Does the Silmarillion Contradict Third age History? How Powerful Were Those First age

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It's not necessarily true that the Numenoreans "could have taken" the Valar (in fact, you can't "kill" the Valar in the conventional sense). Tolkien himself referred to Ar-Pharazon's folly as "going up with war against the Deathless" as he broke the ban of the Valar. It seems to me the more likely scenario is that Manwe, not wishing to spill the blood of First and Second Born Children of Eru in a catastrophic war, and the Valar themselves forced to kill Numenoreans, gave up power to Illuvatar himself to make a final, divine judgement over his Children.

Yes, I always understood the situation as being that Manwë called upon Eru because it would have been inappropriate for the Valar to have fought the Númenóreans, even though they could have annihilated them easily. Surely the whole point of Sauron encouraging the Númenóreans to attack Aman was in the hope that the Valar would wipe them out.

EDIT: Letter 156 more or less states that the Valar not fighting the Númenóreans was a matter of law, not ability: "The Valar had no real answer to this monstrous rebellion - for the Children of God were not under their ultimate jurisdiction: they were not allowed to destroy them, or coerce them, with any ’divine’ display of the powers they held over the physical world."

EDIT 2: However, Letter 131 states that the invasion was a source of "real peril (since the Númenóreans directed by Sauron could have wrought ruin in Valinor itself)". This, however, suggests to me that the Númenóreans could have caused a lot of destruction and disaster – killing Elves and despoiling holy places, for instance – before they were defeated. I don't think it implies that they could have defeated the Valar themselves, merely that Sauron may have informed them of "weak points" in Aman that they could have attacked and damaged.

EDIT 3: Akallabêth also heavily implies that Sauron expected the Númenóreans to lose, as he had been "hoping only for the death of the Númenóreans and the defeat of their proud king."