COTW: Silmarillion ChapterVIII: The Darkening of Valinor
Larry Swain
revealed his lust for the Silmarills; Melkor was enraged and went north,
but after a time,
hid himself and invisibly doubled back and went into the far south.
Meanwhile Tulkas and Oronwe were hunting him in the north.
Melkor heads to Avathar, a land south of the Bay of Eldamar which was at
the foot of the Pelori, a region dark and unexplored. Ungoliant lived
there, a being in the shape of a spider of unknown origin, though it is
thought that she entered Arda from the void before even Melkor and that
Melkor had corrupted her when he first came. It was further speculated
that she had forsaken Melkor wanting to be queen of herself, so to
speak. She was lusty gal, needing the light and hating it, consuming
it and weaving a darkness that no light penetrated or escaped from. She
was too successful and so very hungry when Melkor found her.
So Melkor seeks her out. According to HOME X, if you don't mind me
bringing that in here, relates that Melkor had a difficult time
convincing Ungoliant to side with him, something that the version of the
story in the Silmarillion only hints at. In the end Melkor in Home
gives her some bright jewels to eat with the promise of much more on
which to feed. This too is in the Silm. version, but in truncated form.
Ungoliant is relunctant, torn between desire and fear. Eventually
desire overcomes fear and she agrees to help Melkor. She weaves her
webs and shrouds herself and Melkor in darkness, in fact in what Tolkien
calls an "Unlight", and so bit by bit they make their way to the peak of
Mt. Hyarmentir from which they could look down on the Blessed Realm.
The Valar were not watching that direction, thinking that geography
protected them: the mountains on the east of the Pelori looked on the
"pathless sea" and to the west it was empty, or so they thought.
Meanwhile, it is festival time! The first fruits are grown, but the
rule of Yavanna who set such seasons though time is yet meaningless
(compare to the seeming arrest time in Rivendell and Lorien in LoTR),
and as they are gathered the festival is set to honor and worship Eru.
Manwe hoped at this festival time to be able to heal relationships and
so invited all to this great feast, but commanded Feanor to appear in
order to make peace between Feanor and Finwe, his half brother. For
Finwe's part, he extended the hand of peace and declared that where
Feanor would lead, he would follow--little did he know what those words
would cost him! All were gathered to the feast, save the Teleri who
remained on their shore singing, when Melkor and Ungoliant came from the
south. They came to the two Trees as both were shining and mingling
their lights: Melkor struck each tree with his spear, and Ungoliant not
only drank the now flowing sap, but put her beak to each wound on each
tree and drank their life out of them. Her poinson entered the trees
and so they died, and the light faded and went out.
Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
even Melkor was a little afraid of her. The darkness that resulted from
the death of the trees, Ungoliant's gas and her webs is said to have
been more than darkness, more than an absence of light, but "a thing
with its own being." And that darkness could enter the soul and mind
and sap a being of strength and will. Only Manwe in his high seat
perceived the dark beyond dark that not even his eye could penetrate,
but he deduced that Melkor had come and gone. And so the chase was on,
Oronwe and Tulkas in hot pursuit after Melkor, but it was vain, they
could not withstand the psychic and physical draining of the darkness
that Ungoliant wove. And so Melkor had his vegeance and Valinor was
made dark, and the Blessed Realm marred.
FURTHER ISSUES:
1) Who or what is Ungoliant? Is Maia? Or some other kind of creature?
If Maia, what relationship between character and shape, why take that
shape if possible to change shape?
2) Why are the Valar not all that smart? If they can track Melkor so
far and then lose track of him, why didn't occur to them to look elsewhere?
3) Along the same lines, knowing that Melkor was at large and angry and
bent on poisoning things (such as in the last chapter where it was
discovered that his lies and half-truths lay at the root of the unrest)
that at festival time they didn't keep watch, much less increased watch
at a tempting time for Melkor? Or is being pure also being simple? Am
I being too hard here?
4) the directions: is Tolkien playing with a topos here? Often in
literature (not always) evil comes from the north, good from the south;
we see this motif in the Bible as well as in classical
literature....hence Melkor settles in the North. And that is where the
Valar look for him, not suspecting danger from the south: is this a
somewhat larger thing Tolkien is doing here playing on a larger theme
than just the elements of the plot? If so, how do you see him doing
this? If not, why not?
5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story several
times even in this chapter. What do you think of this device?
6) the reconciliation: Tolkien states that they were reconciled in
words, does this necessarily mean that they were not in heart? Or at
least that one was not? This question should come up again in later
chapters....why would Fingolfin yield to Feanor who is obviously unfit
to lead? For the sake of peace only? If Feanor didn't mean it, why
wouldn't Manwe take note of this?
Stan Brown
<thes...@operamail.com>:
> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
> drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
> even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
Does that mean Ungoliant was more powerful than Melkor? :-)
No, of course not -- I'm just tying again to throw cold water on this
whole idea of "more powerful" as a linear scale that a couple of
people seem to have imported from Dungeons and Dragons.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Stan Brown
<thes...@operamail.com>:
Before anything else, Larry, THANKS for getting the CotW on track
again. I've missed it.
> 1) Who or what is Ungoliant? Is Maia? Or some other kind of creature?
> If Maia, what relationship between character and shape, why take that
> shape if possible to change shape?
I've often wondered what Ungoliant was. She's certainly not a Vala,
so if she was an Ainu she must have been a Maia. But there's that
_if_.
Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda? Melkor at least was
already openly in rebellion. If he professed desire to clean up the
mess he'd made of the Music, Eru would not have been fooled, since
unlike Manwë Eru could see into Melkor's heart. So why would Eru have
let his children in for thousands of years of anguish?
And if Ungoliant wasn't a Vala or Maia -- i.e., if she didn't have
Eru's leave to enter Arda -- how did she do it? We're told that all
the Valar and Maiar were constrained to stay within Arda till the
end: that was either a command of Eru's or a voluntary promise ("the
necessity of their love"). Either way, why would Eru have let her
slip in through the back door?
Perhaps she was Bombadil's disgruntled ex-wife, who became consumed
with rage and turned herself into a spider when he dumped her for the
River-daughter. :-)
> 2) Why are the Valar not all that smart? If they can track Melkor so
> far and then lose track of him, why didn't occur to them to look elsewhere?
This has always bothered me, particularly since Manwë can see
everything from Taniquetil. ("When Manwë there ascends his throne and
looks forth, if Varda is beside him, he sees further than all other
eyes, through mist, and through darkness, and over the leagues of the
sea.")
It's a general theme of Silm that the Valar seem to be less than
energetic in protecting the Children or even in dealing with evil.
We've discussed it here numerous times, but I still just don't
understand it. It has to be accepted as part of the story, I think.
As for being stupid, Tolkien gives an explanation: Manwë himself was
purely good. He had no evil in him, and he couldn't understand evil.
That doesn't seem too hard for me to accept.
> 5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story several
> times even in this chapter. What do you think of this device?
I can't think off hand of any foreshadowing in Chapter 8, but I'd be
interested o hear what people think.
In Chapter 9 there are two biggies that strike me every time: (1)
Mandos saying "not the first" when Fëanor says if they take the
Silmarils from him his will be the first murder in Aman; (2) the
statement that the Silmarils "had passed away" yet if only Fëanor had
been willing to give them up his later deeds might have been
different.
> 6) the reconciliation: Tolkien states that they were reconciled in
> words, does this necessarily mean that they were not in heart? Or at
> least that one was not?
Yes, I think it's clear that Fingolfin was sincere and Fëanor was
not.
> This question should come up again in later
> chapters....why would Fingolfin yield to Feanor who is obviously unfit
> to lead? For the sake of peace only? If Feanor didn't mean it, why
> wouldn't Manwe take note of this?
Manwë was not Eru. He knew much of the Music, and therefore had much
foreknowledge, but he couldn't see into the hearts and thoughts of
the Children if they hid them from him. (Osanwe-kenta says no one
could read the thoughts of another who didn't want them read.)
Tamim
> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com>:
>> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
>> drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
>> even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
> Does that mean Ungoliant was more powerful than Melkor? :-)
At that point she was. Tolkien pretty much says so.
He had lost power and she had gained.
> No, of course not -- I'm just tying again to throw cold water on this
> whole idea of "more powerful" as a linear scale that a couple of
> people seem to have imported from Dungeons and Dragons.
Not linear scale. As I have said, it doesn't exist in black and white
form. we can still safely say that Melkor was the most powerful Vala in
the beginning. We can say that Sauron was more powerful than Olorin.
Feänor was more powerul than Legolas and so forth. Tolkien does use the
expressions mightiest, of higher order, blood mixed with lesser people
etc. There are differences in power or might and you can in many
occasions say who is more powerful. That doesn't mean that there are
clear cut level differences as in DD, but the differences do exist.
Maybe this is a bit too MM style but I will still state it: Tolkien says
so ;)
> --
> Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
> http://OakRoadSystems.com
> Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
> Tolkien letters FAQ:
> http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
> FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
> Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
> more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
--
Tamim
snip
> Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
> Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda? Melkor at least was
> already openly in rebellion. If he professed desire to clean up the
> mess he'd made of the Music, Eru would not have been fooled, since
> unlike Manwë Eru could see into Melkor's heart. So why would Eru have
> let his children in for thousands of years of anguish?
snip
That's an age old religious question when dealing with monotheistic
religions with one omnipotent, omniscient God. I don't think anybody
really has an answer. Why does God let evil, suffering and Satan to
exist? Even Jesus asks: "Father, why have You forsaken Me". If he
doesn't know the answer, how can RABT solve the riddle?
RPN
Stan Brown wrote:
> Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
> Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda? Melkor at least was
> already openly in rebellion. If he professed desire to clean up the
> mess he'd made of the Music, Eru would not have been fooled, since
> unlike Manwë Eru could see into Melkor's heart. So why would Eru have
> let his children in for thousands of years of anguish?
The Music of the Ainur _is_ Arda. Melkor and those others who "began to
attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at
first" had their part in determining what Arda would be. Eru had to let
them enter into the universe so that the music could be fully enacted
in its history.
RPN
RPN
You're right, of course, but I think Tolkien's fiction of the Music
was, at least in part, an attempt to answer (or perhaps circumvent)
that question, with a nod to Job's "when the morning stars sang
together." By allowing his creatures the Ainur to exercise their
independent will in the shaping of Arda, Eru can't be said to be
responsible for the "evil" element in it, yet he can ensure that all
will lead to an unexpected and more wonderful good in the end.
RPN (cutting through a lot of theological knots here, but without the
time to go into this in more detail now)
Taemon
> That's an age old religious question when dealing with
> monotheistic religions with one omnipotent, omniscient God. I
> don't think anybody really has an answer. Why does God let evil,
> suffering and Satan to exist? Even Jesus asks: "Father, why have
> You forsaken Me". If he doesn't know the answer, how can RABT
> solve the riddle?
Because The Silmarillion wasn't written by God?
T.
Chris Kern
This chapter is one that is far better in Tolkien's original version
than the Silm one. Tolkien's version was more detailed and longer,
but CT compressed it to better fit in with the relative length of the
other stories.
Also, there were some important changes made in the latest version
that CT did not incorporate -- for one, Melkor was not present at the
destruction of the trees. Instead, he used the Trees (at least
partially) as a diverting tactic to occupy Ungoliant while he went
ahead to get the Silmarils, never intending to meet up with her again.
One other interesting point is that at least briefly, in the draft of
this story in Book of Lost Tales, Feanor died defending the trees from
Ungoliant.
-Chris
Stan Brown
> In alt.fan.tolkien Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
> > <thes...@operamail.com>:
> >> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
> >> drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
> >> even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
>
> > Does that mean Ungoliant was more powerful than Melkor? :-)
>
> At that point she was. Tolkien pretty much says so.
Sigh. Tolkien does _not_ "pretty much say so".
I'm trying very hard not to be intemperate, but your whole approach
to this seems so, well naively wrong-headed that it really raises my
blood pressure.
Try a thought experiment -- have you never been afraid of anything?
computing and filing your taxes, for instance; or a new task at work;
or meeting a new person. Yet you went ahead and did all those things.
How could they be more powerful than you?
This is a reductio ad absurdum, useful to illustrate that being "a
little afraid" of something does not indicate it's more powerful than
you. That is so obvious that I am at a complete loss to understand
how it can be obscure to anyone.
Tamim
> 26 Feb 2006 00:34:09 GMT from Tamim <hall...@hotmail.com>:
>> In alt.fan.tolkien Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> > Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
>> > <thes...@operamail.com>:
>> >> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
>> >> drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
>> >> even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
>>
>> > Does that mean Ungoliant was more powerful than Melkor? :-)
>>
>> At that point she was. Tolkien pretty much says so.
> Sigh. Tolkien does _not_ "pretty much say so".
"For she had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone out of
him" Morgoth's Ring, Later Quenta Silmarillion II
> I'm trying very hard not to be intemperate, but your whole approach
> to this seems so, well naively wrong-headed that it really raises my
> blood pressure.
And your's is somewhat pigheaded. What are you trying to say in the
first place? That one cannot tell about any two dwellers in Arda that
which of them is more powerful?
> Try a thought experiment -- have you never been afraid of anything?
> computing and filing your taxes, for instance; or a new task at work;
> or meeting a new person. Yet you went ahead and did all those things.
> How could they be more powerful than you?
We aren't speaking of me or the people of real world. We are talking
about Tolkien's universeand when tolkien clearly writes time and time
again that A is the most powerful/greatest among group B, or that C is
of higher order than D, who am I to say that he is wrong.
> This is a reductio ad absurdum, useful to illustrate that being "a
> little afraid" of something does not indicate it's more powerful than
> you.
True. But Morgoth wasn't a little afraid. He was in deep trouble,
although in the beginning he was the mightiest of all the creatures in
eä. And Tolkien gives us an explanation. He had lost power and she had
gained. He doesn't say that she was more powerful, that I do admit, but
he does gives us an explanation in terms of power.
snip
Tamim
Neither was the Bible, not even story internally. But that's not the point.
The issue is the same, whatever book or story we are talking about as
long as there exists an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God and
evil at the same time. The question, story internally, remains the same.
Troels Forchhammer
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> enriched us with:
> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com>:
>
> Before anything else, Larry, THANKS for getting the CotW on track
> again. I've missed it.
Me too!
>> 1) Who or what is Ungoliant? Is Maia? Or some other kind of
>> creature?
>> If Maia, what relationship between character and shape, why
>> take that shape if possible to change shape?
>
> I've often wondered what Ungoliant was.
Together with the rest of us, I believe -- at least it's been debated a
few times on RABT/AFT ;-)
> She's certainly not a Vala, so if she was an Ainu she must have
> been a Maia. But there's that _if_.
I've tried looking at her history.
In BoLT[1] we meet Ungwë Lianti, called also Wirilómë or Gloomweaver,
or, by the Noldoli, Ungoliont the spider or Gwerlum the Black. She is,
however, 'the primeval spirit Móru whom even the Valar known not whence
or when she came, [...]. Mayhap she was bred of mists and darkness on
the confines of the Shadowy Seas, [...], but more like she has always
been; and she it is who loveth still to dwell in that black place
taking the guise of an unlovely spider [...].'
In the Quenta[2] we have
There secret and unknown dwelt Ungoliant, Gloomweaver, in
spider's form. It is not told whence she is, from the
outer darkness, maybe, that lies beyond the Walls of the
World.
I don't have the version in the QS[3], but in the Annals of Aman
(AAm)[4] we find:
There, between the sheer walls of the mountains and the
cold dark Sea, the shadows were deepest in the world. And
there secretly Ungoliantë had made her abode. Whence she
came none of the Eldar know, but maybe she came to the
South out of the darkness of Ëa, in that time when Melkor
destroyed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, [...]
All of these contain some similar elements, that can be found also in
the published Silmarillion: Ungoliant dwells in the deep shadows, and
her origin is unknown, though it is hinted that she came from beyond
Arda.
This becomes more definite in the last version of the story (as far as
I am aware), LQ2[5] chapter 6 'Of the Darkening of Valinor':
§55c :
There the shadows were deepest and thickest in the world.
In Avathar, secret and unknown save to Melkor, dwelt
Ungoliantë, and she had taken spider's form, and was a
weaver of dark webs. It is not known whence she came,
though among the Eldar it was said that in ages long
before she had descended from the darkness that lies about
Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the light
in the kingdom of Manwë
§56a 'Come forth!' he said. 'Thrice fool: to leave me first,
to dwell here languishing whithin reach of feasts untold,
[...]
