[obloquy]

This is intended as an explanation of certain points that may seem ambiguous after reading The Silmarillion, as published in 1977 by Christopher Tolkien. I put it forth as fact, despite that some of it borders on personal interpretation. Dispute what you wish, though I believe these ideas provide the most consistent and reasonable whole and I will provide arguments for whatever is contested. On to it, then!

Ainur and ëalar

The origin of the Ainur is fully explained in The Valaquenta, which is contained within The Silmarillion. They are what Tolkien calls ëalar (see HoMe X, p165), which is a being that is naturally discarnate. Ainur may be the only type of ëalar, but it is not necessarily so. Some of the Ainur did not enter into the World, choosing to remain outside of it.

From the ’77:

Thus it came to pass that of the Ainur some abode still with Ilúvatar beyond the confines of the World; but others, and among them many of the greatest and most fair, took the leave of Ilúvatar and descended into it.

What is commonly misunderstood about the Ainur is that the two ‘types’ of Ainu, Vala and Maia, are not different races, but merely different stations within Arda. The Valar are ‘the powers’, and Maiar are defined both as ‘the beautiful’, and ‘the people of the Valar’. They serve the Valar, and are defined by that service. If an Ainu is neither counted among the Valar (and there are only 14 of those), or in the service of a Vala, we can only call that being an Ainu, since neither of the titles “Vala” or “Maia” apply.

Tulkas is an example of one of these Ainur who chose to remain outside, though he later did enter into Ëa as an appointed Vala. Ungoliantë, however, could possibly be an Ainu who entered into Ëa of her own accord, unsanctioned by Ilúvatar, and thus was neither Maia nor Vala. It is also possible that she was one of those spirits corrupted by Melkor to his service, as stated in The Silmarillion; but in any case, at the time of her appearance in that story, she was unaffiliated and doing her own thing. Though Tom Bombadil was not a Maia, it is not impossible that he was an ëala or Ainu, much like Ungoliantë. It may be that when the Ainur were given designations, the potency of the being's spirit played a part in determining to which class it would belong. But it is also possible that some of the Maiar, and especially unaffiliated ëalar or Ainur, could have had spiritual power to rival some of the Valar.

It is important to note the difference between ëala and fëa. The Children of Ilúvatar possess fëar: it is their spirit, and it is separated from the hröa (or ‘body’) when the body is slain. On the other hand, ëalar are discarnate in nature, and only assume a hröa when they choose to do so.

Incarnation

There is a difference between ‘incarnate’ and merely ‘clothed’ with a physical form. Ëalar could apparently take on physical shapes to interact with beings on the physical plane, and were able to abandon or change those shapes as they willed. Tolkien called this being ‘clothed’ or ‘self-arrayed’. When a ‘clothed’ spirit’s raiment was destroyed or wounded, the being was ultimately unaffected. In contrast, some ëalar actually became incarnate, and were thus capable of being killed as incarnates were. They had engaged in certain activities or depleted their power to the point that they could no longer abandon their bodies without being rendered virtually impotent. Ósanwe-kenta, which appeared in Vinyar Tengwar #39, sheds some light on this point:

Here Pengolodh adds a long note on the use of hröar by the Valar. In brief he says that though in origin a "self-arraying", it may tend to approach the state of "incarnation", especially with the lesser members of that order (the Maiar). "It is said that the longer and the more the same hröa is used, the greater is the bond of habit, and the less do the 'self-arrayed' desire to leave it. As raiment may soon cease to be adornment, and becomes (as is said in the tongues of both Elves and Men) a 'habit', a customary garb. Or if among Elves and Men it be worn to mitigate heat or cold, it soon makes the clad body less able to endure these things when naked". Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a "spirit" (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hröa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.

"We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things. Nonetheless it appears to be an axan, or maybe necessary consequence, that if they are done, then the spirit must dwell in the body that it used, and be under the same necessities as the Incarnate."

Incarnation seems to always be involuntary, except in the case of the Istari, and perhaps Melian. The Istari were Maiar who were incarnated by the Valar as part of their mission, which was to rouse Middle-earth in defiance of Sauron. Melian’s incarnation was probably due primarily to her wedding Thingol and subsequently conceiving an incarnate child. After Thingol’s death, she abandoned her physical body and returned to Aman.

Thereafter Melian spoke to none save to Mablung only, bidding him take heed to the Silmaril, and to send word speedily to Beren and Lúthien in Ossiriand; and she vanished out of Middle-earth, and passed to the land of the Valar beyond the western sea, to muse upon her sorrows in the gardens of Lórien, whence she came, and this tale speaks of her no more.

