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Old 08-16-2003, 03:19 AM   #7
Gwaihir the Windlord
Essence of Darkness
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Evermore
Posts: 1,420
Gwaihir the Windlord has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Quote:
I have all the time failed to see why we should distrust him? He is hte creator (sub-creator) of this world and I think we should trust that he knew it best.
You wouldn't by any chance be referring to what I said in the recent thread about Eagles, by any chance? If you are, you have unfortunately misunderstood me.

In it I said that Eagles, in the instances where they have appeared, can be likened to angels. They commune between Manwe the King of Arda and the world, fly, are majestic and powerful and intervene on occasion for the help of Mena and Elves when there are in need. As I recall, you said this couldn't be true as the Valar were clearly the angels of Middle-Earth; and not the gods, as I and one or two others stated.

I said this there, but I'll repeat myself again now. Illuvatar, clearly, is the One God of Ea, with the Valar and Maiar a lower order of spirits and proceeding from this One God. They are not gods in the same sense that Illuvatar is. They are likened to angels, although the rigid statement that they are a direct representation of angels is in error.

They can be likened to angels, but they can also -- and this does in fact fit them better -- be likened to the deities of ancient Greco-Roman heathenism. (You say yourself in another thread that Tolkien had a classical education.) Can they not, now? They are neither, and in either case Illuvatar the Oneis the One God. Illuvatar is not really anything like the Ainur, as I'm sure we'll all agree, and is on an infinitely higher plane. I believe you may be taking my likening of the Ainur to 'gods' of Middle-Earth as something which it is not.

And the Eagles can be said to be angel-like figures in Middle-Earth. More so than the Valar in their imagery, which is what we were talking about in that thread.

At any rate, though, you should consider this if you are trying to over-parallel Ainu and angel -- in Christianity, and frankly I don't care whether you're 'hardened' in your atheism or not, the angels did not create the world. There was no Music of the Angels, and it was not the labour of the angels but God himself who spoke the Universe into being. The angels dwell with God, and the Valar and Maiar are enbedded within this world until it ends. As I said, the Ainur do not fit the quo of 'angels' all that well, while undoubtedly there are similarites, and are in fact a thing of their own that, in Middle-Earth, is rather more similar to deity.

The Powers of the World is their title. they are 'gods' in Middle-Earth as well as angels; however, they are not by any means Eru's or true Gods (with, as you'll notice, a capital 'G'). If you can understand it, this is what myself and others meant in the Eagle discussion thread.
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