Pendell reads the Silmarillion

[factotum]

I don't think thats right. No character, no matter how good, not even Manwë had the Flame Imperishable. Aulë explictly doesn't have it despite being "good Melkor". I think the idea is that the Flame is Eru's and Eru's alone. Only he can create life from nothing.

Doesn't it explicitly say at one point that Melkor doesn't find the Flame Imperishable anywhere in his exploration of the Void because "it is with Eru"?

[Metastachydium]

The notion that male-female friendship must become love or lust seems very naive.

Experience tells me the same.

We have a lot of conceptions about human psychology which seem like unalterable fact right up until the point we find it's just cultural conditioning. Everyone's heard of Lord of the Flies, in which children isolated by an airplane crash rapidly revert to savagery and killing each other. Except that, when this happened in real life , nothing of the sort happened.

Oh, please! Not that story again. Its author doesn't seem to remember much about The Lord of the Flies and seems to understand even less of what he read. Not to mention that the similarity between the two situations is superficial at best.

That said, from

Maybe male humans aren't the violent animals western civilization thinks of them as.

I'd feel perfectly comfortable dropping that maybe.

[Divayth Fyr]

Doesn't it explicitly say at one point that Melkor doesn't find the Flame Imperishable anywhere in his exploration of the Void because "it is with Eru"?

Indeed, right after saying he searched for it.

He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar.

[pendell]

Oh, please! Not that story again. Its author doesn't seem to remember much about The Lord of the Flies and seems to understand even less of what he read. Not to mention that the similarity between the two situations is superficial at best.

How so? Both stories are about schoolboys being trapped on a deserted island. The major difference I see between the two is that the nonfictional account is of six chums who knew each other , all at the same school, while the fictional story is a band of strangers from an airplane crash. In the fictional story, you have a boy's choir which forms its own faction, while the other children either join the elected leader or go off alone. And Piggy, who was mistreated and school, continues to be mistreated here.

From the viewpoint of many readers, the story of LOTF underlines the idea that "civilization is only three meals away from barbarism". That absent tight, societal control humans become something very like fairy tale orcs, pillaging and murdering, and delighted to do it.

The real-life Tongan example doesn't necessarily contradict this; societal control can be internal, not just external in the form of police and jails. Being from the same school and the same culture, these six boys already had internalized social standards and mores to the extent they were still carrying on much as they would at home. If we had dropped a back of schoolchildren from, say, Sweden on the same island, there would have been much more potential for friction as they don't speak the same language and have different cultural assumptions. Multiple factions coexisting on the island is definitely among the best case scenarios.

Even so, the Tongan example does seem to rebut Lord of the Flies if LOTF is an argument for the the idea that humans are preconditioned to evil and will inevitably fall into it if constant watch is not maintained to keep them on the straight and narrow. That concept was one quite common in early modern Europe starting in the 1600s and still has many adherents today; certainly the world wars did little to persuade the generation of people who saw the concentration camps that humans were anything but monsters waiting for the slightest pretext to start killing.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Metastachydium]

How so? Both stories are about schoolboys being trapped on a deserted island. The major difference I see between the two is that the nonfictional account is of six chums who knew each other , all at the same school, while the fictional story is a band of strangers from an airplane crash. In the fictional story, you have a boy's choir which forms its own faction, while the other children either join the elected leader or go off alone. And Piggy, who was mistreated and school, continues to be mistreated here.

From the viewpoint of many readers, the story of LOTF underlines the idea that "civilization is only three meals away from barbarism". That absent tight, societal control humans become something very like fairy tale orcs, pillaging and murdering, and delighted to do it.

The real-life Tongan example doesn't necessarily contradict this; societal control can be internal, not just external in the form of police and jails. Being from the same school and the same culture, these six boys already had internalized social standards and mores to the extent they were still carrying on much as they would at home. If we had dropped a back of schoolchildren from, say, Sweden on the same island, there would have been much more potential for friction as they don't speak the same language and have different cultural assumptions. Multiple factions coexisting on the island is definitely among the best case scenarios.

Even so, the Tongan example does seem to rebut Lord of the Flies if LOTF is an argument for the the idea that humans are preconditioned to evil and will inevitably fall into it if constant watch is not maintained to keep them on the straight and narrow. That concept was one quite common in early modern Europe starting in the 1600s and still has many adherents today; certainly the world wars did little to persuade the generation of people who saw the concentration camps that humans were anything but monsters waiting for the slightest pretext to start killing.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Let's see. Yes, "six kind of bored quasi-friends of similar age on a fishing trip" is, perhaps, not exactly the same thing as "loads of war refugees including kindergarten age kids and moody teenagers alike who mostly don't know each other". The Tongan boys also had a certain kind of shared upbringing I can't get into here for obvious reasons, the closest "equivalent" of which in Golding is the membership of the core Hunters in a strictly hierarchical group that apparently robbed them of their childhood. The LotF children also have a few bad apples among them (notably a charismatic bully accustomed to having a position of power (Jack) and weird fellow with very obvious and very serious psychological issues (Roger)). Further, the Tongan kids ended up on a previously inhabited island with small, harmless semi-domestic animals as well as crops still present. Meanwhile, the LotF children shared their island with feral pigs. How these two qualify as "the exact same setup to the point that if LotF doesn't mirror the Tongan story closely, then Golding is a moron" is beyond me.

