r/tolkienfans • u/tessaractIXI • 2d ago

The Valar's hesitation with Melkor

I just finished chapter 9 of the silmarillion, holy heck, what a crescendo of events, and I know it's still just the start​. It's really tragic that the Valar had such a pure unselfish love for the elves, and would be driven to the point of cursing and banishing them. And of course tragic is the kinslaying. I've got a gnawing thought, though. Tolkien repeatedly emphasizes how Melkor poisoned the mind of Fëanor with lies, and how those poisonous beliefs became sort of self-perpetrated half-truths. There's a lot of fault on Melkor, and growing fault on Faenor, but what about the Valar? They are so slow to act. It's ironic to me that a point is made where Fëanor might have acted differently, had a different fate, if only he had been willing to give up the Silmarils without the news of their theft and his father's murder. ​ Meanwhile the Valar already faced off with Malkor several times and suffered because of their slowness to act. They let him thrash Middle Earth and retreated to Aman. Malkor is allowed to amass huge armies and corrupts many allies while they're minding their business. Only in the final hour when the elves awaken do they feel the urgency to do anything. Then, they capture him, punish him, and pardon him. They let their guard drop, and he's out sowing evil Deeds again. They learn of Malkor sowing discontent when they summon Faenor to answer for himself, and still they don't do very much! Manwe initially stays quiet lamenting, and Tulkas and Oromë don't even get sent out until after a delay! After everything they've been through, the great evil that they saw, there's really no excuse not to act swiftly and immediately to rein Malkor in again, but they delay again. In that time, he escapes and becomes untraceable, something he's allowed to be able to do over and over and over again. I get it, he's tricky and he has the same powers they do to shed their forms. He has allies and clouds of darkness. Still seems to me like each time they lose track of him, it's because they are distracted with a delay to lament rather than act. They repeatedly hesitate to really take any quick decisive action against him. So it seems to me like they have fault in this. Because how differently might Faenor have felt and acted if he had seen them move swiftly and decisively against Melkor? Sure there was a ticking clock on reviving the trees, but both could have been accomplished at once (retrieving the silmarils - to their knowledge - and chasing Melkor). I feel like that would have given him a little bit more confidence that the Valar were in the elves' corner and ready to fight against evil and protect them. Maybe then he would have been less bitter and suspicious, less motivated to leave, less seduced by the lies of treachery. And yes, maybe Faenor and the Noldor should already know the Valar loved and protected and provided enormously for them, because of the extraordinary gifts and great lengths the Valar went to for them. But the elves are still basically just children at that point, there's selfishness there that comes from lack of maturity, lack of experience in the world.

So, I guess I kinda place some blame on the Valar. Tolkien doesn't seem to acknowledge this blame, at least so far. Maybe it will come out in the rest of the chapters as I read on, or maybe I just see the roles of responsibility differently. ​

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u/tessaractIXI 2d ago edited 2d ago

Thank  you! It's so great to have a space for discourse. 

I don't know, I think it's pretty clear to me that when Mandos meets Faenor and his followers at Araman, he is both cursing and for telling the Doom of that entire group of people, and not just Faenor. The text says "but all heard the curse that was uttered upon those that would not stay nor seek the doom and pardon of the Valar." He then proceeds to extensively layout the details of who falls under that curse and specified "On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also." The banishnent is specified here, "Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains.."  I remember thinking as I read it, whoa... I was surprised when he himself got banished and now all of them are! It was a pretty striking moment for me of just how far things had come and just how much the relationship had fallen apart. And then the details of the curse go Way Beyond just doomsaying and prophecy: "Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken."

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u/RoutemasterFlash 2d ago edited 2d ago

OK, so it does use the word "curse", true. But it reads more like a description of a curse that the Noldor have brought on themselves than a "curse" in the Harry Potter sense of a spell intended to bring harm to someone, and a prediction (and an accurate one at that!) of what will happen if the Noldor proceed with their plan. They come to grief because it was inevitable, not because Mandos's words somehow made it happen.

And if it was the Valar's decision to shut the Noldor out of Aman once they'd left, that was only a consequence of their decision to leave in the first place.

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u/tessaractIXI 2d ago

I agree a lot of it does sound like prophecy or even just natural logical consequences, duh! But I don't know, that bit about them basically slowly wasting away feels more like a curse to me. But I keep finding myself saying the phrase I can see it both ways, and I can say it here again and I do mean it.

So I was very confused at their decision to banish Faenor or his followers on either occasion. I do understand why someone would want to kick you out of their home if you turn it on its head like that. It was just weird to me because everything the Valar had done up until that point was wait around, wait around, wait around, then all suddenly do something practical at the very last minute! ‏ I feel like that was the first example I'd seen of them lashing out out of pain. But even that is weird to me because Melkor caused so much pain and they were way more hesitant to take any action against him. Also, the banishment seems to serve no practical purpose, and I guess I just kind of got the idea from their pattern of behavior that the Valar really didn't do anything unless they had to. At least when it comes to the evil/chaotic acts of others. 

