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Old 02-19-2007, 01:11 AM   #17
Raynor
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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Raynor has just left Hobbiton.
It can only be a speculation since this alternative didn't happen. However, to sustain this strategy, Tolkien also said about Manwe (same text, bold emphasis added):
Quote:
Even so, and on the grounds of the stories as received, it is possible to view the matter otherwise. The closing of Valinor against the rebel Noldor (who left it voluntarily and after warning) was in itself just. But, if we dare to attempt to enter the mind of the Elder King, assigning motives and finding faults, there are things to remember before we deliver a judgement. Manwe was the spirit of greatest wisdom and prudence in Arda. He is represented as having had the greatest knowledge of the Music, as a whole, possessed by any one finite mind; and he alone of all persons or minds in that time is represented as having the power of direct recourse to and communication with Eru. He must have grasped with great clarity what even we may perceive dimly: that it was the essential mode of the process of 'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out of it new good should constantly come.
Quote:
After the Battle of the Powers, why did the Valar not cast down the Pelori and extend the bliss of Aman to Middle-earth?
I don't think that the bliss of Aman can be extended; as explained in the Akallabeth, this bliss stems from the very presence of the Valar; this extension would have meant, for one thing, that at least some of them would have to be in constant travel from Aman to M-E, or that they should be sundered from their kin for various periods of time. Even more importantly, their continuous presence on M-E would have been a challenge to Melkor's domain which he could not have ignored; as such (continuation from previous quote):
Quote:
One especial aspect of this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil. If we consider the situation after the escape of Morgoth and the reestablishment of his abode in Middle-earth, we shall see that the heroic Noldor were the best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction.
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