Moreover, LotF is certainly dark, but critics like the author of the excerpt in the article tend to massively overstate its bleakness. No, LotF doesn't devolve into a state of omnicidal anarchy where sadistic murderers are killing each other for fun. The Hunter tribe is essentially a functioning society capable of sustaining itself and its members don't go out of their way to do lasting harm to anything that isn't a pig. A grand total of two kids die (and possibly some littlings, I suppose, but no such thing is so much as explicitly hinted at). One of them dies in what's basically an accident; the other is killed by Roger who was apparently unstable long before he got on the island, and let's just say there's a reason why Ralph is mostly worried about Jack and Roger alone even when he ends up officially hunted. Not even the thing about the fire is a fair criticism. The large pyre is first abandoned because of the "monster" and not because the kids go feral.

And now let me comment on this, specifically:

Even so, the Tongan example does seem to rebut Lord of the Flies if LOTF is an argument for the the idea that humans are preconditioned to evil and will inevitably fall into it if constant watch is not maintained to keep them on the straight and narrow.

LotF is not "an argument for the the idea that humans are preconditioned to evil and will inevitably fall into it if constant watch is not maintained to keep them on the straight and narrow". It is true for Roger, of course, but Roger's shown to be the example rather than the norm. As for the rest, Jack is a bully with an overgrown ego who walks into the setup with power bestowed upon him by adults. Anyone who thinks his clique deferring to him even when he's petty and/or cruel absurd and outlandish should go look up a couple case studies into bullying. They'll be surprised. Even then, however, "falling into evil" (or support for evil) is not shown to be "inevitable" even for Hunters. Sam and Eric are enrolled into the tribe and they defer to Jack, after all.

What LotF actually is is, rather, a deconstruction of the Romantic robinsonade in general and stuff within that tradition like Ballantyne's Coral Island in particular. I'm not sure delving any further into the specifics would help me stay on the good side of the forum rules, nevertheless.

[Fyraltari]

LotF doesn't devolve into a state of omnicidal anarchy

Anomy. Sorry, pet peeve.

As for LotF, I don't remember the book well enough to have an opinion.

[pendell]

Anomy. Sorry, pet peeve.

As for LotF, I don't remember the book well enough to have an opinion.

it's not hard to guess, though. Just imagine you scooped up a random set of attendees from a sci-fi con and dropped them on a desert island. Things would go well swimmingly at first, until someone until they discover that there are both Star Trek fans AND Star Wars fans on the same island.

THEN THERE IS BLOOD.

If the trekkies win, they celebrate their victory but fall out over whether Kirk or Picard is the best captain. MORE BLOOD. Then they kill each other over the Abrams reboot versus the earlier series. Eventually only one person is left ...

... then they're shot by the one person cosplaying Katniss Everdeen who has been hiding out all this time with a bow. Happy end!

Silly? From what I've seen on boards like these I wouldn't give the members two weeks on an island together before heads started to roll.

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Metastachydium]

Anomy. Sorry, pet peeve.

Objection overruled. I stand by my term.

As for LotF, I don't remember the book well enough to have an opinion.

A respectable stance!

[Precure]

Ainur doesn't have any kind of biological sex.

[Grim Portent]

Ainur doesn't have any kind of biological sex.

Biological in the sense of meat and chromosomes? No, but I don't think anyone or anything in the setting does. Humans and elves aren't born male or female in the LotR by random chance sperm lotteries, but by divine predestination. If Illuvatar made you female, you're female, even before you're born and after you die.

The Ainur can certainly have children, the elf Luthien is the daughter of the maia Melian, though there are no other known children of Ainur that come to mind. Maybe Shelob, if we assume the theory that Ungoliant was a maiar that stayed in the Void and became corrupted by the darkness there to be correct.

Oh, and wargs. As I recall they're the descendants of the werewolves, which were themselves wolves possessed by evil maiar in service to Morgoth.

[Precure]

Biological in the sense of meat and chromosomes? No, but I don't think anyone or anything in the setting does. Humans and elves aren't born male or female in the LotR by random chance sperm lotteries, but by divine predestination. If Illuvatar made you female, you're female, even before you're born and after you die.

Citation needed on that lottery thing.

[factotum]

Regarding groups being naturally antagonistic, it's worth looking up the Robbers Cave Experiment from the 1950s, where two separate groups of children were allowed to develop and then suddenly meet each other. Quite scary how quickly they devolve to near-savagery.

[Telonius]

Late to the party on this one. Regarding sex and gender, one interesting linguistic bit - the Maia in charge of the moon is male and the one in charge of the sun, female. Germanic languages typically assign the (linguistic) genders that way, while Romance languages typically use the feminine article for moon, and the masculine for sun. If I'm remembering right, the Valarin language is based on Finnish (or one of the other Scandinavian languages). So a little point from Professor Tolkien there.

