Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin
And did Valinor have seasons? Without them I'd think it would
be relatively uninteresting, like living (long-term) in a boring
climate like Hawaii. I'd much prefer somewhere like Minnesota
or Argentina to Hawaii climate wise, especially if you're there
elfwise for milennia.
|
As for this (and I will use it to illustrate what I think about the whole matter concerning changes in Arda), I think that there won't be much of a change like this. Or, all right, it might (perhaps somebody might serve with a quote mentioning something like how beautiful were Yavanna's garths in spring, and they turned gold in the autumn or things like that? At least Lórien in M-E had its own beauty in various seasons, and we know it was already half-way through to the realms beyond the Sea), but I find it likely that there will be places like Ever-Snowy, Ever-Spring, Ever-Summer etc., which will be just the same whenever you'd return to them. Just think of it: no real change, that's why Valinor is perfect, and now let's forget the idea "always the same, how dull" and just remember some place which you liked to go to when you were small and you'd wish that it remained the same until now. ("Oh, they built these new houses down the street, they do not fit the place at all." or "They cut down these trees that were there, I remember we were climbing one particular oak as kids, and it's no longer there.") I believe this was the ultimate thought of Tolkien's behind this, also when you compare it to all he says about the changes in the countryside (like in the foreword to LotR).
Also, there is no doubt the platonism-affected branch of Christian philosophy involved (still quite strong in the Catholic church of his era). The ideal of the Ultimate Unchangeable beyond the changing phaenomena of this world is clearly sticking out of Valinor and the way the whole world works. In relation to the above, it actually seems to me that it is
needed that there is a Forest of Ever-Spring as well as Forest of Ever-Autumn somewhere in Aman, to serve as an image, or as the basic "archetype" or even "blueprint" of all the forests in M-E at the various times, when they look different in every season.
However, there is one thing I find even more likely. I think it is not inevitable that there will be really no change at all even in the "ideal place" as Valinor is. Not even unthinkable that there will be spring, summer, autumn, and winter in the forests of Valinor, for example. I actually think that it is far more logical that there
was spring, summer... etc in Valinor (at least in some places; surely there were at least several places of Ever-Summer around there). However, these would be most likely cyclical and always returning, every year at their proper times, switching all possible kinds of weather, but obediently returning according to the pre-defined pattern to the state of the beginning once again. This is also a thing common to the cosmologies of many especially early and ancient cultures (and it's preserved in some religions, in the current European-cultural context it doesn't work as well anymore with the "linear" religions like Judaism and following Christianity, which brought the image of the history as linear), which take the time as "cyclic" and you have the year as, in fact, a repetitive pattern which is always the same and unchangeable (and that's why such emphasis is put on things like equinoxes or solstices, especially things like winter solstice marking the destruction of the old and the beginning of the new year, completely fresh. That's why any changes of the pattern would be deadly - even such a thing as eclipse is something pretty unnatural and means that some evil force probably tried to eat the Sun).
Otherwise. I find
alatar's note of thinking beyond the matter to be very interesting. I have been thinking about something similar, but rather of the sort: how do we know that bacteria etc. existed in M-E? I find it even inappropriate to think of that; just when reading the books, one gets the feeling (or at least I get the feeling, but I believe others do as well, as it seems really obvious to me) that the matter is really the way it looks, no complicated thinking of cells or about the fact that when you eat bread, it's made of some miniature organisms that also died. Horse is a horse, lion is a lion, just the way they look they also are - they are nothing more, but also nothing less - but quoting the popular verse from Isaiah, no problem to imagine that in the optimal state, they are all going to eat straw.
The really interesting thing is - as
Pitchwife put it very well so that it actually hit me when I read it - that the only thing that is supposed to die in Arda are Men. But it's not really the death as we imagine it when we hear this word: and in this, I think Tolkien is actually very, very, very good and surpasses the conservative pattern of maintaining his world unspoiled and unchangeable. Because, along with this, we realise that it is not the world of Arda which is the center of it all.
Men are only guests in that world, so the death is really nothing unusual for them. It is only moving to somewhere else (and only Ilúvatar knows, it may be that this step of being in Arda did not really mean that much after all!). The way Tolkien puts it, I would almost dare to say: and now, after you have read the stories of Túrin and cried for poor his family, and read the story of Aragorn and his achievements, you can forget it all, because it's not the world of Men after all, and they are all going to go beyond the Circles of the World. And it matters only for the Elves, who are bound to Arda, and for the Powers, who are even more tied to the world than simple mortal Men.
EDIT: Ha, crossed with
skip. True what you say.