Lúthien Tinúviel & the Istari

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

All the same... I can't help but getting a rather Radagastly feeling from her, as though going native in Middle-earth, marrying a local, and getting involved in a land-war with Morgoth was not exactly toeing the party line.

Depending on whose line you're talking about, the Valar's or Eru's - which aren't necessarily identical. I don't quite feel that the Valar's policy of retiring to Valinor, setting up an Unblemished Disneyland (forgive the sarcasm) and summoning the Elves to live there happily ever after while abandoning Middle-earth to Morgoth to do there as he pleased had the One's unrestricted approval - it certainly didn't have Tolkien's, who repeatedly chided the Gods for their fainéance during most of the First Age.
Melian, on the other hand, not only was a teacher of wisdom to the Elves of Middle-earth (like the Valar were to those who had gone west), but also helped to protect them and provide a safe refuge against the forces of Morgoth. Maybe in her willingness to get involved she even was truer to Eru's will than the Lords of the West in their splendid isolation? I see nothing Radagastly at all there through my pair of spectacles, rather the contrary.
Marrying and producing offspring with one of His Children is another matter, of course - no idea what Eru thought of that. But consider: without Lúthien and her marriage to Beren, no Eärendil, no messenger who pleaded the case of the Children before the Valar and moved them to take some long delayed action, no War of Wrath and defeat of Morgoth (unless you take the early version where Earendel came too late and the Host of the West had already set forth). Maybe Melian's doings, together with Ulmo's (sending Tuor to Gondolin, etc.pp), were actually part of Eru trying to get the message across to the Valar that Morgoth's dominion of Middle-earth had gone on long enough?