Sex and gender are a Big Deal in most mythologies. And it was usually seen as something that was given at birth and pretty unchangeable, at least without direct divine intervention. (Things like Loki, or the blind prophet Tiresias in Greek myth). People that didn't conform to the binary were usually in a very particular social situation. The nature of it varied according to the culture. Some were priests, priestesses, or shamans (of various descriptions); some were excluded or oppressed. Tolkien probably would have been aware of some of that. But I'd guess the extent of it would have probably been limited, and not exactly the most inclusive outlook. Unfortunate, but there weren't too terribly many alternate views available at the time.

For Melkor's mythological origin and literary parallels, I'll gesture in the general direction of John Milton. (Probably a quick thread lock for anything more in depth than that).

For that matter , I'm not sure how groundbreaking Eowyn's story is. She struggles against the constraints and expectations of her society, but in the end she marries and buckles down to those constraints. It's not exactly revolutionary; if anything, it reinforces the very expectations of the society she was pushing back against.

This is one point where I'd disagree. Her story is about coming to a point of balance. She goes from oppression, to (undeniably badassed, but ultimately unbalanced and self-destructive) action, to healing herself and others. The scene between her and Faramir in "The Steward and the King" really shows it. Faramir will always acknowledge her deeds, but she's realized that it's not all of who she is:

'Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity. For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not love me?'
Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.
'I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,' she said; 'and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.' And again she looked at Faramir. 'No longer do I desire to be a queen,' she said.

[Caledonian]

My personal theory is that some form of chaos and discordance was necessary, and the Valar are too ordered for that. They would have devised things of complete perfection but that isn't always the ideal form. A mountain range without cliffs and crags, valleys and waterfalls wouldn't be as inspiring as a big slab of earth and rock with no imperfections.

If we go with the idea that the Valar all are associated with a critical concept, we quickly see that the four Aristotelian elements are all represented: Aule with Earth, Ulmo with Water, Manwe with Air, and Melkor with Fire. It seems quite clear that Melkor was originally intended to provide some kind of Perpetual Motion, instead of using thermodynamics as a tool of destruction. Because of his original and continuing rebellion, change and growth are irretrievably linked to destruction. All of the good things that incidentally arose from Melkor's attempts to ruin everything could potentially have been discovered in cooperation with the others.

It's also worth noting that the Valar's creations aren't considered to be perfect, and sometimes they miss opportunities. They didn't think of shellfish to clean the waters near the shore, and they certainly didn't imagine pearls. Eru added them to Creation and surprised the Ainur. Eru also explicitly notes that he will not amend Aule's designs, but we haven't gotten to that part yet.

For that matter , I'm not sure how groundbreaking Eowyn's story is. She struggles against the constraints and expectations of her society, but in the end she marries and buckles down to those constraints. It's not exactly revolutionary; if anything, it reinforces the very expectations of the society she was pushing back against.

This is completely wrong. Eowyn struggled against her own society, a society that is explicitly noted to be 'lower' because it glorifies violence and the warrior as the ultimate ideals. Faramir is the example of how Gondorian society is 'higher' than that of the Rohirrim, although he laments that the long conflict has brought his people lower, close to the culture of the Rohirrim. He is an exemplary soldier, but sees it only as a necessity and takes no pleasure it in. What his people value are creation and preservation, building rather than tearing down. And that's why he says that the Shire must be a worthy society if gardeners are honored in it.

Eowyn doesn't submit to her society's expectations. She learns that her society's exaltation of warfare is lesser, and embraces the viewpoint that caring and nurturing are higher callings than being a warrior. So her transplantation to Gondor isn't just a change of residence.

[pendell]

So, we now start the main book of this volume
QUENTA SILMARILLION
"History of the Silmarils" .

Chapter 1: OF THE BEGINNING OF DAYS
The Valar make a world. Tulkas gets married. Melkor crashes a party .

Spoiler

Show

Wait a minute: I thought time had already started at this point? Well, no. "Time" doesn't exist because there is yet no way to measure it. There's no sun or moon in the sky. A sundial would be useless. Nor are there seasons , fall or winter. Nor do either the valar or their enemies age or grow old. So there's no Time. There may be "before" and "after", but these are related strictly to events. They have no way to measure the passage of time, and no reason to.

The scene opens in which Arda is torn between Melkor and the other Valar. The battle is a stalemate much like WW1, and for much of it Melkor has the upper hand.

Then Tulkas arrives.

We don't get many details of what happen next, but Melkor can't deal with this guy . He and his army flee the world , going back out of Arda through the wall of night, essentially Phantom Zoning themselves in the chaos outside creation, where up is down and left is blue. All is confused chaos in this outer place, for nothing is set in order. But there the villains wait.

Now that Melkor has cleared off, seemingly for good, the Valar get on with the business of making the world properly. Tulkas is put to work. It is at least parallel to the labors of Hercules . He works harder than anyone else, as that is apparently the heroes reward.

