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In this, what I see is Tolkien, having the original story of the Valar's inaction - which worked on BoLT, & even in the Quenta, when they were less 'Angelic' in a strictly, shall we say, 'Catholic' sense, attempting to construct a theological explanation for the Valar's inaction. The later writings, as Christopher Tolkien has stated, caused numerous problems for his father, as he attempted to make them conform to scientific & theological standards. I struggle with Tolkien's reasoning here
Quote:Should Manwë and the Valar meet secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more lies? If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny his? Can hate overcome hate?
This doesn't work as a justification for their lack of immediate action, & their demand that the Noldor be broken & they themselves be begged for aid, before they will intervene. This is the story of thousands of years of hellish suffering, enslavement & violent death of innocents. Could the Valar not have known what was really going on?
Was Tolkien attempting to find an explanation for the suffering in this world - why doesn't God intervene to stop the horrors? Well, God can't go tricking evil people, & taking away their freedom, can He?
What Tolkien seems to be doing is constructing an explanation, attempting to fathom the motives of God in a world where suffering continues unabated. These later writings are profound theological explorations, but do they belong in ME?
In LotR the explanation is simpler, & more profound - Frodo tells Sam that suffering is simply 'like things are in the world. Hopes fail, an end comes' all else is our feeble attempt to fathom the mind of God, & work out the reason for suffering. These later writings are the attempt of an old man to make sense of his life, & of life & death in general. He is using the medium of his Legendarium to explore questions that baffled him. He has long since left behind his desire to create a mythology for England, or to create a mythology at all.
The events he is using for his theological explorations are in stories which were never meant for such deep analysis. He had written stories to bring back a sense of magic & wonder to a world which he felt had lost it - through war & industrialisation. In these last writings he is using those stories to do something else. They aren't part of the stories, they are his comments, & thoughts on things much deeper. They can be used to give depth to the stories - but that was never their intent, & they contradict too often the stories themselves. But that is not important, because we're dealing with something of a wholly different order. As Christopher Tolkien has stated, these writings became the repository of some of his father's profoundest thoughts.
If we take the stories themselves, the actual events of the tales, out interpretations may stand alongside Tolkien's own - because what we have in the pieces quoted are simply Tolkien's attempts to interpret tales he had long since ceased to tell, & was in the process of trying to understand.
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