The treachery of the Valar

[Macalaure]

I think it's interesting that the quote says Manwë had not revealed it to them, not the Valar had not. We know that Manwë had the deepest understanding of the Music of the Ainur of all Valar. The Elves learned much from each of them, maybe it was understood as Manwë's 'job' to teach the Elves about subtleties of the Music. In this case there was no necessity to reach a decision for the Valar not to tell them, and it was up to Manwë what to reveal and what not to, just like it was probably up to Aulë what to reveal about, say, metallurgy.

I agree that it was a misjudgement of him to withhold this information. The reason for the Elves' uneasiness about the Secondborn was that Melkor told them. Who knows what exactly he said? I don't think there would have been reason for mistrust had Manwë taught them at times.

So why didn't he? It is said Manwë was wholly good, so he must have had a good reason and no crooked second thought. Maybe it's just not so easy to teach about the Music and to understand what is taught? It's been a design of an extremely high subtlety after all and even the Valar don't know everything about it. This might sound silly, but: maybe ten thousand years weren't enough for Manwë to get to the Third Theme?

[the phantom]

It is said Manwë was wholly good, so he must have had a good reason

Say rather that Manwe had a well-intentioned reason. Even someone wholly good makes mistakes and does dumb things, so perhaps his reason was not a good reason. If there was a mistake in judgement involved it might have been a very stupid reason, though as I said before, well meaning.

[Macalaure]

That is what I meant. Thanks for the clarification.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Could the reason be that it was for Elves' own good? The Elves, being such confounded curious beings, always wanting to go meet things, talk and sing with them, and generally find out about the world, might have taken off for M-E to go looking for these Men. And we all know what happened when the Elves took off for M-E eventually...

Another point is simply that created beings are not "supposed" to know the future. Prophecy is one thing -- it's a mystical-myterious look forward through mortal agency -- but hearing about something that will happen from the word of God (or gods) is altogether different! Absolutely certain foreknowledge is the atomic weapon of philosophical/moral conundrums. I have enough trouble making sense of today and yesterday without having to worry about how tomorrow fits into the picture! The uncertainty of the future is a necessary precondition for free-will and its operation in moral choice.

(I also like Durelin's joke theory -- wouldn't curunir have been just SOO impossibly smug about it all, though?)