Sauron was greater, effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at the end of the First. Why? Because, though he was far smaller by natural stature, he had not yet fallen so low. Eventually he also squandered his power (of being) in the endeavour to gain control of others. But he was not obliged to expend so much of himself. To gain domination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth — hence all things that were born on Earth, and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits, were liable to be stained. Morgoth at the time of the War of the israeliteels had become permanently incarnate; for this reason he was afraid, and waged the war almost entirely by means of devices, or of subordinates and dominated creatures.
Sauron, however, inherited the corruption of Arda, and only spent his (much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to dominate. In this way Sauron was also wiser than Melkor-Morgoth. Sauron was not a beginner of discord; and he probably knew more of the Music than did Melkor, whose mind had always been filled with his own plans and devices, and gave little attention to other things. The time of Melkor's greatest power, therefore, was in the physical beginnings of the World; a vast demiurgic lust for power and the achievement of his own will and designs, on a great scale. And later after things had become more stable, Melkor was more interested in and capable of dealing with a volcanic eruption, for example, than with (say) a tree. It is indeed probable that he was simply unaware of the minor or more delicate productions of Yavanna, such as small flowers.1
§ 1, n. 1. If such things were forced upon his attention, he was angry and hated them, as coming from other minds than his own.
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, and his only notion of dealing with them was by physical force, or the fear of it. His sole ultimate object was their destruction. Elves, and still more Men, he despised because of their weakness: that is their lack of physical force, or power over matter; but he was also afraid of them. He was aware, at any rate originally when still capable of rational thought, that he could not annihilate2 them: that is, destroy their being; but their physical life, and incarnate form became increasingly to his mind the only thing that was worth considering.3 Or he became so far advanced in Lying that he lied even to himself, and pretended that he could destroy them and rid Arda of them altogether. Hence his endeavour always to break wills and subordinate them to or absorb them in his own will and being, before destroying their bodies. 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, when they had served his sole purpose in using them: the destruction of Elves and Men. Melkor's final impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas the Valar (and in their degree Elves and Men) could still love Arda Marred, that is Arda with a Melkor-ingredient, and could still heal this or that hurt, or produce from its very marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and lovely, Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others: even left alone he could only have gone raging on till all was levelled again into a formless chaos. And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have existed, independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
§ 1, n. 2. Melkor could not, of course, annihilate anything of matter, he could only ruin or destroy or corrupt the forms given to matter by other minds in their subcreative activities.
§ 1, n. 3. For this reason he himself came to fear death — the destruction of his assumed bodily form — above everything, and sought to avoid any kind of injury to his own form.
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. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.) Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be likely to think and do, even without the aid of the palantíri or of spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his plans, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.4
§ 1, n. 4. But his capability of corrupting other minds, and even engaging their service, was a residue from the fact that his original desire for order had really envisaged the good estate (especially physical well-being) of his subjects.
Morgoth had no plan; unless destruction and reduction to nil of a world in which he had only a share can be called a plan. But this is, of course, a simplification of the situation. Sauron had not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without becoming infected by his lust for destruction, and his hatred of God (which must end in nihilism). Sauron could not, of course, be a sincere atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure. He probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned Eä, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it any more. It would appear that he interpreted the change of the world at the Downfall of Númenor, when Aman was removed from the physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were removed from effective control, and Men under God's curse and wrath. If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power again and colonize Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwë as precisely the same as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast — cleverer, because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people rather than of animals.
Sauron was not a sincere atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God's action in Arda). As was seen in the case of Ar-Pharazôn. But there was seen the effect of Melkor upon Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor's own terms, as a god, or even as God. This may have been the residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron at least to admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself. Melkor, and still more Sauron himself afterwards, both profited by this darkened shadow of good and the services of worshippers. But it may be doubted whether even such a shadow of good was still sincerely operative in Sauron by that time. His cunning motive is probably best expressed thus. To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest. But though Sauron's whole true motive was the destruction of the Númenóreans, this was a particular matter of revenge upon Ar-Pharazôn, for humiliation. Sauron (unlike Morgoth) would have been content for the Númenóreans to exist, as his own subjects, and indeed he used a great many of them that he corrupted to his allegiance.
