Month: April 2018

Interesting questions! 

My thought is ‘no’ to the first one and ‘yes’ to the second, and here’s why:

1) To the best of my knowledge, the only instance we have of one of the Ainur transforming into a non-living entity is Melkor, when he’s hiding from Tulkas in Valinor, “passing from place to place as a cloud in the hills”, as well as later when he’s fleeing from Valinor, where he’s described as becoming a cloud of Darkness. It’s unclear in these passages whether Tolkien means he became a literal cloud, or if this was a metaphorical way of saying he had disembodied from his physical shape and was running around unseen. We know the Ainur can run around unclad and invisible when they want to, and there are many passages which suggest they can appear to mortals as various mists, ghosts, vapors, wind, clouds, etc. (ex. when Saruman is killed at the end of LotR, and frequent descriptions of third-age Sauron appearing as a sort of nebulous dark cloud). 

All the other instances I can think of where one of the Ainur willingly transforms into another shape, it is into a living creature of some kind. (IF I’M MISSING SOMETHING, FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME, I’m really curious if there IS an instance of this!)  

The best Maiar shapeshifting examples we have in text come from Thû/Sauron when he’s doing his little Tam-Lin stint with Huan, where he conspicuously does NOT turn into a red-hot bar of iron, which I think would have aided him tremendously in that situation. This seems to point back to the idea that Maiar shape-shifting is facilitated by some sort of guise, such as the “wolf-hame” or the skins of other creatures, and furthermore something that is limited by circumstance and the relative power of the Maia (which I’ve talked about at length on this blog before because I’m a fucking Metaphysical Mechanics nerd); it’s not necessarily an easy or limitless ability they have to change shape. 

So, either because of restrictions on their abilities or maybe just from lack of creativity, I don’t think Ainur can change into non-living shapes, or at least, none of them have been recorded doing it. 

2) HOWEVER: can a Maia be forged into a weapon? In so much as a piece of a Maia’s spirit can be bonded with an inanimate object, yes! We KNOW they can do that much, because of the One Ring; heck, Eöl bonded a piece of his soul to Anglachel and Anguirel, so presumably even elves can do this.  

Whether or not someone else could do this TO a Maia is uncertain– in fact, I’m going to go ahead and say they can’t, due to Tolkien’s established laws of free will and the spirit. Even Melkor isn’t capable of entirely wresting a person’s mind or will from them unless they “give” him access to their mind in some way (which is why all of Morgoth & Co are so heavily invested in the material world; because the material world lets you have they physical power over people that you need to persuade them to give you the keys to their mind and spirit.) Same with Glaurung; he needs at least your name to have power over you. 

I doubt a Maia, or anything else with a spirit, could be bound to an object permanently unless they did it themselves, or allowed it to be done.

–Now, there’s an interesting and incredibly unsettling THIRD option that you could make a case for, which is that a spirit might be cursed to inhabit an object– if the souls of the Men of the White Mountains who broke their oath to Isildur can be cursed to stay in the world, bound to the Stone of Erech whereupon they swore their oath, then….. who knows? Maybe an oathbreaking Maia might forfeit their shape and power over their spirit and be forced to inhabit an object until the terms of their oath are met? That might make an interesting addition to a story. 😉 Let me know if it happens!

Hope that helps!

~Wes