It is now definite that Ungoliant did serve Melkor earlier ('to leave
me first'), and that makes the hearsay far more credible -- on that
basis I don't see any reason to doubt that she did indeed enter Arda
together with Melkor, as one of his servants, when he first entered
Arda -- perhaps way back when they were still making Arda (before the
arrival of Tulkas, even), or perhaps when he entered while Tulkas slept
and the Valar were gathered upon Almaren.
This, however, leaves, IMO, only one possible origin for Ungoliant:
that she was one of the spirits created by Eru before time. This is
suggested already in the BoLT version -- that she was 'the primeval
spirit Móru' who had chosen the form of a monstrous spider, and where
the latter element is still present in the last version: she had taken
spider's form' suggests to me that the form is a matter of choice.
I am satisfied that Ungoliant originated outside Eä, and I know of no
other words to describe that origin than Ainu and Maia (I am leaving
open the possibility that Tolkien could eventually have invented a new
class of primeval spirits to cover e.g. the Ents etc.)
> Either way, this opens up a larger question.
[...]
> So why would Eru have let his children in for thousands of years
> of anguish?
That is the big problem with the omniscient and omnipotent good deity,
isn't it? Why does God allow evil? I won't even pretend to be able to
give a satisfying answer :/
<snip>
>> 2) Why are the Valar not all that smart?
Because if they really were as smart as they ought to be, then there
wouldn't be any story . . .
>> If they can track Melkor so far and then lose track of
>> him, why didn't occur to them to look elsewhere?
>
> This has always bothered me, particularly since Manwë can see
> everything from Taniquetil.
There are, as we learn, exceptions to that.
> ("When Manwë there ascends his throne and looks forth, if Varda
> is beside him, he sees further than all other eyes, through mist,
> and through darkness, and over the leagues of the sea.")
I think we learn that there are darknesses that he may be able to see
/through/ but not /into/ ;-)
One such is of course the Unlight that Ungoliant spun.
> It's a general theme of Silm that the Valar seem to be less than
> energetic in protecting the Children or even in dealing with evil.
> We've discussed it here numerous times, but I still just don't
> understand it. It has to be accepted as part of the story, I
> think.
That, I think, is completely correct. The story simply wouldn't work
without these 'oversights' by the Valar.
> As for being stupid, Tolkien gives an explanation: Manwë himself
> was purely good. He had no evil in him, and he couldn't understand
> evil. That doesn't seem too hard for me to accept.
That also, to some extent, explains the blindness: if one doesn't
understand evil, then one is more likely to overlook it, fail to find
it in others or to not guess where to look for it.
At least such an explanation would work for me.
>> 5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story
>> several times even in this chapter. What do you think of this
>> device?
>
> I can't think off hand of any foreshadowing in Chapter 8, but I'd
> be interested o hear what people think.
'though that power he was soon to lose for ever.'
Foreshadowing Melkor becoming bound to his form.
'In that form he remained ever after.'
The same as above, specifying the form.
'Yea, with both hands.'
Foreshadowing the Thieves' Quarrel
'the escape of Melkor portended toils and sorrows to come'
-- there has to be a story here ;-)
'But they did not know the meaning that their words would bear.'
Foreshadowing the Flight of the Noldor
'Ungoliant [...] swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that
Melkor was afraid.'
Foreshadowing the Thieves' Quarrel again.
> In Chapter 9 there are two biggies that strike me every time:
Aye, those as well.
Of possible interest is that Fëanor in the earlier versions said he
would be first to die, but with the introduction of the Finwë, Míriel
and Indis story, that was changed to the current reading of first to be
slain in Aman -- supposedly in order to keep exactly the mysterious
'Not the first' comment by Mandos.
This technique is, I think, a part of the narrative mode(s) that
Tolkien employed. The indication that the narrator already knows what
will happen strengthens the feeling that the narrator is retelling old
stories, whether myths or 'recent' history (as is the case in LotR).
>> 6) the reconciliation: Tolkien states that they were reconciled
>> in words, does this necessarily mean that they were not in heart?
>> Or at least that one was not?
>
> Yes, I think it's clear that Fingolfin was sincere and Fëanor was
> not.
I wonder what would have happened had Melkor been unsuccessful?
Would Fëanor and Finwë have returned to Tirion in time, and Fingolfin
have been suffered by Fëanor as long as he accepted these words as a
life-long (eternal within Eä!) of being subservient to Fëanor.
Fëanor does seem to half-heartedly accept Fingolfin's offer: he is, I
think, reconciled with Fingolfin, but only on the terms that Fingolfin
offers: 'Thou shalt lead and I will follow. May no new grief divide
us.'
<snip>
[1] /The Book of Lost Tales 1/, HoMe1, VI 'The Theft of Melko [...]'
c. 1916-1918
[2] /The Shaping of Middle-earth/, HoMe4, Part 3, about 1930
[3] 'Quenta Silmarillion' in /The Lost Road and Other Writings/, HoMe5
later thirties
[4] Part 2 of /Morgoth's Ring/, HoMe10, 'The Annals of Aman',
early fifties (1950 - 51 with later emendations)
[5] Part 3-II of /Morgoth's Ring/, HoMe10, 'The Later Quenta
Silmarillion' -- 'The Second Phase', c. 1958
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
A common mistake people make when trying to design
something completely foolproof is to underestimate the
ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams, /Mostly Harmless/
Derek Broughton
> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com>:
>
> Before anything else, Larry, THANKS for getting the CotW on track
> again. I've missed it.
>
>> 1) Who or what is Ungoliant? Is Maia? Or some other kind of creature?
>> If Maia, what relationship between character and shape, why take that
>> shape if possible to change shape?
>
> I've often wondered what Ungoliant was. She's certainly not a Vala,
> so if she was an Ainu she must have been a Maia. But there's that
> _if_.
imo the only thing that makes sense of Ungoliant (and Bombadil and other
creatures of power that have existed since the world was made) is that they
are Maiar.
>
> Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
> Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda?
Eru is bound, by his own plan, to create the world according to the themes
of the Music of the Ainulindale. Melkor's inventions introduced evil to
the Music, and thus Eru could not bar it from Arda.
--
derek
Stan Brown
> And your's is somewhat pigheaded. What are you trying to say in the
> first place? That one cannot tell about any two dwellers in Arda that
> which of them is more powerful?
No, of course not. It's obvious that Manwë is greater than a slug on
any measurement.
But as soon as you leave absurd pairs and start with realistic ones,
it becomes fuzzy. Is Manwë greater than Gollum? On many measures,
yes. But Gollum is not constrained by the Music, and Manwë is. So by
that measure, who's greater?
This is the point I keep trying to make: "greater" or "more
powerful", or whatever simplistic comparative you want to use, simply
draws too wide a brush. People (not to mention Ainur) are simply too
complex for that sort of oversimplification.
If you would banish such things from your vocabulary and start going
with more specific terms like "wiser", "braver", "physically
stronger", then there could be some basis for discussion. Using vague
undefined terms that mean anything or nothing -- there's no way to
discuss that.
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>
> Because if they really were as smart as they ought to be, then there
> wouldn't be any story . . .
This reminds me of Anna Russell's analysis of Verdi's(*) opera
/Hamletto/:
"This is a FANTASTICALLY complicated story! But there would have been
no story at all if Hamlet had avenged his father's death at once
instead of hinkle-pinkling around. Which goes to show that if you
don't behave like you're supposed to, you're liable to be terribly
interesting!"
(*) "As you know, Verdi has made operas out of many of the
SHakespeare plays. He has not, as a matter of fact, made one out of
Hamlet, but I'm not for a moment going to let that stand in my way."
Odysseus
<snip>
> I am satisfied that Ungoliant originated outside Eä, and I know of no
> other words to describe that origin than Ainu and Maia (I am leaving
> open the possibility that Tolkien could eventually have invented a new
> class of primeval spirits to cover e.g. the Ents etc.)
Weren't the Ents quasi-independent creations of Yavanna's, as the
Dwarves were of Aulë's?
--
Odysseus
Tamim
>> And your's is somewhat pigheaded. What are you trying to say in the
>> first place? That one cannot tell about any two dwellers in Arda that
>> which of them is more powerful?
> No, of course not. It's obvious that Manwë is greater than a slug on
> any measurement.
> But as soon as you leave absurd pairs and start with realistic ones,
> it becomes fuzzy. Is Manwë greater than Gollum? On many measures,
> yes. But Gollum is not constrained by the Music, and Manwë is. So by
> that measure, who's greater?
Gollum. The problem is as you say that the words greater and more
powerful are not defined and are difficult to define. But the problem is
also (and this is something you are apperently unwilling to recognise)
that Tolkien continuously uses those terms and he doesn't define them either.
AFAICS these terms (powerful, mighty, higher order etc) mean "who would
beat whom" either in direct confrontation or in some sort of magical
battle of the wills (especially when ainur are in question).
> This is the point I keep trying to make: "greater" or "more
> powerful", or whatever simplistic comparative you want to use, simply
> draws too wide a brush.
As I have repeatedly said, I can't help it if Tolkien himself uses those
terms. I wouldn't use them when talking about you and Öjevind but in ME
one can use them because Tolkien does so.
> People (not to mention Ainur) are simply too
> complex for that sort of oversimplification.
At least Ainur apparently are not. There is an order of might and
sometimes it does overlap and some are better is some things and some in
other but there are too many examples of Tolkien "oversimplifying" to
ignore.
> If you would banish such things from your vocabulary and start going
> with more specific terms like "wiser", "braver", "physically
> stronger", then there could be some basis for discussion.
These, at least when conserning the ainur, seem to be different
characteristics from greatness, power or might. Melkor was mightier than Manwe
but not wiser, he was mightier than Tulkas* but not stronger.
*he lost but at that time he had already lost a part of his power
> Using vague
> undefined terms that mean anything or nothing -- there's no way to
> discuss that.
For the last time: Tolkien uses them. We can discuss what they mean, but
we cannot dismiss them as irrelevant.
> --
> Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
> http://OakRoadSystems.com
> Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
> Tolkien letters FAQ:
> http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
> FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
> Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
> more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
--
Count Menelvagor
Stan Brown wrote:
> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
> <thes...@operamail.com>:
> > Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of Varda and
> > drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black vapour--so that
> > even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
>
> Does that mean Ungoliant was more powerful than Melkor? :-)
>
> No, of course not -- I'm just tying again to throw cold water on this
> whole idea of "more powerful" as a linear scale that a couple of
> people seem to have imported from Dungeons and Dragons.
D&D is the Truth!
there is no salvation without hitdice, say the wise.
Odysseus
>
> Stan Brown wrote:
>
<snip>
> > I've often wondered what Ungoliant was. She's certainly not a Vala,
> > so if she was an Ainu she must have been a Maia. But there's that
> > _if_.
>
> imo the only thing that makes sense of Ungoliant (and Bombadil and other
> creatures of power that have existed since the world was made) is that they
> are Maiar.
Agreed, presuming the rather loose definition of "Maia" as any Ainu
manifest in Eä who's not a Vala. As Troels mentioned, we have no
label but "Ainu" for Tolkien's primaeval entities, and few, if any,
indications delimiting the term's scope. So I'm not much inclined to
heed Stan's caveat, absent evidence that any beings that weren't Ainu
(Eru aside) existed before the creation.
> > Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
> > Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda?
>
> Eru is bound, by his own plan, to create the world according to the themes
> of the Music of the Ainulindale. Melkor's inventions introduced evil to
> the Music, and thus Eru could not bar it from Arda.
So Ungoliant was ultimately Melkor's responsibility: an Ainu who came
to personify a particular note of his discordant theme, so to speak.
But in the begining he likely had no more idea how she would
incarnate than did the other Valar-to-be of the consequences of their
own contributions to the shaping of Eä.
Story-externally, I think it's clear that JRRT was something of an
arachnophobe. ;)
--
Odysseus
Troels Forchhammer
<odysseu...@yahoo-dot.ca> enriched us with:
> Dwarves were of Aulė's?
I am thinking of Manwė's description:
[...] then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it
will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the
kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be
held in reverence [...]
These 'spirits from afar' -- what are they? For the Valar, would
'afar' not mean, at least, from outside Arda? And since I am
conservative enough to believe that Arda is the only place within Eä
from whence a spirit can 'originate'. I know that all spirits
ultimately come from Eru . . . what I am trying to say is that if they
came from outside Arda, then they must be Ainur or a wholly new
category of spirits (for instance a group of spirits that Eru created
and gave the Secret Flame after the Ainulindalė, but since there is no
evidence for such a thing, I am more comfortable to just call them
Ainur and be done with it <G>).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does
knowledge:
- Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Stan Brown
> The problem is as you say that the words greater and more
> powerful are not defined and are difficult to define. But the problem is
> also (and this is something you are apperently unwilling to recognise)
> that Tolkien continuously uses those terms and he doesn't define them either.
Sigh. I give up.
Tamim
>> The problem is as you say that the words greater and more
>> powerful are not defined and are difficult to define. But the problem is
>> also (and this is something you are apperently unwilling to recognise)
>> that Tolkien continuously uses those terms and he doesn't define them either.
> Sigh. I give up.
Well does he or doesn't he?
Chris Kern
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> posted the following:
>26 Feb 2006 21:41:58 GMT from Tamim <hall...@hotmail.com>:
>> The problem is as you say that the words greater and more
>> powerful are not defined and are difficult to define. But the problem is
>> also (and this is something you are apperently unwilling to recognise)
>> that Tolkien continuously uses those terms and he doesn't define them either.
>
>Sigh. I give up.
Wow Stan, this is shades of you-know-who. I must admit that I'm
having a hard time seeing where you are coming from -- Tolkien
explicitly says in a number of places that so-and-so is "more
powerful" or "mightier" than so-and-so, and he doesn't define these
terms in any specific ways or suggest in what ways they might be more
powerful or mightier.
-Chris
Chris Kern
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> posted the following:
>If you would banish such things from your vocabulary and start going
>with more specific terms like "wiser", "braver", "physically
>stronger", then there could be some basis for discussion. Using vague
>undefined terms that mean anything or nothing -- there's no way to
>discuss that.
You better tell Tolkien that he shouldn't use vague terms:
"[Ungoliant] had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone
out of him." (X 296)
"Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at
the end of the First." (X, 394)
"Then Iluvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and
mightiest among them is Melkor" (X, 10)
"Melkor must be made _far more powerful_ in original nature...the
greatest power under Eru" (X, 390)
"[Melkor] has now less personal force than Manwe" (X, 391)
The basic fact is that Tolkien frequently makes comparisons using
vague terms like these, and you can't just ignore them because you
don't like Dungeons and Dragons.
-Chris
Chris Kern
following:
However, because Tolkien is the creator of the M-E world, the question
has a clear answer within his writings. The answer is simply that
Iluvatar has some divine purpose for allowing evil which he has not
revealed to his creations. This answer may not satisfy you either in
the real world or in Tolkien's created world, but I don't think you
can deny that this is story-internal answer to the question --
Iluvatar pretty much says it explicitly in the Ainulindale.
While you may not believe in the existence of God in the real world,
it's impossible to not believe in the existence of Iluvatar in
Tolkien's created world, unless you are just being purposely stubborn.
-Chris
Russell Paradox
SB> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
SB> <thes...@operamail.com>:
SB>
SB> > 1) Who or what is Ungoliant? Is Maia? Or some other kind of creature?
SB> > If Maia, what relationship between character and shape, why take that
SB> > shape if possible to change shape?
SB>
SB> I've often wondered what Ungoliant was. She's certainly not a Vala,
SB> so if she was an Ainu she must have been a Maia. But there's that
SB> _if_.
If she comes from outside the World then all we know suggests that she
must be a Maia - if Eru was truly "the One" (as in the only one) before
he created the Ainur. That is what I would conclude from: "Some have
said that [...] before she descended from the darkness that lies upon
Arda [...] she was one of those that [Melkor] corrupted to his service".
But then again, the expression "some have said" leaves the question of
her origin open. Maybe she came to be within the world after all and
the Eldar who said the above just got it wrong.
As for Ungoliant's shape, it could reflect something she contributed or
perceived in the music of the Ainur (assuming she is a Maia); this is
said to have been the case for the Valar, so why not for the lesser
Ainur who also took a shape when they entered Arda? Somebody must have
sung of darkness-loving scary creepy-crawlies.