Being permanently crippled by an Elf is what turned his traumatophobia up to 11. He refused to fight at all in the War of Wrath right up to being chained up and beheaded.
5 months ago
Anonymous
He wasn't beheaded, he had his feet hewn off, then was chained and expelled from Arda and the universe into the void for eternity
5 months ago
Anonymous
In one of his earlier writings Tolkien said that Mandos chopped Morgoth's head off as well as his feet.
5 months ago
Anonymous
It would be kind of funny if Melkor's footless, headless body got tossed into the Realm Beyond, but his head got put on a pedestal in Manwe's throne room, where it constantly shittalks everyone who comes to visit. Manwe tells those who complain that he keeps Melkor's head around as a reminder of the danger of ambition, but he really keeps it became Melkor was the only one that could ever get him to smile.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Sounds a bit macabre for Manwe. He's goodhearted to the point of naivety.
Absolutely nothing. It's outside everything, the universe, the world and heaven. It's just emptiness.
Yes but presumably that's where the Cthulus and Ungoliant and whatnot previously dwelled as part of primordial chaos like the biblical leviathan.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Manwe struck me as being the penultimate Good Boy, but he's the one Eru paired with Melkor, so I can't help but imagine that he's got the sort of sense of humor only someone like Melkor might have played to, and even after the betrayal and all that Manwe misses being able to laugh when his shitlord brother tricks Tulkas for the 500 millionth time with the "your shoes are untied, discount Conan" gimmick.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Manwe is the only one of the Valar who didn't join with Melkor's discord and stuck to singing what he was supposed to. Also his partner is Varda, he was Melkor's chief rival but they weren't really a pair. I don't recall Melkor tricking Tulkas in any particular way either, he tricked all of the Valar by feigning remorse. Mandos seemed to know what to expect but Manwe still believed in Melkor's capacity for redemption.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Tolkien describes Melkor and Manwe as brothers, something attributed to none of the other Valar.
5 months ago
Anonymous
NTA
I picture DreamWorks Prince of Egypt, Pharaoh & Moses,
5 months ago
Anonymous
Nothing. It's the void. But there are Cthulu monsters there I guess. They wound up on Arda before Orome hunted them all underground.
Absolutely nothing. It's outside everything, the universe, the world and heaven. It's just emptiness.
>Yes but presumably that's where the Cthulus and Ungoliant and whatnot previously dwelled as part of primordial chaos like the biblical leviathan.
It's just my headcanon, but if you go off of Catholic theology, Ungoliant can't be uncreated, since an uncreated being would be impossible as only Eru is supreme; it would be more logical that she was some sort of cosmic mutant created by Melkor's interference in the chorus of creation
Would add a certain irony to her intimidating melkor too
5 months ago
Anonymous
What about being the manifested platonic concept of things as Eru was creating them for the first time?
5 months ago
Anonymous
I think some things he just intended as a mystery (to us, not to eru). She is one of them
5 months ago
Anonymous
I know that but there's precedent biblically for "uncreated beings" in the leviathan. If you think of them as being personifications of emptiness or primeval chaos they're not really entities with souls either.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>there's precedent biblically for "uncreated beings"
there isn't. to be uncreated is reserved for God alone >Leviathan. That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God. He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent from his wiles, and the whale of the sea, from they tyranny he exercises in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of Christ, when his power was destroyed. (Challoner) --- It may also literally refer to Nabuchodonosor, and the king of Egypt, or rather to Cambyses, or Holofernes, but particularly Cambyses. (Calmet)
What about being the manifested platonic concept of things as Eru was creating them for the first time?
