[Nar]

Ancalagon's Fire, excellent question, excellent quotes.

Given Tolkien's description of these works taking place in our word, but an imaginary history, I think he meant Eru to be the same God as in Tolkien's faith, but from a time before the historical Catholic faith.

Tolkien certainly did set out to write an epic set of myths and legends for England. That's absolutely right. I find, however, at least in LotR, (which is not the part with Melkor that you're asking about, but depends on it conceptually) that the spiritual themes of sacrifice, resistance to temptation, pity/charity and redemption, not to mention Child of the 7th Age's providence appear more and more during the later stages of Frodo and Sam's journey.

Tolkien wrote those stages during the later days of WWII and just after and sent them to his son Christopher, who was at one point training for the RAF-- which means he wrote them while his son was under threat of dying in a war, and just after, and as a vet who had lost friends, he knew that death and loss could really happen to him and his. Having a child in jeopardy does tend to bring out the spiritual side of a person. In Tolkien's case, that side was Catholic. I find less of these spiritual themes, and more of the epic and pagan themes in FotR --Tom Bombadil, for example, is pure pagan, like the Green Man (of course, Tom could also be the Secret Fire incarnate). Goldberry is a river nymph.

However, even supposing Tolkien's Catholic side influenced his storytelling at times, it is still perfectly reasonable to ask your question about Melkor and Eru-- it's a perfectly reasonable question for a Catholic writer to consider. In the Catholic (and indeed Christian) faith, the redemption was triggered by treachery and betrayal, so was that God's only plan? That is a similar question, and one Catholics and other Christians have often considered. (I'm a lapsed Episcopalian myself, but my husband's Catholic, so I'm a secondhand expert.)

I do think the Silmarillion is much more epic and pagan in spirit than the later books of LotR I mentioned. However, I think the question of Melkor's responsibility or not for his own path is very much affected by Tolkien's Catholic side and should be answered with that in mind, along with the Epic side which is also applicable. Was Melkor set up by Eru? Is there a way Melkor could have fulfilled his role of creating change and development, history, the whole bleeding plot for the mythos, without the suffering: killing the trees, murdering various elf-monarchs, twisting and torturing prisoner elves to create orcs (that was really rotten of him! The poor orcs! Always some war, some lousy boss or other, never any hope of living reasonable lives with booty and orc-wenches in a nice dark cave!)

My answer is yes. You are right, I think, Melkor was gifted by Eru with Eru's own yen for change, growth, and working the angle. (At this point, I admit, I'm mainly interpreting the story from my own world view and my own notion of God. Go on, listen to the lapsed Episcopalian! I can lead you to the land of qualified ambivalence!) However, Eru did not pre-determine how Melkor would play out his nature. That was all him. Melkor was determined to parlay his role into one of maximum power and grandeur. He had heard the entire song, and knew exactly what that would require of the world and its children, and he did not turn aside. In choosing this particular way of fulfilling his role, Melkor accepted all the suffering for others and cruelty from him it required.

Now that's a different question. Melkor chose his path while singing the song, so:
a. Did he have an inkling that he was defining the elements of a world
b. Were all the events of middle earth included in the song (I think yes)
c. So could he repent while in the world, if he didn't during his part in the song that defined the world and its events?
d. I don't care, he's still a rat fink! Poor orcs!

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]