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Originally Posted by NF
The problem with Elves is, since their hroa is made of the stuff of the Earth, and since Earth is Morgoth's Ring, they have a tendency to fall to Morgoth's will. (cf. in BoLT, the Spell of Bottomless Dread that is laid on all the Noldoli after their defeat at the battle of Unnumbered Tears, except in Gondolin). In fact, everything, if left to its own devices, will fall to Morgoth's Will, since he practically dominated the Music of the Ainur . . .
. . . until Eru intervened.
Now, consider Men. Their fëa ultimately belongs beyond Eä. So, they bring something from beyond it to the World. The fate of the World, to fall to Morgoth's will, is not their fate.
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Well, in terms of Hroa, both Elves & Men are in the same position, so I can't see that Elves are more prone to fall to Morgoth's will than Men. In fact the sense I get is that elves are less likely to be decieved by Morgoth/Sauron than Men. When Elves fall it is seen as more out of the ordinary than when Men do.
I accept that Men's Fear are destined to pass beyond the Circles of the World, so that makes the
relationship between fea & Hroa different in Men to what it is in Elves, but I don't see that it implies that Elven Fear is qualitatively different from that of Men.
As I said, we're stuck with the clear statement that Men have greater freedom of action than Men. Yet, the fact that Tolkien states that Ainulindale was written by Rumil, an Elf, means that we have to ask why an Elf would write (in a text written for other Elves, not for Men) that Men have freedom of action where Elves do not.
Of course, the infamous Translator Conceit comes in here. Do we have Rumil's original Ainulindale, or an adaptation/redaction? Its a simple fact that by bringing in the TC Tolkien calls into question the absolute validity of all the M-e writings. They are all copies of copies of copies, translations of translations of translations. There are many stages of transmission where errors (both accidental & deliberate) could creep in. Also, we have to take into account that in translation, even the best efforts of a translator may produce a false or incorrect version of the original. In short, Ainulindale is not a clear, unchalengeable, account by Tolkien himself, but a translation of a work by an Elven Loremaster which had passed through many minds & hands before it reached him.
We don't even know if Rumil intended it to be taken literally, metaphorically or symbolically. This is an interesting question to me, as we all seem to assume a 'fundamentalist/literalist' approach to the Legendarium. Our approach is like the Fundamentalist Christians who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago & that dinosaurs were wandering around with Men pre-Deluge. Yet we've no idea if Tolkien meant the writings to be taken that way. It would seem that at times he did, at other times he didn't. Some times its as if he's using the TC to make a claim of authenticity, to confirm the dependability of the accounts, because they can be traced back through stages to the original author. At other times he seems to imply that the process of copying & translation through numerous stages has taken us so far from the original account that we can't depend on the literal truth of the documents.