you mean as the "form" of a spider? cause I don't think that's compatible
I think some things he just intended as a mystery (to us, not to eru). She is one of them
Could be possible
5 months ago
Anonymous
The spider form was just the shape she took while in Arda, I don't think it's suggesting that was her "true" form as a dark spirit from the unknown.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I see what you meant now, yes that seems reasonable, but still leaves open the question of her origin
*grimaces in stolen Zoroastrianism
>oy VEY you STOLE that from someone else
totally dude
and Newton "stole" from Kepler, who got everything right the first time before Newton changed it all in secret in order to prevent YOU (specifically) from knowing the earth is flat and there are lizard people beyond the ice wall
totally Never understood people saying Catholicism "stole" anything when it all amounts to Plato/Aristotle saying something like, "2+2 is probably 4" and Augustine/Aquinas saying "Yes" but then actually being able to explain why
5 months ago
Anonymous
In the case he’s talking about, he means christianity’s mythology being influenced by another religion. You can certainly argue this happened, but Zoroastrianism isn’t a great example because the similarities come from later texts after the hellenic periods. As for philosophy, yeah that’s always been a moronic argument. Philosophy has always been a tradition that builds on prior work, you wouldn’t accuse plato of “stealing” parmenides thought, he just elaborated on it. Augustine and aquinas are very open and aware about their debt to the greeks.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I see what you meant now, yes that seems reasonable, but still leaves open the question of her origin
[...] >oy VEY you STOLE that from someone else
totally dude
and Newton "stole" from Kepler, who got everything right the first time before Newton changed it all in secret in order to prevent YOU (specifically) from knowing the earth is flat and there are lizard people beyond the ice wall
totally Never understood people saying Catholicism "stole" anything when it all amounts to Plato/Aristotle saying something like, "2+2 is probably 4" and Augustine/Aquinas saying "Yes" but then actually being able to explain why
The more theology you read the more the same themes & messages get retold, & reinforced. Like the sky (hawk/lightning) fighting the underworld (serpent/darkness)
5 months ago
Anonymous
The Sky used to be closer to the Earth, tha we know.
5 months ago
Anonymous
*grimaces in stolen Zoroastrianism
5 months ago
Anonymous
*parts of it that had nothing to do with zoroaster or the avesta and were written long after judaism made contact with persia
5 months ago
Anonymous
I read the other day that alexander the great had the avesta burned anyway, a lot of it is a reconstruction from the parts that the greeks had copied. But yes a lot of zoroastrianism comes from later periods, the avesta is only part of the religion.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>expelled from Arda and the universe into the void for eternity
Also in one of his earlier writings Tolkien said that per Mandos Morgoth will return for Dagor Dagorath when he'll be killed and sent to the void for good.
5 months ago
Anonymous
what goes on in the void
5 months ago
Anonymous
Nothing. It's the void. But there are Cthulu monsters there I guess. They wound up on Arda before Orome hunted them all underground.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Absolutely nothing. It's outside everything, the universe, the world and heaven. It's just emptiness.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Mandos hits the crack pipe too hard. All that has to happen for that to fall apart is someone merking that homosexual Turin.
>But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his plans, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.
This is the sad part about Sauron and also the most relevant to how the good guys live and act towards life (Sam in particular being his absolute antithesis), Sauron obsesses with order but he loses sight of the purpose of it; order is a good thing in how it helps the living, but he loses that connection and starts viewing order as a goal in of itself, and sets himself down the path. He can't understand Gandalf because Gandalf is all about other people and places, making connections and friendships, Sauron at that stage can only view people in an abstract detached way like a commodity or product, he can't even imagine interacting with others in such a way.
You don't need to know the whole backstory on Sauron in LotR, it's not relevant to the plot. They tell you everything you need to know in the intro of the first movie.
There's a long, long backstory to Sauron. But it won't change what he is in the present day of LOTR, a dark lord looming over the land that must be stopped.