Here's an odd thing: In all this war there is no mention of casualties on either side. Valar can't "kill" each other, but there's no mentioning of anyone being taken prisoner or being exiled to beyond, save the time Melkor and his team collectively leave, which is kind of a collective team suicide but not really. They can still come back, if they aren't prevented. And obviously will, otherwise this is going to be a very short and boring book.

The Valar set lands and seas and mountains in their order. Yavanna devises seeds which become the trees and other plants of the earth. Aule , at her request, makes two lamps to provide the trees and the other inhabitants of Arda with light. The two lamps are Illuin, raised in the far north of the world, and Ormal , in the far south. These lamps perpetually illuminate the entire world , which is lit all at once "as in a changeless day".


...

So what you're telling me is that Arda is Tidally locked ? Without night cycle, the inhabited part will get warmer and warmer until the seas boil off and the entire place turns into sun-side Mercury?

I'd say "and the other side is perpetually frozen" except there IS no other side. At this stage in its history Arda is flat . Yes. As flat as an ironing board. We won't count all the different ways in story this is contradicted, but simply note that this is a story written by an English major, not a biologist nor an astronomer nor a geologist; the map of middle earth and its mountains give geologists fits .

But it's still a good read. As myth, not fact. Myths often times tell us much about how the people in the stories reacted to the events around them, and give a viewpoint on these events, but try to take them as literal truth and you soon run a-cropper. Consider the Trojan War . There is much to be learned from the Iliad about the nature of soldiers in war time, the heroism of Hector. The anger of Achilles. It's a great story about humans at war -- possibly the first story that really concentrated on the lived experience of soldiers in the field. But if you take from that the events literally happened as-written, well, the archaeological and historical evidence will soon jump on you with boots on.

Where were we? Okay, two lamps illuminating the entire world. We will later find that there are intermediate artifacts similar to these lamps, and a fragment of those artifacts created the sun and moon as lights. So each of these "lamps" are in fact nuclear reactions on the same order as quasars , many, MANY times the power of earth's sun. This will be an important plot point.

Many times more powerful than the sun? So forget boiling the oceans, Arda shouldn't even be a CINDER by now ... oh wait.



*Sigh* FINE. Shutting up now.

So .. the lamps are created and they are NOT burning the world to a cinder shut up shut up .. and now the world is created and the Valar have made a home for themselves on the island of Almaren, in a Great Lake near the midpoint of the world where the light of the two lamps is most blended. There are trees and ferns and beasts but not -- as yet -- flowers or birds, because Yavanna hasn't made them yet.

Still, their home is built, and what a barn raising this has been. Aule and Tulkas have been doing a great deal of work, and they need a rest, and the home is ready for moving in even if they haven't got quite everything set up yet. So Manwe declares a feast and invites all the valar and Maiar to the party. During this party , Tulkas falls for Nessa the sister of Orome. He proposes, is accepted, and the two wed there. She dances on the green and all are happy.

Tulkas, weary of his labor. Takes a nap.

But there are uninvited guests coming to the feast.

Melkor, you see, did not evacuate all his people when he fled the world. He left a stay-behind force embedded as spies among the Valar. They keep a close eye on all the doings of the Valar under their covers as loyal Maiar, and keep him apprised of all the doings there.

So when the time is ripe, he gathers up his servants in the void and returns secretly to the world of Arda. Like any good RTS player, his first step is to build up his own base first. He builds it underground, the better to hide from the aerial servants of Manwe. Birds may not have been created yet, but he seems to have some idea of aerial surveillance. Presumably the location also has plenty of minerals and vespene gas, all he needs to build a solid base from which to conduct his war against the Valar.

The power of Melkor's thought emanating from Utumno has it's effect on the surrounding environment.

"Green things fell and rotted, and rivers were choked with weeds and slime, and fens were made, rank, and poisonous, the breeding place of flies; and forests grew dark and perilous, the haunts of fear; and beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and died the earth with blood."

...

I'm sorry, my inner English editor needs a moment. That was all one run-on sentence! I posit an alternate reality where Christopher Tolkien (who collated this story from his father's notes) is allowed exactly ONE "and" in a sentence, especially when he's using both the conjunction right next to a comma. Still, it is descriptive and no mistake.

So : Melkor entering the world is the cause of the creation of swamps and predatory animals. Does that mean we owe Melkor for saving the world? Without predators, herbivores and so forth rapidly grow beyond the ecosystem's ability to support them. Before Melkor there was no circle of life, but now that he is here it seems a measure of some sensibility is being brought to ... *sigh* catgirls again. Fine. Moving on.

BUT IT'S SO HARD! There's just so much to ... okay okay okay.

HE BUILDS his secret base, his hidden fortress, as Kurosawa might call it. But it impacts the world around him. The Valar take notice of all these strange mutations and twisted monsters. From this they deduce that Melkor is back in the world, but they don't know exactly where because, again, hidden fortress.

