[Formendacil]

First of all, the requisite thanks for the resurrection of this thread. Alas, but all the good points have already been made, leaving me with only a few musings left to ponder.

With all the talk of Manwë and Ulmo being involved in the War of the Ring, I'm left to wonder if any of the other Valar contributed. For the most part, this is out of character with our retiring demi-gods, but not all.

Firstly, it seems that a great deal more ought to be said of Varda. Not least, of course, because Elbereth gets invoked several times over the course of the epic. The question, however, is does this ever actually result in any response from Taniquetil, or is it just the name of "Elbereth" that acts--which itself brings up another form of the Ulmo-water-power question... is the Vala in question actually active, or is there just a latent power that can be called up? (Varda's name by Frodo, Ulmo's water by Elrond.)

I'm also left wondering a bit about Yavanna and Oromë. Saving Ulmo, these two are characterised in the earlier parts of the Silmarillion as those most sympathetic to the plight of Middle-earth and those who visited it most. And yet, with the Flight of Noldor, it seems that we never again hear anything along these lines--apart from the reference in the Valaquenta, if recall aright, that Oromë hunts in these lands less (but still somewhat therefore) than aforetimes. As for Yavanna, the Ents are as much her creatures as the Eagles are Manwë's--though there is no reason to see any direction communication on her part to them, they nonetheless act, as intended when she pleaded for their creation, as the vengeful guardians of the olvar.

There's also the matter of the White Tree sapling that Gandalf leads Aragorn to on the slopes of Mindolluin. The seed must have lain there at least a few centuries before germinated a mere half dozen years or so before. Why did it start growing then--just in time for Aragorn's return? Granted, there is a hallowed propheticness about the White Trees going back to Tar-Palantír's time, but we're never really told under whose direction the White Trees are going to miraculously follow the courses of the line of Lúthien.

Uinen and her love of the Númenoreans has been touched on briefly once, and I'd love to think there's more to the story here--the Númenoreans, after all, reverenced her as equal to the Valar, according to the Valaquenta--but alas, we are given only the slightest indications of what took place at sea during the 3rd Age, and for all the sources we have, Uinen may have abandoned the Númenoreans once Andor sank beneath the waves.