From The Silmarillion

The permanence of the ‘death’ of an incarnated ëala appears to relate directly to the stature of their spirit and the amount of power they have expended in incarnate activities. It also seems likely that there are different degrees of incarnation. After an incarnate ëala was slain, it could rebuild a hröa for itself. This is primarily relevant to Sauron, who was a particularly mighty Maia (or Úmaia) spirit. He was slain several times, and though he may originally have been only ‘self-arrayed’, he later became dependent on having a corporeal form. He repeatedly reassumed a hröa, but his ability to do so may have hinged upon the fact that much of his power continued to exist in his Ring, whereas when other incarnate Maiar were destroyed, their power had been overcome and disintegrated without a Ring to ‘anchor’ them. Still, according to The Silmarillion, Sauron evidently lost a certain amount of his power with every ‘death’:

...Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home.

Apparently, in bringing Numenor to ruin, Sauron had committed such evil that he could no longer mask his true self – he had less control over how he would appear when incarnate. This was not unprecedented, as Morgoth's evil led to him also being unable to appear fair. This is also taken from Ósanwe-kenta:

Melkor alone of the Great [Valar] became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed.

When enough power had been dissipated, and they finally lost their corporeal form, the being would essentially 'die', being powerless to create a new hröa, and thus an impotent 'spirit of malice'. Examples are Saruman, Sauron (when the Ring was destroyed, thus disintegrating the ‘anchor’ of power he had), and, according to HoMe vol. X, in the chapter Myths Transformed, even Melkor himself, though perhaps it was not ultimate in his case. I quote:

...Morgoth was thus actually made captive in physical form, and in that form taken as a mere criminal to Aman and delivered to Námo Mandos as judge – and executioner. He was judged, and eventually taken out of the Blessed Realm and executed: that is killed like one of the Incarnates. It was then made plain (though it must have been understood beforehand by Manwë and Námo) that, though he had 'disseminated' his power (his evil and possessive and rebellious will) far and wide into the matter of Arda, he had lost direct control of this, and all that 'he', as a surviving remnant of integral being, retained as 'himself and under control was the terribly shrunken and reduced spirit that inhabited his self-imposed (but now beloved) body. When that body was destroyed he was weak and utterly 'houseless', and for that time at a loss and 'unanchored' as it were. We read that he was then thrust out into the Void.

Tolkien continues:

In any case, in seeking to absorb or rather to infiltrate himself throughout 'matter', what was then left of him was no longer powerful enough to reclothe itself. (It would now remain fixed in the desire to do so: there was no 'repentance' or possibility of it: Melkor had abandoned for ever all 'spiritual' ambitions, and existed almost solely as a desire to possess and dominate matter, and Arda in particular.) At least it could not yet reclothe itself. We need not suppose that Manwë was deluded into supposing that this had been a war to end war, or even to end Melkor. Melkor was not Sauron. We speak of him being 'weakened, shrunken, reduced'; but this is in comparison with the great Valar. He had been a being of immense potency and life. The Elves certainly held and taught that fear or 'spirits' may grow of their own life (independently of the body), even as they may be hurt and healed, be diminished and renewed. The dark spirit of Melkor's 'remainder' might be expected, therefore, eventually and after long ages to increase again, even (as some held) to draw back into itself some of its formerly dissipated power. It would do this (even if Sauron could not) because of its relative greatness.

Evidently, Melkor could eventually have regenerated to the point of reincarnating himself (were he to enter back into the World), but Sauron could not, after the Ring had been destroyed. Why? Above, Tolkien indicates that it was due to Melkor's relative greatness. Remember also, however, that Sauron's power had been infused into and concentrated within the Ring, and then utterly destroyed with it -- it was actually in creating the Ring that Sauron provided a means for his own defeat. Melkor, on the other hand, disseminated his power throughout all the physical matter of Middle-earth; therefore, as long as Middle-earth existed for him to draw upon, Melkor could not be wholly destroyed in the same manner that Sauron was. Melkor thus guaranteed his persistence, if only as a depleted shadow of his former greatness.

From Myths Transformed, HoMe X:

The whole of 'Middle-earth' was Morgoth's Ring...

So What?

Understanding these points sheds some light on certain seemingly problematic questions, such as Why didn't Saruman, being a Maia, just rebuild his body? and Why didn't Gothmog (the Lord of Balrogs, not the Lieutenant of Morgul) ever reappear in the later ages? It can also provide an explanation for difficult revisions, such as the ‘3 or at most 7’ Balrog note from AAm, and reconcile such revisions with the older texts. If the Balrogs at the Battle of the Powers were perhaps only ‘clothed’ rather than fully incarnate, they would have been able to reassume hröar when Melkor returned later. However, their later deaths were more permanent due to incarnation, or an increased degree of such. They were inherently weaker Maiar than Sauron – who himself may only have been able to reincarnate so many times because of his Ring – and could not re-embody themselves as he did.