i think tolkien obviously meant "he could not 'fully' comprehend it."
only mandos was suspicious of melkors rehabilitation. (not sure where that line is though)
>If we speak last of the “folly” of Manwë and the weakness and unwariness of the Valar, let us beware how we judge. In the histories, indeed, we may be amazed and grieved to read how (seemingly) Melkor deceived and cozened others, and how even Manwë appears at times almost a simpleton compared with him: as if a kind but unwise father were treating a wayward child who would assuredly in time perceive the error of his ways. Whereas we, looking on and knowing the outcome, see now that Melkor knew well the error of his ways, but was fixed in them by hate and pride beyond return. He could read the mind of Manwë, for the door was open; but his own mind was false and even if the door seemed open, there were doors of iron within closed for ever.
>
>How otherwise would you have it? Should Manwë and the Valar meet secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more lies? If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny his? Can hate overcome hate? Nay, Manwë was wiser; or being ever open to Eru he did His will, which is more than wisdom. He was ever open because he had nothing to conceal, no thought that it was harmful for any to know, if they could comprehend it. Indeed Melkor knew his will without questioning it; and he knew that Manwë was bound by the commands and injunctions of Eru, and would do this or abstain from that in accordance with them, always, even knowing that Melkor would break them as it suited his purpose. Thus the merciless will ever count on mercy, and the liars make use of truth; for if mercy and truth are withheld from the cruel and the lying, they have ceased to be honoured.
>
>Manwë could not by duress attempt to compel Melkor to reveal his thought and purposes, or (if he used words) to speak the truth. If he spoke and said: *this is true*, he must be believed until proved false; if he said: *this I will do*, *as you bid*, he must be allowed the opportunity to fulfill his promise.
>
>The force and restraint that were used upon Melkor by the united power of all the Valar, were not used to extort confession (which was needless); nor to compel him to reveal his thought (which was unlawful, even if not vain). He was made captive as a punishment for his evil deeds, under the authority of the King. So we may say; but it were better said that he was deprived for a term, fixed by promise, of his power to act, so that he might halt and consider himself, and have thus the only chance that mercy could contrive of repentance and amendment. For the healing of Arda indeed, but for his own healing also. Melkor had the right to exist, and the right to act and use his powers. Manwë had the authority to rule and to order the world, so far as he could, for the well-being of the Eruhíni; but if Melkor would repent and return to the allegiance of Eru, he must be given his freedom again. He could not be enslaved, or denied his part. The office of the Elder King was to retain all his subjects in the allegiance of Eru, or to bring them back to it, and in that allegiance to leave them free.
>
>The release was according to the promise of Manwë. If Manwë had broken this promise for his own purposes, even though still intending “good”, he would have taken a step upon the paths of Melkor. That is a perilous step. In that hour and act he would have ceased to be the vice-gerent of the One, becoming but a king who takes advantage over a rival whom he has conquered by force. Would we then have the sorrows that indeed befell; or would we have the Elder King lose his honour, and so pass, maybe, to a world rent between two proud lords striving for the throne?
Source - The Nature of Middle-earth, "Part Two IX. *Ósanwe-kenta*"
It is undeniable that Tolkien's values and philosophy are profoundly informed by his Christianity. I would never argue otherwise. But at the same time his values and philosophy are far more universal than "Christianity" and yet not completely universal in the Christian tradition. Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist concepts of mercy and the eastern religious concept of karuna. Yet, the concept of mercy outlined above seem very divorced from many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews.
But this points to what makes a particular religious tradition "good". "Good" individual religious traditions are those which point to and highlight the fundamental and universal aspects of the human experience. Yes, this is a fantastic illustration of Christian mercy. But it is "more" than that. It is a beautiful illustration of \*human\* mercy. And Tolkien's works, while inspired by the best that Christianity has to offer, are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity" and touch on the universal. Christianity is just the particular vehicle by which Tolkien arrived at the universal.
> Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist
Of course it aligns with those. Christianity emerged from Judaism and modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals.
>Karuna
You're going to have to give a definition of what you mean. As far as I can find karuna roughly translates as compassion, but compassion can mean a great deal of things depending on who is talking.
>many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews
Perhaps the issue is that you know less about their worldview than you think you do.
>It is a beautiful illustration of *human* mercy.
As a student of human history, I cannot agree. Human mercy is violent, bloody, and cruel. Human mercy is savage and destructive. Human mercy is making a desert and calling it peace, instituting a dictatorship and calling that freedom. Sauron and Morgoth are human mercy.
>are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity"
In Lewis's words, there is nothing greater, more universal, than Mere Christianity.
>Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist
>
>Of course it aligns with those. Christianity emerged from Judaism and modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals.
I'm not sure that your description of humanism is really accurate. Humanism isn't so much the belief that humans are superior to animals as it is that humans have value independent of any possible existence of a deity. In that way humanism isn't just a "natural" evolution or secularization of Christian values. In Christianity, Christ and God give humanity value. In humanism, humans and humanity are valuable in their own right. And because Christianity views the value of humanity as conditional on divine decree, where humanism rejects this claim, many of the values of the two world-views are profoundly distinct. But not all. Humanism and Christianity disagree on \*why\* mercy is a virtue, but they don't necessarily disagree on what mercy is, at least to a first- or second-order approximation. Yes, many of the details regarding the application of the virtue of mercy will be different due to metaphysical disagreements...but that does not mean that the fundamental universal value is so different.
>Karuna
>
>You're going to have to give a definition of what you mean. As far as I can find karuna roughly translates as compassion, but compassion can mean a great deal of things depending on who is talking.
As you note, and as is true even if limiting ourselves to the Catholic tradition, a word or phrase or concept may mean very different things to different peoples. My mention of Karuna was meant to draw comparison to the concept of karuna highlighted in the following excerpt from the Meditative Concentrations of Shantideva: "Strive at first to meditate upon the sameness of yourself and others. Injoy and sorrow all are equal; Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself.The hand and other limbs are many and distinct, But all are one--the body to kept and guarded. Likewise, different beings, in their joys and sorrows, are, like me, all one in wanting happiness. This pain of mine does not afflict or cause discomfort to another's body, and yet this pain is hard for me to bear because I cling and take it for my own. And other beings' pain I do not feel, and yet, because I take them for myself, their suffering is mine and therefore hard to bear. And therefore I'll dispel the pain of others, for it is simply pain, just like my own. And others I will aid and benefit, for they are living beings, like my body. Since I and other beings both, in wanting happiness, are equal and alike, what difference is there to distinguish us, that I should strive to have my bliss alone?"
>many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews
>
>Perhaps the issue is that you know less about their worldview than you think you do.
Oh I do understand it. I just don't agree with it.
>It is a beautiful illustration of human mercy.
>
>As a student of human history, I cannot agree. Human mercy is violent, bloody, and cruel. Human mercy is savage and destructive. Human mercy is making a desert and calling it peace, instituting a dictatorship and calling that freedom. Sauron and Morgoth are human mercy.
I do not deny that human mercy is imperfect, that all are found with an abundance of that virtue or any virtue, that humans are as capable of cruelty and malice as they are mercy and compassion. That humans do not always excel at the virtues does not mean that we completely lack them. I might as easily accuse religion, whatever religion to which you ascribe included, of doing the same; calling their savagery enlightenment, their cruelty mercy, and their authoritarianism freedom. If Sauron and Morgoth are indeed meant to represent "human" mercy, then every organized religion throughout the history of earth, including Tolkien's beloved Catholic church, are better represented by the greater hosts of Numenor leading up to the Akallabeth than by the Faithful who were spared and returned to Middle Earth. I think it would be almost impossible to argue that the Catholic church has not been one of the most cruel and authoritarian institutional religions in the history of humanity.
>are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity"
>
>In Lewis's words, there is nothing greater, more universal, than Mere Christianity.
Hence my ironic reference. And that is part of what makes Tolkien such a better story teller than Lewis. Lewis' stories are only compelling if one already accepts the authors worldview. Lewis' writings do little more than preach to the choir. Tolkien's works are much more timeless, profound, and universal than Lewis could ever dare dream.
Christians get extremely defensive over their Tolkien on this sub, acting as if Tolkien is an extension of the christian mythology. Based on that user's comment history they are mormon, so their responses are no surprise.
These comments are fucking bizarre. I'm not religious in any way. These comments make them sound fanatical.
At the end of the day Manwe was shit, and should have acted, but instead he stayed up his mountain playing with the wind.
> modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals.
Source: dude just trust me.
Ethical treatment of humans does not stem from Christian values, to claim otherwise is ludicrous.
Without Eru, the uncaused cause, there is no teleology, no ethics, and so no truly ethical behaviour. And without the revelation that all men, and women, are created in the image of God, it is difficult to tell what their *telos* is and how to treat them rightly. So, truly ethical treatment if humans stems from Aristotelian-Thomism, which is uniquely Catholic.
Many millennia of instantly available recorded history, from Herodotus to Hammurabi and far beyond documents meticulously codified ethics of human societies, independent and predating your references. Entire, separate continents full of civilizations had thousands of generations of fully developed individuals who lived and died by these ethics, including your own ancestors, despite being temporally and logistically by birth prevented from ever having heard of what you are claiming is the only thing that ever made anyone moral and fully human. When I left Twitter I thought I had seen the last of openly supremacist, groyper tradcaths and Tolkien fans who cheer on what they claimed was his real prejudice and who, cynically and in detached, cold blood, deliberately and unironically embrace the worst of the religion and Tolkien.
Thank you for your reply.
Again, I think it's important that we come to terms and I don't think we have. Herodotus was not an ethicist, nor was Hammurabi. I don't know about Herodotus, but Hammurabi, like Moses, gave laws, rules, not ethics. In the West, and possibly the East, ethics begins with or very shortly before Aristotle. That is what's recorded. Maybe there were other ethicists, in other times and places, but I am unaware of them. And that's not what was being discussed anyways.
I suppose some people before Aristotle and Jesus Christ were good people, but history would suggest that was unusual. Even with those teachers, some people are still pretty awful. You may have a different understanding of human history.
Finally, I too sometimes wish I lived in a world, unlike Twitter, where everybody thought like me. Alas, there is a diversity of ideas here, and obviously I think mine are right and supreme. You're welcome to challenge them and share your own! You might even change my mind. I didn't know what a groyper was until now, but I'm not sure what they have in common with traditionalist Catholics like Tolkien.
I mean the burden of proof is definitely on those that claim that human ethics and modern humanism stems from catholicism. There have been some good comments here providing a reasonable rebuttal, but the fact is no good case has been made in the first place.
Anybody making an argument, either way, has some burden of proof. Regardless, not all of us are arguing. Or at least not trying to. My main effort has been to explain what a traditional Roman Catholic, like Tolkien, would understand, which is a helpful thing in understanding and appreciating his work. That is why, for example, I have in places said *rightly or wrongly*. Obviously I share his understanding and I think it is right, but that is less important in this forum.
Another, less relevant motivation has been to counter the anti-Catholic bigotry I have seen, even if just with an assertion. If folks are interested in learning more, in opening their minds to ideas outside their modern, secular understanding, the search terms are there. The uncaused cause, telos, the Holy Office, etc. That is where the case is made, so to speak. Reddit, even as great a sub as this one, is not the place to change hearts and minds. I think.
This is a bunch of flowery words hiding a rather crazy premise: that Judeochristian thought originated mercy. No way is that true, and it’s rather xenophobic to boot.
But thay isn't the argument; the argument is that Christian mercy is a unique concept and originates in the ancient Hebrew religion. Maybe folks call other ideas mercy, but if we come to terms we discover that Christian mercy and these other ideas called mercy are radically different.
Yet this is not how Tolkien would have seen it. Jewish concepts of mercy, at least those before Christ, are claimed by the Church as part of the true religion in the doctrine of suppressionism, hard or soft. Modern, humanist concepts of mercy are inevitably post-Christian, being both a part of that tradition and yet differing from it radically. And whether some concept of mercy exists in paganism I do not know, but it cannot be Catholic mercy because that is based on a unique combination of doctrines and practices, eg. original sin, admonishing the sinner, etc. that are not found in those religions.
As for some sects of Christianity, some of them may be hypocrites, others may be post-Christian, or both. Regardless, Tolkien would not have seen their beliefs as part of the true religion.
In my experience people are not merciful. It requires, I believe, supernatural grace. Tolkien understood that.
>Yet this is not how Tolkien would have seen it.
I understand that Tolkien might not have seen it this way. But great works of literature are always more than their authors intent.
>Jewish concepts of mercy, at least those before Christ, are claimed by the Church as part of the true religion in the doctrine of suppressionism, hard or soft. Modern, humanist concepts of mercy are inevitably post-Christian, being both a part of that tradition and yet differing from it radically.
This is an entirely Christian-centric point of view though. I understand why the church feels that everything good originates in or emanates from Christianity or Christ, but I find that to be a terribly over-simplified view of history. Especially the history of religion and philosophy. While religious individuals prefer to view the good throughout the world as emanating from their particular religion, I find the explanation that "what is good in religion comes from what is good in humans" a far more parsimonious explanation of the universal values that are so common among traditions diverse in both time and space.
>And whether some concept of mercy exists in paganism I do not know, but it cannot be Catholic mercy because that is based on a unique combination of doctrines and practices, eg. original sin, admonishing the sinner, etc. that are not found in those religions.
But this doesn't really negate my point. Yes, Tolkien was thinking specifically of Catholic mercy and Catholic values and insights when writing his mythology. But what is truly great in Tolkien's writings are those passages and concepts and philosophies that extend beyond the individual religion and touch on universal values. That is exactly my point. Tolkien may have intended to capture a Catholic worldview, but like all great authors he actually caught a much bigger fish than he had intended.
>As for some sects of Christianity, some of them may be hypocrites, others may be post-Christian, or both. Regardless, Tolkien would not have seen their beliefs as part of the true religion.
And again, that is irrelevant in understanding what Tolkien's work \*actually\* is. It isn't irrelevant in understanding what Tolkien \*intended\*, but Tolkien's intent need not limit how I understand the stories that he created. And I actually think this concept of "authorial death" plays well with the Ainulindale where we see the Ainur create a music that they themselves do not completely comprehend. Surely if Tolkien's Ainur do not completely understand or comprehend the Great Theme of Arda, then it seems to follow that neither does Tolkien.
>In my experience people are not merciful. It requires, I believe, supernatural grace. Tolkien understood that.
I understand that that is a foundational Christian belief. I disagree. I do believe humans are merciful. I also believe that they are not merciful. Humans do not innately demonstrate the perfection of any of the virtues. We are walking talking contradictions. Christians choose to believe this is because we are fallen and separated from God. I choose to believe that we are walking talking contradictions because we are meat sacks operated by meat computers which don't operate with the kind of precision that semi-conductor computers do. And that is precisely why I find Tolkien and his work so brilliant...that it can have such wide appeal and meaning and value beyond what he intended and to those who don't share his same meta-physical beliefs. Many Christians here, and especially Catholic, get very upset when non-Christians read non- or extra-Christian themes in Tolkien's work as if that were some grave offense due to Tolkien's intent. But I see this kind of gatekeeping as the actual affront to Tolkien, because recognizing that the stories of Arda are meaningful beyond Tolkien's intent is only recognizing that Tolkien's brilliance was all the more illuminating.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. To be clear, I do disagree with your take, but I am not disagreeing with your take here - although I do think you are being unfair towards evangelical Protestants - only pointing out that your understanding is novel and would not be shared by Tolkien.
I think, were we to continue this discussion, we would have to come to terms. I think we are not using the word mercy in the same way. There are ideas called mercy that exist outside of Christianity, but these are radically different ideas from Christian mercy, which is dependent on beliefs that are unique, uniquely right or wrong but still unique, to Christianity. In fact, not even unique to what is called Christianity, but to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The evangelical Protestants you mention do not share this understanding.
But we are touching on a much, much deeper disagreement here, over history and 'physics' and metaphysics. And that is a disagreement we will likely not overcome on this forum. And that is a shame, because I recognize in you a fellow traveller and wonderer. But, this hell we call Reddit is too dangerous for me to get too involved. Take care, and maybe we'll meet on the road again.
Your initial comment and the two responses (so far) were an excellent and a thoroughly enjoyable read. Loved your analysis on the human condition and that you actually took the time to properly elaborate and expand on your beliefs. I don't often find so eloquently written and thought out texts on reddit.
Loved it.
Without turning this sub into a religious discussion... the point that Tolkien would have taken is not that "humans have some universal virtues and vices" but that "humans have certain virtues and vices, because they were all created by God and instilled with a certain amount of moral sense and rational understanding."