SB> Either way, this opens up a larger question. Why did Eru let her, and
SB> Sauron, and Melkor, and the Balrogs, enter Arda? (...) why would Eru have
SB> let his children in for thousands of years of anguish?
The answer is hinted at a couple of times earlier in the Silmarillion,
for example:"And thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secrets of your
mind and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and
tributary to its glory". Eru does not mind the baddies because he
already knows that they not only cannot spoil the ultimate purpose of
his plan, whatever it may be, but they will actually contribute
towards it (a very prominent example of this is the role of Gollum in
the defeat of Sauron in LOTR).
The same would apply to all the unhappiness and grief his children
must endure...it is tough, but everything will be well in the long
run, at the end of ages. Standard religion answer.
A.
--
Windows98: a 32 bit graphical front end to a 16 bit patch on an 8 bit
operating system written for a 4 bit processor by a 2 bit company
without 1 bit of decency.
Russell Paradox
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006, Troels Forchhammer wrote:
TF> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> enriched us with:
TF> >
TF> > Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
TF> > <thes...@operamail.com>:
TF>
TF> >> 2) Why are the Valar not all that smart?
TF>
TF> Because if they really were as smart as they ought to be, then there
TF> wouldn't be any story . . .
Of course :-)
TF> > As for being stupid, Tolkien gives an explanation: Manwë himself
TF> > was purely good. He had no evil in him, and he couldn't understand
TF> > evil. That doesn't seem too hard for me to accept.
TF>
TF> That also, to some extent, explains the blindness: if one doesn't
TF> understand evil, then one is more likely to overlook it, fail to find
TF> it in others or to not guess where to look for it.
Another explanation for the Valar's oversight (other than stupidity, a
blind spot to evil, or the wish to make history more eventful) is a
certain laziness (like when people suspect their children are up to no
good but they feel too tired to be checking up on them continuously)
A.
--
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
--H.G. Wells
Tamim
snip
> However, because Tolkien is the creator of the M-E world, the question
> has a clear answer within his writings. The answer is simply that
> Iluvatar has some divine purpose for allowing evil which he has not
> revealed to his creations.
A quote please. On the other hand I think that is the standard answer
within any monotheistic religion (god works in mysterious ways). and
that answer isn't really an answer. Of course he had some divine
purpose, but what could that be?
> This answer may not satisfy you either in
> the real world or in Tolkien's created world, but I don't think you
> can deny that this is story-internal answer to the question --
> Iluvatar pretty much says it explicitly in the Ainulindale.
Let it be the story internal answer. It might as well be the story
internal answer of Bible or Koran, but it isn't a complete answer story
internally either. The story external answer is " god doesn't exist".
Any story internal answer has to answer to the epicurian paradox and
that has been largely unanswerable for 2500 yrs. I am simply saying that
RABT probably isn't the right place to seek the answer to that paradox.
OTOH maybe there is no paradox in ME. I don't remember Tolkien saying
that Eru is beneveolent.
> While you may not believe in the existence of God in the real world,
> it's impossible to not believe in the existence of Iluvatar in
> Tolkien's created world, unless you are just being purposely stubborn.
You are right and I am not here debating about whether God exists or
not. God exists in ME. But in the op answer was sought to a question
to which an answer has been sought to for a few millenia by especially
those who are adamant that god exists in this reality also.
Chris Kern
following:
>In alt.fan.tolkien Chris Kern <chris...@gmail.com> wrote:
>snip
>
>> However, because Tolkien is the creator of the M-E world, the question
>> has a clear answer within his writings. The answer is simply that
>> Iluvatar has some divine purpose for allowing evil which he has not
>> revealed to his creations.
>
>A quote please. On the other hand I think that is the standard answer
>within any monotheistic religion (god works in mysterious ways). and
>that answer isn't really an answer. Of course he had some divine
>purpose, but what could that be?
We are not told. But if we are to accept these myths as telling true
stories about Arda, and not as distorted versions of truth (which is
what most people do), we have to accept that when Iluvatar tells
Melkor that any evil he can do will ultimately work to Iluvatar's
greater purpose, that Iluvatar is telling the truth.
Like I said, in the real world you may find this answer unsatisfying,
but within Arda I think we have to accept it.
>Any story internal answer has to answer to the epicurian paradox and
>that has been largely unanswerable for 2500 yrs.
Not this debate again. It is answered to some people's satisfaction
but you seem to refuse to accept it. If "benevolence" is defined by
Iluvatar's actions, then nothing Iluvatar does can be evil, even if it
might seem that way to his creations. But Iluvatar, being the
omniscient creator of all, would be the one to decide what is good and
what is evil, right?
Put in another way, the paradox only exists based what you accept as
your premises. For instance, if you accept this as a premise:
1. God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent.
Then
2. Since God is omnibenevolent, by the definition of the term,
whatever he does must be good.
follows in logical sequence.
3. Therefore, since whatever he does must be good, if he does
something that seems to us to be evil, it must not actually be evil.
I know that you do not accept or believe this answer, but the truth is
that the "epicurian paradox" is generally not a problem for believers
because they are defining good and evil in a different way than
non-religious people are. For instance, if God kills someone, you
might look at that as evil. But looking at it in another way, God has
certain moral rights over his own creations that his creations do not
have with each other. He gave us life, so it is not morally wrong for
him to take that life away, for whatever reason. Now, the inevitable
response to this is "how could anyone believe in such a capricious and
unaccountable God?" But Christianity is not about believing in God
because he suits your purposes, it's about believing in God because he
is your creator, and you owe him that.
In any case, I'm not trying to convince you of God's existence or
anything like that -- it's just that the epicurian paradox has existed
for a long time, and has been answered again and again by theologians
since the 6th century. It creates no internal contradiction in terms
of Christian teaching -- the only internal contradictions come when
you assume premises that are not true from the standpoint of Christian
teaching (namely, that there exists a moral law that even God is
subject to).
What is important to understanding these theological problems in
Tolkien's writings is not what you accept or believe, but what Tolkien
accepted and believed. What I have written here is accepted Catholic
belief on the "problem of evil", so it makes sense to apply that to
Tolkien's world instead.
Tamim
snip
> Not this debate again.
I don't want to debate it. I don't even find it very interesting. All I
have said is that the OP is in practise asking for the answer to the
paradox, and that is something that I believe is the same in real world
an in Tolkien's subcreation. What I am saying is that we should drop the
matter, but apparently I just did the opposite ;)
It is answered to some people's satisfaction
> but you seem to refuse to accept it. If "benevolence" is defined by
> Iluvatar's actions, then nothing Iluvatar does can be evil, even if it
> might seem that way to his creations. But Iluvatar, being the
> omniscient creator of all, would be the one to decide what is good and
> what is evil, right?
Good answer. Then there is no evil in ME. Evil and good don't exist.
And then the OP question is not really relevant. snip
snip
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>
>> Eru is bound, by his own plan, to create the world according to the
>> themes
>> of the Music of the Ainulindale. Melkor's inventions introduced evil to
>> the Music, and thus Eru could not bar it from Arda.
>
> So Ungoliant was ultimately Melkor's responsibility: an Ainu who came
> to personify a particular note of his discordant theme, so to speak.
Only Melkor's responsibility insofar as he began the rebellion. Others took
up and enhanced his theme in the Music, and one would assume that includes
Sauron, Ungoliant and the balrogs. imo, she wouldn't so much have
personified a note in his theme as been the composer of part of the Music
developed from Melkor's theme.
> But in the begining he likely had no more idea how she would
> incarnate than did the other Valar-to-be of the consequences of their
> own contributions to the shaping of Eä.
>
> Story-externally, I think it's clear that JRRT was something of an
> arachnophobe. ;)
Maybe, perhaps he just wanted to play on the fact that a large part of his
reading audience would be arachnophobes.
--
derek
Stan Brown
@gmail.com>:
> But if we are to accept these myths as telling true
> stories about Arda, and not as distorted versions of truth (which is
> what most people do), we have to accept that when Iluvatar tells
> Melkor that any evil he can do will ultimately work to Iluvatar's
> greater purpose, that Iluvatar is telling the truth.
I think we are supposed to accept these myths as _attempts_ at true
retellings, based on imperfect records and imperfect knowledge. IMHO
that's why we see so many "it is said" and similar -- the chronicler
is trying to indicate a part of oral tradition that is not quite as
trustworthy as the records.
We have to remember how the Silmarillion came to us. Most of it was
not known to Men but was told them by Elves. Those Men were the three
houses of the Elf-friends, who all went to Numenor and almost all of
whose descendants were drowned. I don't know how much room there was
in the nine ships of Elendil's party, what with the Palantiri and the
Erech-stone, but presumably they brought _some_ records. I can't
imagine they would have had complete records, however. Gaps and
errors could have been fixed to some extent by reference to their
allies Gil-galad and Elrond, but those two princes were both born in
Middle-earth and therefore had no first-hand knowledge. Galadriel
might or might not have been able to help, depending on whether she
left Valinor before the Darkening or after.
One attractive consequence of this view is that it explains all the
varying texts in HoME -- different copies by different copyists, some
working only from oral tradition.
As for the problem of evil, I brought it up and I shouldn't have. As
you say, it's been debated here already. As you said, regardless what
we may think about the real world, within Tolkien's world we have to
accept that Iluvatar is good and all powerful, but that evil
nonetheless exists.
Larry Swain
> Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:23:13 -0600 from Larry Swain
>
>
>>5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story several
>>times even in this chapter. What do you think of this device?
>
>
> I can't think off hand of any foreshadowing in Chapter 8, but I'd be
> interested o hear what people think.
I detected two places in this chapter. First, when Melkor is talking to
Ungoliant and he is going to slake her lust with "both hands", and
lightly he made the vow..... The second I had in mind was when
Fingolfin makes his pledge to Feanor, "But they did not know the meaning
Steve Morrison
> Odysseus wrote:
> >
> > Story-externally, I think it's clear that JRRT was something of an
> > arachnophobe. ;)
>
> Maybe, perhaps he just wanted to play on the fact that a large part of his
> reading audience would be arachnophobes.
> --
> derek
FWIW he denied any arachnophobia near the end of Letter #163:
[...] But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part,
and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if
that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a
small child, people are welcome to the notion (supposing the
improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I
remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been
told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge
to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!
Obviously, he underestimated our interest in such things.
ste...@nomail.com
> @gmail.com>:
>> But if we are to accept these myths as telling true
>> stories about Arda, and not as distorted versions of truth (which is
>> what most people do), we have to accept that when Iluvatar tells
>> Melkor that any evil he can do will ultimately work to Iluvatar's
>> greater purpose, that Iluvatar is telling the truth.
> I think we are supposed to accept these myths as _attempts_ at true
> retellings, based on imperfect records and imperfect knowledge. IMHO
> that's why we see so many "it is said" and similar -- the chronicler
> is trying to indicate a part of oral tradition that is not quite as
> trustworthy as the records.
> We have to remember how the Silmarillion came to us.
The story internal explanation is that Bilbo wrote it while in
Rivendell, where he had access to people such as Elrond
and Glorfindel.
Stephen
Count Menelvagor
Derek Broughton wrote:
> Odysseus wrote:
> > Story-externally, I think it's clear that JRRT was something of an
> > arachnophobe. ;)
>
> Maybe, perhaps he just wanted to play on the fact that a large part of his
> reading audience would be arachnophobes.
either way, arachnophobia is deeply offensive and racist. some of us
find spiders a turn-on1
Count Menelvagor
Steve Morrison wrote:
> FWIW he denied any arachnophobia near the end of Letter #163:
>
> [...] But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part,
> and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if
> that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a
> small child, people are welcome to the notion (supposing the
> improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I
> remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been
> told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge
> to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!
>
> Obviously, he underestimated our interest in such things.
clearly, he did not foresee usenet!:-)
Derek Broughton
Wasn't Ungoliant committed to creating a world-wide web?
--
derek
Chris Kern
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> posted the following:
>Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:16:22 -0500 from Chris Kern <chriskern99
>@gmail.com>:
>> But if we are to accept these myths as telling true
>> stories about Arda, and not as distorted versions of truth (which is
>> what most people do), we have to accept that when Iluvatar tells
>> Melkor that any evil he can do will ultimately work to Iluvatar's
>> greater purpose, that Iluvatar is telling the truth.
>
>I think we are supposed to accept these myths as _attempts_ at true
>retellings, based on imperfect records and imperfect knowledge. IMHO
>that's why we see so many "it is said" and similar -- the chronicler
>is trying to indicate a part of oral tradition that is not quite as
>trustworthy as the records.
Mainly what I was just trying to say is that it's a mistake to use
this as an "out" whenever we encounter something (particularly a
philosophical problem) in Tolkien's writings that we don't like.
> As you said, regardless what
>we may think about the real world, within Tolkien's world we have to
>accept that Iluvatar is good and all powerful, but that evil
>nonetheless exists.
I think that's what's important.
-Chris
Christopher Kreuzer
> operating system written for a 4 bit processor by a 2 bit company
> without 1 bit of decency.
That's the funniest thing I've read in ages!
Christopher Kreuzer
[Power and might]
> The basic fact is that Tolkien frequently makes comparisons using
> vague terms like these, and you can't just ignore them because you
> don't like Dungeons and Dragons.
LOL! That is a great summary of the argument. FWIW, I also find it
interesting that Tolkien uses these terms, and agree that we shouldn't
ignore them or seize on them as an excuse to play D&D battles, but we
should recognise that it is part of his technique. I vaguely recall
something I wrote about this a few weeks ago. Let's see if I can find
it... Yes, here we go. It was in the discussion of superlatives,
elatives and things like that:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.books.tolkien/msg/09aa2c151514995c
[8 January 2006]
"There is also an element of what I would call mythical grandstanding.
No true myths are complete without recourse to using the language of
grandeur and of an epic, both in time and space.
The one about Morgoth's cry echoing in Lammoth is a good example. Also
as an example of supernatural stories being used to explain natural
phenomena (a place where sound echoes). It is only natural to call it
the "greatest" cry ever heard.
You can probably classify examples of uses of superlatives by the effect
they are intended to produce: mythical, rhetorical, literal, elative,
boasting, and so on; or indeed combinations of several of these (some
may be near-synonyms in any case).
Does this sound a sensible way of understanding Tolkien's (or any
author's) use of superlatives? It might seem obvious, but the exact
meaning of the superlative is being modified by its context, and can't
and shouldn't be considered independently. Greatest, when used in the
context of Melkor, has a different meaning to when it is used in the
context of the hills around Gondolin. I don't mean the literal
dictionary definition of the word, but the meaning in context. Whatever
that means."
BTW, is there a phrase for "meaning in context"?
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Taemon
> In alt.fan.tolkien Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>> Tamim wrote:
>>> Why does God let evil,
>>> suffering and Satan to exist? Even Jesus asks: "Father, why have
>>> You forsaken Me". If he doesn't know the answer, how can RABT
>>> solve the riddle?
>> Because The Silmarillion wasn't written by God?
> Neither was the Bible, not even story internally. But that's not
> the point. The issue is the same, whatever book or story we are
> talking about as long as there exists an omnipotent, omniscient
> and benevolent God and evil at the same time. The question, story
> internally, remains the same.
Story internally, yes, and that makes all the difference. I can ignore
the Bible and not have any problems explaining suffering. But when
we're talking Tolkien, I HAVE to take Illuvatar into account. It is
Tolkien who causes that question to be asked, not God.
T.
Taemon
> But looking
> at it in another way, God has certain moral rights over his own
> creations that his creations do not have with each other. He
> gave us life, so it is not morally wrong for him to take that
> life away, for whatever reason.
I don't get this. It isn't right to take your child's life away,
methinks.
T.
Taemon
> and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge
> to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!
Well, so do I, but I sure am arachnofobic! I have no urge to kill
them. I just have the urge to run away very, very fast. But I surely
dislike them. Through no fault of their own, of course.
T.
Tamim
It doesn't change anything, you just rephrase the same question.
In real world you ask whether God can exist, in "ME" you ask how can
evil exist.
> It is
> Tolkien who causes that question to be asked, not God.
--
Chris Kern
the following:
That's a different and not-quite-analagous situation. But it's
certainly a reasonable way to look at things from a different
philosophical standpoint.
-Chris
Steve Hayes
In that respect, the Bible and Tolkien are telling the same story. The names
may be different, but the pliot is basically the same -- how evil entered the
world.
