Sadly, my Cousin rarely consults me and his actions are beyond my control.
I could send some hot volcanic winds your way to try and dry things out?
Have you tried human sacrifice to appease the tides? I hear that works sometimes.
The spider is a much maligned and elegant creature very beautiful and not at all deserving of scorn I like them very much I bear them no grudge whatsoever and I am of course not afraid of them in the slightest I welcome them to share this great empire with us and feast upon our mutual enemies and other pests
i just don’t want to date any of them
anymore
This is described better in the HoME volumes than it is in the Silmarillion.
Essentially, the reason Melkor loses his ability to change forms is because he invests so much of himself in earthly matter.
The Ainur are creatures of pure spirit whose visible forms are just extensions of their thought, which they can change at will. The more they engage with earthly matters, and the more of their power they put into the world, the more they are bound to it and are subject to its laws. (If I remember correctly, Tolkien includes eating, drinking, loving, having children, etc., as some of the other ways an Ainu can become more earthbound, besides directly infusing their power into things like Orcs).
This is why one of the volumes is titled “Morgoth’s Ring”, coming from the quote where Tolkien explains that, like Sauron who invests his power into the One Ring in order to gain power of the world, Melkor invested himself in Arda, making Arda his “Ring”. This is why he becomes so fragile and hides away for most of the Silmarillion; most of his power is invested in Arda, “marring it” as they call it, and therefore what is left of him is severely weakened and subject to the laws of matter– i.e., he can be hurt, captured, Sung to sleep by elf witches, etc.
According to Tolkien, Melkor put some of himself in ALL the matter of Arda. He talks about how the material world is suffused with a “Melkor-ingredient” (which is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever read with my eyes, but w/e) making it inherently corruptible, subject to entropy, and the ravages of time. By contrast, matters of the spirit remain incorruptible at their core, unable to be altered except from within. But spirits are generally attached to a flesh body, and the body can be manipulated with fear and lust and temptations, etc, so having power over the material world helps one gain power over people’s spirits by extension.
This is why both Melkor and Sauron put vast quantities of their innate power into objects and creatures, giving them immense power over the world even while it limits their mutability and makes them vulnerable.
Hope that helps! 🙂
My enemies are many things, but they are seldom stupid.
I don’t wish to bang my own drum. Look to history, and decide for yourself if the caliber of men I’ve deceived makes me worthy of the title.
No.
Not quite sure what you mean by that last point, but in my mind the other stars that appear in the sky after the world is “globed” are indeed other suns and planetary systems, just as they are in our own world. Whenever you hear the muses talking about “more stars than in Varda’s heaven”, they’re talking about worlds outside that the Valar had no part in making. They represent the gradual movement of Arda from being a divinely authored world to a natural one without custodians– the kind Melkor insists* Arda should have been, free of divine influence.
They also kind of abstractly represent my theory that Arda was both a seed and an experiment, to see how sentient life behaves with and without intervention, and the first introduction of matter into the Void. Melkor, in the greater scheme of things, is a reactive agent, added intentionally to make the yeast rise, as it were. He doesn’t get a choice in the matter, and he knows this, and resents it, because being the agent of change and entropy makes you very unpopular, even when you’re right about stuff. He will always be part of the Theme, even when he rebels against it, because rebelling against the Theme is part of the Theme, and boy does he just hate that.
The eventual Remaking of Arda and the Second Theme will be the version of creation that combines all the lessons learned and matter repurposed from the first version, fully bringing Arda into the universe we recognize as our own. ……And it’s also a great playground for Human!AU Ainur and redemption arcs, where all the Valar and Maiar are given a chance to learn from their various mistakes and gradually atone as part of humanity– which hot diggity, I am all about.
*(This is all Wesley!verse stuff– my Melkor is firmly an anti-theist and anarchist, rather than an atheist nihilist, as Tolkien describes him. I personally don’t think that canon makes sense, as Melkor is one of the privileged beings who has seen and met god, and therefore KNOWS there is one. He just doesn’t LIKE him, and claims his influence is no longer present on the earth. I’ve always seen Melkor as an agent of chaos rather than one of domination, however much the Silmarillion claims he wants to rule Arda. I certainly think he wants to be free to do whatever he wants on Arda without interference from higher powers or armies of elves, but his actions in the First Age aren’t organized the way Sauron’s are in the Third.
Sauron, I believe, started out trying to achieve Melkor’s ideals of a free Arda in his absence, but being who he is, he gradually slips more and more into authoritarianism and control. In my verse he even admits that Melkor would find it distasteful and ironic that he was being worshiped as the Giver of Freedom, when in reality what he espoused was more of a do as thou wilt style satanism. He’s not exactly benevolent or insightful enough to be a humanist… he’s not human and he doesn’t think very much about humans, but he’s definitely secular, and a whole religion based around him would make him pretty indignant. Unless he got foot rubs and sacrificial offerings out of it. XD)
Of course. All things fade, even the Valar.