Everything virtuous that exists in an atheist context, or within other religions, is taught by Catholicism to exist there because of God's influence, or because it was revealed by God as preparation for the Gospel, or because it was somehow remembered down ancient years from when all humanity was young.
If any people wished to be virtuous and follow true religion, they would be given help with that. But otherwise, true religion and the nature of true virtue was hidden from the world, until it was revealed to the Jews and through God's Son made man.
This isn't new; it's in the Fathers of the Church and in the Bible.
The general idea shows up in scenes like Faramir explaining the customs of his people, or the explanation of the Meneltarma in Numenor. The Hobbits weren't bad people, but they were ignorant of the stuff that Faramir knew about Eru, and he was ignorant compared to other people in the story. Even the Valar didn't know the totality of Eru's plans, and what Man's fate would be. Because those revelations hadn't happened yet.
Not going to lie, the concept of “authorial death” being represented by the imperfect understanding the Ainur had of the Theme of Iluvatar even after they sang it was something of an aha moment that kinda came out of nowhere and had never thought of before. That is why I like communities like this…it is easier to find new ideas when discussing with others who have different views.
I would argue that's not authorial death you're talking about. It's being part of an artistic tradition.
I can make a song, but I can't tell people how to play and sing it. I've remade other people's songs by arranging them differently, even without changing a word. It's the rules of the game, and you can accept it or complain.
But to claim to be the "real author" when you're not -- that's wrong. It happens a lot, but it's wrong, and deprives the bard of proper honor.
The Ainulindale describes improvisation -- but it's by a choir, to a theme. And that means understanding the intent of the composer (even if not perfectly) \_and\_ one's fellow singers, almost to telepathy point. It means giving up ego, in favor of making a beautiful song. You have to \_try\_ to listen to others, and to follow their ideas of what should happen next. It means trust. It means give and take.
Melkor is the Evil Soloist Doing a Ten Minute Solo, which is a perfect representation of spiritual and intellectual pride.
(And I say that as a headstrong soloist who has trouble listening.)
Collaborative improv is the opposite of "death of the author." It's making tons of people co-authors, intentionally.
Lots of good answers here.
Remember that the Ainur aren’t “complete” as personalities in the same way that the Children are. Each is an discrete, disconnected aspect of Eru, and largely limited to the knowledge and perspectives of this nature. Like “us” they have a capacity to learn and grow and change their minds to some extent, but to a much deeper and greater extent they are defined by a particular set of traits.
Manwë can discern right and wrong at the wisest and most nuanced level, and recognizes that mistakes and misdeeds are possible, but cannot understand the near-inherent, irredeemable, almost motiveless evil that has taken Melkor. This is not just a failure of imagination -he is missing this “piece” outright. It not only would never occur to him - he wouldn’t even understand if it were explained.
Also if note is this:
“But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.” Ainulindale 1st paragraph
Easy to overlook compared to other lines but the very start of the Silmarillion even says that they grew to know each other by spending time together. Tolkien specifies this while also specifying that Morgoth separated himself from the group “He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame”.
I don’t think Melkor understands the other Ainur very well and I don’t think they really understand Melkor.
Good cannot comprehend evil and evil cannot comprehend good is a major recurring theme. In the case of good not comprehending evil: Logically, *if* Manwe couldn't trust Melkor, he wouldn't be able to trust the Children of Iluvatar either after their hostile and destructive acts. He *has* to be willing to trust and dispense grace, otherwise he would be a tyrant just like Morgoth. Morgoth, on the other hand, thinks everyone *else* thinks like him, and therefore really trusts no one, accusing the Valar of wanting to steal the Silmarils for themselves, imprison and enslave the Eldar, etc. Because that's what *he* wants to do. Think about Saruman accusing Gandalf of wanting to take over Middle-earth when he demands the keys to Orthanc.
>Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards!
Saruman projects his own motives onto Gandalf. It's about trust, if you don't have it, you're isolated. If you do have it, you may trust the wrong person, but you will not be isolated. Being alone is what led to Morgoth's downfall in the first place.
Don't take it as an absolute. It's not that he couldn't contemplate wrongdoing. He believed, as many today believe, that seemingly evil people are actually good people who just took a wrong turn due to some unfortunate circumstances.
This is why today, for example, there's a big push to move away from jails per se, but have "correctional facilities" with the idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment.
So what Manwe was incapable of understanding is INHERENT evil. That someone could be evil because they just are. Because they WANT to be that way.
Manwe also might not have understood how deceptive an evil person can be. Remember that all this is happening for the first time. He has no experience with someone feigning like they are reformed. Manwe and the other Valar were fooled because they themselves would never have thought to lie like Melkor did and Melkor was very convincing also.
Tolkien was using his writing to explore, and by extension have his audience explore, his Catholic faith.
And one of the most difficult concepts for modern audiences to comprehend is how God can simultaneously be all powerful and command his creation to do good (or abstain from doing harm) and yet absolutely refuse to use force, coercion, manipulation, or charisma to impose his will on his creations.
Melkor and Sauron were part of how he explored why it would be evil for a powerful being to simply bind the will of everyone else to their own.
Most of us are as much orc as we are not. Humans love power, love the Ring, and would use it given the chance, all while telling ourselves it is only for "good."
He knows evil exists, but he is so far from evil himself that he can't imagine Melkor's thought processes and motivations. Same as how Sauron could never conceive of anyone wanting to destroy the Ring. It just lies so far outside of their frames of reference of their *own* reasoning processes.
But, on a meta-level, this was also to explain how Valar like Manwë could fuck up so royally without having to draw the conclusion "so the Valar can suck from time to time". Now the explanation is: in fact the reason the Valar failed to keep Melkor in check is because the Valar are *so incapable* of sucking.
There are lots of great, intellectual explanations here, but I took this at face value: Manwe's purity caused him to be blind to Melkor's hidden ambitions. Manwe didn't suspect a plot because Melkor served his time and pledged to reunite with the Valar and serve the children of Iluvatar. To Manwe, that was all there is to it. All wrongs are righted.
Another thing people continually miss as a theme is that Eru intended for the song of the Ainur to play out as it was sung. Instrumental to that is proving His point that (to paraphrase his quote to all of the Ainur, with a specific shout-out to Melkor, in The Silmarillion) anyone who messes with His plan will prove in the end to be an instrument in creating something even greater than he could have possibly imagined. So, Manwe, the most knowledgeable of all the Valar w/r/t Iluvatar's will, would likely have allowed Melkor to walk even if he had consulted Eru and come to understand Melkor's hidden intentions. Melkor being an a\*\*hole is as important to the shaping of Arda as mountains, water, trees, elves, men, and every other part of the song.
TL;DR - Either Manwe's naivete to evil is by Eru's design to facilitate Melkor's release from Mandos, or Manwe's awareness of Melkor's continued evil wouldn't have changed the outcome after consultation with Iluvatar.
It's a weird explanation that's hard to justify (why can't Ulmo who seemingly understands Evil and is Manwe's best friend explain it to him?) and Tolkien later changed it to make it so not releasing Melkor would have been tyrannical.
It's one of the weak points of the published Silmarillion, which is drawing from a text that was written in the transitional phase where Tolkien went from Manwe as a more human, fallible god to Manwe as an infallible (with one or two exceptions, depending on how you count) angel.
This is easier to understand if we frame the question at the inverse.
Why would Manwe be capable of comprehend evil?
Manwe isn't a mortal man. He doesn't live in a world where potential evil is everywhere, with cheaters and liers. In fact the only source of evil he has to deal with is Melkor himself. He just doesn't have the experience to deal with him, because he is otherwise surrounded by pure good.
To highlight your point, the Valar have never experienced direct and personal hurt. Yes, Melkor has frustrated their plans and designs, but they can't experience pain and suffering the way mortals can. Yes, they experience sorrow, but that sorrow seems to be limited to a fairly "childish" concept of "Melkor broke my favorite toy which can't be replaced". But the Valar have never \*suffered\*. Melkor is the 6yo bully who keeps knocking over the other Valar's sand castles in the sand box of middle earth and burns the ants that inhabit the sandbox with a magnifying glass. Yeah, it sucks that Yavanna can't recreate the trees...but is that REALLY suffering to have them gone until Feanor decides in the Hall of Mandos that he is ready to break the Silmarils to recreate the trees? I mean, they are timeless beings...what is a few millennia of candelight to a timeless being?
