Would it have been better if Men had never come into the West of Middle Earth?

[tom bombariffic]

Would it have been better if men had never come into the west of Middle-earth, and Men and Elves had never met?

For sure there would have been no Numenor, the elves wouldnt have dwindled as much as they did, and Sauron may never have gained as much power as he did.
However, we would have no Hobbits that were known of by the elves, and Sauron, had he managed to gain power, would have been very hard to defeat without the last alliance.

I'm not claiming to have too strong an opinion on this, but I'd love to know what everyone else thinks. Often when reading the Silm I thought "If only the men hadnt come into ossiriland, none of this would have happened", but then without them the silmarils may never have been recovered. Who knows?

I reckon, on balance, if the two races had never met, Sauron would have taken his buisness east to the men, and become so strong that it would take the Valar from the far West and probably the destruction of mankind to stop evil in the world. HOwever, in the long run this may have been better for the elves, as they wouldn't have lost so many fighting against sauron. These are just jumbled up thoughts which I suppose are fairly incoherant, and I guess its obvious that Im not quite decided. Id just like to know what other people think.

BOmbariffic

[Aiwendil]

Without the presence of the Edain, I don't think Morgoth would have been defeated. There would have been no Earendil, certainly.

[Galorme]

What you are talking about is a purely Elvish legend. It would never happen in ME, because ME is not a purely elvish place. I dont know if it would have been better for the Elves, but it would have been a totally different story (and i much less interesting one at that).

[tom bombariffic]

Yeah fair enough, it wouldnt be such an interesting story, and definitely wouldn't turn out the way it does. And yeah there would be no earendil, but then who's to say that a pure-bred elf wouldn't have done the same thing?

I dont really find it debatable that without men the story wouldnt have been as good, but still it may have worked out better for the elves. Beleriand wouldn't have been so corrupted for one thing. I guess there would be good and bad points, such as the elves not dwindling in Middle earth, but there being no earendil. Thats just one of many examples. It really is impossible to tell how things would have ended up, but we can speculate all the same.

[Galorme]

Woo! Speculation! I believe without Men the Elves of Belieriand would have been totally destoryed at Unumbered Tears. I know the Bad men did Bad Things™ but the good men did equally Good Things™.

[Arwen Imladris]

Didn't the men learn a lot from the elves? The elves might have been better off, but men would still be in the dark ages today.

[tom bombariffic]

yeah undoubtedly. Plus without the elves I reckon more of the men would have turned to sauron/morgoth and you would end up with a larger-scale version of the sinking of numenor involving half of middle earth. BUt yeah, the men were valiant in battle, and the elves would have needed the help of the valar to fight evil, or they would have been completely lawnmowered by the enemy.

[Man-of-the-Wold]

Tolkien at various points gives the conventional wisdom, that when it is all said and done, it would have been better for the Elves if they'd all stayed in Middle-Earth (as Ulmo urged), and better for the Edain, if they had not come among the High-Elves in Beleriand (as Sador observes).

But this is all 20/20 hindsight, and not the way that things were really meant to be. In other words, so what; its just wishful, pointless speculation. As the Silm. says, Feanor's father should not have remarried, but then no Fingolfin, Finrod and others.

So, what might have been best for the Quendi, the Atanni or for Feanor, is not necessarily what was best for Arda, the fulfillment of the Music and the appearance of Great Beauty, Valor and Sorrow, which must be.

[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: Man-of-the-Wold ]