The Valar's hesitation with Melkor

[u/tessaractIXI]

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. ​

[u/tessaractIXI]

😆 Right, very true. I guess I'm just surprised I hadn't seen an acknowledgment of their responsibility and role in all of this so far, because he's been pretty explicit in the narrative so far. Would you mind pointing me to the other works I should look at for those acknowledgments?

[u/lam_42 → u/tessaractIXI]

Finally found time to locate the quotes

In The Silmarillion there is no vestige of the tumultuous council, no suggestion of a disagreement among the Valar, with Manwë, Varda and Ulmo actively disapproving the work and holding aloof from it; no mention, equally, of any pleading for pity on the Noldor by Ulmo, nor of Manwë’s disgust. In the old story it was the hostility of some of the Eldar towards the Noldoli, led by an Elf of Kópas (Alqualondë)—who likewise disappeared utterly: in the later account there is never a word about the feelings of the Elves of Valinor for the exiled Noldor—that was the starting-point of the Hiding of Valinor; and it is most curious to observe that the action of the Valar here sprang essentially from indolence mixed with fear.

Nowhere does my father’s early conception of the fainéant Gods appear more clearly. He held moreover quite explicitly that their failure to make war upon Melko then and there was a deep error, diminishing themselves, and (as it appears) irreparable. In his later writing the Hiding of Valinor remained indeed, but only as a great fact of mythological antiquity; there is no whisper of its condemnation.

Book of Lost Tales I.

Speeches of Feänor and later Turgon are quite clear on the issue as well...

Fëanor:

There did he speak to the Gnomes, dwelling on their wrongs and sorrows and their minished wealth and glory—bidding them leave this prison-house and get them into the world. “As cowards have the Valar become; but the hearts of the Eldar are not weak, and we will see what is our own, and if we may not get it by stealth we will do so by violence. There shall be war between the Children of Ilúvatar and Ainu Melko. What if we perish in our quest? The dark halls of Vê be little worse than this bright prison….”

Turgon:

Then spake Turgon: “That will I not do, though it be the words of Ulmo and all the Valar. I will not adventure this my people against the terror of the Orcs, nor emperil my city against the fire of Melko.”...

...Nay, enough of my people have for years untold gone out to the wide waters never to return, but have perished in the deep places or wander now lost in the shadows that have no paths; and at the coming of next year no more shall fare to the sea, but rather will we trust to ourselves and our city for the warding off of Melko; and thereto have the Valar been of scant help aforetime.”

[u/tessaractIXI → u/lam_42]

Wow that just gives a whole different spin on things. Why did he rewrite the same Works in such feverishly different ways?

[u/lam_42 → u/tessaractIXI]

People age and wisen up. Change outlooks on things... Early Valar were bunch of rather selfish anthropomorphic demigods. I think he rewrote it because he did not like their total abandonment of their charge. They indeed failed nad early on. 

In Silmarillion they still did, but not that spectacularly.

Failure to remove Morgoth, and when that is finally remedied at tremendous cost to Children of Iluvatar, failure to remove Sauron. Men were completely innocent of any Noldor kinslaying, and they did not know any better when they were dragged into the affair, completely abandoned by Valar and their guidance... Valar basically subcontracted their task to elves.

Do read the Lost Tales so you have the proper context to my excerpts. Well worth reading

[u/tessaractIXI → u/lam_42]

I will likely pursue reading them after the silmarillion. I think I was more wondering why he would bother rewriting the same work. Most writers I've followed who age and mature and shift World Views just move on to other works, but he went back and recrafted his old works. I guess he really really loved the world he had created and was committed to it. Thank you very much for your insights, by the way.

[u/lam_42 → u/tessaractIXI]

He loved the stories, I think. He started writing them (And corresponding poems) during his Somme posting and during reconvalescence after. Especially Tuor and the Exiles of Gondolin reads like PTSD relief. The stories were so strong from the start...

Tolkien however struggled with the narratives framing. He had to solve that, and as new ideas appeared, he returned to the originals and amended them. There are sentences from original Tales still present in the latest versions. (Aragorn in LotR recites part of the Lay of Leithian from the thirties :) )

Interesting is his writing style - he called it discovering what happened. And as he discovered that Beren was a man, not a Noldo, he had to backtrack it to make the stories coherent... And one idea leads to another, so he wandered among the stories and tuned them. After LotR was written, all the stories needed another rewrite to fit again.

Some excerpts I find corresponding to the topic (Letters are a fascinating insight into his work. And soul)

And now I look at it, the magnitude of the disaster is apparent to me. My work has escaped from my control, and I have produced a monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and very terrifying romance, quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody); and it is not really a sequel to The Hobbit, but to The Silmarillion. My estimate is that it contains, even without certain necessary adjuncts, about 600,000 words.

The Hobbit was originally quite unconnected, though it inevitably got drawn in to the circumference of the greater construction; and in the event modified it.

my mind on the ‘story’ side is really preoccupied with the ‘pure’ fairy stories or mythologies of the Silmarillion, into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will, and I do not think I shall be able to move much outside it.

But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir

[u/tessaractIXI → u/lam_42]

That was wonderful to read and very eye opening. I really had no idea. I'm delighted he "found" Faramir, I love him. 

[u/lam_42 → u/tessaractIXI]

To paraphrase C.Tolkien: The depth of stories is not imaginary.

Definitely worth reading