>guy who literally corrupts your body into a degenerative species and enslaves you is le good because its just alternative lifestyle and men of the west just be racist n shit
He treated them better
Orcs were just puppets on strings to Melkor
Sauron created the uruks and Olga HI
He made trolls sentient and and both orcs and trolls able to walk in the sun
Sauron was a petty manipulative dick who did awful stuff like manipulating the Numenorians to commit human sacrifice and attack god out of the spite, giving 9 kings monkey paw immortality or throwing people to Shelob when he was bored but he was just Stalin kind of evil and valued the minds of others as long as they were obedient
>ISILDUR! You have to destroy it IMMEDIATELY! If you don't, then all is lost! Sauron, the guy you just defeated, will return and destroy all of Middle Earth! ISildur! I'm telling you, just three thousand years from now he will be back! We have to hurry!
>dwarf b***hes at Elrond for ghosting him for 25 years
That was one bit of Rings of Power I actually really liked, Elrond getting reprimanded for not contacting Durin in decades (dwarves are long lived but they're not THAT long lived) and he goes "Has it really only been twenty years?". I guess of course an elf would not see another elf they consider a good friend for like sixty or seventy years and then they bump into them and catch up like it's been a few months.
Do you think Sauron had sexual desire? Other Maiar are shown being romantically interested in each other or mortals and he did have a deep interest in how others thought. The thing between him and Shelob was weird
>morgoth gets bested by a spider having to cry for his balrogs to save his sorry ass like a sissyhomosexual >sauron gets bested by a fricking dog
Why were these 2 feared again?
It's an unknown spider demon from beyond the edge of the universe freshly gorged on the trees of the Valar and the Wells of Varda, and the greatest hound to ever live. It's reasonable to have your moments when you could use a hand.
>Bad guy is bad because...HE JUST IS, OKAY?!
http://fair-use.org/j-r-r-tolkien/notes-on-motives-in-the-silmarillion/
Sauron was greater, effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at the end of the First. Why? Because, though he was far smaller by natural stature, he had not yet fallen so low. Eventually he also squandered his power (of being) in the endeavour to gain control of others. But he was not obliged to expend so much of himself. To gain domination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth — hence all things that were born on Earth, and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits, were liable to be stained. Morgoth at the time of the War of the israeliteels had become permanently incarnate; for this reason he was afraid, and waged the war almost entirely by means of devices, or of subordinates and dominated creatures.
Sauron, however, inherited the corruption of Arda, and only spent his (much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to dominate. In this way Sauron was also wiser than Melkor-Morgoth. Sauron was not a beginner of discord; and he probably knew more of the Music than did Melkor, whose mind had always been filled with his own plans and devices, and gave little attention to other things. The time of Melkor's greatest power, therefore, was in the physical beginnings of the World; a vast demiurgic lust for power and the achievement of his own will and designs, on a great scale. And later after things had become more stable, Melkor was more interested in and capable of dealing with a volcanic eruption, for example, than with (say) a tree. It is indeed probable that he was simply unaware of the minor or more delicate productions of Yavanna, such as small flowers.1
§ 1, n. 1. If such things were forced upon his attention, he was angry and hated them, as coming from other minds than his own.
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, and his only notion of dealing with them was by physical force, or the fear of it. His sole ultimate object was their destruction. Elves, and still more Men, he despised because of their weakness: that is their lack of physical force, or power over matter; but he was also afraid of them. He was aware, at any rate originally when still capable of rational thought, that he could not annihilate2 them: that is, destroy their being; but their physical life, and incarnate form became increasingly to his mind the only thing that was worth considering.3 Or he became so far advanced in Lying that he lied even to himself, and pretended that he could destroy them and rid Arda of them altogether. Hence his endeavour always to break wills and subordinate them to or absorb them in his own will and being, before destroying their bodies. 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, when they had served his sole purpose in using them: the destruction of Elves and Men. Melkor's final impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas the Valar (and in their degree Elves and Men) could still love Arda Marred, that is Arda with a Melkor-ingredient, and could still heal this or that hurt, or produce from its very marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and lovely, Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others: even left alone he could only have gone raging on till all was levelled again into a formless chaos. And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have existed, independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
§ 1, n. 2. Melkor could not, of course, annihilate anything of matter, he could only ruin or destroy or corrupt the forms given to matter by other minds in their subcreative activities.
