The White Council

Re: Battle of the Gods

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : The early battles between Melkor and the Valar is described not : : : as direct confrontation but as the Valar raising up and : : : building things and Melkor destroying them. Their fighting was : : : not with eachother per se but by proxy in the building and : : : destruction of Arda. Tulkas' arrival appeared to shift the : : : balance of power, however and forced Melkor out of Arda for a : : : while.

: : I think it would be difficult to inflict harm on a being who could -- at will -- incarnate or disincarnate himself. So attacking the works of the Valar rather than the Valar themselves would be the next best thing, and in the end may have caused the Valar to grow weary. Tulkas was fresh and strong, but he also laughed in Melkor's face. Perhaps there was a clash of wills or something where Tulkas was able to prevent Melkor from continuing his nihlistic rampage.

: But couldn't the Valar get tired of incarnating themselves all the time, what if they focused all their energy on creating the physically strongest possible incarnate. If you want to destroy that incarnate you need more mental energy. Then there also have to be different types of energy if Tulkas is able to defeat Morgoth, or maybe the other Valar had to use their energy on other things too, Tulkas had no other cares so he focused entirely on fighting and became the strongest.

: Maglor

To me it sounds like Tolkien was very keen on the power fading theme, but when it came to the Valar, they never grew weary of this such thing. They chose their form, and loved it too much to leave it. Morgoth was unable to do much in this area after spending himself on all of his perversions, and in a way, he slowly lost his power by his need for power. When Sauron lost his fair form after the fall of Numenor, he was too weak to create something of such fairness again. My understanding (and probably Tolkien's) is that good (and good being in fair form) has no oppositional force, evil is simply the lack of good; So a small and fair form was a much greater state of being than a huge and hideous form. Just my thoughts ( in random order :) ).

Maedhros