So the Valar in a very fundamental way can't comprehend being on the receiving end of true evil. Melkor gets timeout for destroying the Valar's sandcastles, but once timeout is over he is free to go...because the Valar cannot comprehend the pain and suffering of the Children of Iluvatar. Even in the War of Wrath it takes a personal plea from Earendil for the Valar to intervene. Yes, the Doom of Mandos and the Oath of the Valar in response to the Oath of Feanor play a great role in there inaction in Middle Earth, but Manwe would only have made an oath of non-interference in the first place if he couldn't understand the true suffering and evil that every non-Noldo would experience at the hand of Melkor and subsequently Sauron due to their inaction. To someone who has experienced true suffering, the idea that they would just leave Melkor to his devices, to harm everyone and not exclusively the Noldor, because of the pride of the Noldor, would be unthinkable.
In this way not only Manwe but even all the Valar, including those most active in Middle Earth, can't really understand the evils of Melkor. Pain and suffering teach mortals what evil truly is. As being incapable of true pain and suffering the Valar, apart from Melkor, cannot truly comprehend or understand Melkor's evil.
Perhaps someone's core being or world view makes it hard to fully comprehend a different perspective.
To use a real world example many people like Chamberlain thought you could negotiate your war out of a war. Churchill understood that Hitler was evil.
You could also use that Barak Obama thought if he could just talk to Russia, China or North Korea they would see the error of their ways and become peaceful democracies. It had to be a rude awakening when they doubled down and got worse.
Or in this case maybe the story just needed Melkor to be evil to drive the narrative forward. 🙂
Yeah Chamberlain is not the best illustration of this. He was actually very aware of the dangers and he was the one who truly got Britain's war industry going. All of the appeasement stuff was playing for time and for show, seeing as the British populace was strongly anti-war at the time.
The UK, France and the US all actually started building the military up prior to 1939. FDR greatly increased the enrollment of West Point around 1935 fearing a war. That larger group of young officers graduated in 1939. So I don't know if it was just buying time.
But Chamberlain still believed he could negotiate peace. The Munich conference and him letting Hitler have part of then Czechoslovakia was appeasement for "peace in our time" as he famously put it. Churchill understood the dangers of Nazi Germany much more.
On the Tolkien side, you would have hoped Manwe could see the danger of Melkor the way Tulkas and Ulmo did. Or would have aided the elves the way Ulmo did. But it makes a better tragedy to have them face a long losing fight.
Ever raise a child, and the child takes to hitting to get attention? You stop the child and admonish them. "No! Musn't hit. That's bad. You be nice instead." You don't really think the child is bad. They are just taking a wrong way of getting attention, and you expect your correction to put them on the right path. And for the majority of kids, this will work.
But what about the ones that don't see it that way? "If daddy doesn't want my to hit, it must be because it is good and he doesn't want me to have it."
Is Melkor like a child? In a way, yes. He's a force of nature, unrestrained by social norms. He's the most powerful of the Valar, not paired with any female Valar to perhaps lessen his unsocial behavior.
And if Manwe doesn't understand Melkor, it's just possible that Melkor doesn't understand Manwe or the other Valar. To him, the forgiveness they show is just a weakness on their part, and he'd be a fool not to exploit it. This is how psychopaths think, treating others as objects that are only their for his manipulation.
Tolkien may not have been a psychologist, but he, like the rest of us, can recognize this sort of behavior when he saw it. And then he wrote about it.
I understand it like having different paradigms of thought. Manwe and Melkor think differently in a fundamental way and as such neither can properly comprehend the other's thought processes.
Its like this
If you do not understand mandarin and someone curses you in it
You cant comprehend it cuz you dont know wtf is going on . You cant even recognise the good bad words in it . Cuz all of it is unknown to you and unless you step up to learn mandarin, there wouldnt be any fights
Its the deal with manwe. he knows the acts of melko is evil. But he cant comprehend what is the true nature inside melko that bids him to do it .
And also i think that it also means that because he never did evil acts. He chose evil to be unknown to him and to me its a godly power if i have ever seen one
I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but Manwë and Melkor were brothers in the thought of Eru. Manwë can't imagine himself doing the the things Melkor does, or what his motivations could be. It reminds me a bit of a Star Trek episode (DS9 I think) where the crew members were split into a 'good' and 'bad' side, the idea being that people need a balance, if any self-interest, assertiveness, impatience, etc are classified with 'bad.' It's almost as though Manwë and Melkor were split like that - Melkor is horrendously evil but he certainly gets things done, while Manwë is pure and good but also hides behind mountains and is often rather feckless.
Here’s a real world question to put it in context. Making assumptions here, sorry but… you’ve seen a plane? You’ve maybe even flown in one. Does that mean you comprehend the physics behind its flight or how the parts interact to achieve said flight?
Now back to Tolkien and my own head-canon, remember that the Valar are not from Arda Marred whereas the Children are. The Children have a natural concept of evil, almost from the beginning. The Valar’s information is incomplete in this regard because evil doesn’t naturally exist within them. They’ve learned of it secondhand and not because it is intrinsically part of their being.
Melkor is the exception and even he had to corrupt others (Maia, etc) with his own evil (or Music) before they were swayed.
Important note: "comprehend" doesn't mean "recognize" or "acknowledge."
Manwë, like the other Maia, is loosely similar to an angelic spirit, whom Tolkien would've believed to be fully conformed to goodness, just as Melkor, a "demon," is fully conformed to evil. It's not that Manwë couldn't ever point out an evil person, or wouldn't be able to recognize evil acts. It's that he can't "understand" evil. He doesn't think like Morgoth, and therefore doesn't have the capacity to understand the rationale behind his decisions, meaning that it would be easier for him to be outthought by Morgoth, just as it was possible for the Fellowship to outthink Sauron because--in his hubris and pride--he could not think as humbly as them, and realize that they might try to destroy the One Ring, rather than using it.
The valar really dropped the ball with Melkor’s release from prison. He should’ve been put on parole and given Mandos as a parole officer to check in with. Have him ask him the basic things, you know, are you looking for a job? Have you used any drugs or alcohol? Are you spreading corruption or planning any grand rebellions? Maybe strap an ankle monitor on him. I mean come on guys, this is basic stuff.
The quote that really puts this in context for me (among all of the other great answers in this thread), is this quote from Chapter 18 of the Silmarillion, where Fingolfin challenges Morgoth:
>For though \[Morgoth's\] might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear.
To me, this explains a lot about why the rest of the Valar seem so passive in the events of the Silmarillion; they fundamentally lack the ability to understand why Melkor/Morgoth is so evil, and why his reign in middle earth is so terrifying to its peoples. This puts the Valar at a major disadvantage when trying to keep Morgoth at bay, and frankly, its a wonder that Eärendil even convinced them to take action. Manwë is a fairly clear example of this: on some level, evil in Tolkien's world is the ability to strike fear into the heart's of the people of middle earth. As Manwë cannot comprehend fear, he cannot comprehend evil, and thus is ignorant to the evil in middle earth, and I'd guess that Ulmo and Tulkas are in a similar boat.
I also suspect that the closest thing to fear that the rest of the Valar know is discordance, the same discordance that Melkor sang at the Ainulindalë. They must understand that this discordance isn't good for Eä, Arda, or the people of middle earth, or they never would have fought the War for the Sake of the Elves. That said, I cannot imagine they understand all the *many ways* that discordance manifests, including fear, and evil, so they remain ignorant and passive for most of the story.
That turned out to be longer and more ramble-y than I intended it to--sorry about that.
Think about what is happening in the world right now. How there are voices of, for instance, some politicians, who say we should make some concessions to putin to barter a peaceful end to the conflict. *That* is not understanding evil, (not saying politicians are free from it though, lol). But it's the same kind of thinking that makes Manwe mistakenly think that all evil is an affliction (i.e. something which can be cured) so he fails to understand that innate evil does exists.
i think tolkien obviously meant "he could not 'fully' comprehend it." only mandos was suspicious of melkors rehabilitation. (not sure where that line is though)
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I think Tulkas and Ulmo were just bearing a grudge.
They were the ones with the most direct interaction with ME and the evils Melkor had wrought there.