§ 1, n. 3. For this reason he himself came to fear death — the destruction of his assumed bodily form — above everything, and sought to avoid any kind of injury to his own form.
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. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.) Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be likely to think and do, even without the aid of the palantíri or of spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his plans, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.4
§ 1, n. 4. But his capability of corrupting other minds, and even engaging their service, was a residue from the fact that his original desire for order had really envisaged the good estate (especially physical well-being) of his subjects.
Morgoth had no plan; unless destruction and reduction to nil of a world in which he had only a share can be called a plan. But this is, of course, a simplification of the situation. Sauron had not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without becoming infected by his lust for destruction, and his hatred of God (which must end in nihilism). Sauron could not, of course, be a sincere atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure. He probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned Eä, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it any more. It would appear that he interpreted the change of the world at the Downfall of Númenor, when Aman was removed from the physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were removed from effective control, and Men under God's curse and wrath. If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power again and colonize Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwë as precisely the same as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast — cleverer, because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people rather than of animals.
Sauron was not a sincere atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God's action in Arda). As was seen in the case of Ar-Pharazôn. But there was seen the effect of Melkor upon Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor's own terms, as a god, or even as God. This may have been the residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron at least to admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself. Melkor, and still more Sauron himself afterwards, both profited by this darkened shadow of good and the services of worshippers. But it may be doubted whether even such a shadow of good was still sincerely operative in Sauron by that time. His cunning motive is probably best expressed thus. To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest. But though Sauron's whole true motive was the destruction of the Númenóreans, this was a particular matter of revenge upon Ar-Pharazôn, for humiliation. Sauron (unlike Morgoth) would have been content for the Númenóreans to exist, as his own subjects, and indeed he used a great many of them that he corrupted to his allegiance.
>sauron shilled atheism because it weakened people
Based tolkien
>above everything, and sought to avoid any kind of injury to his own form.
Meanwhile AAAAAH MY FOOT, YOU LITTLE BASTARD FINGOLFIN
Being permanently crippled by an Elf is what turned his traumatophobia up to 11. He refused to fight at all in the War of Wrath right up to being chained up and beheaded.
He wasn't beheaded, he had his feet hewn off, then was chained and expelled from Arda and the universe into the void for eternity
In one of his earlier writings Tolkien said that Mandos chopped Morgoth's head off as well as his feet.
It would be kind of funny if Melkor's footless, headless body got tossed into the Realm Beyond, but his head got put on a pedestal in Manwe's throne room, where it constantly shittalks everyone who comes to visit. Manwe tells those who complain that he keeps Melkor's head around as a reminder of the danger of ambition, but he really keeps it became Melkor was the only one that could ever get him to smile.
Sounds a bit macabre for Manwe. He's goodhearted to the point of naivety.
Yes but presumably that's where the Cthulus and Ungoliant and whatnot previously dwelled as part of primordial chaos like the biblical leviathan.
Manwe struck me as being the penultimate Good Boy, but he's the one Eru paired with Melkor, so I can't help but imagine that he's got the sort of sense of humor only someone like Melkor might have played to, and even after the betrayal and all that Manwe misses being able to laugh when his shitlord brother tricks Tulkas for the 500 millionth time with the "your shoes are untied, discount Conan" gimmick.
Manwe is the only one of the Valar who didn't join with Melkor's discord and stuck to singing what he was supposed to. Also his partner is Varda, he was Melkor's chief rival but they weren't really a pair. I don't recall Melkor tricking Tulkas in any particular way either, he tricked all of the Valar by feigning remorse. Mandos seemed to know what to expect but Manwe still believed in Melkor's capacity for redemption.
