Questions about the host of Valinor

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Victariongreyjoy

Since Sauron's power were quite vast, could he be closer to a Ainur than a Maia when he made the ring of power?

Maiar are Ainur, together with the Valar. Do you mean Valar? If so, I would say no. The difference between Maiar and Valar seems something inherent, and not proportional to the extent of external power manifestation. It's not like you get a certain amount of power points and reach the Valar level.

[Victariongreyjoy]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Maiar are Ainur, together with the Valar. Do you mean Valar? If so, I would say no. The difference between Maiar and Valar seems something inherent, and not proportional to the extent of external power manifestation. It's not like you get a certain amount of power points and reach the Valar level.

Sorry, yes it was the Valar I was referring to.

[Rhun charioteer]

I'd say it varies-the inherent power of the Valar is very great and some Maiar are very close to them in "power levels" and some are not.

We know the Valar didn't seem to directly participate in the war of wrath but if high level Maiar commanders did then the destruction of Beleriand makes sense.

[Galin]

Tolkien once imagined the Valar having children, and the "sons of the Gods" fighting in Beleriand. But he revised the concept of the Valar having children... and this sentence too (in reference to the War of Wrath)...

"the sons of the Gods were young and fair and terrible" > "the host of the Gods were arrayed in forms of Valinor" JRRT, War of the Jewels, revised by Christopher Tolkien for the nineteen seventy seven constructed Silmarillion: "... for the host of the Valar were arrayed in forms young and fair and terrible, and the mountains rang beneath their feet."

Eonwe seems to be present in Beleriand at least.

So... that clears things up

[Victariongreyjoy]

Originally Posted by Galin

Tolkien once imagined the Valar having children, and the "sons of the Gods" fighting in Beleriand. But he revised the concept of the Valar having children... and this sentence too (in reference to the War of Wrath)...

"the sons of the Gods were young and fair and terrible" > "the host of the Gods were arrayed in forms of Valinor" JRRT, War of the Jewels, revised by Christopher Tolkien for the nineteen seventy seven constructed Silmarillion: "... for the host of the Valar were arrayed in forms young and fair and terrible, and the mountains rang beneath their feet."

Eonwe seems to be present in Beleriand at least.

So... that clears things up

The War of Wrath was such a battle that a whole continent got destroyed. So if he were the only Maiar present, then his power must be very destructive? Or does the Vanyar elves possess some powerful abilities also since they were the foot soldiers of the host of Valinor?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Victariongreyjoy

The War of Wrath was such a battle that a whole continent got destroyed. So if he were the only Maiar present, then his power must be very destructive? Or does the Vanyar elves possess some powerful abilities also since they were the foot soldiers of the host of Valinor?

Morgoth was also present, and his power was tied into the fabric of Middle-earth, and particularly Beleriand. Is it possible that the sinking of Beleriand happened not because of the war (thought doubtless it had a significant impact, including the total destruction of a major volcano in Thangorodrim), but because Morgoth was taken away? A proper Load-Bearing Boss, so to speak.

The Vanyar weren't notably 'magical' in the sense that Sam meant it; actually they were less so than the Noldor, because they didn't set much stock in crafts. But on the other hand, song is a key form of magic in Middle-earth, and they were famous for that. If the Vanyar were responsible for the sinking, then we have to imagine it as the Wizards' Duel writ large: vast choirs of golden-haired Eldar, singing Morgoth's power right out of the land, deeming it better free and drowned than still under his dominion.

hS

[Victariongreyjoy]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Morgoth was also present, and his power was tied into the fabric of Middle-earth, and particularly Beleriand. Is it possible that the sinking of Beleriand happened not because of the war (thought doubtless it had a significant impact, including the total destruction of a major volcano in Thangorodrim), but because Morgoth was taken away? A proper Load-Bearing Boss, so to speak.

The Vanyar weren't notably 'magical' in the sense that Sam meant it; actually they were less so than the Noldor, because they didn't set much stock in crafts. But on the other hand, song is a key form of magic in Middle-earth, and they were famous for that. If the Vanyar were responsible for the sinking, then we have to imagine it as the Wizards' Duel writ large: vast choirs of golden-haired Eldar, singing Morgoth's power right out of the land, deeming it better free and drowned than still under his dominion.

hS

Thanks for the answer from you and everyone here. I wished Tolkien was more specific about the host of Valinor. In Battle of the Powers we got much detail of who participated in that struggle.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Victariongreyjoy

The War of Wrath was such a battle that a whole continent got destroyed.