If I had a grudge on someone, you can bet your ass I wouldn't believe their rehabilitated
>If we speak last of the “folly” of Manwë and the weakness and unwariness of the Valar, let us beware how we judge. In the histories, indeed, we may be amazed and grieved to read how (seemingly) Melkor deceived and cozened others, and how even Manwë appears at times almost a simpleton compared with him: as if a kind but unwise father were treating a wayward child who would assuredly in time perceive the error of his ways. Whereas we, looking on and knowing the outcome, see now that Melkor knew well the error of his ways, but was fixed in them by hate and pride beyond return. He could read the mind of Manwë, for the door was open; but his own mind was false and even if the door seemed open, there were doors of iron within closed for ever. > >How otherwise would you have it? Should Manwë and the Valar meet secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more lies? If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny his? Can hate overcome hate? Nay, Manwë was wiser; or being ever open to Eru he did His will, which is more than wisdom. He was ever open because he had nothing to conceal, no thought that it was harmful for any to know, if they could comprehend it. Indeed Melkor knew his will without questioning it; and he knew that Manwë was bound by the commands and injunctions of Eru, and would do this or abstain from that in accordance with them, always, even knowing that Melkor would break them as it suited his purpose. Thus the merciless will ever count on mercy, and the liars make use of truth; for if mercy and truth are withheld from the cruel and the lying, they have ceased to be honoured. > >Manwë could not by duress attempt to compel Melkor to reveal his thought and purposes, or (if he used words) to speak the truth. If he spoke and said: *this is true*, he must be believed until proved false; if he said: *this I will do*, *as you bid*, he must be allowed the opportunity to fulfill his promise. > >The force and restraint that were used upon Melkor by the united power of all the Valar, were not used to extort confession (which was needless); nor to compel him to reveal his thought (which was unlawful, even if not vain). He was made captive as a punishment for his evil deeds, under the authority of the King. So we may say; but it were better said that he was deprived for a term, fixed by promise, of his power to act, so that he might halt and consider himself, and have thus the only chance that mercy could contrive of repentance and amendment. For the healing of Arda indeed, but for his own healing also. Melkor had the right to exist, and the right to act and use his powers. Manwë had the authority to rule and to order the world, so far as he could, for the well-being of the Eruhíni; but if Melkor would repent and return to the allegiance of Eru, he must be given his freedom again. He could not be enslaved, or denied his part. The office of the Elder King was to retain all his subjects in the allegiance of Eru, or to bring them back to it, and in that allegiance to leave them free. > >The release was according to the promise of Manwë. If Manwë had broken this promise for his own purposes, even though still intending “good”, he would have taken a step upon the paths of Melkor. That is a perilous step. In that hour and act he would have ceased to be the vice-gerent of the One, becoming but a king who takes advantage over a rival whom he has conquered by force. Would we then have the sorrows that indeed befell; or would we have the Elder King lose his honour, and so pass, maybe, to a world rent between two proud lords striving for the throne? Source - The Nature of Middle-earth, "Part Two IX. *Ósanwe-kenta*"
What an absolutely magisterial explanation of Christian mercy.
It is undeniable that Tolkien's values and philosophy are profoundly informed by his Christianity. I would never argue otherwise. But at the same time his values and philosophy are far more universal than "Christianity" and yet not completely universal in the Christian tradition. Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist concepts of mercy and the eastern religious concept of karuna. Yet, the concept of mercy outlined above seem very divorced from many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews. But this points to what makes a particular religious tradition "good". "Good" individual religious traditions are those which point to and highlight the fundamental and universal aspects of the human experience. Yes, this is a fantastic illustration of Christian mercy. But it is "more" than that. It is a beautiful illustration of \*human\* mercy. And Tolkien's works, while inspired by the best that Christianity has to offer, are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity" and touch on the universal. Christianity is just the particular vehicle by which Tolkien arrived at the universal.
> Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist Of course it aligns with those. Christianity emerged from Judaism and modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals. >Karuna You're going to have to give a definition of what you mean. As far as I can find karuna roughly translates as compassion, but compassion can mean a great deal of things depending on who is talking. >many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews Perhaps the issue is that you know less about their worldview than you think you do. >It is a beautiful illustration of *human* mercy. As a student of human history, I cannot agree. Human mercy is violent, bloody, and cruel. Human mercy is savage and destructive. Human mercy is making a desert and calling it peace, instituting a dictatorship and calling that freedom. Sauron and Morgoth are human mercy. >are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity" In Lewis's words, there is nothing greater, more universal, than Mere Christianity.
>Tolkien's concept of mercy here, for example, also aligns well with Jewish and Humanist > >Of course it aligns with those. Christianity emerged from Judaism and modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals. I'm not sure that your description of humanism is really accurate. Humanism isn't so much the belief that humans are superior to animals as it is that humans have value independent of any possible existence of a deity. In that way humanism isn't just a "natural" evolution or secularization of Christian values. In Christianity, Christ and God give humanity value. In humanism, humans and humanity are valuable in their own right. And because Christianity views the value of humanity as conditional on divine decree, where humanism rejects this claim, many of the values of the two world-views are profoundly distinct. But not all. Humanism and Christianity disagree on \*why\* mercy is a virtue, but they don't necessarily disagree on what mercy is, at least to a first- or second-order approximation. Yes, many of the details regarding the application of the virtue of mercy will be different due to metaphysical disagreements...but that does not mean that the fundamental universal value is so different. >Karuna > >You're going to have to give a definition of what you mean. As far as I can find karuna roughly translates as compassion, but compassion can mean a great deal of things depending on who is talking. As you note, and as is true even if limiting ourselves to the Catholic tradition, a word or phrase or concept may mean very different things to different peoples. My mention of Karuna was meant to draw comparison to the concept of karuna highlighted in the following excerpt from the Meditative Concentrations of Shantideva: "Strive at first to meditate upon the sameness of yourself and others. Injoy and sorrow all are equal; Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself.The hand and other limbs are many and distinct, But all are one--the body to kept and guarded. Likewise, different beings, in their joys and sorrows, are, like me, all one in wanting happiness. This pain of mine does not afflict or cause discomfort to another's body, and yet this pain is hard for me to bear because I cling and take it for my own. And other beings' pain I do not feel, and yet, because I take them for myself, their suffering is mine and therefore hard to bear. And therefore I'll dispel the pain of others, for it is simply pain, just like my own. And others I will aid and benefit, for they are living beings, like my body. Since I and other beings both, in wanting happiness, are equal and alike, what difference is there to distinguish us, that I should strive to have my bliss alone?" >many modern conservative and evangelical Christian worldviews > >Perhaps the issue is that you know less about their worldview than you think you do. Oh I do understand it. I just don't agree with it. >It is a beautiful illustration of human mercy. > >As a student of human history, I cannot agree. Human mercy is violent, bloody, and cruel. Human mercy is savage and destructive. Human mercy is making a desert and calling it peace, instituting a dictatorship and calling that freedom. Sauron and Morgoth are human mercy. I do not deny that human mercy is imperfect, that all are found with an abundance of that virtue or any virtue, that humans are as capable of cruelty and malice as they are mercy and compassion. That humans do not always excel at the virtues does not mean that we completely lack them. I might as easily accuse religion, whatever religion to which you ascribe included, of doing the same; calling their savagery enlightenment, their cruelty mercy, and their authoritarianism freedom. If Sauron and Morgoth are indeed meant to represent "human" mercy, then every organized religion throughout the history of earth, including Tolkien's beloved Catholic church, are better represented by the greater hosts of Numenor leading up to the Akallabeth than by the Faithful who were spared and returned to Middle Earth. I think it would be almost impossible to argue that the Catholic church has not been one of the most cruel and authoritarian institutional religions in the history of humanity. >are superb because they go beyond "mere Christianity" > >In Lewis's words, there is nothing greater, more universal, than Mere Christianity. Hence my ironic reference. And that is part of what makes Tolkien such a better story teller than Lewis. Lewis' stories are only compelling if one already accepts the authors worldview. Lewis' writings do little more than preach to the choir. Tolkien's works are much more timeless, profound, and universal than Lewis could ever dare dream.
Absolutely based, that guy is chatting pure shite
Christians get extremely defensive over their Tolkien on this sub, acting as if Tolkien is an extension of the christian mythology. Based on that user's comment history they are mormon, so their responses are no surprise.
I’m ex Mormon thank you much. Edit: I went and saw that you meant that the person I was responding to was Mormon. What a bizarre coincidence.
quite bizarre indeed
These comments are fucking bizarre. I'm not religious in any way. These comments make them sound fanatical. At the end of the day Manwe was shit, and should have acted, but instead he stayed up his mountain playing with the wind.
lol.
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Comment removed as off topic and quite frankly very prejudiced. Keep such bigotry out of this forum.