Tolkien describes Melkor and Manwe as brothers, something attributed to none of the other Valar.
NTA
I picture DreamWorks Prince of Egypt, Pharaoh & Moses,
>Yes but presumably that's where the Cthulus and Ungoliant and whatnot previously dwelled as part of primordial chaos like the biblical leviathan.
It's just my headcanon, but if you go off of Catholic theology, Ungoliant can't be uncreated, since an uncreated being would be impossible as only Eru is supreme; it would be more logical that she was some sort of cosmic mutant created by Melkor's interference in the chorus of creation
Would add a certain irony to her intimidating melkor too
What about being the manifested platonic concept of things as Eru was creating them for the first time?
I think some things he just intended as a mystery (to us, not to eru). She is one of them
I know that but there's precedent biblically for "uncreated beings" in the leviathan. If you think of them as being personifications of emptiness or primeval chaos they're not really entities with souls either.
>there's precedent biblically for "uncreated beings"
there isn't. to be uncreated is reserved for God alone
>Leviathan. That is, the devil, the great enemy of the people of God. He is called the bar serpent from his strength, and the crooked serpent from his wiles, and the whale of the sea, from they tyranny he exercises in the sea of this world. He was spiritually slain by the death of Christ, when his power was destroyed. (Challoner) --- It may also literally refer to Nabuchodonosor, and the king of Egypt, or rather to Cambyses, or Holofernes, but particularly Cambyses. (Calmet)
you mean as the "form" of a spider? cause I don't think that's compatible
Could be possible
The spider form was just the shape she took while in Arda, I don't think it's suggesting that was her "true" form as a dark spirit from the unknown.
I see what you meant now, yes that seems reasonable, but still leaves open the question of her origin
>oy VEY you STOLE that from someone else
totally dude
and Newton "stole" from Kepler, who got everything right the first time before Newton changed it all in secret in order to prevent YOU (specifically) from knowing the earth is flat and there are lizard people beyond the ice wall
totally
Never understood people saying Catholicism "stole" anything when it all amounts to Plato/Aristotle saying something like, "2+2 is probably 4" and Augustine/Aquinas saying "Yes" but then actually being able to explain why
In the case he’s talking about, he means christianity’s mythology being influenced by another religion. You can certainly argue this happened, but Zoroastrianism isn’t a great example because the similarities come from later texts after the hellenic periods. As for philosophy, yeah that’s always been a moronic argument. Philosophy has always been a tradition that builds on prior work, you wouldn’t accuse plato of “stealing” parmenides thought, he just elaborated on it. Augustine and aquinas are very open and aware about their debt to the greeks.
The more theology you read the more the same themes & messages get retold, & reinforced. Like the sky (hawk/lightning) fighting the underworld (serpent/darkness)
The Sky used to be closer to the Earth, tha we know.
*grimaces in stolen Zoroastrianism
*parts of it that had nothing to do with zoroaster or the avesta and were written long after judaism made contact with persia
I read the other day that alexander the great had the avesta burned anyway, a lot of it is a reconstruction from the parts that the greeks had copied. But yes a lot of zoroastrianism comes from later periods, the avesta is only part of the religion.
>expelled from Arda and the universe into the void for eternity
Also in one of his earlier writings Tolkien said that per Mandos Morgoth will return for Dagor Dagorath when he'll be killed and sent to the void for good.
what goes on in the void
Nothing. It's the void. But there are Cthulu monsters there I guess. They wound up on Arda before Orome hunted them all underground.
Absolutely nothing. It's outside everything, the universe, the world and heaven. It's just emptiness.
Mandos hits the crack pipe too hard. All that has to happen for that to fall apart is someone merking that homosexual Turin.
>But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his plans, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.