In favt the Bible tells the stories in a fragmentary way which the Christian
Church (and Tolkien) have woven into an account of how evil entered the word
-- a pre-mundane fall of angels, followed by idolatry in the world.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
Tamf Moo
> either way, arachnophobia is deeply offensive and racist. some of us
> find spiders a turn-on1
ooh, to be covered in sticky silky webs and crawled on by spider feet!
tamf
Stan Brown
<haye...@hotmail.com>:
> In that respect, the Bible and Tolkien are telling the same story. The names
> may be different, but the pliot is basically the same -- how evil entered the
> world.
Well, I think you have to stretch the point pretty far to make this
equivalence.
In the Tolkien myths, evil was part of the fabric of the world before
it was made. In the Bible myths, the world and all its substance were
repeatedly pronounced "good", and evil entered later into it.
Philosophically I think the difference is pretty large.
Taemon
> In alt.fan.tolkien Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>> Story internally, yes, and that makes all the difference. I can
>> ignore the Bible and not have any problems explaining suffering.
>> But when we're talking Tolkien, I HAVE to take Illuvatar into
>> account.
> It doesn't change anything, you just rephrase the same question.
> In real world you ask whether God can exist, in "ME" you ask how
> can evil exist.
I do not ask whether God can exist. I don't believe so and hence, have
no problem with the question. In Tolkien's universe that question is
real, because HE put it up.
T.
The Robinsons
> I don't know how much room there was
> in the nine ships of Elendil's party, what with the Palantiri and the
> Erech-stone,
Why did they bring this over anyhow? The Erech stone?
Robinsons
Speculation that the elves are "bound to the circles of this world"
and do not survive its passing. Is that evil? The "problem of evil"
is based on a misunderstanding about what is and is not evil, I think.
Is it evil to choose not to have a child, thereby depriving the child
of potential life? If you exist outside of time, notions of good and
evil do not pertain to the length of ones lifespan. And also, in
Christian theology, suffering is not evil in and of itself. Indeed,
according to many theologians, it is the desire to maximize ones own
comfort (especially at the expense of others) that is evil (as defined
by God, according to those theologians). So if you are not subject to
time or physical suffering, you'd have a different perspective on what
is and is not meet and right treatment for the inevitably short-lived,
hairless apes in your custody.
Robinsons
> I've tried looking at her history.
>
> In BoLT[1] we meet Ungwë Lianti, called also Wirilómë or Gloomweaver,
> or, by the Noldoli, Ungoliont the spider or Gwerlum the Black. She is,
> however, 'the primeval spirit Móru whom even the Valar known not whence
> or when she came, [...]. Mayhap she was bred of mists and darkness on
> the confines of the Shadowy Seas, [...], but more like she has always
> been; and she it is who loveth still to dwell in that black place
> taking the guise of an unlovely spider [...].'
>
> In the Quenta[2] we have
> There secret and unknown dwelt Ungoliant, Gloomweaver, in
> spider's form. It is not told whence she is, from the
> outer darkness, maybe, that lies beyond the Walls of the
> World.
>
> I don't have the version in the QS[3], but in the Annals of Aman
> (AAm)[4] we find:
> There, between the sheer walls of the mountains and the
> cold dark Sea, the shadows were deepest in the world. And
> there secretly Ungoliantë had made her abode. Whence she
> came none of the Eldar know, but maybe she came to the
> South out of the darkness of Ëa, in that time when Melkor
> destroyed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, [...]
>
> All of these contain some similar elements, that can be found also in
> the published Silmarillion: Ungoliant dwells in the deep shadows, and
> her origin is unknown, though it is hinted that she came from beyond
> Arda.
>
> This becomes more definite in the last version of the story (as far as
> I am aware), LQ2[5] chapter 6 'Of the Darkening of Valinor':
>
> §55c :
> There the shadows were deepest and thickest in the world.
> In Avathar, secret and unknown save to Melkor, dwelt
> Ungoliantë, and she had taken spider's form, and was a
> weaver of dark webs. It is not known whence she came,
> though among the Eldar it was said that in ages long
> before she had descended from the darkness that lies about
> Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the light
> in the kingdom of Manwë
Is it just me, or is Tolkien channeling a bit of H.P. Lovecraft
in the creation of Ungoliant? I suspect he might have been familiar
with Lovecraft (he was familiar with Isaac Asimov, even, later in life.)
> This, however, leaves, IMO, only one possible origin for Ungoliant:
> that she was one of the spirits created by Eru before time. This is
> suggested already in the BoLT version -- that she was 'the primeval
> spirit Móru' who had chosen the form of a monstrous spider, and where
> the latter element is still present in the last version: she had taken
> spider's form' suggests to me that the form is a matter of choice.
>
> I am satisfied that Ungoliant originated outside Eä, and I know of no
> other words to describe that origin than Ainu and Maia (I am leaving
> open the possibility that Tolkien could eventually have invented a new
> class of primeval spirits to cover e.g. the Ents etc.)
In BOLT, IIRC, there IS a third class of spirits, but some are even
greater than the Valar. They are the Ainur who never entered Ea and
are beyond Time.
> That is the big problem with the omniscient and omnipotent good deity,
> isn't it? Why does God allow evil? I won't even pretend to be able to
> give a satisfying answer :/
"Silly Eddie, becauth it wath FUNNY!!"
> >> 2) Why are the Valar not all that smart?
>
> Because if they really were as smart as they ought to be, then there
> wouldn't be any story . . .
See, this is at least as brain-wracking as the problem of evil.
(Why does God allow stupid people to exist?)
> >> If they can track Melkor so far and then lose track of
> >> him, why didn't occur to them to look elsewhere?
> >
> > This has always bothered me, particularly since Manwë can see
> > everything from Taniquetil.
>
> There are, as we learn, exceptions to that.
Greetings, First-Born!! I am Orome the Hunter. Together we will
travel to the Twin Peaks of Taniquetil, and ascend to the highest
palaces, where dwell Manwe and his brother, together with their
two wives, the Ladies of Light... and you might be Elwe, and your
brother Olwe... and who are these two? (covers one eye) Oh, I'm
sorry, you're right, there is nobody else. Carry on then! First,
we will cross the two Raging Rivers of Anduin, and ascend the
Mountain Ranges of Hithaeglir twice, and take the Island-Ships of
Eressea from the Bays of Balar across the Western Seas (crashes
around, injuring many trees)
> > ("When Manwë there ascends his throne and looks forth, if Varda
> > is beside him, he sees further than all other eyes, through mist,
> > and through darkness, and over the leagues of the sea.")
>
> I think we learn that there are darknesses that he may be able to see
> /through/ but not /into/ ;-)
Sort of like Sauron in the movie? "His gaze pierces cloud, shadow,
earth and flesh." But you're safe as long as you get down on the
ground and lay low... LOL! Maybe if you stand really still, the
Ainur see right thru you... sort of like Dinosaurs, or birds of prey...
> One such is of course the Unlight that Ungoliant spun.
>
> > It's a general theme of Silm that the Valar seem to be less than
> > energetic in protecting the Children or even in dealing with evil.
> > We've discussed it here numerous times, but I still just don't
> > understand it. It has to be accepted as part of the story, I
> > think.
>
> That, I think, is completely correct. The story simply wouldn't work
> without these 'oversights' by the Valar.
Why do the Valar allow such things to exist? ;-)
"MANWE SMASH EVIL BECAUSE MANWE NOT UNDERSTAND EVIL! SMASH UNLIGHT!"
> > As for being stupid, Tolkien gives an explanation: Manwë himself
> > was purely good. He had no evil in him, and he couldn't understand
> > evil. That doesn't seem too hard for me to accept.
>
> That also, to some extent, explains the blindness: if one doesn't
> understand evil, then one is more likely to overlook it, fail to find
> it in others or to not guess where to look for it.
--Brian
Robinsons
NOBODY Expects the world-wide web!!
Our chief weapons are surprise, fear, darkness, surprise, and...
Thereby answering the question of why Manwe was unable to
percieve Ungoliant.... ;-)
ber
Tamim
> Tamim wrote:
>> In alt.fan.tolkien Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>>> Story internally, yes, and that makes all the difference. I can
>>> ignore the Bible and not have any problems explaining suffering.
>>> But when we're talking Tolkien, I HAVE to take Illuvatar into
>>> account.
>> It doesn't change anything, you just rephrase the same question.
>> In real world you ask whether God can exist, in "ME" you ask how
>> can evil exist.
> I do not ask whether God can exist. I don't believe so and hence, have
> no problem with the question.
Same situation with me. But it's a theological/philosophical question in
which you assume God exists. You also assume he is both beneveolent and
omnipotent. And you add evil and wonder how can that be.
In real world the easy escape is to agree that it cannot be so and thus
there is no God. In "ME" you know God exist so one way or another the
problem must be solvable. To the Catholics and other monotheists the
situation IRL is the same as in Tolkien's world. And thus they have been
discussing and thinking about the issue for millenia.
What I was saying is not that Eru doesn't exists or that God doesn't
exist IRL. All I am saying is that the issue is such that it isn't
really fruitful for us to even discuss it because it really isn't in any
way spesific to Tolkien's universe and because it has been discussed by
wiser people than us for so long that our discussion about COTW isn't
going to solve it. And now I notice that I am myself the one writing
most about the subject.
So I do not take a stand on the íssue itself. What I say (and others
disagree) is that the issue isn't at all different in Tolkien's universe
than in ours. Because in our like in Tolkien's one must assume God's
existance for there to be an issue. let me quote Wikipedia
1 God is omnipotent (premise)
2 God is benevolent (premise)
3 Benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise)
4 God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 2 and 3)
5 God can eliminate evil completely. (conclusion from 1)
1. Whatever end result of suffering, God can bring about by ways
which do not include suffering. (conclusion from 1)
2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil (conclusion from 5.1)
6 God will eliminate evil completely. (conclusion from 4, 5 and 5.2)
7 Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
8 Items 6 and 7 are contradictory; therefore the premises are wrong
9 Therefore, premises are false, or God does not exist
This rationale does not disappear in ME. God does however exist so
that's not an escape. So either the premises are false or there is
something rotten in the conclusions.
>In Tolkien's universe that question is
> real, because HE put it up.
Look the issue is after all quite simple.
Derek Broughton
>
> Is it just me, or is Tolkien channeling a bit of H.P. Lovecraft
> in the creation of Ungoliant? I suspect he might have been familiar
> with Lovecraft (he was familiar with Isaac Asimov, even, later in life.)
It's not just you. While I have stated here that I think she must be a
Maia, I have always felt she had something in common with a Lovecraftian
Elder God. She might be spider-like, but definitely not a spider - they're
just not scary enough. She'd be more Cthulhu-ish.
--
derek
Stan Brown
Matthew Bladen
(the_sta...@fastmail.fm) said:
> Wed, 01 Mar 2006 11:16:27 -0500 from The Robinsons <wr...@erols.com>:
> > Stan Brown wrote:
> >
> > > I don't know how much room there was
> > > in the nine ships of Elendil's party, what with the Palantiri and the
> > > Erech-stone,
> >
> > Why did they bring this over anyhow? The Erech stone?
>
> Sentimental reasons? :-)
>
>
--
Matthew
Kreme
> 1 God is omnipotent (premise)
> 2 God is benevolent (premise)
> 3 Benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise)
This is where it starts to go pear-shaped.
> 4 God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 2 and 3)
> 5 God can eliminate evil completely. (conclusion from 1)
> 1. Whatever end result of suffering, God can bring about by ways
which do not include suffering. (conclusion from 1)
> 2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil (conclusion from 5.1)
This certainly does not follow, and the rest of it all depends on this
(false) conclusion. Even if you accept premise 3, 5.2 is a large
leap of supposition.
Robinsons
Farther down in my previous post, I noted:
"In BOLT, IIRC, there IS a third class of spirits, but some are even
greater than the Valar. They are the Ainur who never entered Ea and
are beyond Time."
I wonder if Ungoliant would be considered one of these.
Also note that we don't know what happened to her. Perhaps she dwells
at the bottom of the Sea, or in Antarctica, waiting to emerge at the
death of the Sun to eat our brains... ;-)
--BER
Robinsons
> > > Why did they bring this over anyhow? The Erech stone?
> >
> > Sentimental reasons? :-)
> >
> >
> Ballast!
Bollocks! :-)
"Verily, it is said that the Numenorean ballast was finer than
any built by man since. Only one of these useless stones survived
in Middle Earth, it is said, and that be the stone of Erech; while
the others were lost at sea, consumed by dragons, or passed away West
to be used as a particularly unwieldy form of currency by barbaric Men
in undiscovered lands east of the sun and west of the moon..."
Derek Broughton
> Matthew Bladen wrote:
>
>> > > Why did they bring this over anyhow? The Erech stone?
>> >
>> > Sentimental reasons? :-)
>> >
>> >
>> Ballast!
>
> Bollocks! :-)
LOL. That's pretty much what I thought Matthew was saying :-)
--
derek
John W. Kennedy
> 1 God is omnipotent (premise)
False premise, or, rather, an example of the fallacy of ambiguity.
"Nonsense does not cease to be nonsense merely because someone chooses
to preface it with the words, 'God can'."
-- C. S. Lewis
God is omnipotent in a certain sense, but it is nonsense to posit that
He can create beings with free will who are not free to sin.
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
Count Menelvagor
web bondage r00lz.
Count Menelvagor
i wdn't be surprised. even if the stone of erech *is* consided a
delicacy.
Troels Forchhammer
<wr...@erols.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
I agree that there is a Lovecraftian feeling to Ungoliant, the
Gloomweaver, indeed ;-)
> "In BOLT, IIRC, there IS a third class of spirits, but some are
> even greater than the Valar. They are the Ainur who never entered
> Ea and are beyond Time."
They are there also in the Silmarillion, though not given a special
name -- I don't recall if they got a particular name in BoLT, though.
The Valar must, however, in the published form, be counted as
mentioned in the phrase 'and among them many of the greatest and most
fair' that take leave of Eru and enter into Eä and Time. That still
leaves a number, even if perhaps the minority, of the 'greatest and
most fair' that did stay with Eru.
Some of the Ainur that didn't enter into Eä immediately probably did
so later (at least in BoLT we get to know what Ilúavatar told them
after the initial wave had moved ahead). I don't think that there is
any indication of that happening in the published version.
> I wonder if Ungoliant would be considered one of these.
The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
Eä and become seduced by Evil?
We might find answers to that, but to me it feels simpler to
circumvent them entirely, claiming that Ungoliant (or, if you will,
the spirit Móru) was among those closest to Melkor (perhaps even
admiring him before the Ainulindalë) who became wholly attuned to
Melkor's discord during the Music, and that she entered into Eä with
him, staying with him until she, during the wars against the Valar,
forsook him to, as it says, become 'mistress of her own lust'.
> Also note that we don't know what happened to her. Perhaps she
> dwells at the bottom of the Sea, or in Antarctica, waiting to
> emerge at the death of the Sun to eat our brains... ;-)
Gah! Talk about Lovecraftian gloom ;-)
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don't want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
- Piet Hein, /Mankind/
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
> fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
> not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
> if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
> Eä and become seduced by Evil?
Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not following
Melkor?
In Letter 175 (about a BBC dramatization(, Tolkien writes "worse
still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that ... Willowman was
an ally of Mordor (!!). Cannot people imagine things hostile to men
and hobbits who prey on them without being in league with the
Devil!"
In LotR we see Shelob being whlly evil but independent of Sauron. In
Silm Morgoth seeems to negotiate with Ungoliant where he gives orders
to everyone else. To me that says that unlike say Sauron she was not
one of his followers.
Tamim
> Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:01:23 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
> <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
>> fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
>> not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
>> if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
>> Eä and become seduced by Evil?
> Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not following
> Melkor?
Is it even possible? Isn't Melkor the ultimate source of all evil, at
least before the awakening of the Children of Iluvatar?
And in my opinion the source of their evil is also ultimately the lies
of Melkor. Feanor is a good example of the direct influnce of the lies
of melkor. He definitely wasn't in league with the devil, but the
ultimate source of his evil deeds can be traced to the lies of Melkor.
You quote a letter by Tolkien in which he denies that
willowman served Mordor and that not all hostile creatures were in
league with devil. This is a different issue. Willowman might not have been
in league with Sauron but that doesn't mean that he would have been what
he was or done what he did had not there been Morgoth and his marring of
Arda.
