[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I think you're misjudging this a little. Manwe's understanding of the Music doesn't seem to have been 'here are the things which will happen' (otherwise, y'know, the Death of the Trees would surely have made an impact?); it's more the certain knowledge of something everyone else has to take on faith: that 'he that attempteth [to alter the Music] shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

I admit that it's more than possible that I've misjudged this. Yet, that (out-of-character) passage which Zigûr quoted, from Morgoth's Ring is a little difficult to reconcile with the (in-character) passages from The Silmarillion:

"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. Manwë 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. 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. And in the meanwhile, Men, or the best elements in Mankind, shaking off his shadow, came into contact with a people who had actually seen and experienced the Blessed Realm."

No?