Was Melkor Bipolar?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

There have been several very important discussions of this amongst Tolkien scholars. Fleiger believes the elves don't have free will, but there have been several responses to her in the pages of Tolkien Studies that argue cogently elves do have free will. (Some of them, at least, do choose to relinquish their bodies.) I suspect Galin would be better able than me to pursue this line.

You'll note that I hedged my bets by saying Elves don't seem to have the same type of free will as Men. Personally, I think they have free will, but that it's of a different nature from Men--perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it too?

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think it might be more fitting to ask what would be a Middle-earth understanding of mental illness.

Well, there's always room to redefine the question yet again.