Manwe decides to investigate and get to the bottom of this ... after the feast.

This turns out to be a mistake.

Because Melkor beats him to the punch, right in the middle of his feast.

While the Valar are busy dancing and singing and marrying and sleeping, Melkor leads a raiding party after both lamps, and SPILLS THEM.

Remember that I mentioned that each of these lamps was a nuclear reactor several times more powerful than the sun? . Well, guess what. Now they are ALL spilled out on the world.

Hilarity Ensues .

Melkor returns swiftly to Utumno and hides out, evading Manwe and Tulkas who pursue him.

The Valar have other problems than Melkor at the moment, however. They need the union of all their powers to prevent the world from being utterly destroyed by the unleashed fury of the lamps. This keeps them very, very busy for quite some while. They save the world.

Some of it.

Now, facing the reality of the new world, the World of Ruin, or Arda Marred as Tolkien calls it, they begin arguing about their next course of action.

Some argue that they should immediately hunt down Melkor and drive him out of the world for good this time, destroying his hidden fortress (about which they seem to know, now). But cooler heads prevail; destroying an underground citadel like Utumno will mean ripping up the very ground itself, and what if the Children, elves and humans, are now in the world? The Valar know they are coming, but not exactly when or where. They fear to do anything that might damage the world further, lest they inadvertently step on the infant intelligent species in their crib.

So instead they choose to evacuate the world to their own base -- what will one day be known as the land of Valinor, and its high mountain Taniquetil, upon which Manwe will reign.

Wait wait wait ... so you're afraid to destroy the mortal races but you're willing to abandon them to Melkor? What the heck, heroes?

For that matter , Manwe deserves a court-martial. He knew that Melkor was in the world and yet he declared this feast, at which no one set any watch of ANY kind, anyway. That's so negligent it deserves its own entry in the legal dictionary far above "gross negligence". "negligence that kills a planet".

Tell it To us, Dark Helmet .

They evacuate to their island fortress , and here Yavanna gets to work with a song of power, and she creates two trees which give us brilliant light : Telperion the Golden, and Laurelin the Silver. They wax and wane on a complete , opposite, seven-hour cycle. When one is at full the other is at minimum, and there is a period in the middle of the day when the light of both trees mingle. This day/other day series is the first day/night cycle, and it is at this point that we call the Beginning of Time, because this is the first day. The days are accounted by the cycle of the two trees , and by the sun and moon which succeed them.

The Valar mostly ignore the wider world of middle earth, concentrating on their own little island paradise. Not all, however. Yavanna cares greatly for the world she created and so ventures out to check things. Orome also has not forgotten the wider world and rides their frequently on recon-in-force missions, scouting out the territory and smashing up any Melkor-monsters he encounters on the way.

Manwe, also, sends "spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles" into the world to keep an eye on it and be apprised of all its doings. Likewise Ulmo, having power over every stream and underwater river, observes the world hidden from Manwe's eyes.

And so we stop here, except that a mention is made of both the elves and of humans. Elves are bound to this world as long as it lasts, while humans are "the strangers" . The hearts of humans have a new gift: "To seek beyond the world and find no rest therein, but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the power and chances of the world, beyond the music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else."

So humans are, in their way, as powerful as the Valar because they have the power to shape their own destiny, apart from the music, for good and for evil. It is part and parcel of this gift of strangeness that men remain in the world only a short space of time and then depart from it, to where the Elves know not. It is precisely because they are so powerful that their time on earth is so short. "[Unlike the elves , who live forever] the sons of men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar, which as time wears even the Powers shall envy."

So the reason human are afraid of death is because Melkor has made it terrible to them, but in the beginning it is the gift of Eru to men, and not a terrible thing but a mandatory corollary to their freedom. This has an echo of Wagner's Siegfried , who alone among humans in that story was able to slay the dragon because he alone had never asked any favor of the gods, and therefore was not bound by them or by their compacts which, among other things, forbid killing this particular dragon. Being "free" he receives no favors of the gods and therefore owes them nothing. So he can kill this dragon without breaking any oaths, and does so. This is similar to the "freedom of destiny" Tolkien describes as being part of the gift to men.

Maybe, but I think I agree with Xande from Final Fantasy III. He, along with Doga and Unei, is one of the three apprentices of the great Magus Noah. Each of them receives a gift of some kind. Doga receives one thing, Unei receives the power of dreams.

Xande, the third apprentice, receives death -- mortality -- as his gift.

Awww, how sweet! Just what I always wanted! By the way, did you keep the receipt?

And that's where we'll wrap it up today, I think. Until next time!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[factotum]

Even though Arda is flat, presumably it still radiates heat from its surface out into the Void, so it wouldn't just keep getting hotter without limit with the Lamps in place--an equilibrium would be reached at some point. I think one thing the book doesn't make entirely clear is that the Valar's original design for the world was completely symmetrical, and it was the fall of the Lamps that led to the current asymmetry.