Annals of Aman §106
"It may well be that Melkor, if none other knew of her being and her
abode, and that she was in the beginning one of those he had corrupted to
his service"
LQS II
" it was said that in ages long before she had descended from the
darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy
upon the light in the kingdom of Manwë. But she had disowned her Master,
desiring to be mistress of her own lust.."
To me it's quite clear. Ungoliant was a spirit (ainu?) that dwelt
outside Arda and was at an early stage corrupted to evil by Melkor.
She disowned he master and that means that Melkor must have been her
master for some time. Then she became an independent agent, but the
source of her evil was Melkor.
> In Letter 175 (about a BBC dramatization(, Tolkien writes "worse
> still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that ... Willowman was
> an ally of Mordor (!!). Cannot people imagine things hostile to men
> and hobbits who prey on them without being in league with the
> Devil!"
> In LotR we see Shelob being whlly evil but independent of Sauron. In
> Silm Morgoth seeems to negotiate with Ungoliant where he gives orders
> to everyone else. To me that says that unlike say Sauron she was not
> one of his followers.
> --
> Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
> http://OakRoadSystems.com
> Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
> Tolkien letters FAQ:
> http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
> FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
> Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
> more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
--
Chris Kern
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> posted the following:
>Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:01:23 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
><Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
>> fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
>> not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
>> if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
>> Eä and become seduced by Evil?
>
>Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not following
>Melkor?
She ended up following Melkor at some point.
As I said in another post, CT severely compressed this chapter for its
inclusion in the Silm, particularly the part where Melkor convinces
Ungoliant to come with him to Valinor. In HoME we can read Melkor
saying "Thrice fool: to leave me first, to dwell here languishing
within reach of feasts untold, and now to shun me, Giver of Gifts, thy
only hope!" (X, 284)
-Chris
Troels Forchhammer
Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
This chapter ultimately marks the end of the Days of Bliss and as
such is appropriately portentous. In my opinion it could have been
given a notch or two more without exaggerating, though that isn't
necessary.
> Melkor heads to Avathar,
Avathar: 'The Shadows (in ancient Quenya)' (footnote to the text in
LQ2[5])
> a land south of the Bay of Eldamar which was at the foot of the
> Pelori, a region dark and unexplored.
One can wonder about the cause and effect with respect to the
shadows. Did Ungoliant finally settle here because of the deep
shadows, only to make them even deeper herself, or are the
extraordinarily deep shadows, after which the land is named, a
result only of Ungoliant's activity?
> Ungoliant lived there,
<snip origin -- I've written in length on that elsewhere in the
thread>
> She was lusty gal, needing the light and hating it, consuming it
> and weaving a darkness that no light penetrated or escaped from.
> She was too successful and so very hungry when Melkor found her.
Recalling the comment in text VII of MT[6], stating that
Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic
madness. He did not object to the existence of the world,
so long as he could do what he liked with it.
Where 'this stage of nihilistic madness' refers to Melkor's state of
mind, described thus:
Thus, as 'Morgoth', when Melkor was confronted by the
existence of other inhabitants of Arda, with other wills
and intelligences, he was enraged by the mere fact of their
existence, [...]. His sole ultimate object was their
destruction. [...]. This was sheer nihilism, and negation
its one ultimate object: Morgoth would no doubt, if he had
been victorious, have ultimately destroyed even his own
'creatures', such as the Orcs, [...].
It would seem to me that in this respect, Ungoliant is much closer
to Melkor than Sauron -- she, too, will destroy that for which she
hungers (the light), and though she wasn't exactly enraged by the
mere fact of the existence of light, the idea that she would devour
it even until she became famished of it does, to me, suggest a
madness that begins to approach the nihilistic extreme that was
Morgoth.
This is also, I think, repeated of her daughter in LotR:
Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or
anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death
for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of
life. Alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer
hold her up and the darkness could not contain her.
Ungoliant was the servant of Melkor while Shelob never served Sauron
as such (though he benefitted from her presence), and I think that
Ungoliant understood her Master far better than Shelob could have
understood Sauron (had she tried).
<snip>
> The Valar were not watching that direction, thinking that
> geography protected them: the mountains on the east of the Pelori
> looked on the "pathless sea" and to the west it was empty, or so
> they thought.
I found it mildly interesting that the land here, while a part of
Valinor (the woods of Oromë and the pastures of Yavanna), is still
only in twilight -- this land doesn't enjoy the full benefit of the
light from the Two Trees.
I am, however, not sure that it means anything ;-)
> Meanwhile, it is festival time! The first fruits are grown, but
> the rule of Yavanna who set such seasons though time is yet
> meaningless
There is here one very (IMO) interesting sentence:
'[...] Eä, whose life is Time, which flows ever from the
first note to the last chord of Eru.'
This, to me, strongly suggests what we have earlier discussed, that
the Music describes /all/ of Time, and that the last chord can be
likened to the Day of Doom.
Interestingly this comes directly from the version in AAm[4] () but
it is not in LQ2[5], not in Q[2] or QS[3]. There are, however, some
interesting statements that might be seen as deriving from this same
idea (that the Music was somehow equivalent to all of Time) already
in BoLT:
Then said Ilúvatar: 'The story that I have laid before
you, and that great region of beauty that I have described
unto you as the place where all that history might be
unfolded and enacted, is related only as it were in
outline.
[...]
Now even as Ilúvatar spake to Ulmo, the Ainur beheld how
the world unfolded, and that history, which Ilúvatar had
propounded to them as a great music was already being
carried out.
[BoLT1 (HoMe1), II 'The Music of the Ainur]
Similar elements can be found in the Ainulindalë through the various
versions, connecting closely the Music to the time or history of Eä,
but the idea is, however, nowhere (that I have found) even nearly as
clearly expressed as in AAm.
We can speculate what prompted the introduction in AAm and whether
the subsequent removal of the very explicit statement in LQ2
represents a rejection of the basic idea or of the explicitness.
> (compare to the seeming arrest time in Rivendell and Lorien in
> LoTR),
Tolkien's works contains some very interesting uses of time, which I
think it could be a worthwhile, even exciting, subject for our
discussions at some point ;-)
> and as they are gathered the festival is set to honor and worship
> Eru.
Not so fast ;-)
The description of the festival gave me pause in relation to
statements in Ósanwe-kenta. I am thinking particularly of the
statement:
And even as it was then the delight of the Valar (as is
told in the Ainulindalë) to clothe themselves as in a
vesture in the forms of the Children of Ilúvatar, so also
did they eat and drink, and gather the fruits of Yavanna
from the Earth, which under Eru they had made.
The passage is almost identical to both AAm and LQ2, though in AAm
the last part reads 'and drew strength from the Earth which under
Eru they had made.' The information that the Valar, clad in the
forms of the Eruhíni, 'drew strength from the Eath' is removed in
LQ2, but even in the published form, I get the impression that the
Valar to eat and drink regularly.
That, however, is inconsistent with what we're told in Ósanwe-kenta:
'The great Valar do not do these things: they begot not,
neither do they eat and drink, save at the high /asari/, in
token of their lordship and indwelling of Arda, and for the
blessing of the sustenance of the Children.
[/Ósanwe-kenta/, Vinyar Tengwar issue #39]
The exception here, the high festivals (/asari/), is possibly a
direct result of the description above of, but the Silmarillion text
does not, IMO, give the impression of the Valar's eating and
drinking at the festival being an exception.
My main reason for bringing this up is to point to what I see as a
general trend in the development of the mythology from BoLT to
/Myths Transformed/. The Ainur started out as a far more typical
pagan pantheon such as one would find in Greek or Norse mythology,
but as the mythology developed, they progressed into a 'higher'
state, became more the heavenly denizens and less tied to the earth:
Archangels. Possibly this is related to the waning of the idea of a
mythology for England (as his crest fell), and, perhaps, to LotR
becaming a consciously 'religious and Catholic work' -- the
transition does, to me, at least, seem to me to match quite well the
movement from a pagan mythology to a Christian one.
> Manwe hoped at this festival time to be able to heal relationships
> and so invited all to this great feast, but commanded Feanor to
> appear in order to make peace between Feanor and Finwe, his half
> brother.
> For Finwe's part, he extended the hand of peace and declared
. . . that he'd stay in Formenos for as long as Fëanor was banned
from Tirion, while his other son, Fingolfin, said . . .
> that where Feanor would lead, he would follow
Sorry, I couldn't resist that ;-)
> --little did he know what those words would cost him!
A quite clear case of the foreshadowing, you mention.
> 5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story
> several times even in this chapter. What do you think of this
> device?
Coming to think about it, the foreshadowing seems to me to fall into
two, not always clearly distinct, categories. I am here speaking of
what we might call 'literary foreshadowing' as something distinct
from the story-internal foresight (though the latter is sometimes
used in both respects at once, which makes it a bit more
difficult).
There is what we might term 'short-term foreshadowing' -- references
to things that may occur within the next chapter or so.
The other are, then, the 'long-term foreshadowing' that is often
more general or less obvious (some of it can be recognised only
after reaching the future events and might as such be seen as much
as stage-setting: Melkor's words to Ungoliant about giving with both
hands could be a good example of that in this chapter).
I think that these have different effects on me when I read the
text. The short-term foreshadowing tends to keep my attention
focused on the story -- Mandos' mysterious 'Not the first' in the
next chapter is a good example: what is going on here, why would
Fëanor not be the first of the Eldar to be slain in Aman?
The long-term foreshadowing helps to give the impression of the
story being finally composed at a great temporal distance: this is
being told ages later, and the story-teller knows what happened not
only the next day or year, but in the next several ages. To this
category would I also designate the merely informational, such as
e.g. the information that Melkor would remain forever in the form of
the Dark Lord, the tyrant of Utumno (at least, I am not aware that
this could foreshadow anything later: for instance that he would, to
his pain and disadvantage, attempt to change form and discover that
he couldn't).
> All were gathered to the feast, save the Teleri who remained on
> their shore singing,
. . . for they recked little of seasons or times, and gave
no thought to the cares of the Rulers of Arda, or the
shadow that had fallen on Valinor, for it had not touched
them, as yet.
Isn't that just a bit . . . I don't know, aloof? of the Teleri?
Surely they didn't live of fish exclusively? And giving no thoughts
to the cares of the Valar seems almost reckless (though of course it
will seem worse in retrospect). The Teleri were, by all reports,
great friends of the Noldor, and Olwë and Finwë shared, apparently,
a deep friendship in addition to the kinship to Finarfin, so why
they not care about the rift among the lords of the Noldor?
Is there anything that necessitates that the Teleri absent
themselves from this festival?
> when Melkor and Ungoliant came from the south. They came to the
> two Trees as both were shining and mingling their lights: Melkor
> struck each tree with his spear, and Ungoliant not only drank the
> now flowing sap, but put her beak to each wound on each tree and
> drank their life out of them. Her poinson entered the trees and so
> they died, and the light faded and went out.
This is one of the more potent moments in Tolkien's writing; one
that I think loses a lot in the last version in LQ2, where Melkor
wasn't with Ungoliant when she killed the Two Trees. The dual
wounding by spear and by beak works better for me. Where the lamps
were wonderful, they were still 'only' dead things that had just to
be overthrown, the Two Trees were living and symbolic of the Days of
the Bliss of Valinor, so it seems to me only appropriate that it
should require these two most prominent evil nihilists, including
the first-fallen, the diabolus.
> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of
> Varda and drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black
> vapour--so that even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
Scaring!
> The darkness that resulted from the death of the trees,
> Ungoliant's gas and her webs is said to have been more than
> darkness, more than an absence of light, but "a thing with its own
> being."
That, frankly, is even more scaring to me.
In this half chapter the Gloomweaver, Ungoliant, seems to me more
scaring and potent than her master, and I think it is a pity that
she is merely written out of the story in the next chapter.
The powers she gain in this chapter as she drains the Two Trees
ought to have earned her a place in the further story -- how much
more glorious would have been Lúthien and Beren's quest have been
had they had to fight Ungoliant's darkness as they approached
Morgoth's throne?
> And that darkness could enter the soul and mind and sap a being of
> strength and will.
And which even works on the mind of the Valar, defeating the pursuit
of both Tulkas and Oromë.
[...]
> And so Melkor had his vegeance and Valinor was made dark, and the
> Blessed Realm marred.
Though we won't even learn the full story until the next chapter,
and even then Melkor's purpose wasn't full-wrought: he had purposed
that Fëanor should have died as well.
> FURTHER ISSUES:
<snip>
> 4) the directions: is Tolkien playing with a topos here? Often in
> literature (not always) evil comes from the north, good from
> the south; we see this motif in the Bible as well as in
> classical literature....hence Melkor settles in the North. And
> that is where the Valar look for him, not suspecting danger
> from the south: is this a somewhat larger thing Tolkien is
> doing here playing on a larger theme than just the elements of
> the plot? If so, how do you see him doing this? If not, why
> not?
In LotR the evil comes from the east and the south (though,
admittedly, there are indications that the southrons are more
deceieved than actually evil). It would seem that only the West is
free from being where evil comes from.
The west as the place from where goodness and salvation comes from
seems to me the most prominent directional theme in Tolkien's
writing. IIRC, the original idea was that Tolk Eressëa actually was
England, and it appears to me that it is from that origin that the
theme of the west as the direction to look in for salvation.
<snip>
A quotation from Ósanwe-kenta:
Melkor alone of the Great became at last bound to a bodily
form; but that was because of the use that he made of this
in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the
great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had
dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents
and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and
without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate
and unable to restore himself from the state into which he
had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer
master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be
masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind.
[/Ósanwe-kenta/, Author's note 5, Vinyar Tengwar issue #39]
This is where we see it happen -- here is that of the 'great evils
he did in his visible body' that actually bound him to that body.
In the beginning we find him moving towards Avathar:
For Melkor was yet as one of the Valar, and he could still
(though with pain) change his form, or walk unclad, as
could his brethren; though that power he was soon to lose
for ever. /LQ2/[5] §55b
The little bit about it causing Melkor pain to walk unclad is a nice
addition -- he was getting there, but had to take it the last step.
[...] he put on again the form that he had worn as the
tyrant of Utumno: a dark Lord, tall and terrible. In that
form he remained ever after.
[ibid. §55d]
My guess is that it was the rape of the Two Trees and the murder of
Finwë that lost him the ability to change his shape.
[1] /The Book of Lost Tales 1/, HoMe1, part VI 'The Theft of Melko
and the Darkening of Valinor' c. 1916-1918
[2] /The Shaping of Middle-earth/, HoMe4, Part III 'The Quenta',
about 1930
[3] /The Lost Road and Other Wsritings/, HoMe5, 'Quenta
Silmarillion', later thirties (I haven't been able to look
very much in that since it arrived on Monday <G>)
[4] /Morgoth's Ring/, HoMe10, part 2 'The Annals of Aman',
early fifties (1950 - 51 with later emendations)
[5] /Morgoth's Ring/, HoMe10, part 3-II 'The Later Quenta
Silmarillion' -- 'The Second Phase', c. 1958
[6] /Morgoth's Ring/, HoMe10, part V 'Myths Transformed'
c. 1958 onwards
[7] /Vinyar Tengwar/ #39, "Ósanwe-kenta: 'Enquiry into the
Communication of Thought', 1959 - 60
Troels Forchhammer
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> enriched us with:
>
> Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:16:22 -0500 from Chris Kern <chriskern99
> @gmail.com>:
>>
>> But if we are to accept these myths as telling true stories
>> about Arda, and not as distorted versions of truth (which
>> is what most people do), we have to accept that when Iluvatar
>> tells Melkor that any evil he can do will ultimately work to
>> Iluvatar's greater purpose, that Iluvatar is telling the truth.
>
> I think we are supposed to accept these myths as _attempts_ at
> true retellings, based on imperfect records and imperfect
> knowledge. IMHO that's why we see so many "it is said" and similar
> -- the chronicler is trying to indicate a part of oral tradition
> that is not quite as trustworthy as the records.
I think that it is both more complex, and a lot simpler, than that.
The legends are, story-externally, a literary construction which is,
by the author, intended to tell the truth, both about Arda, the rest
of Eä and the Timeless Halls as well. The 'truth', as I use it above,
means something like 'what Tolkien believed and intended to be
factual within his sub-creation at the time when he wrote it'. That
definition of truth obviously doesn't make things easier ;-)
There are even situations where part of the 'truth' of Arda is that
various people held differing views on a matter, and that diversity
of opinion is occasionally portrayed without us learning which side
Tolkien was on.