There is another fact to keep in mind while thinking about this, and that is that Beleriand is... actually really tiny.

The key to realising this is the First Lord of the Rings Map, Section B (which I found scanned here). That map shows both Himling and Tol Fuin, as well as the distinctive fork of Mount Rerir. It's relatively trivial to line those points up with the Silmarillion map, and to match Section B onto the final LotR map. You get something that looks like this (with Beleriand a bit of a mess from the overlaying, but you should recognise the shapes):



As you can see, Beleriand is incredibly small. From Angband to the mouth of Sirion is about the same distance as the length of Mirkwood, or from the Gap of Rohan to Minas Tirith. Assuming the LotR scale-bar applies across the whole map (it is a round-world map, but the whole thing is still fairly small, so it's not too unreasonable), that's only about 500 miles, in which are encompassed all of the petty kingdoms of the Noldor, Sindar, Edain, and Morgoth.

Beleriand isn't a continent. It's about the same size as Great Britain.

Which... makes sense! Tolkien was a scholar of the Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxon Britain was a patchwork of kingdoms - some allied, some warring, most shifting their allegiances as time went by. If Middle-earth in the Third Age is Europe in WWI - a number of relatively large nations falling out into two blocs - then Beleriand in the First Age is Britain under the Heptarchy - myriad pocket kingdoms squabbling for supremacy, but all under threat from the Barbarians coming in from Outside.

The point being, the sinking of an island-sized realm is much easier to contemplate than a continental landmass. And, in fact, it happened! 16,000 years ago, Great Britain and Ireland were part of a single penninsula connected to northern France, with most of the North Sea being dry land. It took about ten thousand years for the entire area to be submerged and Britain to be cut off, but at least part of the sinking followed a massive tsunami off the Scandinavian coast.

In fact... have we been thinking about the destruction of Beleriand all wrong? Is it possible that the landmass was drowned not because it was blasted to pieces... but because of massive Morgoth-induced climate change (dude lived in a volcano!) melting the northern ice cap and inundating it? It certainly looks like Lothlann extends directly into what is 'now' the Icebay of Forochel...

hS

[Victariongreyjoy]

Are you sure?

I found this photo and it seems bigger. Not big as ME, but it was not small at all.

[Galin]

I think it's possible (wow, going out on a limb there) that at least as late as the 1937 Silmarillion, the sinking of Beleriand left the Isle of England. The text refers to the "great isles" which were fashioned of ancient Beleriand, and that some of the Eldalie lingered "especially in the Western Isles and in the Land of Leithian."

In earlier texts at least, Leithian was England. Granted, we are not here in a post Lord of the Rings imagining, but on the other hand, Tolkien himself never really (fully) updated these later sections of QS, and Christopher Tolkien describes the problems with figuring out Tolkien's conception of the drowning of Beleriand (which at one point also included that Beleriand be destroyed, or at least more fully destroyed, at the drowning of Numenor).


Anyway, none of that necessarily means much. To my mind JRRT abandoned that England (and Ireland?) were left from Old Beleriand (I think he also abandoned the idea of "Himling" and Tol Fuin too), and the arguably old idea might just be saying more about the measure of destruction to Beleriand than about its size. If I recall correctly, I think KW Fonstad suggested a scale of miles relative to the map in The Lord of the Rings, based on her opinion -- not that it's Tolkien's opinion of course, but I recall once using something to try and figure out if Tol Galen survived, if not as an isle at least as part of Lindon.


I guess I'm almost saying, that in a post Lord of the Rings context, on paper at least, we don't have much to go on as far as authorial revision or updating here. I tend to think though, if Tolkien at one point imagined the actual offspring of the Valar taking part in the Wrathy War, he might not have objected to at least some of the Maiar going with Eonwe (to put it weakly). Also, I think one post-Lord of the Rings "survival" is Tol Morwen, at least within a legendary context.

Treebeard, for example, doesn't appear to think Tol Fuin exists (Dorthonion being under the waves), though granted he might not know, or such a footnote just doesn't flow well within a nice chant. Still, for whatever reason, no Himling or Tol Fuin ever made it on to any map published while JRRT himself was alive...

... including the revised edition map, and the map by Pauline Baynes, which JRRT himself helped with (or whatever, with respect to proper grammar).