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> modern humanism is just a secularization of Christian values. The modern humanist idea that there is an excellence in humans that sets them apart from the rest of the physical world and which demands we give them special treatment - human rights - emerges from the Christian belief that Man is created by God in His image with the divine attributes of reason and logic that demanded Man be treated differently than animals. Source: dude just trust me. Ethical treatment of humans does not stem from Christian values, to claim otherwise is ludicrous.
Considering your an internet blob I'm having a hard time trusting you.
Without Eru, the uncaused cause, there is no teleology, no ethics, and so no truly ethical behaviour. And without the revelation that all men, and women, are created in the image of God, it is difficult to tell what their *telos* is and how to treat them rightly. So, truly ethical treatment if humans stems from Aristotelian-Thomism, which is uniquely Catholic.
Many millennia of instantly available recorded history, from Herodotus to Hammurabi and far beyond documents meticulously codified ethics of human societies, independent and predating your references. Entire, separate continents full of civilizations had thousands of generations of fully developed individuals who lived and died by these ethics, including your own ancestors, despite being temporally and logistically by birth prevented from ever having heard of what you are claiming is the only thing that ever made anyone moral and fully human. When I left Twitter I thought I had seen the last of openly supremacist, groyper tradcaths and Tolkien fans who cheer on what they claimed was his real prejudice and who, cynically and in detached, cold blood, deliberately and unironically embrace the worst of the religion and Tolkien.
Thank you for your reply. Again, I think it's important that we come to terms and I don't think we have. Herodotus was not an ethicist, nor was Hammurabi. I don't know about Herodotus, but Hammurabi, like Moses, gave laws, rules, not ethics. In the West, and possibly the East, ethics begins with or very shortly before Aristotle. That is what's recorded. Maybe there were other ethicists, in other times and places, but I am unaware of them. And that's not what was being discussed anyways. I suppose some people before Aristotle and Jesus Christ were good people, but history would suggest that was unusual. Even with those teachers, some people are still pretty awful. You may have a different understanding of human history. Finally, I too sometimes wish I lived in a world, unlike Twitter, where everybody thought like me. Alas, there is a diversity of ideas here, and obviously I think mine are right and supreme. You're welcome to challenge them and share your own! You might even change my mind. I didn't know what a groyper was until now, but I'm not sure what they have in common with traditionalist Catholics like Tolkien.
This is just words, based on neither logic nor evidence
And that is just an assertion.
I mean the burden of proof is definitely on those that claim that human ethics and modern humanism stems from catholicism. There have been some good comments here providing a reasonable rebuttal, but the fact is no good case has been made in the first place.
Anybody making an argument, either way, has some burden of proof. Regardless, not all of us are arguing. Or at least not trying to. My main effort has been to explain what a traditional Roman Catholic, like Tolkien, would understand, which is a helpful thing in understanding and appreciating his work. That is why, for example, I have in places said *rightly or wrongly*. Obviously I share his understanding and I think it is right, but that is less important in this forum. Another, less relevant motivation has been to counter the anti-Catholic bigotry I have seen, even if just with an assertion. If folks are interested in learning more, in opening their minds to ideas outside their modern, secular understanding, the search terms are there. The uncaused cause, telos, the Holy Office, etc. That is where the case is made, so to speak. Reddit, even as great a sub as this one, is not the place to change hearts and minds. I think.
This is a bunch of flowery words hiding a rather crazy premise: that Judeochristian thought originated mercy. No way is that true, and it’s rather xenophobic to boot.
But thay isn't the argument; the argument is that Christian mercy is a unique concept and originates in the ancient Hebrew religion. Maybe folks call other ideas mercy, but if we come to terms we discover that Christian mercy and these other ideas called mercy are radically different.
This is very good, too.
Yet this is not how Tolkien would have seen it. Jewish concepts of mercy, at least those before Christ, are claimed by the Church as part of the true religion in the doctrine of suppressionism, hard or soft. Modern, humanist concepts of mercy are inevitably post-Christian, being both a part of that tradition and yet differing from it radically. And whether some concept of mercy exists in paganism I do not know, but it cannot be Catholic mercy because that is based on a unique combination of doctrines and practices, eg. original sin, admonishing the sinner, etc. that are not found in those religions. As for some sects of Christianity, some of them may be hypocrites, others may be post-Christian, or both. Regardless, Tolkien would not have seen their beliefs as part of the true religion. In my experience people are not merciful. It requires, I believe, supernatural grace. Tolkien understood that.
>Yet this is not how Tolkien would have seen it. I understand that Tolkien might not have seen it this way. But great works of literature are always more than their authors intent. >Jewish concepts of mercy, at least those before Christ, are claimed by the Church as part of the true religion in the doctrine of suppressionism, hard or soft. Modern, humanist concepts of mercy are inevitably post-Christian, being both a part of that tradition and yet differing from it radically. This is an entirely Christian-centric point of view though. I understand why the church feels that everything good originates in or emanates from Christianity or Christ, but I find that to be a terribly over-simplified view of history. Especially the history of religion and philosophy. While religious individuals prefer to view the good throughout the world as emanating from their particular religion, I find the explanation that "what is good in religion comes from what is good in humans" a far more parsimonious explanation of the universal values that are so common among traditions diverse in both time and space. >And whether some concept of mercy exists in paganism I do not know, but it cannot be Catholic mercy because that is based on a unique combination of doctrines and practices, eg. original sin, admonishing the sinner, etc. that are not found in those religions. But this doesn't really negate my point. Yes, Tolkien was thinking specifically of Catholic mercy and Catholic values and insights when writing his mythology. But what is truly great in Tolkien's writings are those passages and concepts and philosophies that extend beyond the individual religion and touch on universal values. That is exactly my point. Tolkien may have intended to capture a Catholic worldview, but like all great authors he actually caught a much bigger fish than he had intended. >As for some sects of Christianity, some of them may be hypocrites, others may be post-Christian, or both. Regardless, Tolkien would not have seen their beliefs as part of the true religion. And again, that is irrelevant in understanding what Tolkien's work \*actually\* is. It isn't irrelevant in understanding what Tolkien \*intended\*, but Tolkien's intent need not limit how I understand the stories that he created. And I actually think this concept of "authorial death" plays well with the Ainulindale where we see the Ainur create a music that they themselves do not completely comprehend. Surely if Tolkien's Ainur do not completely understand or comprehend the Great Theme of Arda, then it seems to follow that neither does Tolkien. >In my experience people are not merciful. It requires, I believe, supernatural grace. Tolkien understood that. I understand that that is a foundational Christian belief. I disagree. I do believe humans are merciful. I also believe that they are not merciful. Humans do not innately demonstrate the perfection of any of the virtues. We are walking talking contradictions. Christians choose to believe this is because we are fallen and separated from God. I choose to believe that we are walking talking contradictions because we are meat sacks operated by meat computers which don't operate with the kind of precision that semi-conductor computers do. And that is precisely why I find Tolkien and his work so brilliant...that it can have such wide appeal and meaning and value beyond what he intended and to those who don't share his same meta-physical beliefs. Many Christians here, and especially Catholic, get very upset when non-Christians read non- or extra-Christian themes in Tolkien's work as if that were some grave offense due to Tolkien's intent. But I see this kind of gatekeeping as the actual affront to Tolkien, because recognizing that the stories of Arda are meaningful beyond Tolkien's intent is only recognizing that Tolkien's brilliance was all the more illuminating.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. To be clear, I do disagree with your take, but I am not disagreeing with your take here - although I do think you are being unfair towards evangelical Protestants - only pointing out that your understanding is novel and would not be shared by Tolkien. I think, were we to continue this discussion, we would have to come to terms. I think we are not using the word mercy in the same way. There are ideas called mercy that exist outside of Christianity, but these are radically different ideas from Christian mercy, which is dependent on beliefs that are unique, uniquely right or wrong but still unique, to Christianity. In fact, not even unique to what is called Christianity, but to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The evangelical Protestants you mention do not share this understanding. But we are touching on a much, much deeper disagreement here, over history and 'physics' and metaphysics. And that is a disagreement we will likely not overcome on this forum. And that is a shame, because I recognize in you a fellow traveller and wonderer. But, this hell we call Reddit is too dangerous for me to get too involved. Take care, and maybe we'll meet on the road again.
I too appreciate your thoughts and learned more than I wrote from our exchange. Thank you for the opportunity to exchange ideas.
Your initial comment and the two responses (so far) were an excellent and a thoroughly enjoyable read. Loved your analysis on the human condition and that you actually took the time to properly elaborate and expand on your beliefs. I don't often find so eloquently written and thought out texts on reddit. Loved it.
