Relative Powers

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Lalwendë, there is enough in the quoted text to include Ungoliant in the list. The "it is said" bit is a classic Tolkienism that is used to suggest legend and folklore rather than feigned history. Therefore, I'm going to go with the feigned history. One of the presuppositions for this thread is that there is no being that is independent of the creation of Eru.

I'm all for worms, fisticuffs, well made points, and corrections backed by evidence to this list. But it being my list, I will make decisions now and then to end certain points of debate, as I did above regarding Ungoliant. It was a very good effort, Lal, but doomed, as it butted its head up against an immutabilty.

Hey, is this a democracy or a dictatorship?

I still say that there are elements in Tolkien's work that defy all attempts to be 'classified', and I think Tolkien intended it that way. One of the essential aspects of Faerie is that it is enigmatic and we cannot fully grasp what it means or how it works, and Tolkien's world works in the same way. Characters such as Ungoliant, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are outside the logical world order, even that of Ea.

In fact, the layering of older drafts upon later drafts and the use of characters and situations which defy even religious (in terms of Eruist) logic help create the very essence of magic and faerie which is conveyed by Tolkien's work. Of course, the human urge (and even more so in the case of the Tolkienists' urge) is to classify and order everything, but sometimes we can't and we might have to accept some things that don't make us feel comfortable that this whole world is ordered by Eru.

The early version of Ungoliant from the Big Ungoliant Thread .