And yes, protecting the coming races by sealing yourselves away on one side of a mountain wall while Melkor is allowed largely free reign on the other never seemed very logical to me either!

[Mechalich]

Here's an odd thing: In all this war there is no mention of casualties on either side. Valar can't "kill" each other, but there's no mentioning of anyone being taken prisoner or being exiled to beyond, save the time Melkor and his team collectively leave, which is kind of a collective team suicide but not really. They can still come back, if they aren't prevented. And obviously will, otherwise this is going to be a very short and boring book.

Arguably the world, at this stage, operates in an early mythic setup and it doesn't have a complete set of concepts yet. For example, Death, apparently, doesn't fully exist as an idea until Men show up. So something like imprisonment doesn't exist either. The Valar simply cannot (yet) conceive of binding up Melkor or his minions as a means of restraining their depredations. No one is playing with the full deck of ideas, because only a limited amount of the music has played out.

[Khedrac]

We will later find that there are intermediate artifacts similar to these lamps, and a fragment of those artifacts created the sun and moon as lights. So each of these "lamps" are in fact nuclear reactions on the same order as quasars , many, MANY times the power of earth's sun. This will be an important plot point.

Now I think here it is your turn to extrapolate too far in front of your evidence.

The twin lamps successfully illuminated the world - check (can't call it a planet because it is not at this stage, being, well, flat).
The twin maps were replaced by the two trees - this does not mean that they are just as powerful - merely that they could illuminate the world.
The sun and moon will be made form the last fruits (or flowers, it's been a while) of the two trees. This doe snot mean the maps are equivalent in power to a quasar or even a single star!

If you want to bring physics into it, consider that the sun is made from a fruit which could be as simple as finding some way to split the fruit's substance into (a lot of) hydrogen - it does not mean that the fruit (which was much closer to the world) was as bright as the sun that was made from it. All we know is that the lamps were bright enough to illuminate the world (or most of it) and the trees were bright enough to illuminate the area enclosed by the defensive mountains, we don't know they have an energy output similar to the sun's, in fact they almost certainly didn't for the reasons you gave. *

As for the rather messy run-on sentence, which was, at least, broken up by semi-colons, it has the sort of "flavour" to it that makes me thing its JRR's work not Christopher's (though I tend to agree about the sentence itself).

*

Spoiler: Old joke about extrapolation

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A group of scientists were driving through Scotland when one of them spotted a single black sheep on a hill and pointed it out to his colleagues.
The astronomer in the group immediately declared that from this they could tell that all the sheep in Scotland are black.
His friend, the physicist, gently pointed out that no, they could only tell that some of the sheep in Scotland were black, but the probability is that it was most of them.
The mathematician, always eager to show up other people's logic disagreed saying that they could only tell that at least one sheep in Scotland was black.
The others were reluctantly agreeing to this when the logician pointed out that that too was incorrect - they could only tell that at least one side of one sheep in Scotland was black...

[Fyraltari]

Here's an odd thing: In all this war there is no mention of casualties on either side. Valar can't "kill" each other, but there's no mentioning of anyone being taken prisoner or being exiled to beyond, save the time Melkor and his team collectively leave, which is kind of a collective team suicide but not really. They can still come back, if they aren't prevented. And obviously will, otherwise this is going to be a very short and boring book.

This is less a war and more of a playground fight, really.

So what you're telling me is that Arda is Tidally locked ? Without night cycle, the inhabited part will get warmer and warmer until the seas boil off and the entire place turns into sun-side Mercury?

I'd say "and the other side is perpetually frozen" except there IS no other side. At this stage in its history Arda is flat . Yes. As flat as an ironing board. We won't count all the different ways in story this is contradicted, but simply note that this is a story written by an English major, not a biologist nor an astronomer nor a geologist; the map of middle earth and its mountains give geologists fits .

Dude, stop, this isn't Star Trek it's not trying to look scientifically plausible. The world is flat, illuminated by a pair of lamps, the planet Venus is a guy in a boat with a stone on his head, don't overthink it.

"Green things fell and rotted, and rivers were choked with weeds and slime, and fens were made, rank, and poisonous, the breeding place of flies; and forests grew dark and perilous, the haunts of fear; and beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and died the earth with blood."

...

I'm sorry, my inner English editor needs a moment. That was all one run-on sentence! I posit an alternate reality where Christopher Tolkien (who collated this story from his father's notes) is allowed exactly ONE "and" in a sentence, especially when he's using both the conjunction right next to a comma. Still, it is descriptive and no mistake.

You do realize it's a stylistic choice, right? It's there to evoke the feel of ancient myths, oral traditions put to paper long after they were first told.

So : Melkor entering the world is the cause of the creation of swamps and predatory animals. Does that mean we owe Melkor for saving the world? Without predators, herbivores and so forth rapidly grow beyond the ecosystem's ability to support them. Before Melkor there was no circle of life, but now that he is here it seems a measure of some sensibility is being brought to ... *sigh* catgirls again. Fine. Moving on.

