[Mithadan]

Some excellent posts here. This could have been several separate threads considering the fine discussion on the various posts raised.

Hookbill, nice map. Pitchwife is correct, however. The scale is wrong, although the gerneral location is correct. Beleriand did not extend very far south of the end of the Blue Mountains as shown in the LoTR map, although there may be undescribed lands south of the main body of Beleriand that do not appear in the Silmarillion map (beyond Taur-im Duinath). We also do not know how much of the coastlands were destroyed at the time Numenor was drowned; we have no Second Age maps from Tolkien other than a sketch of Numenor.

Mnemosyne, great point and one I never really considered. Morgoth's Ring is so named based upon the idea that all of the world, not just Beleriand, was to Morgoth as the Ring was to Sauron. Morgoth invested so much of his power into corruptiing the world that what remained to him was insufficient to retain control of it or oppose the Valar. Indeed, he was barely able to withstand the Noldor. Compare him at the time of the War of the Jewels with Morgoth of Utumno and even earlier when he was able to overturn mountains and toppled the two Lamps. But even so, Beleriand may have become so infused with his evil that the Valar felt compelled to destroy it, as opposed to it sinking as a result of the War of Wrath. Interesting idea, I don't think it is consonant with what Tolkien wrote("so great was the fury of those adversaries that the northern regions of the western world were rent asunder...").

Hookbill, the Valar do, effectively, abandon Middle Earth after the First Age, at least so far as direct intervention. But this is, I think, simply part of the nature of the myth and is not directly related to the distance between Valinor and Middle Earth. It was fated that the Elves would wane and Man would become ascendant. Similarly, by the end of the Third Age we see a complete fading of the mythological, the Valar, the Elves etc. They are not merely inactive, but rather they physically leave the world to Man and Middle Earth becomes in fact an ancient version of our primary world. This was, in part dictated by the Music of the Valar and not necessarily the Vision. If I recall, the Vision ended at or just after the awakening of the Elves. But the Music contained much more, such as the awakening of Man, and seems to have dictated the fading of the Eldar (and perhaps even the Valar). In addition, Men are more fragile than Elves and when they die they do not return. I think the Valar feared that continued direct intervention in Middle Earth would harm Men.