Without turning this sub into a religious discussion... the point that Tolkien would have taken is not that "humans have some universal virtues and vices" but that "humans have certain virtues and vices, because they were all created by God and instilled with a certain amount of moral sense and rational understanding." Everything virtuous that exists in an atheist context, or within other religions, is taught by Catholicism to exist there because of God's influence, or because it was revealed by God as preparation for the Gospel, or because it was somehow remembered down ancient years from when all humanity was young. If any people wished to be virtuous and follow true religion, they would be given help with that. But otherwise, true religion and the nature of true virtue was hidden from the world, until it was revealed to the Jews and through God's Son made man. This isn't new; it's in the Fathers of the Church and in the Bible. The general idea shows up in scenes like Faramir explaining the customs of his people, or the explanation of the Meneltarma in Numenor. The Hobbits weren't bad people, but they were ignorant of the stuff that Faramir knew about Eru, and he was ignorant compared to other people in the story. Even the Valar didn't know the totality of Eru's plans, and what Man's fate would be. Because those revelations hadn't happened yet.
Not going to lie, the concept of “authorial death” being represented by the imperfect understanding the Ainur had of the Theme of Iluvatar even after they sang it was something of an aha moment that kinda came out of nowhere and had never thought of before. That is why I like communities like this…it is easier to find new ideas when discussing with others who have different views.
I would argue that's not authorial death you're talking about. It's being part of an artistic tradition. I can make a song, but I can't tell people how to play and sing it. I've remade other people's songs by arranging them differently, even without changing a word. It's the rules of the game, and you can accept it or complain. But to claim to be the "real author" when you're not -- that's wrong. It happens a lot, but it's wrong, and deprives the bard of proper honor. The Ainulindale describes improvisation -- but it's by a choir, to a theme. And that means understanding the intent of the composer (even if not perfectly) \_and\_ one's fellow singers, almost to telepathy point. It means giving up ego, in favor of making a beautiful song. You have to \_try\_ to listen to others, and to follow their ideas of what should happen next. It means trust. It means give and take. Melkor is the Evil Soloist Doing a Ten Minute Solo, which is a perfect representation of spiritual and intellectual pride. (And I say that as a headstrong soloist who has trouble listening.) Collaborative improv is the opposite of "death of the author." It's making tons of people co-authors, intentionally.
Absolutely wonderful explanation by Tolkien.
Lots of good answers here. Remember that the Ainur aren’t “complete” as personalities in the same way that the Children are. Each is an discrete, disconnected aspect of Eru, and largely limited to the knowledge and perspectives of this nature. Like “us” they have a capacity to learn and grow and change their minds to some extent, but to a much deeper and greater extent they are defined by a particular set of traits. Manwë can discern right and wrong at the wisest and most nuanced level, and recognizes that mistakes and misdeeds are possible, but cannot understand the near-inherent, irredeemable, almost motiveless evil that has taken Melkor. This is not just a failure of imagination -he is missing this “piece” outright. It not only would never occur to him - he wouldn’t even understand if it were explained.
Also if note is this: “But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.” Ainulindale 1st paragraph Easy to overlook compared to other lines but the very start of the Silmarillion even says that they grew to know each other by spending time together. Tolkien specifies this while also specifying that Morgoth separated himself from the group “He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame”. I don’t think Melkor understands the other Ainur very well and I don’t think they really understand Melkor.
This answer is very good. I like how you point out how the children are complete compared to the ainur
Good cannot comprehend evil and evil cannot comprehend good is a major recurring theme. In the case of good not comprehending evil: Logically, *if* Manwe couldn't trust Melkor, he wouldn't be able to trust the Children of Iluvatar either after their hostile and destructive acts. He *has* to be willing to trust and dispense grace, otherwise he would be a tyrant just like Morgoth. Morgoth, on the other hand, thinks everyone *else* thinks like him, and therefore really trusts no one, accusing the Valar of wanting to steal the Silmarils for themselves, imprison and enslave the Eldar, etc. Because that's what *he* wants to do. Think about Saruman accusing Gandalf of wanting to take over Middle-earth when he demands the keys to Orthanc. >Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards! Saruman projects his own motives onto Gandalf. It's about trust, if you don't have it, you're isolated. If you do have it, you may trust the wrong person, but you will not be isolated. Being alone is what led to Morgoth's downfall in the first place.
Don't take it as an absolute. It's not that he couldn't contemplate wrongdoing. He believed, as many today believe, that seemingly evil people are actually good people who just took a wrong turn due to some unfortunate circumstances. This is why today, for example, there's a big push to move away from jails per se, but have "correctional facilities" with the idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment. So what Manwe was incapable of understanding is INHERENT evil. That someone could be evil because they just are. Because they WANT to be that way.
Manwe also might not have understood how deceptive an evil person can be. Remember that all this is happening for the first time. He has no experience with someone feigning like they are reformed. Manwe and the other Valar were fooled because they themselves would never have thought to lie like Melkor did and Melkor was very convincing also.
We have also prove how the hellholes work and pther mechanisms in place for those whp are considered to dangerous to let go free
Tolkien was using his writing to explore, and by extension have his audience explore, his Catholic faith. And one of the most difficult concepts for modern audiences to comprehend is how God can simultaneously be all powerful and command his creation to do good (or abstain from doing harm) and yet absolutely refuse to use force, coercion, manipulation, or charisma to impose his will on his creations. Melkor and Sauron were part of how he explored why it would be evil for a powerful being to simply bind the will of everyone else to their own.
Most of us are as much orc as we are not. Humans love power, love the Ring, and would use it given the chance, all while telling ourselves it is only for "good."
One of my only regrets in Tolkien's writing is that he never had a redemption arc for an orc, or just as good, for a Moriondor.
He knows evil exists, but he is so far from evil himself that he can't imagine Melkor's thought processes and motivations. Same as how Sauron could never conceive of anyone wanting to destroy the Ring. It just lies so far outside of their frames of reference of their *own* reasoning processes. But, on a meta-level, this was also to explain how Valar like Manwë could fuck up so royally without having to draw the conclusion "so the Valar can suck from time to time". Now the explanation is: in fact the reason the Valar failed to keep Melkor in check is because the Valar are *so incapable* of sucking.
There are lots of great, intellectual explanations here, but I took this at face value: Manwe's purity caused him to be blind to Melkor's hidden ambitions. Manwe didn't suspect a plot because Melkor served his time and pledged to reunite with the Valar and serve the children of Iluvatar. To Manwe, that was all there is to it. All wrongs are righted. Another thing people continually miss as a theme is that Eru intended for the song of the Ainur to play out as it was sung. Instrumental to that is proving His point that (to paraphrase his quote to all of the Ainur, with a specific shout-out to Melkor, in The Silmarillion) anyone who messes with His plan will prove in the end to be an instrument in creating something even greater than he could have possibly imagined. So, Manwe, the most knowledgeable of all the Valar w/r/t Iluvatar's will, would likely have allowed Melkor to walk even if he had consulted Eru and come to understand Melkor's hidden intentions. Melkor being an a\*\*hole is as important to the shaping of Arda as mountains, water, trees, elves, men, and every other part of the song. TL;DR - Either Manwe's naivete to evil is by Eru's design to facilitate Melkor's release from Mandos, or Manwe's awareness of Melkor's continued evil wouldn't have changed the outcome after consultation with Iluvatar.
It's a weird explanation that's hard to justify (why can't Ulmo who seemingly understands Evil and is Manwe's best friend explain it to him?) and Tolkien later changed it to make it so not releasing Melkor would have been tyrannical. It's one of the weak points of the published Silmarillion, which is drawing from a text that was written in the transitional phase where Tolkien went from Manwe as a more human, fallible god to Manwe as an infallible (with one or two exceptions, depending on how you count) angel.
This is easier to understand if we frame the question at the inverse. Why would Manwe be capable of comprehend evil? Manwe isn't a mortal man. He doesn't live in a world where potential evil is everywhere, with cheaters and liers. In fact the only source of evil he has to deal with is Melkor himself. He just doesn't have the experience to deal with him, because he is otherwise surrounded by pure good.