It's the rain thing again, Melkor can try all he wants to oppose his siblings and ruin their work, but at the end of the day all he does is wanted and accounted for by Illuvatar. He's still playing his part, just unwittingly.

Wait wait wait ... so you're afraid to destroy the mortal races but you're willing to abandon them to Melkor? What the heck, heroes?

For that matter , Manwe deserves a court-martial. He knew that Melkor was in the world and yet he declared this feast, at which no one set any watch of ANY kind, anyway. That's so negligent it deserves its own entry in the legal dictionary far above "gross negligence". "negligence that kills a planet".

Tell it To us, Dark Helmet .

I think this is an artefact of the first versions where the Valar where much more morally ambiguous, with even Melkor coming off as better in one incident.

Also, Tulkas needing a nap is interesting, as later texts will make it explicit than the Ainur never sleep.

[pendell]

Also, Tulkas needing a nap is interesting, as later texts will make it explicit than the Ainur never sleep.

I answer the riddle this way:

I suggest Valar don't need to sleep while unclad.

But when they are wearing a human body, that body is just like any other human body. It needs food, oxygen, sleep. If they want to, they can put aside their human body and become something else or return to their original spiritual form , which requires none of these things. But so long as they're in a human body they're bound by all the rules of a human body.

As evidence, I cite Gandalf; Gandalf is cold in Caradhras, hungry in other places, goes to sleep after the battle of Isengard (something his hobbit charges take advantage of). Gandalf is a Maiar, the same order of creature as a Valar but less powerful. If he were in his original form he wouldn't need sleep at all. But walking around Middle earth in a human suit -- an elderly one at that -- he totally does.

Spoiler

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There's no way he was faking sleep, not when Pippin stole the Palantir right out from under him and put a rock in its place.

ETA: This also explains why Gandalf returns so quickly. Because Valar and Maiar aren't like mortal people. If they're wearing a human body, you can kill that human body same as any other. But it won't hurt *them*. Killing a Valar's body causes it no more injury than tearing a human's favorite shirt would injure the human. An emotional wound, maybe, but physically inconsequential.

Kill the body of a Valar or a Maiar, they'll just make another one and pick up where they left off. It may take them awhile to fashion a new body and return to Middle-Earth, but the period seems to be days to months, not years, as evidenced by Gandalf's return in the books.

Which is why, if you're fighting Valar or Maiar, it's important to find out where their spawn point is and camp out on it so you can kiss them with a headshot just as soon as they come in. You can't kill them but you can certainly make them wish you could .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

I don't think that works. The Istari's bodies are not like thr Valar's. They can no longer shapeshift (except maybe Radagast) needed to relearn many things they have forgotten (in fact, Gandalf only has faint memories of Valinor) and actually grow old (if at a very slow rate) Saruman used to have raven-black hair. They were bound to specially crafted human bodies so they could relate to the mortals better.

I also doubt that Tulkas did his work in a human body.

I think the appearances the Ainur take on to communicate with Mortals are just illusions, simplified things without any of the nitty-gritty that should be necessary for them to work.

So, personnally, I file Tulkas's sleep under what TvTropes call "early-instalment weirdness".

[Caledonian]

Ainur doesn't have any kind of biological sex.

No, but they have an inherent spiritual sex which is necessarily reflected when they take physical form.

The forum rules prohibit us from discussing why Tolkien chose this, but basically for REASONS.

[pendell]

I don't think that works. The Istari's bodies are not like thr Valar's. They can no longer shapeshift (except maybe Radagast) needed to relearn many things they have forgotten (in fact, Gandalf only has faint memories of Valinor) and actually grow old (if at a very slow rate) Saruman used to have raven-black hair. They were bound to specially crafted human bodies so they could relate to the mortals better.

I also doubt that Tulkas did his work in a human body.

I think the appearances the Ainur take on to communicate with Mortals are just illusions, simplified things without any of the nitty-gritty that should be necessary for them to work.

So, personnally, I file Tulkas's sleep under what TvTropes call "early-instalment weirdness".

I assume that the valar and Maiar are different in degree, not in kind. The Maiar's physical bodies are not illusions. Gandalf's is killed and Melian's -- well, that's for later. Spoiler spoiler we will have plenty of reason to believe that her body is real and physical, not illusory.

Hmmm ... why do you believe Valar bodies are different from Maiar bodies? It seems to me you are in possession of evidence I am not aware of. Present it, and allow me to learn!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Precure]

No, but they have an inherent spiritual sex which is necessarily reflected when they take physical form.

There is a much better name for that thing you just described: gender.

[Caledonian]

There is a much better name for that thing you just described: gender.

Usage is in the middle of changing. At the moment, those terms tend to use confuse things.

At least for the Ainur, there's no such thing as inner personality not matching physical sex. They can't manifest otherwise, unlike for example Loki, who took the form of a mare to hide and accidentally got pregnant with Sleipnir.

[Fyraltari]

I assume that the valar and Maiar are different in degree, not in kind. The Maiar's physical bodies are not illusions. Gandalf's is killed and Melian's -- well, that's for later. Spoiler spoiler we will have plenty of reason to believe that her body is real and physical, not illusory.