Story-internally we are definitely dealing with sources originating
in oral traditions, and having been passed down through many steps
and even through different races.
I would venture that we are dealing with a very complex concept of
'truth' in Tolkien's world, and that it is not always possible to
discern at what levels a particular statement is 'true' (though the
loremasters usually can be relied upon, as can the narrative voice).
> We have to remember how the Silmarillion came to us.
At the most primitive level (and forgetting the editing by
Christopher Tolkien a Guy Kay) it came to us as a story written by
J.R.R. Tolkien.
This is important in many ways, because there /is/ a story-external
level, and at that level 'truth' is what Tolkien intended to be true,
and that, predominantly, coincided with the story that he wanted to
tell. That, of course, is why the story-external level is important:
this is, after all, a story that J.R.R. Tolkien wanted to tell (or,
perhaps more correctly, one that he wanted to create), and that has
to affect our understanding of truth.
> Most of it was not known to Men but was told them by Elves.
Who, on their side, received much of the information from the Valar
(is it just me, or does the Eldar seem to have interacted primarily
with the Valar, and not so much with the Maiar?)
<snip>
> One attractive consequence of this view is that it explains all
> the varying texts in HoME -- different copies by different
> copyists, some working only from oral tradition.
But do we even want to do that? Isn't it much more fun quibbling over
which version best represents what is likely to have become the
published version had JRT ever managed to get it done (which is
another question) ;-)
There is a tradition here of focusing on authorial intent --
sometimes we discuss 'final intent' and sometimes what can probably
best be described as LotR intent (the intentions and ideas concerning
the history and make-up of Arda during the writing of LotR). Within
that frame of understanding, is the idea of the various versions
representing different traditions justified? Not that I am opposed
to a 'it works for me' explanation as long as we know what is what.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thouroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.
- Piet Hein, /The Eternal Twins/
Troels Forchhammer
Chris Kern <chris...@gmail.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
> Put in another way, the paradox only exists based what you accept
> as your premises. For instance, if you accept this as a premise:
> 1. God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent.
Don't forget omnipotent ;-)
> Then
> 2. Since God is omnibenevolent, by the definition of the term,
> whatever he does must be good.
Precisely.
> follows in logical sequence.
> 3. Therefore, since whatever he does must be good, if he does
> something that seems to us to be evil, it must not actually be
> evil.
It only seems to us evil because we suffer from our own very narrow
perspective etc. etc.
Exactly! Eru doesn't have to explain anything (and neither does
Tolkien), because Eru knows what we don't, and he can see the full
picture. Ultimately that is part of the faith: to believe that God does
know best and that he is ultimately benevolent and absolute Good.
> What is important to understanding these theological problems in
> Tolkien's writings is not what you accept or believe, but what
> Tolkien accepted and believed.
I agree.
Though the realisation sometimes strikes us with some surprise <G>, we
must not forget that in the end this is literature. One of the ways in
which the author affects his stories in this kind of tales is that it
actually pays off to be good in the eyes of the author. In Tolkien you
get a lot of help from Valar and from Eru if you stay good. Morality
has, in other words, a far more direct practical effect in a literary
sub-creation than it has in our world (where there is, even in the eyes
of the faithful, usually longer between merit and payment).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the
world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
- Aragorn, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Christopher Kreuzer
> Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:01:23 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
> <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
>> fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
>> not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
>> if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
>> Eä and become seduced by Evil?
>
> Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not following
> Melkor?
In the case of Ungoliant, I disagree, mainly on the basis of the
fascinating quotes from HoME that people are finding. It does seem clear
that Ungoliant was at some point intended to be a past servant of
Melkor.
> In Letter 175 (about a BBC dramatization(, Tolkien writes "worse
> still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that ... Willowman was
> an ally of Mordor (!!). Cannot people imagine things hostile to men
> and hobbits who prey on them without being in league with the
> Devil!"
>
> In LotR we see Shelob being whlly evil but independent of Sauron. In
> Silm Morgoth seeems to negotiate with Ungoliant where he gives orders
> to everyone else. To me that says that unlike say Sauron she was not
> one of his followers.
At that point, yes. But the argument is that she was _previously_ one of
his followers, and had broken away. This whole subthread about evil
things that are independent of themselves has reminded me of this
passage from LotR:
"Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed
by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he.
Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light
of day." (Gandalf, The White Rider)
"Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name long years ago,
when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands." (Gimli, The
Ring Goes South)
"his cat he calls her, but she owns him not" (Concerning Sauron and
Shelob, Shelob's Lair)
"So they both lived, delighting in their own devices, and feared no
assault, nor wrath, nor any end of their wickedness." (Shelob's Lair)
No-one has, I think, being arguing that evil things were not in the
world before Sauron, or independent of Sauron, but applying the same
question to Melkor is not so easy. He does produce the initial discord
in the Music, and he does seem to be the primeval evil in the world.
Looking in the Silmarillion, to try and identify moments when evil
things entered the world (with or without Melkor), I found these quotes:
"the First War began before Arda was full-shaped, and ere yet there was
any thing that grew or walked upon earth... [then Tulkas arrives] Melkor
fled before his wrath and his laughter, and forsook Arda, and there was
peace for a long age..." (Of the Beginning of Days)
Maybe it is possible that Ungoliant arrived in this period, when Melkor
(quoting from LQS II) "first looked down in envy upon the light in the
kingdom of Manwe".
Or maybe Ungoliant arrives in the later period, when Melkor returns and
blights the Spring of Arda. The impression I get is certainly that the
Spring of Arda is an unstained delight (like the Garden of Eden) and
evil did not enter until Melkor returns. Though it mustn't be forgotten
that while Melkor was "brooding in the outer darkness", it is said that:
"even then he had secret friends and spies among the Maiar whom he had
converted to his cause" (Of the Beginning of Days)
And a little while later, Melkor returns:
"...he gathered to himself spirits out of the halls of Ea that he had
perverted to his service, and he deemed himself strong. And seeing now
his time he drew near again to Arda, and looked down upon it, and the
beauty of the Earth in its Spring filled him the more with hate." (Of
the Beginning of Days)
Does this passage correspond with this one from LQS II?
"...it was said that in ages long before she had descended from the
darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy
upon the light in the kingdom of Manwe. But she had disowned her Master,
desiring to be mistress of her own lust..."
Or does the above passage from LQS II correspond to this passage from
the Ainulindale, which seems to refer to the First War mentioned in 'Of
the Beginning of Days'?
"When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it,
and he said to the other Valar: 'This shall be my own kingdom; and I
name it unto myself!'" (Ainulindale)
Or is it this point (which might also correspond to the First War
mentioned in 'Of the Beginning of Days', as there is a reference soon
after this passage to "the first battle of the Valar with Melkor")?
"His envy grew then the greater within him; and he also took visible
form, but because of his mood and the malice that burned in him that
form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and
majesty greater than any other of the Valar" (Ainulindale)
Going forward to the time when Melkor returns with an army of minions
from the Outer Darkness, and the Valar are cavorting on Almaren, we are
told that he founds Utumno and:
"...the blight of his hatred flowed out thence, and the Spring of Arda
was marred. Green things fell sick and rotted, and rivers were choked
with weeds and slime, and fens were made, rank and poisonous, the
breeding place of flies; and forests grew dark and perilous, the haunts
of fear; and beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and dyed the earth
with blood." (Of the Beginning of Days)
Does this sound like the work of Ungoliant and her darkness, mixed in
there with Melkor's evil?
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Christopher Kreuzer
> In message <memdnYEUjKZ...@rcn.net>
> Larry Swain <thes...@operamail.com> enriched us with:
<snip>
>> Meanwhile, it is festival time! The first fruits are grown, but
>> the rule of Yavanna who set such seasons though time is yet
>> meaningless
>
> There is here one very (IMO) interesting sentence:
> '[...] Eä, whose life is Time, which flows ever from the
> first note to the last chord of Eru.'
>
> This, to me, strongly suggests what we have earlier discussed, that
> the Music describes /all/ of Time, and that the last chord can be
> likened to the Day of Doom.
Absolutely. This passage convinces me. Though the variations from HoME
that you give are interesting.
<snip>
> We can speculate what prompted the introduction in AAm and whether
> the subsequent removal of the very explicit statement in LQ2
> represents a rejection of the basic idea or of the explicitness.
What do you think? Did Tolkien move away from explicitly stating this
concept, or was he just trying out different ways of describing it?
<snip>
>> and as they are gathered the festival is set to honor and worship
>> Eru.
>
> Not so fast ;-)
>
> The description of the festival gave me pause in relation to
> statements in Ósanwe-kenta.
<snip>
> My main reason for bringing this up is to point to what I see as a
> general trend in the development of the mythology from BoLT to
> /Myths Transformed/. The Ainur started out as a far more typical
> pagan pantheon such as one would find in Greek or Norse mythology
The Greek gods in particular had ambrosia and nectar didn't they? Was
there anything like this for the Valar in the early stories?
> but as the mythology developed, they progressed into a 'higher'
> state, became more the heavenly denizens and less tied to the earth:
> Archangels. Possibly this is related to the waning of the idea of a
> mythology for England (as his crest fell), and, perhaps, to LotR
> becaming a consciously 'religious and Catholic work' -- the
> transition does, to me, at least, seem to me to match quite well the
> movement from a pagan mythology to a Christian one.
There is a lot of quotes to support this trend from more earthy, present
powers, to remote powers known only to memory.(*) It could also be part
of the diminishing of the world, moving from mythical times to the Age
of Man and historical times, but I do like this pagan to Christian idea
as well, especially concerning the eating of food by the Valar. We could
also mention lembas, which has been given Christian connotations by some
commentators.
(*) I just know I've quoted Tolkien here, but it took me a while to
track the quote down. It was the son, not the father:
"In the case of the Valaquenta, for instance, we have to assume that
while it contains much that must go back to the earliest days of the
Eldar in Valinor, it was remodelled in later times; and thus explain its
continual shifting of tense and viewpoint, so that the divine powers
seem now present and active in the world, now remote, a vanished order
known only to memory." ( From Christopher Tolkien's Foreword to 'The
Silmarillion')
This also reminds me of Frodo's description of Galadriel as they leave
Lothlorien:
"Already she seemed to him, as by men of later days Elves still at times
are seen: present and yet remote, a living vision of that which has
already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time." (Farewell
to Lorien)
<snip>
>> 5) Foreshadowing: Tolkien hints at futhre things in the story
>> several times even in this chapter. What do you think of this
>> device?
>
> Coming to think about it, the foreshadowing seems to me to fall into
> two, not always clearly distinct, categories. I am here speaking of
> what we might call 'literary foreshadowing' as something distinct
> from the story-internal foresight (though the latter is sometimes
> used in both respects at once, which makes it a bit more
> difficult).
I think this is a useful distinction. I'll be looking out for these in
the future, and it would be interesting to apply this to LotR as well.
<snip>
> The long-term foreshadowing helps to give the impression of the
> story being finally composed at a great temporal distance: this is
> being told ages later, and the story-teller knows what happened not
> only the next day or year, but in the next several ages. To this
> category would I also designate the merely informational, such as
> e.g. the information that Melkor would remain forever in the form of
> the Dark Lord, the tyrant of Utumno (at least, I am not aware that
> this could foreshadow anything later: for instance that he would, to
> his pain and disadvantage, attempt to change form and discover that
> he couldn't).
The narrative voice can also recall events from the distant past. From
LotR, I am reminded of Gandalf recalling the hand and mind of Feanor,
though I've just realised that is not the narrative voice. A better
example would be:
"It was an evil fate. But he had taken it on himself in his own
sitting-room in the far-off spring of another year, so remote now that
it was like a chapter in a story of the world's youth, when the Trees of
Silver and Gold were still in bloom." (Narrative voice describing
Frodo's evil fate to be in despair before the Black Gate of Mordor,
carrying the Ring of Power, The Black Gate is Closed)
Examples of looking back to the distant past, found in 'The
Silmarillion', might include:
"How do ye of uncouth race dare to demand aught of me, Elu Thingol, Lord
of Beleriand, whose life began by the waters of Cuivienen years
uncounted ere the fathers of the stunted people awoke?"
Though again, that may not be a good example, as that passage may have
come from the pen of Guy Gavriel Kay. I'm not sure. Hopefully the
details are in HoME. I've tried to think of other examples, but this
sort of thing is not as common as I thought, with a lot of the backward
looking references being rather short-term, story-orientated, especially
in the tales of mortal men like Beren, Hurin and Turin.
I think Tolkien's use of time in his storytelling is masterful. In the
space of a few words he can take the reader in the distant past, forward
into the future, and back to the present, or just give subtle hints at
this great depth of history and story. Gollum telling Sam and Frodo of
the tales of his childhood of Minas Morgul, is a good example of this.
As is the moment when the narrator puts the passage of the marshes by
Sam, Frodo, and Gollum, into context by including references to the
ancient battle on the plain of Dagorlad.
>> All were gathered to the feast, save the Teleri who remained on
>> their shore singing,
<snip>
> Is there anything that necessitates that the Teleri absent
> themselves from this festival?
Well, maybe Tolkien was enamoured of this passage:
"All song ceased. There was silence in Valinor, and no sound could be
heard, save only from afar there came on the wind through the pass of
the mountains the wailing of the Teleri like the cold cry of gulls. For
it blew chill from the East in that hour, and the vast shadows of the
sea were rolled against the walls of the shore." (Of the Darkening of
Valinor)
It certainly adds something to the story, I think. :-)
And it might even make the passage, "save the Teleri who remained on
their shore singing", an example of foreshadowing!
>> when Melkor and Ungoliant came from the south. They came to the
>> two Trees as both were shining and mingling their lights: Melkor
>> struck each tree with his spear, and Ungoliant not only drank the
>> now flowing sap, but put her beak to each wound on each tree and
>> drank their life out of them. Her poinson entered the trees and so
>> they died, and the light faded and went out.
>
> This is one of the more potent moments in Tolkien's writing; one
> that I think loses a lot in the last version in LQ2, where Melkor
> wasn't with Ungoliant when she killed the Two Trees. The dual
> wounding by spear and by beak works better for me.
Me too.
>> Still, Ungoliant was not sated. She went next to the Wells of
>> Varda and drank more, growing to a hideaous size, belching black
>> vapour--so that even Melkor was a little afraid of her.
>
> Scaring!
Indeed. A very scary moment.
>> The darkness that resulted from the death of the trees,
>> Ungoliant's gas and her webs is said to have been more than
>> darkness, more than an absence of light, but "a thing with its own
>> being."
>
> That, frankly, is even more scaring to me.
Do fears of darkness come from childhood? The idea that darkness can be
oppressing, and seem to press down on you with its own weight? Or is
this something more? Monsters appearing out of the dark to snatch people
from the campfire? (ref: the Elves disappearing at Cuivienen and the
"darkest memories of the Elves").
> In this half chapter the Gloomweaver, Ungoliant, seems to me more
> scaring and potent than her master, and I think it is a pity that
> she is merely written out of the story in the next chapter.
>
> The powers she gain in this chapter as she drains the Two Trees
> ought to have earned her a place in the further story -- how much
> more glorious would have been Lúthien and Beren's quest have been
> had they had to fight Ungoliant's darkness as they approached
> Morgoth's throne?
Well... :-) I prefer the way he wrote it in the published story. The
achievements of Beren and Luthien are great indeed, probably the
greatest deeds accomplished by Men and Elves in the Wars of Beleriand,
but it is important, IMO, to have them confronting god-like figures that
have been reduced in power from their time of majesty, rather than the
powers as they were back then. Morgoth himself, though a mighty figure,
has been declining from his peak of power. Beren passes though the dread
valleys of Nan Dungortheb (which is the legacy of Ungoliant), but
instead of replaying a confrontation with Ungoliant (which would lead to
direct comparisons with Melkor), we have a dispersed, lesser threat,
which still accords Beren great honour, but leaves the figures of
Morgoth and Ungoliant attacking Valinor and having their fight in the
region of Lammoth, as unchallenged, ultimate examples of stirring myth,
feeding into the later stories. When you read about Beren in Nan
Dungortheb, or Frodo and Sam confronting Shelob, the layers or echoes of
stories go right back to the original stories about Ungoliant and the
idea of a mythical time when the powers were greater than they are now.