This is the sad part about Sauron and also the most relevant to how the good guys live and act towards life (Sam in particular being his absolute antithesis), Sauron obsesses with order but he loses sight of the purpose of it; order is a good thing in how it helps the living, but he loses that connection and starts viewing order as a goal in of itself, and sets himself down the path. He can't understand Gandalf because Gandalf is all about other people and places, making connections and friendships, Sauron at that stage can only view people in an abstract detached way like a commodity or product, he can't even imagine interacting with others in such a way.
You don't need to know the whole backstory on Sauron in LotR, it's not relevant to the plot. They tell you everything you need to know in the intro of the first movie.
There's a long, long backstory to Sauron. But it won't change what he is in the present day of LOTR, a dark lord looming over the land that must be stopped.
that sort of thinking is based though
Non! You must be introspective and full of self doubt. Open the borders and apologize!
Being introspective is good though, it's about what you do with the insights that come from introspection
A broad mind lacks focus
Christcuck IQ, everyone.
Dunno pretty sure tolkien was quite intelligent
Except for his inbuilt Catholic blinders.
I'm smarter than him tho.
he is a metaphor for global israeliteary
>Satan is bad because... HE JUST IS, OKAY?
Yes.
>guy who literally corrupts your body into a degenerative species and enslaves you is le good because its just alternative lifestyle and men of the west just be racist n shit
Hey Sauron didn't make the Orcs, he just took command of them after Morgoth was defeated and treated them just as terribly as his boss had.
He treated them better
Orcs were just puppets on strings to Melkor
Sauron created the uruks and Olga HI
He made trolls sentient and and both orcs and trolls able to walk in the sun
Sauron was a petty manipulative dick who did awful stuff like manipulating the Numenorians to commit human sacrifice and attack god out of the spite, giving 9 kings monkey paw immortality or throwing people to Shelob when he was bored but he was just Stalin kind of evil and valued the minds of others as long as they were obedient
Why didn’t Elrond just run in front of Isildur and shut the door?
>cast it into the fire
>destroy it!
>ISILDOOOOOOOOOOR
Why didn’t he just push him in and say he slipped? He’s leaving Middle Earth anyways
Yeah, in like 3000 years.
>ISILDUR! You have to destroy it IMMEDIATELY! If you don't, then all is lost! Sauron, the guy you just defeated, will return and destroy all of Middle Earth! ISildur! I'm telling you, just three thousand years from now he will be back! We have to hurry!
Elrond is immortal, 3000 years is like a couple of years, five tops, in his mind.
>dwarf b***hes at Elrond for ghosting him for 25 years
That was one bit of Rings of Power I actually really liked, Elrond getting reprimanded for not contacting Durin in decades (dwarves are long lived but they're not THAT long lived) and he goes "Has it really only been twenty years?". I guess of course an elf would not see another elf they consider a good friend for like sixty or seventy years and then they bump into them and catch up like it's been a few months.
Isildur would snap Elrond's b***h ass in half and throw one part in the volcano and keep the other as an heirloom.
A brave and powerful example of israeli representation in media.
I still prefer T. Bombadill
tl;dr Melkor is a toddler throwing a cosmic level tantrum, Sauron is an autist with too much time on his hands
I want a a cool armor like that.
And a mace to beat people with.
>It appears we're eating meat tonight, boys
Would have been a much better line
Do you think Sauron had sexual desire? Other Maiar are shown being romantically interested in each other or mortals and he did have a deep interest in how others thought. The thing between him and Shelob was weird
>morgoth gets bested by a spider having to cry for his balrogs to save his sorry ass like a sissyhomosexual
>sauron gets bested by a fricking dog
Why were these 2 feared again?
It's an unknown spider demon from beyond the edge of the universe freshly gorged on the trees of the Valar and the Wells of Varda, and the greatest hound to ever live. It's reasonable to have your moments when you could use a hand.
>your TROPHY system holds no power here... Merkava 3