Hmmm ... why do you believe Valar bodies are different from Maiar bodies? It seems to me you are in possession of evidence I am not aware of. Present it, and allow me to learn!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Not Valar and Maiar. Istari and other Ainur. I definitely that "Vala" just means "one of the fifteen most powerful Ainur" and Maia means "any other Ainu."

As for evidence, Unfinished Tales, in the chapter "The Istari" has this to say on the Wizards (my copy is in French, so my apologies for all deviations in wording)

"For, with the consent of Eru, [the Valar]sent forth to Middle-Earth members of their own Great Order, having taken bodies of true Man -not just the appearance-, and subject to the fears and to to the pains and to the hardships of the earth, able to suffer hunger and thirst, and even death; but such was the strength in their soul, they did not die, and only suffered the assaults of age, made worse by the hardships and worries of their long years of struggle. [...]The first to arrive was tall of stature and noble of behaviour, with jet-black hair and soothing voice, and all, even the Eldar, held him as the first of his Order. [...] For it is said, indeed, that having taken Men-bodies, the Istari had to relearn many things, and by slow experience; and even though they knew where they were from, the memory of the Blesses Realm was to them a vision of Far Away that (as long as they stayed true to their mission), filled them with a painful yearning."

[pendell]

Not Valar and Maiar. Istari and other Ainur. I definitely that "Vala" just means "one of the fifteen most powerful Ainur" and Maia means "any other Ainu."

As for evidence, Unfinished Tales, in the chapter "The Istari" has this to say on the Wizards (my copy is in French, so my apologies for all deviations in wording)

"For, with the consent of Eru, [the Valar]sent forth to Middle-Earth members of their own Great Order, having taken bodies of true Man -not just the appearance-, and subject to the fears and to to the pains and to the hardships of the earth, able to suffer hunger and thirst, and even death; but such was the strength in their soul, they did not die, and only suffered the assaults of age, made worse by the hardships and worries of their long years of struggle. [...]The first to arrive was tall of stature and noble of behaviour, with jet-black hair and soothing voice, and all, even the Eldar, held him as the first of his Order. [...] For it is said, indeed, that having taken Men-bodies, the Istari had to relearn many things, and by slow experience; and even though they knew where they were from, the memory of the Blesses Realm was to them a vision of Far Away that (as long as they stayed true to their mission), filled them with a painful yearning."

*Nod* . That still doesn't account for Melian, who was not an Istari yet definitely had a physically human body.

Spoiler

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She gave birth to Luthien, did she not? And presumably the way Luthien was brought into the world was not some sort of miraculous conception but the more ordinary way which means Amazon will need an intimacy coordinator to show that part of the story?

[factotum]

She had a physical body. It wasn't necessarily a *human* one. There's no indication she ever aged during her stay in Middle-earth, whereas, as Fyraltari says, the Istari most definitely did. She might even have made changes to her physical form to allow her to bear Thingol's child, we don't know if she'd normally have been able to do that.

[Mechalich]

She had a physical body. It wasn't necessarily a *human* one. There's no indication she ever aged during her stay in Middle-earth, whereas, as Fyraltari says, the Istari most definitely did. She might even have made changes to her physical form to allow her to bear Thingol's child, we don't know if she'd normally have been able to do that.

The Istari are described as having the bodies of "true Man," which is certainly significant. It is highly likely that Melian (and other Valar who chose to take mortal form at times) had the bodies of true Elves. That would explain the whole un-aging bit. Luthien, at least, is classified entirely as an Elf, so this makes a certain sense. The choice of the Istari to appear as Men, not Elves, would therefore reflect the changing power dynamics of the Third Age.

[Fyraltari]

*Nod* . That still doesn't account for Melian, who was not an Istari yet definitely had a physically human body.

Spoiler

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She gave birth to Luthien, did she not? And presumably the way Luthien was brought into the world was not some sort of miraculous conception but the more ordinary way which means Amazon will need an intimacy coordinator to show that part of the story?

Yes, but this is only evidence that Melian had a reproductive system for about nine months. It's entirely possible she shapeshifted herself one once she and her husband decided to have a child.

The Istari are described as having the bodies of "true Man," which is certainly significant. It is highly likely that Melian (and other Valar who chose to take mortal form at times) had the bodies of true Elves. That would explain the whole un-aging bit. Luthien, at least, is classified entirely as an Elf, so this makes a certain sense. The choice of the Istari to appear as Men, not Elves, would therefore reflect the changing power dynamics of the Third Age.

This is the kind of things why Inwould greatly appreciate it if someone could quote from an English copy of Unfinished Tales to confirm my on-the-fly translation of a translation did not deform meaning.

Anyway, I find it unlikely that Ainur besides the Istari had "true bodies". The process seems to involve some serious mental effects that I doubt Manwë would want to bear every time he'll have a chat with Inwë. And if that were the case, why note that those bodies were more than appearances and all the hardships they are subject to?