"The Dark Fire Will Not Avail You"

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'd say all the major "dark lords", including the minor-league Saruman, had ample warning before their final doom (which they themselves brought about) was pronounced. And part of being good is overcoming pride, something none of those three ever seemed to grasp.

Indeed. As mentioned in the first post (and the original question of this thread, anyway), all of them actually had the warning (even in the "purest form", so to say, from "the source"), since they knew Eru and other Ainur personally. The thing is that they had shut themselves away from the others. Gandalf warned Saruman, or at least there has been a certain course he had been proposing at the Councils etc., I am sure there was much more; yet Saruman probably ignored his remarks or shut his ears to them ("I am not listening to that fool"). Sauron was given the chance e.g. at the end of the Third Age, in front of the hosts of the Valar.

Actually, Saruman got much more than a warning - he got the offer of redemption. I think nobody had ever condemned Saruman in the sense of "threatening him with eternal damnation": always and all the time the offers had been positive, yet he simply continued on turning them down. If Gandalf or the Valar or whoever came to the baddies saying "hey, now surrender or we are going to throw you into the Void", it would be pure threatening. Yet what I find really notable is that they always come with the offers of accepting the trespassers back - and the trespassers generally refuse, of course. And it is possibly also these offers that lull them into thinking that "those goody-goodies are actually never going to take any action against me" (which of course they would also find to be only self-delusion if they thought of the history and all, like the battles of Utumno and so on, and for the later ones, War of Wrath or Númenor), and then they are caught surprised when the cup flows over...

For that matter, I think it is also notable that in many times (and especially in the later Ages), the bad guys are simply left to "reap what they sow" without the direct intervention of any hosts of Valar or such. For example in the case of Sauron in Third Age, I would call that "judgement by leaving him in the hands of the mortals". Sort of: "you wanted to destroy/enslave the Free Peoples, now eat whatever they've prepared for you in response, we won't interfere - neither helping to destroy you, but neither showing you mercy anymore - we aren't going to stop the Free Peoples once they come-a-knocking at your door".

Originally Posted by blantyr

Very true. One would say they had to be aware enough of what he was doing to pass judgment. Still, with the exception of Gandalf, I can't say that the Valar or Maiar took direct action against him. It was only after he pretty much chewed the dead rind of spite to the point of causing his own death that they let their judgement be known. Dark lords too make their own choices.

And this illustrates it well, I think: simply put, the most harsh judgement actually is when the Powers decide not to interfere anymore. "Silence means judgement." Once the offers of mercy cease, Saruman is left to go to the Shire and prepare his own end. Once the Valar finally stop warning the Númenoreans, no Elven ships are coming to the island anymore and the Kings are left to do what they wish. I think it was C.S. Lewis who had said something like that "during the Last Judgement, there will be only two kinds of people: first ones will tell God 'Your will be done', and to the others, God will say: 'Your will be done'". I think this is quite a good parallel for that and I can see this mechanic working in Middle-Earth (and even direct influence from Lewis on Tolkien is possible, of course, even though the basic concept is by no means limited to Lewis alone).