet goodness.

    How many men lived and died in misery? How many orcs, elves and dwarves? What of the dragons and trolls and wargs who lived lives of cruelty and suffering and pain. Would Melkor have knowingly condemned them to such at the dawn of time if he had known? I don't know, but I do know that Illuvatar allowed their suffering to be conceived by his ignorant and impetuous children, and then used it as part of his creation even though it was cruel.


    It does fundamentally come down to the real world 'Problem of Evil,' a philosophical question that a lot of real world religions struggle to answer, and one I think Tolkien struggled with himself both in his fictional works and in his real life from time to time.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I'm not sure that extremely powerful godlike beings could be classified as children.

    Eru could have stopped Melkor from doing anything, but that evil came about because of free-will. Remove the free-will and you remove the evil, except lack of free-will, being little more than a puppet of a creator, isn't an improvement.

    Thats all getting a bit philosophical though, which is probably more than we need to get into.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by J-H View Post
    I read it as a kid (somewhere before age 12 I think) and I know I skimmed over the first 60 pages (creation stuff) super fast and barely remembered any of it. Boring!

    I was there for the big Fs... Feanor, Fingon, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod Felagund, glorFindel, and, uh, the other guy. Also that human who fought the monster. No, not the one with the doomed romance. The other human with the doomed romance who fought the monster. Uhh....

    Aside from Feanor, please don't expect me to tell the F Lords apart. Too many similar names. Um, they're all elvish nobles?
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    The two I remember are the guy who was friends with Beren and had a song-battle with Sauron, and the guy who got mad and went out and challenged Morgoth to a public duel he coudn't turn down. I don't remember which names belong to them, though.


    I should probably borrow my dad's copy and re-read it after I finish going through the first 3 Dune books. It has been decades since I read it.

    If you want to dig into the background by going off-forum, Ryan Reeves has a really good lecture series on Youtube covering CS Lewis & Tolkien, their backgrounds, views, and interactions, as well as themes in their writing. At least for LOTR, he identified a couple of themes that made sense, but that I had never noticed. He is a lecturer on history at a religious institution, so some of the content of his lectures is hard to discuss in this forum. I found the entire series very enjoyable and educational, and it made me go back and read some CS Lewis that, again, I hadn't read since I was a child.
    I'm looking forward to reading Tolkien to my boys when they are older.
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    I always got the impression at this stage that Iru is well aware of Melkors path but wants him to see how his parts of the song have added chaos and therefore beauty to it. The Ainur generally seem to become stagnant without melkors influence. So his being there is still an important part.

  19. - Top - End - #49
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Btw I can't remember did the Silmarillion explicitly state that Eru is omniscient?

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ibrinar View Post
    Btw I can't remember did the Silmarillion explicitly state that Eru is omniscient?
    I don't think so, not explicitly. But it is implied by his words and actions. It does not matter though: The Silmarillion is not a history written by an omniscient author, nor a theological treatise, but the myths of the elves as written down by Bilbo Baggins. Which he learned from songs, tales, and books during his stay in Rivendell. Thus, any story about Iluvatar would have been passed from the Valar to the Noldor, brought back to Middle Earth, and been re-told thousands(!) of times by people who were storytellers, not professional historians.

    Or on a meta-level: It is not the worldbuilding guidebook to Middle Earth. It is a book that is found within the world of Middle Earth.
    Last edited by Seppl; 2021-12-08 at 07:19 AM.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Corvus View Post
    I'm not sure that extremely powerful godlike beings could be classified as children.
    Me neither. Nowhere does Tolkien himself describe the ainu as "children". We don't know how immortal spirits develop -- it's almost certainly they never had nappies which needed changing -- but I think it's fair to assume they were of "age" when they were invited by Eru to participate as co-creators in his masterpiece. For all we knew, they had existed in the place beyond time for centuries or millenia before the work was attempted.

    Besides, another point is that the world was not full-made when the song was complete. It was instead a foreshadowing of all that would be in the world that was to be created. When the Ainu came to the world and became the Valar, the vision they saw in song still had to be brought about by millenia of work on their parts. Melkor could have done what he only feigned to do, which was to go down into Ea and labor diligently to undo the harm he had caused with his song. Instead he doubled down on the actions he had performed in the song, making things worse and worse. Rather than pushing back against the foreshadowing and the doom he had helped create, he hastened and continued it by every means he could.