<snip>
[Melkor losing ability to change shape]
> My guess is that it was the rape of the Two Trees and the murder of
> Finwë that lost him the ability to change his shape.
Don't forget the pain of the burning from the Silmarils (quote below).
I've found something I wrote back on 9 April 2005:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.books.tolkien/msg/8fd157c8994e14e9
My argument is not the moral one you give above (though I like that as
well), but is along the lines of expenditure of power.
1) Melkor gave some of his power to Ungoliant.
2) He was attacked by Ungoliant and burnt by the Silmarils.
Those are the specific events that I think locked Melkor into his form,
that he was unable to change thereafter. There are also more general
expenditures of power:
3) Expending his power to inspire and dominate his subjects
4) The whole "Morgoth's Ring" thing, with power passing into Arda (which
I think dates back to the beginning of Arda).
The quotes supporting (1) and (2) are:
"'For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished.'
[...] Ungoliant had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone
out of him" (Of the Flight of the Noldor)
"His hands were burned black by the touch of those hallowed jewels, and
black they remained ever after; nor was he ever free from the pain of
the burning, and the anger of the pain." (Of the Flight of the Noldor)
The quote concerning (3) is:
"...in the domination of his servants and the inspiring of them with
lust of evil he spent his spirit." (Of the Flight of the Noldor)
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
(some good points on the nature of truth within the Legendarium --
I've snipped em because I don't really have anything to add)
> Who, on their side, received much of the information from the Valar
> (is it just me, or does the Eldar seem to have interacted primarily
> with the Valar, and not so much with the Maiar?)
It's not just you; I at least share your impression. :-)
I get the impression that the Maiar (excepting Melian and Ossė) were
concerned with the operation of Arda much more than with the Children
of Iluvatar. It seems as though the Valar trusted only themselves to
deal with Elves.
Or else, the loremasters passed down only the most momentous stuff,
not esteeming it particularly noteworthy when Caffeina the Maia
taught them to make tea. :-)
Jim Heckman
On 3-Mar-2006, Troels Forchhammer <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>
wrote in message <Xns977B720B...@131.228.6.98>:
[...]
> Some of the Ainur that didn't enter into Eä immediately probably did
> so later (at least in BoLT we get to know what Ilúavatar told them
> after the initial wave had moved ahead). I don't think that there is
> any indication of that happening in the published version.
What about Tulkas?
[...]
--
Jim Heckman
Troels Forchhammer
<wnzrfe...@lnubb.pbz.invalid> enriched us with:
> On 3-Mar-2006, Troels Forchhammer <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>
> wrote in message <Xns977B720B...@131.228.6.98>:
>>
>> did so later (at least in BoLT we get to know what Ilúavatar told
>> them after the initial wave had moved ahead). I don't think that
>> there is any indication of that happening in the published
>> version.
>
> What about Tulkas?
I suppose it's debatable, but I've always interpreted it as though
he came from the outer regions of Eä:
But in the midst of the war a spirit of great strength and
hardihood came to the aid of the Valar, hearing in the far
heaven that there was battle in the Little Kingdom; and
Arda was filled with the sound of his laughter.
[Silm SQ,1 'Of the Beginning of Days']
Note that 'heaven' isn't capitalised, and while I have found many
uses of 'heaven' referring to that which is physically above our
heads, I haven't found any where it refers to the Timeless Halls of
Eru.
This reading is also supported by the Annals of Aman (Morgoth's
Ring, HoMe10, part 2), where it says under the Valian Year 1500:
§13 It came to pass that hearing afar of the war in Arda
Tulkas the Strong came thither out of distant regions of Ëa
to the aid of Manwë.
[MR (HoMe10), 2 'The Annals of Aman' 1500]
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Taking fun
Troels Forchhammer
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> enriched us with:
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>> Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:01:23 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
>> <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>>>
>>> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall.
>>
>> Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not
>> following Melkor?
>
> In the case of Ungoliant, I disagree, mainly on the basis of the
> fascinating quotes from HoME that people are finding. It does seem
> clear that Ungoliant was at some point intended to be a past
> servant of Melkor.
I am convinced that she was intended in all the later versions to
have been a servant of Melkor in the first war(s?). I am not so sure
about the earlier (pre-LotR) versions. E.g. the QS (LR, HoMe5, VI
'Quenta Silmarillion') has:
In that land dwelt Ungoliantė, Gloomweaver, in spider's
form. It is not told whence she came; from the Outer
Darkness, may be, that lies beyond the Walls of the World.
The passage in BoLT strongly suggests that Ungoliant was an Ainu (a
spirit in spider form and 'more like she has always been'), though
nothing is there said about how Melkor knew where to find her (or
indeed if he did know beforehand).
>> In Letter 175
[...]
>> Cannot people imagine things hostile to men and hobbits who prey
>> them without being in league with the Devil!"
[...]
>> To me that says that unlike say Sauron she was not one of his
>> followers.
>
> At that point, yes. But the argument is that she was _previously_
> one of his followers, and had broken away.
Yes, the debate, if any, must be about Ungoliant's original fall. Did
she turn to evil independently of Melkor, or did she turn to him and
learn from his Evil.
<snip examples from LotR>
> No-one has, I think, being arguing that evil things were not in
> the world before Sauron, or independent of Sauron, but applying
> the same question to Melkor is not so easy.
Indeed not.
> He does produce the initial discord in the Music, and he does
> seem to be the primeval evil in the world.
Yes. Evil seems to have entered Tolkien's sub-creation throught the
pride of the Ainu Melkor, and only through him did others become
aware of evil -- he is the original ('urschprungliche') evil. That is
not to say that some of those would not have turned evil of their own
accord given enough time, but as it were, the evil of Melkor helped
them -- in particular through the discord in the Music (for the
Ainur).
It is, of course, concievable that another Ainu could develop into
evil independently, but I would imagine that to be very unlikely. It
would require that the evil had developed before the Music since
after that, all the Ainur were affected by Melkor's discord, whether
they felt attracted to it or not.
It is, I believe, a common aspect of mythologies to give to all
aspects of life a cause: weather, death, time etc. are attributed to
a divine being affecting and upholding it; thus also for evil.
Within Tolkien's mythology I think that Melkor is indeed the First
Cause for Evil both in Arda and outside Arda.
<snip>
> "...he gathered to himself spirits out of the halls of Ea that he
> had perverted to his service, and he deemed himself strong. And
> seeing now his time he drew near again to Arda, and looked down
> upon it, and the beauty of the Earth in its Spring filled him the
> more with hate." (Of the Beginning of Days)
>
> Does this passage correspond with this one from LQS II?
>
> "...it was said that in ages long before she had descended from
> the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down
> in envy upon the light in the kingdom of Manwe.
Yes, I would think this to be the place. I suppose the catch is in
the /light/ in the kingdom: there was, IIRC, no lights at the time of
the first battles. The lamps were wrought during the Spring, when
Melkor had been cast out for the first time.
I do, indeed, suppose that Ungoliant was one of the spirits that
Melkor had 'perverted to his service' and which followed him into
Arda.
<snip>
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.
But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another
profound truth.
- Niels Bohr
Troels Forchhammer
> <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>>
[The Eldar]
>> received much of the information from the Valar (is it just
>> me, or does the Eldar seem to have interacted primarily with
>> the Valar, and not so much with the Maiar?)
>
> It's not just you; I at least share your impression. :-)
Thanks ;-)
> I get the impression that the Maiar were concerned with the
> operation of Arda much more than with the Children of Iluvatar.
Yes, these were the poeple who got to steer the vessels of the Sun
and the Moon once the Powers that Be had finished creating them ;-)
> (excepting Melian and Ossė)
> It seems as though the Valar trusted only
> themselves to deal with Elves.
And then we get the words about Olórin:
But of Olórin that tale [the Quenta Silmarillion, TF] does
not speak; for though he loved the Elves, he walked among
them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not
know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of
wisdom that he put into their hearts.
[Silm II 'Valaquenta']
I find that intriguing -- how much of this sort happened, where Maiar
were affecting the Eldar? But that is not 'interaction' as such, I
think -- this is one-way only, which doesn't, IMO, really qualify.
I also, by the way, get the impression that it was far more common
for the Maiar to walk unclad than for the Valar.
> Or else, the loremasters passed down only the most momentous
> stuff, not esteeming it particularly noteworthy when Caffeina the
> Maia taught them to make tea. :-)
LOL!
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
- Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague
(Thus spake the quantum physicist)
Troels Forchhammer
<news:1141315443.1...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
"Kreme" <gkr...@gmail.com> enriched us with:
> On 1 Mar 2006, Tamim said:
>> 1 God is omnipotent (premise)
And omniscient -- that is important.
>> 2 God is benevolent (premise)
God is Good -- 'benevolence' would, IMO, derive from that, though it
may not appear to us benevolent or even good as our understanding is
limited.
>> 3 Benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise)
>
> This is where it starts to go pear-shaped.
Indeed.
The existence of evil may be necessary for the existence of good; or
perhaps Free Will only makes sense if between two poles; or some
other reason that we cannot fathom makes it necessary that evil
exist.
And then there is, of course, the possibility that what we see as
evil is just a part of God's design, and that the only true evil is
to oppose that design (and 'he that attempteth this shall prove but
mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he
himself hath not imagined').
>> 4 God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 2 and 3)
At least if we define evil to be 'that which God opposes' ;-)
>> 5 God can eliminate evil completely. (conclusion from 1)
Yes.
>> 1. Whatever end result of suffering, God can bring about by
>> ways which do not include suffering. (conclusion from 1)
Except for the experience of suffering, I suppose (claiming for the
time being that there is no actual difference between suffering
experienced for real and suffering experienced through false memories
implanted by God).
>> 2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil (conclusion from 5.1)
>
> This certainly does not follow, and the rest of it all depends on
> this (false) conclusion. Even if you accept premise 3, 5.2 is a
> large leap of supposition.
Who am I to claim that I know better than God what is good and what
is evil? If God sees something good in suffering, then suffering must
truly exist . . . etc.
That is the problem we face in this -- we are arguing based on our
understanding, which is limited, but we are assuming that our views
on good and evil are shared by an omnipotent and omniscient being,
and that assumption simply doesn't hold. Human history alone has
shown that our ideas, or let us say understanding, of what is good
and what is evil have changed with the degree of our general
knowledge -- in some cases it has changed quite a lot so that good
has become evil and vice versa.
This shows that we cannot simply assume that our present-day
understanding of what is good and evil will prevail with increased
understanding, and certainly not for infinite understanding and
knowledge.
If one accepts the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent creating and upholding God, then there is, I think,
only one way to define Good and Evil and that is to say that Good is
to do the will of God, while Evil is to oppose it (the problem, of
course, then becomes to know what is the will of God, but I'll leave
that out of the question for now <G>).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own
image when it turns out that God hates all the same people
you do.
- Anne Lamott
Troels Forchhammer
Incidentally, Christopher, your news-agent seems to have dropped the
AFT cross-posting in this group of messages (four messages posted
Saturday about noon GMT); just in case it's some setting that has
changed.
> Kristian Damm Jensen <kristi...@mail.dk> wrote:
>>
>> Ahem, I may have missed out on some discussion earlier on in the
>> COTW: Silmarillion series. We are discussion the Silmarillion as
>> published, with comments from HoME as appropriately, are we not?
>
> Technically, yes. :-)
In some respects it would be more correct to say that we're
discussing the mythology in general, but taking our outset in the
published Silmarillion, depending on that to provide structure for
the discussions.
But, techincally, yes ;-.)
>> Then text that directly contradicts the published Silmarillion
>> should not be used to support a claim, that is totally at odds
>> with The Silmarillion.
>
> That depends on whether the published Silmarillion is accepted
> as canonical.
Not to mention what level of truth the argument seeks to discover.
If we look at the specific discussion about Fingolfin's role, we
might ask from what point of view this should be seen? Fingolfin's
own? Fëanor's? Manwë's? Tolkien's own? And at what point in the
history of the story? Are we talking original conceptualisation,
final intent, or perhaps LotR-intend? Or even the final
interpretation presented by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Kay . . .?
> I believe there is a school of thought that says that one can
> try and disengage from 'The Silmarillion'
[...]
> one can then consider
[...]
> HoME and try to ascertain Tolkien's "true" intent.
>
> Whether that is possible or not, I don't know.
That depends on what value of 'true' you are using, I think.
Ultimately I think that what we are seeking as 'true' is that version
of the mythology that John Ronald would have eventually (if given
enough time) got published; that version of the mythology which would
have become (more or less) fixed and to which he would have felt
obliged (by the very act of publishing it) to stay with.
That version, however, is, I believe, beyond our, as well as even
Christopher Tolkien's, reach.
So, forsaking that goal, we get that confusing set of versions, which
can all with perfect truthfulness be said to represent the 'authorial
intent' at some given time, but which never seems to cover everything
that we want it to cover, and which stays fluid and changeable even
in what one would consider very central concepts (e.g. the creation
of the Sun and Moon).
>> I don't mean to say that they are not relevant. On the contrary
>> is often very interesting to see the development of the stories.
>
> And to remember that 'The Silmarillion' as published is not the
> starting point. It is rather a mixture of endpoints.
And yet we use it as the starting point for our discussions ;-)
> I'd love to see a diagram showing the development of the stories,
> with branches and dead-ends and rewriting of stories, and
> embellishment of stories, all done chronologically where possible,
> and then to have points on the tree-like structure marked as the
> ones that went into the published Silmarillion.
I'm sure we could something like that in a nice and clear manner --
in a neat five-dimensional diagram ;-)
I'd love to see something of that sort as well, though it may not be
possible to do a master-plan, so to speak, that covers everything,
but then we might be able to do it at a plot-element or story level
(e.g. the lineage of the story of Beren and Lúthien). Whether it is
possible to construct a master plan from a set of story-diagrams is
perhaps doubtful -- at least if the master plan is supposed to be
helpful rather than merely confusing.
;-) that'd be a very Hobbity occupation, wouldn't it; ': they liked
to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair
and square with no contradictions.ø
> The most confusing thing about 'The Silmarillion', compared to
> HoME, for me, is the amount of compression and mixing that takes
> place. It makes it really hard to work out whether something is
> missing due to Tolkien writing it out of the story (discarding
> it), due to Tolkien compressing the story, or due to Christopher
> Tolkien compressing/omitting it editorially.
I've been reading the Annals of Aman and the Later Quenta in MR along
with the chapters here, covering my Silm with annotations, that are
nowhere near complete -- there are half sentences omitted here and
there and words are changed etc. But tracing the sources just at that
level is slow work and going deeper would make it impossible to
finish a chapter in a mere two weeks (at least without taking a
holiday from both job and family).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
To make a name for learning
when other roads are barred,
take something very easy
and make it very hard.
- Piet Hein, /Wide Road/
Morgoth's Curse
<thes...@operamail.com> wrote:
>Manwe hoped at this festival time to be able to heal relationships and
>so invited all to this great feast, but commanded Feanor to appear in
>order to make peace between Feanor and Finwe, his half brother. For
You just know that you are _never_ going to be able to live this one
down, Larry! ;-)
Morgoth's Curse
Christopher Kreuzer
> In message <news:ZjfOf.29935$wl.1...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> enriched us with:
> >
>
> Incidentally, Christopher, your news-agent seems to have dropped the
> AFT cross-posting in this group of messages (four messages posted
> Saturday about noon GMT); just in case it's some setting that has
> changed.
Nah. It's just that the posts I replied to only appeared in RABT. I
could, and probably should, have restored the AFT cross-post, but
didn't.
Troels Forchhammer
>
<snip>
> Nah. It's just that the posts I replied to only appeared in RABT. I
> could, and probably should, have restored the AFT cross-post, but
> didn't.
You're right -- I never noticed that this whole subthread was only
posted to RABT. Sorry.
Robinsons
> In alt.fan.tolkien Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:01:23 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
> > <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> >> The problem with that would be to explain, then, her fall. If she had
> >> fallen during the Music (which I think likely), then she would surely
> >> not have stayed with Eru when her Master, Melkor, went into Eä? And
> >> if she had not turned to him during the Music, why did she then enter
> >> Eä and become seduced by Evil?
>
> > Is it possible that she fell into evil independently, not following
> > Melkor?
>
> Is it even possible? Isn't Melkor the ultimate source of all evil, at
> least before the awakening of the Children of Iluvatar?