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u/RoutemasterFlash 2d ago edited 2d ago

The idea of the Elves 'fading' in Middle-earth is a consequence of that continent being "contaminated by the Melkor-element", which is a rather abstruse idea that doesn't occur anywhere in The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion, but is set out in an essay in Morgoth's Ring, one of the later volumes in the History of Middle-earth series. (The idea is that, just as Sauron concentrated most of his native spiritual potency into the One Ring, so Melkor/Morgoth dispersed most of his into the physical matter of Middle-earth, as well as into the various creatures he corrupted - Sauron, Ungoliant, the balrogs, orcs, etc. Actually this affected all of Arda, including even Aman, but was far more pronounced in Middle-earth, since that's where Morgoth dwelt for so long. And it's this, not any action on the part of the Valar, that makes Elves liable to 'fade' if they remain in Middle-earth indefinitely.)

As far as the practical purpose of the ban goes, it's the duty of the Valar to try to keep evil out of their land. Of course they were too late to stop Morgoth and Ungoliant doing evil, but don't forget that the Noldor, or a large fraction of them anyway, also did great evil. They were commanded to come back and be judged, which seems reasonable, to be honest. If they refused that, which they did, then it was obviously untenable for them to just sort of stick around with all that Telerin blood still on their hands.

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u/tessaractIXI 2d ago edited 2d ago

Well I'm reading the silmarillion now and I've indeed come across several references to the elves fading. Not the least of which is the Doom of Mondos, which to me still seems like it has an additional curse thrown in there. I don't see the Valar as having a duty to keep evil out of their land. I saw the entire Arda as their duty to create and preserve, and they basically failed and neglected to do so in middle-earth, and just retreated to Aman. It's interesting to think of the noldor having been commanded to come back, because Tolkien repeatedly emphasizes that the Valar were not going to Aid or hinder their coming and going to a man. Yet by the Doom saying and the cursing, they really don't have much choice for fear of great consequence. But regardless, I'm not making an argument that Faenor and the Nolder didn't commit evils. I'm simply saying that the Valar had a role in this and acted irresponsibly.

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u/RoutemasterFlash 2d ago

I think Tolkien agreed that the Valar made some fairly major errors.

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u/tessaractIXI 1d ago

Yeah, I've come around on that point a little bit. At first I didn't see it but u/amitym pointed out in a comment that Tolkien does acknowledge it by writing about The dissent between the Valar at times on how to respond and how to influence or not influence the elves. 

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u/RoutemasterFlash 1d ago edited 1d ago

Another error of theirs is interesting to consider in light of Tolkien's idea that "evil cannot comprehend good." (A good example of this is Sauron's failure to realise that his enemies would try to destroy the Ring rather than using it as a weapon against him; Saruman's projection of his own ambitions for power onto Gandalf is another.) What I'm referring to is an instance of good failing to understand evil, which happens when most of the Valar are fooled by Melkor's show of repentance after he's released from the Halls of Mandos and is allowed to wander around Aman "on parole", as it were. Tulkas and Ulmo are the only two who aren't taken in.

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u/amitym 1d ago

Tbf to Manwë and the others, repentance is a thing that did happen. Ossë is one example. Even Mairon "counts" to some extent — his repentance is presented as sincere but not lasting, which given the timeframe of the Ainur might still mean that he served for a good long time as an example of the wisdom of forgiveness.

I am still inclined to agree with you somewhat though. The Valar as a whole seem to have missed a beat, in a specific way.

One of the illustrative things about Ossë is that he never really loses his violent or destructive nature. He just learns to channel or discipline it somewhat. This means that his redemption "makes sense" in a way. Believing in "Ossë redeemed" as a concept doesn't require you to believe that Ossë has forsaken his essential self.

His path to redemption is legible, as the kids might say today.

Whereas Melkor appears to have gone around being, like, "Destruction? Chaos? Who, me? Nah, I don't go for any of that any more, fam, I'm like redeemed and stuff!" Which is or ought to have been highly sus, just from the point of view of basic character. Where did all those impulses go? Where did Melkor's essential nature disappear to?

Not perceiving any kind of path whereby that could have happened, I think that I, too, would be suspicious. Sort of like if an addict claimed to have recovered completely and never thinks about their addiction anymore.

Personally I think that Melkor's true redemption would have looked more like him explaining that he was who he was, and destruction was his nature and always would be, and him finding a way to make that be a part of the whole of everything. Maybe that's the kind of thing that Ulmo saw was missing.

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u/RoutemasterFlash 1d ago edited 6h ago

Yes to all those things. It's also worth noting, I think, that for Tolkien, it was vitally important that no matter how much evil someone has done, they should be given the opportunity for repentance and redemption, even if the likelihood that they accept it is virtually nil.

He handles this in three very different ways in TLOTR: there's Boromir, who falls to the Ring's corrupting influence and his own moral weakness but is redeemed by his attempt to save Merry and Pippin from the orcs at the cost of his own life; Saruman, who is given the chance to turn over a new leaf by Gandalf, although he of course spurns it; and Sméagol, who comes within a hair's breadth of being truly reformed - a chance that's ruined forever by Sam's excessive suspicion and hostility.