    I mentioned "Breaking bad" yesterday. While reading up on it I saw this comparison between Walter of Breaking Bad and Tony Soprano of the "Sopranos" mob movie. They represented two different kinds of evil: Walter has someone who was born in light but deliberately abandoned it for darkness, while Tony was born in darkness but turned down opportunity after opportunity to return to the light.

    Melkor has done both those things. Like Walter, he was "born" in light far greater than any mortal human, yet turned from it. Like Tony, he has and will received multiple opportunities to repent and seek pardon. This is a difficult thing; Evil in Middle-Earth is not just corruptive but addictive. Watching some of the evil people struggle with it is like watching an alcoholic swear they can give it up any time they like. But so far as we can tell, Melkor never actually made ANY sincere attempt, not now and not in the thousands of years of chances he will have in the future.

    Also, I think the "omnisicent and omnipotent" aspect of Illuvatar is most closely analogous to a gamemaster in D&D. The gamemaster knows everything about the game world , knows everything that transpires in it, has all power within it. But that doesn't mean everything is going to happen as they foresee if the GM is dming human players. The only way to have things exactly as you would wish would be to replace the humans at your table with little dolls , acting both as GM and as player via DMPCs.

    That's not much fun.

    Perhaps Eru could have had a better world if he'd done it all himself, but for some reason he wanted the willing participation of other intelligent beings in his subcreation. Not merely as audience but as active co-creators, sub-creators, musicians playing in his orchestra. And if "willing" is to have any meaning, you have to give these intelligent creatures the capacity to revolt. A creature that doesn't revolt because it can't isn't "willing" or "free". It's a robot or a machine doing what its programmed to do.

    The optimal course Eru seems to be aiming at is not a world where the Ainu do what they're supposed to because they have no choice. The world he's aiming for is one where they DO have a choice and yet choose to go along with him anyway. What's more, out of free and willing obedience they exceed their original instructions and make improvements not originally anticipated by the design but welcomed in as marvelous innovations, as we will see in the future chapters.

    That's one of the major breaking points between Eru and Melkor , and indeed throughout Tolkien's work. Evil enslaves and binds the will to compel obedience by force. Good frees the will and exhorts it to the good. That is why Sauron creates wraiths and Gandalf does not. That is also why Gandalf exhorts the free peoples of Middle Earth to do what they can within their powers, but does not seek to take authority over the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor to rule and direct them as an emperor of many kingdoms, though from a military standpoint that would be far more efficient.

    "Good" is taking a risk because there's no guarantee a free will won't simply walk back into evil. But "good" is characterized by faith in the good, by trust that creatures will do rightly. It is because evil lacks this trust that it seeks to ensure perfect obedience by taking away even the capacity to disobey if possible, compulsion by fear and terror where not.

    It is because of this I suspect that Sauron and Melkor both see themselves as the "good guys", saving the world from the chaos that only they can deliver the world from, and they are absolutely determined to use every possible means to ensures this come about. The reason they fail and become dark lords is because you can't bring about the kind of free, willing obedience that is the hallmark of good by force and compulsion.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I didn't realize I'd murdered the conversation. Sorry .

    Still, I've been thinking over the past day or so : Why Did Illuvatar create sub-creators to assist him in his work when he could just have done at all himself? For that matter, why make elves and humans who are also very capable of evil, of twisting and ruining his designs, even without a fallen Vala to egg them on?

    The answer I'm coming up with is: Illuvatar doesn't want to be alone in the cosmos. He doesn't want to be a child playing with dolls. He wants to be an adult playing with his children. He doesn't want to just create art; he wants artists. Artists who will follow his design, like children coloring in a coloring book, or like a proud parent watching their grown daughter belt out "Flight of the Bumblebee" effortlessly in a flute solo for the Boston Philharmonic. Or, even further down the road, turning to their child's youtube channel and see the most wonderful videos with music combinations, their own creations which he did not create himself but still follow the patterns of beauty, truth, loveliness that he set before them as the original model.

    That's why dolls don't cut it. Because it's still just him moving them around on puppet strings. If you want, like Pinocchio, a child that is not simply a wooden toy but a Real Boy, you've got to give them life and will of their own.