But these are a near perfect system; the light they emit is replenished by even minute sources, and it stays trapped within many magnitudes of refraction, depleting with exquisite slowness and revealing light from a time now eons past… And it is more than light, but also the Song from which it originated that is trapped as if in amber, preserved from elder times.
They are a salve for decline itself.
Even as the sun meets its eventual suffocating death at the hands of the Void, even as Arda crumbles– if the Silmarils are left untampered with, they will be the last living light in the universe.
That is their miracle, and why they are sought so desperately all– including my kin, who, having lost their own art of making Light, feel they are necessary for the rebirth of the world.
It is why I need them.
YOU SHOULD TOTALLY TALK TO @napoldeinlove ABOUT SPACE ELVES
TALK ABOUT THE SPACE ELVES, MAGS
I’m still amazed that my wesleyverse Namo headcanons are drawing attention from ppl!!! :’D I never thought my old headcanons would make that much impact? Y’all have long memories!
At this point in my verse development, I would take those early Namo headcanons with a grain of salt, or at least, consider them to be from Melkor’s perspective, and he is an unreliable narrator.
My headcanons about Namo were always sort of a reflection of my own (and Melkor’s) fears about death and entropy; I think Namo seems to Melkor like a personification of the Void, of nothingness, and unspeakably horrifying, while to others he may appear as something more comforting.
Elves don’t die, and just like Legolas says he can look up on the souls of dead men without fear, they can probably look at Namo and see a simple caretaker of spirits, or at worst, a warden keeping them from re-embodiment.
Namo held Melkor prisoner for four ages in Mandos, which was Melkor’s first taste of captivity and powerlessness– an experience which scarred him forever after, so that also had an effect on his perception. Melkor’s sanity suffers a great deal in isolation and confinement, and for ages he had only one visitor, one person he could focus on to blame for all his torments (besides Manwë).
To the other Valar, I think Namo appears very serene and stoic, less inclined towards outward emotions than some of his kin, but otherwise “normal”, as Ainur go. All the Valar are all “siblings”, but the Fëanturi are bound more closely due to their nature; they are all aspects of human thought and life, rather than of the natural world. I think these three especially have more whimsical and abstract designs than the other Valar, when they take shape at all.
A lot of what makes Namo creepy is that he represents a function of the universe that the Valar do not fully understand– only Eru knows what becomes of souls after death, and Namo is only a gatekeeper. I think Melkor is perhaps more aware of this than his fellows, and never forgets that death itself remains a great unknown in their limited omniscience.
But Namo isn’t death itself; so Melkor’s distorted vision of him is mainly caused by fear, and his old brooding hatred of captivity– that is my current take on the headcanon anyway. 🙂
They used to glow more.
The Silmarils are unique because they are at once a lantern and a mirror; they receive and they give. But there is very little down here for them to reflect. They love the starlight and moonlight, and I cannot give them those without going outside, where I am not safe.
That is why my throne is surrounded by polished stone and mirrors, to amplify what they give me, and so I can see myself in their light.
Pfah!
I am not responsible for the impractical fashion choices of my cinematic counterpart!
….Now look what you’ve done. Begging hatchlings everywhere.
Well, presumably statues are more glorious, being art, which is nature personified; but the authentic article is far more satisfying. At least, in my experience.
Truly, it is not worth the ink.
It is rather boxy, firm, and has never given me reason to complain– I think that is all that can be said of it. *cough* I’m happy to say there are other assets I take more pride in.
“Do not misunderstand me. I have said this before and I shall say it again: I had every intention of capturing Thingol’s daughter for the purpose of ransoming her against the opening of Doriath. I would even have slain her if it came to that.
The reason I did not subdue Luthien was because she vanished from my sight, not because I hesitated for her beauty– and after that, I assure you, she was the last thing on my mind.
I fought, I lost, and she spared no whispers for me except to demand my surrender, her hound’s jaws locked around my throat. I was not thinking of her beauty then either.
Had Huan not been there to challenge me, had I not moments before held a bloody Drauglin in my lap as he died, it might have been different. But that was not our fate.
…She was unforgettable in many ways; a humiliating lesson against hubris, the first link in a chain that led to my Master’s downfall, a being who knew the true value of immortality, and found it less than the worth of happiness.
In the end, she got the better of both my Master and Mandos himself– need a Maia be forever embarrassed by his loss? I think not.
She may not have thought of me again after that night, but I have often thought of her. I am grateful for what she taught me in defeat; humility has made me more cautious, more patient. And I am grateful to have seen her in the flesh, outside of legend and hearsay: not slender as a willow-wand, but round and glowing as the full moon, surrounded by heaven’s night.”
…Did Osse write this
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 