To paraphrase Chris Kern and Troels Forchhammer on "the problem of evil" upthread,
Ungoliant is only evil if she says she is ;-0
If she doesn't follow Morgoth, how can she be truly evil?
Try... "practitioner of alternate morality"... After all,
can you question Cthulu? ;-)
Hey!neat trick! I just tied the two ends of the thread back together! :-)
--Brian
> And in my opinion the source of their evil is also ultimately the lies
> of Melkor. Feanor is a good example of the direct influnce of the lies
> of melkor. He definitely wasn't in league with the devil, but the
> ultimate source of his evil deeds can be traced to the lies of Melkor.
>
> You quote a letter by Tolkien in which he denies that
> willowman served Mordor and that not all hostile creatures were in
> league with devil. This is a different issue. Willowman might not have been
> in league with Sauron but that doesn't mean that he would have been what
> he was or done what he did had not there been Morgoth and his marring of
> Arda.
Yes, I agree... But then again, perhaps Ungoliant and other
Spirits from the Void represented a slightly different KIND of
evil, inspired by Melkor but also inspired by their own genius.
"Not-so-great minds think alike", so to speak.
--Brian
> Annals of Aman §106
>
> "It may well be that Melkor, if none other knew of her being and her
> abode, and that she was in the beginning one of those he had corrupted to
> his service"
>
> LQS II
>
> " it was said that in ages long before she had descended from the
> darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy
> upon the light in the kingdom of Manwë. But she had disowned her Master,
> desiring to be mistress of her own lust.."
>
> To me it's quite clear. Ungoliant was a spirit (ainu?) that dwelt
> outside Arda and was at an early stage corrupted to evil by Melkor.
> She disowned he master and that means that Melkor must have been her
> master for some time. Then she became an independent agent, but the
> source of her evil was Melkor.
>
> > In Letter 175 (about a BBC dramatization(, Tolkien writes "worse
> > still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that ... Willowman was
> > an ally of Mordor (!!). Cannot people imagine things hostile to men
> > and hobbits who prey on them without being in league with the
> > Devil!"
>
> > In LotR we see Shelob being whlly evil but independent of Sauron. In
> > Silm Morgoth seeems to negotiate with Ungoliant where he gives orders
> > to everyone else. To me that says that unlike say Sauron she was not
> > one of his followers.u
Larry Swain
Oh sheesh, you're right!! I think in the next sentence I even said
Fingolfin! Ah well...
nfw
>> Also note that we don't know what happened to her. Perhaps she
>> dwells at the bottom of the Sea, or in Antarctica, waiting to
>> emerge at the death of the Sun to eat our brains... ;-)
She is told to have been slain by Earendel on one of his journeys south.
--
nfw
> Wasn't Ungoliant committed to creating a world-wide web?
sounds like the sort of evil thing she'd do. she was probably the
first spammer, too. -- Count Menelvagor in RABT
Stan Brown
<brasseu...@grandefauxindustries.cherchez-lerreur.com.invalid>:
> Troels Forchhammer a écrit :
(about Ungoliant)
> >> Also note that we don't know what happened to her. Perhaps she
> >> dwells at the bottom of the Sea, or in Antarctica, waiting to
> >> emerge at the death of the Sun to eat our brains... ;-)
>
> She is told to have been slain by Earendel on one of his journeys south.
Citation, please?
Christopher Kreuzer
> Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:28:44 -0500 from nfw
> <brasseu...@grandefauxindustries.cherchez-lerreur.com.invalid>:
>> Troels Forchhammer a écrit :
> (about Ungoliant)
>>>> Also note that we don't know what happened to her. Perhaps she
>>>> dwells at the bottom of the Sea, or in Antarctica, waiting to
>>>> emerge at the death of the Sun to eat our brains... ;-)
>>
>> She is told to have been slain by Earendel on one of his journeys
>> south.
>
> Citation, please?
I believe it was one of the stories in HoME. The bit where Earendel's
journeys are described in more detail. Is he called Earendel at this
point and then later Earendil, or was that a typo by the OP? Exactly
where I can't remember. I wonder whether this part of the story would
ultimately have been kept or not. I would have hoped not. It would be
nicer, IMO, to have Earendil bearing his Silmaril when he faces
Ungoliant!
Tamim
> I believe it was one of the stories in HoME. The bit where Earendel's
> journeys are described in more detail. Is he called Earendel at this
> point and then later Earendil, or was that a typo by the OP? Exactly
> where I can't remember. I wonder whether this part of the story would
> ultimately have been kept or not. I would have hoped not. It would be
> nicer, IMO, to have Earendil bearing his Silmaril when he faces
> Ungoliant!
Ungoliant is more powerful than the Silmaril;)
Seriously, her darkness did mask even the light of the trees and the
light of the silmarils after that. The phial of Galadriel which
contained some light ultimately derived from the Silmaril Eärendil is
carrying could hurt Shelob and shone through her darkness, but
Ungoliant's darkness was unbeatablle.
Steve Morrison
It's from section 17 of the /Quenta/ in /The Shaping of Middle-Earth/:
Wingelot he built, fairest of the ships of song, the Foam-flower;
white were its timbers as the argent moon, golden were its oars,
silver were its shrouds, its masts were crowned with jewels like
stars. In the Lay of Earendel is many a thing sung of his
adventures in the deep and in lands untrodden, and in many seas
and many isles. Ungoliant in the South he slew, and her darkness
was destroyed, and light came to many regions which had yet long
been hid. But Elwing sat sorrowing at home.
(This paragraph is at the top of page 152 in the Houghton-Mifflin
edition.)
Troels Forchhammer
<news:1141842450.5...@j52g2000cwj.googlegroups.com>
"Steve Morrison" <Geir...@aol.com> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
[Eärendel killing Ungoliant]
> It's from section 17 of the /Quenta/ in /The Shaping of
> Middle-Earth/:
<snip quotation>
> (This paragraph is at the top of page 152 in the Houghton-Mifflin
> edition.)
Thanks.
It is the first paragraph to start on p. 152 of my HarperCollins
paperback as well.
A pity that we can't tell if this survived into the QS in LR (the first
part of this chapter is missing, and the extant manuscript starts only
when Vingelot, carrying Eärendel and Elwing (among others) passes Tol
Eressëa.
On the other hand, I cannot, in a hurry find any later texts suggesting
that this was to be changed -- this part of the Quenta was, as far as I
can discover (though, as I said, in a hurry) never revised since the
Quenta Noldorinwa (Q) which Steve quoted.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.
Matthew Woodcraft
> [Eärendel killing Ungoliant]
> On the other hand, I cannot, in a hurry find any later texts suggesting
> that this was to be changed -- this part of the Quenta was, as far as I
> can discover (though, as I said, in a hurry) never revised since the
> Quenta Noldorinwa (Q) which Steve quoted.
The later QS has
<<It is said that she ended long ago, when in her uttermost famine she
devoured herself at last.>>
Christopher softened this to <<Yet some have said>> in the published
Silmarillion. I've a vague memory that this was because of a
question-mark put against some copy of that passage, but I'm not sure
where that comes from.
-M-
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> Ungoliant's darkness was unbeatable.
So why did she run away from Balrogs?
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> A pity that we can't tell if this survived into the QS in LR
QS = Quenta Silmarillion?
LR = Lost Road (not Lord of the Rings, I presume!)
Thanks for clarifying that the Quenta Steve quoted from was the Quenta
Noldorinwa. Why call is Q, and not QN?
<looking for a HoME abbreviations glossary...>
Christopher Kreuzer
And _how_ many times did Christopher Tolkien mention question-marks put
against part of a text, or bits of a text being struck through... :-)
What else did Earendel get up to on his voyages? I vaguely remember some
Odyssey/Gulliver type of adventures, or something based on those tales
from an Irish monk?? Though I think that was from BoLT.
Troels Forchhammer
>>
>> A pity that we can't tell if this survived into the QS in LR
>
> QS = Quenta Silmarillion?
> LR = Lost Road (not Lord of the Rings, I presume!)
Yes, sorry.
> Thanks for clarifying that the Quenta Steve quoted from was the
> Quenta Noldorinwa. Why call is Q, and not QN?
For my own part it is because Christopher Tolkien has chosen "Q", but
I don't know why he did that.
> <looking for a HoME abbreviations glossary...>
Good idea.
It seems that we need to update the list in the FAQ anyway:
<http://tolkien.slimy.com/tfaq/Abbreviations.html>
I wonder if it would be easier to simply refer to the HoME volumes by
their number in that series -- IIRC the /Vinyar Tengwar/ (VT?) use
that method. In that case /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ would
simply be 'V' for volume 5 of HoMe.
For the individual texts, I suggest that we use the abbreviations
that CJRT uses in the HoMe series where possible (i.e. where he has
given the text a standard abbreviation). I don't mind starting on a
list of that, though it may be take a while. I should, however, be
able to compile a list of the major sources in the current Silm
discussions fairly soon.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
A common mistake people make when trying to design
something completely foolproof is to underestimate the
ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams, /Mostly Harmless/
Tamim
> <snip>
I did'n say Ungoliant was unbeatable. What I was trying to say is that
there wasn't any light that cou´ld penetrate that darkness. Not the
light of the trees nor the Silmarils.
Troels Forchhammer
Forchhammer <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> enriched us with:
> In message <news:lLQPf.32793$wl.1...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> enriched us
> with:
>>
<snip>
>> <looking for a HoME abbreviations glossary...>
>
> Good idea.
>
> It seems that we need to update the list in the FAQ anyway:
> <http://tolkien.slimy.com/tfaq/Abbreviations.html>
[...]
> I should, however, be able to compile a list of the major sources
> in the current Silm discussions fairly soon.
And here goes, in the hope that it will make life just a tiny bit
easier for those following our discussions ;-)
Some of the main sources to the texts in the published Silmarillion.
I owe large parts of this to the 'Synopsis of the Texts' given as an
appendix at the end of HoMe X /Morgoth's Ring/.
Actual quotations of CJRT's summaries from that synopsis are given in
double-quotes.
Texts marked '(full)' are given in the volume concerned in full, or
nearly so. Texts marked '(diffs)' are only treated in the volume
concerned by commentary, usually noting differences to another
version, and occasionally including long passages where the text has
substantial differences to the version compared to.
This list is by no means complete, but can hopefully help to keep
track of most of the sources mentioned during the current CotW
discussions of the Quenta Silmarillion proper.
Anyone with knowledge about other sources to the published Akallabęth
beyond /The Fall of Númenor/ cited below are encouraged to add these
to the list below.
The list is also likely to include errors of various sorts, which I
would, of course, appreciate to have corrected.
There are a lot of texts in the HoMe series that are called simply
A, B, C etc. as for the Ainulindalë below. If we wish to have a list
of unique identifiers for the texts (the main texts at first), then
we'll need to create abbreviations for those texts as well. E.g. for
the Ainulindalë I would suggest that we turn to the English title
and use the shorthand 'MA'.
/Ainulindalë/ -- The Music of the Ainur:
I would suggest we use MA0 through MA4, including MA3* for C*, but
I have, below, used the designations used by Conrad Dunkerson in
message ID <435EC560...@worldnet.att.net>[1]
0 /The Music of the Ainur/ (draft, 0d, mentioned), (1918 - 1920)
HoMe I, /The Book of Lost Tales/ Volume 1 ch. II (full)
A /Ainulindalë/
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ part 2 ch. IV
(diffs)
B /Ainulindalë/ 'Flat World Version'
"Manuscript, dating from the 1930s"
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ part 2 ch. IV (full)
C* /Ainulindalë/, 'Round World Version'
"Author's typescript, introducing radical changes in the
cosmology, in existence by 1948"
An intermediate version, X, between B and C* mentioned and
dated to 1946
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/ part 1, (diffs)
C /Ainulindalë/, (1948 - 1951)
"Rewriting of B, using the old manuscript"
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/ part 1, (full)
D /Ainulindalë/ (1948 - 1951)
"Fine manuscript, the last version of the /Ainulindalë/,
developed from C"
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/ part 1, (diffs)
AV1 /Annals of Valinor/, earliest version, ca. 1930+
HoMe IV, /The Shaping of Middle Earth/ ch. VI (full)
AV2 /Annals of Valinor/, second version, 1931 - 1937
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ part 2 ch. II (full)
AAm /Annals of Aman/
"Manuscript dating from the 1950s"
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 2 (full)
AAm* /Annals of Aman/,
"Author's typescript of the opening of AAm, with many
departures from the manuscript"
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 2 (diffs)
AAm typescript /Annals of Aman/
"Amanuensis typescript, dating from about 1958"
Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 2 (diffs)
AB1 /Annals of Beleriand/, earliest version, ca. 1930+
(two texts are mentioned, ABI and ABII)
HoMe IV, /The Shaping of Middle Earth/ ch. VII (full)
AB2 /Annals of Beleriand/, second version, 1931 - 1937
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ part 2 ca. III
(full)
GA /The Grey Annals/ (two versions, 1 and 2)
HoMe XI, /War of the Jewels/ part 1 (full)
S /Sketch of the Mythology/ or 'earliest Silmarillion', 1926
HoMe IV, /The Shaping of Middle Earth/, ch. II (full)
Q /The Quenta/ or /Quenta Noldorinwa/, 1930
2nd version of the Silmarillion
HoMe IV, /The Shaping of Middle Earth/, ch. III (full)
QS /Quenta Silmarillion/, third version of the Silmarillion
"fine manuscript abandoned at the end of 1937"
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ (full)
QS typescript "Author's typescript; new text (entitled /Elanyárë/) of
the opening chapters, dating from December 1937 - January 1938
LQ1 /The Later Quenta Silmarillion/ First Phase, ca. 1951
First chapters: Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 I (full/diffs)
Last chapters: HoMe XI, /War of the Jewels/ part 2
LQ2 /The Later Quenta Silmarillion/ Second Phase, ca. 1958
First chapters: Home X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (full)
Last chapters: HoMe XI, /War of the Jewels/
Vq1 /Of the Valar/, after 1958
"Author's typescript developed from LQ2 Chapter 1 'Of the
Valar'"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs)
Vq2 /Valaquenta/, after 1958
"Author's typescript following Vq1, entitled /Valaquenta/"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs)
FM1 /Story of Finwë and Míriel/, late 1950s
"Manuscript rider to QS; the first text treating the story of
Finwë and Míriel"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs)
FM2 /Story of Finwë and Míriel/, late 1950s
"Author's typescript, second text of the story of Finwë and
Míriel"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs)
FM3 /Story of Finwë and Míriel/, late 1950s
"Author's typescript, superceded by FM4"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs)
FM4 /Story of Finwë and Míriel/, late 1950s
"Author's typescript, final text of the story of Finwë and
Míriel"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (full)
There are a couple of texts denoted A and B that appear to belong
together with, or even be part of, FM3 and FM4 respectively. They
might conveniently be referenced as part of the already listed
typescripts.
FN /Fall of Númenor/, no later than 1937
two versions, I and II,
HoMe V, /The Lost Road and Other Writings/ (full?)
/Laws and Customs among the Eldar/
(LC1 and LC2?)
A /Of the marriage laws and customs of the Eldar, [...]/
"Manuscript", late 1950s
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (diffs/full)
B /Of the laws and customs among the Eldar [...]/, late 1950s
"Author's typescript, unfinished"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 3 II (full)
/Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth/
(AFA1, AFA2, AFA3 and AFAc?)
A /Of Death and the Children of Eru .../, ca. 1959
"Manuscript (with author's typescript of the introductory
section)"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 4 (full)
B&C /Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth/, ca. 1959
"Amanuensis typescripts"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 4 (diff)
Commentary /Commentary, Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth/, ca. 1959
"Author's typescript of the Commentary on the /Athrabeth/,
with extensive notes"
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 4 (full)
The lost tales could be numbered simply LT1, LT2 ... for BoLT1 and
LTI, LTII ... for BoLT2 (following the different chapter-numbering
schemes in the two books).
HoMe I, /The Book of Lost Tales/ Volume 1 (1 through 10)
HoMe II, /The Book of Lost Tales/ Volume 2 (I through VI)
Similarly for the texts in /Myths Transformed/: MTI through MTXI
HoMe X, /Morgoth's Ring/, part 5 (full)
[1]
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.tolkien/msg/59408a0c82d69a19>
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are
subtle and quick to anger.
- Gildor Inglorion, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)