    Thing is , if you're going to create Real Boys (and Girls) then you have to accept the downside that comes with Real Humans. To wit, real sons and daughters aren't china models which are only pretty and never cause trouble. Real people are a handful at any age!

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2021-12-10 at 09:03 AM.
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I'll be updating on Saturday. Yesterday I was freaking exhausted, abd I have to help my friend replace his failing hard drive tonight.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mystic Muse View Post
    I'll be updating on Saturday. Yesterday I was freaking exhausted, abd I have to help my friend replace his failing hard drive tonight.
    Got it. Take care of yourself and if you need more time, take it! It's not like you've got patreon subscribers paying for this, after all.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    It's really more historically normal then the current take on the subject, but I can't go into the hows and whys on this forum. Suffice to say it makes a lot more sense under its own paradigm.
    It is ridiculous to refer to "the current take" on a matter of philosophy. There are many cultures and many individuals in the world who have different opinions on the matter.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mystic Muse View Post
    I'll be updating on Saturday. Yesterday I was freaking exhausted, abd I have to help my friend replace his failing hard drive tonight.
    Perfectly understandable. The next part is mostly infodump anyway before the story actually starts.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    I'm curious to see if MysticMuse will recognize one particular individual, though.

    Edit: But yes, Mystic, don't work yourself up over this thread, you don't owe us anything leadt of all some kind of schedule.
    Last edited by Fyraltari; 2021-12-10 at 10:06 AM.

  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Good post Pendell, thank you.

    For me, I don't think it's going to be possible to discuss many of the themes without including the parts of my values and character that I have to turn off to post within the forum rules. I'm going to happily follow the thread, but probably won't be engaging beyond superficial topics.
    Last edited by J-H; 2021-12-10 at 11:09 PM.

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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Spoiler: On Illuvatar
    Show
    illuvatar's own words state that he knows full well what Melkor's actions will bring about, and that they are indeed part of his own plan to make the world.

    Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'
    He's outright stating that he incorporates Melkor's misdeeds and evil because it was part of his plan all along, hell he basically says he's the source of evil itself. It even implies Melkor was made specifically for the purpose of being the traitor that introduces evil into the work, so it would make a better creation by Illuvatar's standards.

    Which would be sketchy enough if Melkor was a knowing actor playing a part that he had been told to, because it would mean Illuvatar prefers a story with people dying and suffering horribly over one where everyone is happy and enlightened. As is he comes across more like a robot that can feel pain, designed to fulfil a specific role in Illuvatar's real design without being aware of it, and suffering for almost his entire time on Arda, which isn't even fair to Melkor, let alone his own victims.
    Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

  30. - Top - End - #60
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    Default Re: Mystic Muse reads The Silmarillion.

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I didn't realize I'd murdered the conversation. Sorry .

    Still, I've been thinking over the past day or so : Why Did Illuvatar create sub-creators to assist him in his work when he could just have done at all himself? For that matter, why make elves and humans who are also very capable of evil, of twisting and ruining his designs, even without a fallen Vala to egg them on?

    The answer I'm coming up with is: Illuvatar doesn't want to be alone in the cosmos. He doesn't want to be a child playing with dolls. He wants to be an adult playing with his children. He doesn't want to just create art; he wants artists. Artists who will follow his design, like children coloring in a coloring book, or like a proud parent watching their grown daughter belt out "Flight of the Bumblebee" effortlessly in a flute solo for the Boston Philharmonic. Or, even further down the road, turning to their child's youtube channel and see the most wonderful videos with music combinations, their own creations which he did not create himself but still follow the patterns of beauty, truth, loveliness that he set before them as the original model.

    That's why dolls don't cut it. Because it's still just him moving them around on puppet strings. If you want, like Pinocchio, a child that is not simply a wooden toy but a Real Boy, you've got to give them life and will of their own.

    Thing is , if you're going to create Real Boys (and Girls) then you have to accept the downside that comes with Real Humans. To wit, real sons and daughters aren't china models which are only pretty and never cause trouble. Real people are a handful at any age!

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    This is how ones start philosophy discussions that lead to “the problem of evil” with a myth of a perfect creator. Likewise you may suddenly see the Spinoza in the soup.
    Stupendous Man drawn by Linklele

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