[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I can immediately think of one case. Fëanor, whose Silmarils might have had the power to heal the Trees. He refused. This created much woe, and I think it nurtured the obsessive pride and will of possessing that Fëanor and his kin had over these jewels. Also, I'm pretty sure it worsened many relationships in Aman, but I'm too lazy to walk to an other room, take the Sil from the bookshelf and check...

Hmm, while I agree with the former cases, I have to disagree on this one, as it's not quite in the position of "power" as the other ones. This was not the question of using or not using power, it was a question of giving or not giving up something. (And maybe even about giving up power - from certain point of view. Fëanor was unable to make the Silmarils again.) It would be the same question if Fëanor just had the power to revive the Trees with no loss for himself (for example, that he could do that repeatingly just like that), and not did that. But this way, I see it as something different.

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

I think Tolkien uses "power" both in the sense of physical or metaphysical might, but also (and possibly more significantly) as Authority, as in the power of a king over subjects, or of a general over armies. Either works in the debate, I believe.

Well, what I had in mind, rather, was the power in the sense of... power to do something, power over another: be it over a person, over a living creature, over a tree or plant, over a city or a mountain, over the earth itself (the latter ones rather in the "magical" way). I can recall only very few moments when somebody excercised a power over a piece of land, for example the Girdle of Melian, or Lothlórien (here it was seen very well) - but still, the Elven Rings were made "to preserve and not to rule", and even here it was just the land that was affected, or rather, unaffected: unaffected by time and changes in the world outside; whereas the animals, inhabitants, plants inside could roam/grow freely. In contrary to that, for example Sauron (and Saruman in his latter days) did his best to not only excercise power over his slaves, but also to change Mordor to his image (in a much more crude way, Saruman also did the same with Isengard and later with the Shire, which is a brilliant example of the use of power, now meaning the whole physio-geographical AND socio-economical sphere taken together).

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

Another instance of the negative effect of having power and not using it is the situation with the Valar and Melkor in the First Age and before. I wish I had the time to go dig up the pertinent quotes ('cause I don't recall precisely where they are), but Eru was not happy with the Valar hauling the Elves off to Valinor for safekeeping while they allowed Melkor to have his way with Middle-earth. He would have preferred that they deal with him more expediently, and trust in him to protect his Children. They had both the might and the authority to do so, but put it off and put it off until the confrontation inevitably caused tremendous loss of life and destruction to Middle-earth. If they had exercised their power much sooner -- say, when he destroyed the Lamps, before the Elves awakened -- much misery and woe would have been avoided later.

Oh, ho, ho, wait here a little bit. I was under the impression that actually the excercice of power against Morgoth was later viewed as bad, or at least the way it went. I am now speaking about the battle for Utumno: I don't know where I read it, but I think somebody quoted some Letters or HoME, and it was maybe hinted even in the Sil itself, that Valar later wished that they had not attacked Morgoth like that, the idea was something like that even just seeing the lights in the North and the ground shaking etc. scared most of the Elves and that caused lots of them to be afraid of Valar or see them indeed as horrible Gods capable of destroying whole lands etc., and lots of them decided not to come to Aman because of this. I am not sure about that, as I am not Letter-or whatever expert, but I can imagine that and it sounds logical to me.