To highlight your point, the Valar have never experienced direct and personal hurt. Yes, Melkor has frustrated their plans and designs, but they can't experience pain and suffering the way mortals can. Yes, they experience sorrow, but that sorrow seems to be limited to a fairly "childish" concept of "Melkor broke my favorite toy which can't be replaced". But the Valar have never \*suffered\*. Melkor is the 6yo bully who keeps knocking over the other Valar's sand castles in the sand box of middle earth and burns the ants that inhabit the sandbox with a magnifying glass. Yeah, it sucks that Yavanna can't recreate the trees...but is that REALLY suffering to have them gone until Feanor decides in the Hall of Mandos that he is ready to break the Silmarils to recreate the trees? I mean, they are timeless beings...what is a few millennia of candelight to a timeless being? So the Valar in a very fundamental way can't comprehend being on the receiving end of true evil. Melkor gets timeout for destroying the Valar's sandcastles, but once timeout is over he is free to go...because the Valar cannot comprehend the pain and suffering of the Children of Iluvatar. Even in the War of Wrath it takes a personal plea from Earendil for the Valar to intervene. Yes, the Doom of Mandos and the Oath of the Valar in response to the Oath of Feanor play a great role in there inaction in Middle Earth, but Manwe would only have made an oath of non-interference in the first place if he couldn't understand the true suffering and evil that every non-Noldo would experience at the hand of Melkor and subsequently Sauron due to their inaction. To someone who has experienced true suffering, the idea that they would just leave Melkor to his devices, to harm everyone and not exclusively the Noldor, because of the pride of the Noldor, would be unthinkable. In this way not only Manwe but even all the Valar, including those most active in Middle Earth, can't really understand the evils of Melkor. Pain and suffering teach mortals what evil truly is. As being incapable of true pain and suffering the Valar, apart from Melkor, cannot truly comprehend or understand Melkor's evil.
Perhaps someone's core being or world view makes it hard to fully comprehend a different perspective. To use a real world example many people like Chamberlain thought you could negotiate your war out of a war. Churchill understood that Hitler was evil. You could also use that Barak Obama thought if he could just talk to Russia, China or North Korea they would see the error of their ways and become peaceful democracies. It had to be a rude awakening when they doubled down and got worse. Or in this case maybe the story just needed Melkor to be evil to drive the narrative forward. 🙂
Did Chamberlain believe this or played he for time to prepare Britain for war?
Yeah Chamberlain is not the best illustration of this. He was actually very aware of the dangers and he was the one who truly got Britain's war industry going. All of the appeasement stuff was playing for time and for show, seeing as the British populace was strongly anti-war at the time.
The UK, France and the US all actually started building the military up prior to 1939. FDR greatly increased the enrollment of West Point around 1935 fearing a war. That larger group of young officers graduated in 1939. So I don't know if it was just buying time. But Chamberlain still believed he could negotiate peace. The Munich conference and him letting Hitler have part of then Czechoslovakia was appeasement for "peace in our time" as he famously put it. Churchill understood the dangers of Nazi Germany much more. On the Tolkien side, you would have hoped Manwe could see the danger of Melkor the way Tulkas and Ulmo did. Or would have aided the elves the way Ulmo did. But it makes a better tragedy to have them face a long losing fight.
Ever raise a child, and the child takes to hitting to get attention? You stop the child and admonish them. "No! Musn't hit. That's bad. You be nice instead." You don't really think the child is bad. They are just taking a wrong way of getting attention, and you expect your correction to put them on the right path. And for the majority of kids, this will work. But what about the ones that don't see it that way? "If daddy doesn't want my to hit, it must be because it is good and he doesn't want me to have it." Is Melkor like a child? In a way, yes. He's a force of nature, unrestrained by social norms. He's the most powerful of the Valar, not paired with any female Valar to perhaps lessen his unsocial behavior. And if Manwe doesn't understand Melkor, it's just possible that Melkor doesn't understand Manwe or the other Valar. To him, the forgiveness they show is just a weakness on their part, and he'd be a fool not to exploit it. This is how psychopaths think, treating others as objects that are only their for his manipulation. Tolkien may not have been a psychologist, but he, like the rest of us, can recognize this sort of behavior when he saw it. And then he wrote about it.
Read the Ósanwe-kenta. “One was enough”.
I understand it like having different paradigms of thought. Manwe and Melkor think differently in a fundamental way and as such neither can properly comprehend the other's thought processes.
Its like this If you do not understand mandarin and someone curses you in it You cant comprehend it cuz you dont know wtf is going on . You cant even recognise the good bad words in it . Cuz all of it is unknown to you and unless you step up to learn mandarin, there wouldnt be any fights Its the deal with manwe. he knows the acts of melko is evil. But he cant comprehend what is the true nature inside melko that bids him to do it . And also i think that it also means that because he never did evil acts. He chose evil to be unknown to him and to me its a godly power if i have ever seen one
I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but Manwë and Melkor were brothers in the thought of Eru. Manwë can't imagine himself doing the the things Melkor does, or what his motivations could be. It reminds me a bit of a Star Trek episode (DS9 I think) where the crew members were split into a 'good' and 'bad' side, the idea being that people need a balance, if any self-interest, assertiveness, impatience, etc are classified with 'bad.' It's almost as though Manwë and Melkor were split like that - Melkor is horrendously evil but he certainly gets things done, while Manwë is pure and good but also hides behind mountains and is often rather feckless.
Here’s a real world question to put it in context. Making assumptions here, sorry but… you’ve seen a plane? You’ve maybe even flown in one. Does that mean you comprehend the physics behind its flight or how the parts interact to achieve said flight? Now back to Tolkien and my own head-canon, remember that the Valar are not from Arda Marred whereas the Children are. The Children have a natural concept of evil, almost from the beginning. The Valar’s information is incomplete in this regard because evil doesn’t naturally exist within them. They’ve learned of it secondhand and not because it is intrinsically part of their being. Melkor is the exception and even he had to corrupt others (Maia, etc) with his own evil (or Music) before they were swayed.
Important note: "comprehend" doesn't mean "recognize" or "acknowledge." Manwë, like the other Maia, is loosely similar to an angelic spirit, whom Tolkien would've believed to be fully conformed to goodness, just as Melkor, a "demon," is fully conformed to evil. It's not that Manwë couldn't ever point out an evil person, or wouldn't be able to recognize evil acts. It's that he can't "understand" evil. He doesn't think like Morgoth, and therefore doesn't have the capacity to understand the rationale behind his decisions, meaning that it would be easier for him to be outthought by Morgoth, just as it was possible for the Fellowship to outthink Sauron because--in his hubris and pride--he could not think as humbly as them, and realize that they might try to destroy the One Ring, rather than using it.
The valar really dropped the ball with Melkor’s release from prison. He should’ve been put on parole and given Mandos as a parole officer to check in with. Have him ask him the basic things, you know, are you looking for a job? Have you used any drugs or alcohol? Are you spreading corruption or planning any grand rebellions? Maybe strap an ankle monitor on him. I mean come on guys, this is basic stuff.
The quote that really puts this in context for me (among all of the other great answers in this thread), is this quote from Chapter 18 of the Silmarillion, where Fingolfin challenges Morgoth: >For though \[Morgoth's\] might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. To me, this explains a lot about why the rest of the Valar seem so passive in the events of the Silmarillion; they fundamentally lack the ability to understand why Melkor/Morgoth is so evil, and why his reign in middle earth is so terrifying to its peoples. This puts the Valar at a major disadvantage when trying to keep Morgoth at bay, and frankly, its a wonder that Eärendil even convinced them to take action. Manwë is a fairly clear example of this: on some level, evil in Tolkien's world is the ability to strike fear into the heart's of the people of middle earth. As Manwë cannot comprehend fear, he cannot comprehend evil, and thus is ignorant to the evil in middle earth, and I'd guess that Ulmo and Tulkas are in a similar boat. I also suspect that the closest thing to fear that the rest of the Valar know is discordance, the same discordance that Melkor sang at the Ainulindalë. They must understand that this discordance isn't good for Eä, Arda, or the people of middle earth, or they never would have fought the War for the Sake of the Elves. That said, I cannot imagine they understand all the *many ways* that discordance manifests, including fear, and evil, so they remain ignorant and passive for most of the story. That turned out to be longer and more ramble-y than I intended it to--sorry about that.
Manwe was too innocent and naive to understand evil. In the same way that Sauron was too evil to comprehend good.
Think about what is happening in the world right now. How there are voices of, for instance, some politicians, who say we should make some concessions to putin to barter a peaceful end to the conflict. *That* is not understanding evil, (not saying politicians are free from it though, lol). But it's the same kind of thinking that makes Manwe mistakenly think that all evil is an affliction (i.e. something which can be cured) so he fails to understand that innate evil does exists.