The Ring Versus Free Will

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien drives his narrative forward through the crucial decisions which his characters have to make. This style, which Shippey calls entrelacement, intertwines each individual’s will in the culminating fate of Middle-Earth. Throughout the course of the tale, no decisions prove more crucial than those regarding the fate, or the ownership, of the One Ring. From Gandalf and Galadriel’s refusal to accept it to Frodo’s failure to destroy it, the Ring is consistently portrayed as a symbol of temptation itself: something which corrupts through its evil nature. While seemingly simple, a more interesting question arises when we consider what exactly makes the Ring evil in itself.

Shippey offers us one word: addiction. This interpretation is most evident in the movie adaptations and the character of Gollum, but falls short when considering what the Ring does more functionally. The addictive quality of the Ring lies in the feeling of righteous power which it grants its user: Gandalf desires it to fight Sauron, Boromir to save Gondor, and Smeagol justifies murdering for it simply because it was his birthday. Far more tempting than the euphoria of a drug addiction, the Ring’s allure lies in the power to impose your will on others. This is why Tolkien writes in Letter 246 that Gandalf would be “far worse than Sauron” if he obtained the Ring. His desire to do good would make him self-righteous, a convincing form of evil which masks itself in good intentions. Despite wanting to change Middle-Earth for the better, Gandalf still would have been evil with the Ring because he would have assumed a position of absolute power. This revelation clues us in on why the Ring is inherently evil: it was made to control.

When analyzing the powers of the Ring, it is easy to forget why it was forged in the first place. Crafted by Sauron, its original purpose was to control the people of Middle-Earth—particularly the owners of the lesser Rings of Power. Fittingly, the temptation of total control awakens a lustful desire for the Ring itself, undermining the free will of both the wearer and his victims. The desire for control literally creates the Ring and underlies its usage throughout the tale. Tolkien portrays this kind of temptation as a force of evil but stops short of categorizing individuals as inherently evil themselves. This interpretation of sin reveals the influence of The Lord’s Prayer on Tolkien’s work, as Shippey notes. The lines “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” imply a responsibility for men to resist temptation, but ultimately leaves deliverance from evil up to God’s will. In other words, the prayer leaves open-ended the question of how much temptation man can reasonably be expected to resist. For example, Frodo fails to destroy the Ring at the Crack of Doom despite his overall innocent characterization throughout the tale. While Tolkien admits that this is a failure, he specifies in Letter 246 how it was not a moral failure: “At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum — impossible… for anyone to resist.” The impossible circumstance which Frodo faces explains his decision, not his nature. In fact, fate saves his morality when the Ring is finally destroyed by Gollum, a character which Frodo takes pity on throughout his journey. The Ring’s final moments therefore reveal how succumbing to God’s will redeems man from the temptation of evil.

The flip side of Tolkien’s conception of evil is portrayed earlier in The Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done.” Contrary to the temptation of the Ring, Tolkien’s Christianity asks man to pledge total obedience to God’s will. That task, however, is easier said than done. As Tolkien points out—not even Sauron intended to fall, but sometimes people are mistaken by what constitutes God’s will. To understand how to make decisions in light of temptation, one can look to the character of Samwise Gamgee. In the company of Frodo, Sam and Gollum serve as opposing figures. Both seemingly abide by Frodo’s will before their own, and both are exceedingly passionate about their loyalty to their master. They differ, however, in the essence of their obedience. Gollum is ultimately loyal to Frodo as Ring-bearer, the current owner of his “Precious,” while Sam genuinely sacrifices for Frodo out of love. This difference is clearest in the chapter “Choices of Master Samwise,” where Sam takes the Ring but is too distraught by losing Frodo to feel tempted by its power. His obedience to Frodo fundamentally opposes Gollum’s infatuation with the Ring because it is founded on love, not a self-serving desire for power. Gollum, constantly conflicted between “Slinker” and “Stinker,” is a slave to the Ring while Sam remains free.

Tolkien contrasts Gollum and Sam in this way to demonstrate the real nature of free will. Faced with endless decisions, mankind constantly wrestles with the issue of purpose in the world. By whose will should we act? What distinguishes right from wrong? Selfishness and hedonism tempt man into believing that he is his own master, creating Gollums who endlessly chase the promise of the Ring. This temptation, as Tolkien conveys, subjects them to their own unconstrained desire. On the other hand, Sams find a master to obey before themselves, combating base temptation with love. Sam realizes his free will through his ability to distinguish temptation from loving desire, an existential challenge at the heart of The Lord of the Rings.

- MJS

Sharing Silent Speech

Not super relevant to my post, but I thought this mural near my apartment looked similar to the illustrations of the Silmarils.

“The Palantíri could not themselves survey men’s minds, at unawares or unwilling, for the transference of thoughts depended on the wills of the user on either side, and thought (received as speech) was only transmittable by one stone to another in accord.” (Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, 411)

This is the final paragraph of Tolkien’s chapter on the Palantíri in the Unfinished Tales. The mention of “wills” sparked something in me, especially in relation to the discussion we had in class on Tuesday about whether the Palantíri were good or evil. Rereading this paragraph, I noticed that there was a footnote attached to it. A few pages later, I was reading Footnote 21, an elaboration by Tolkien on the nature of transferring thoughts via the Palantíri. It reads: “Two persons, each using a stone ‘in accord’ with the other, could converse, but not by sound, which the stones did not transmit. Looking one at the other they would exchange ‘thought’ – not their full or true thought, or their intentions, but ‘silent speech,’ the thoughts they wished to transmit (already formalized in linguistic form in their minds or actually spoken aloud), which would be received by their respondents and of course immediately transformed into ‘speech,’ and only reportable as such.” (Unfinished Tales, 415)

This footnote both illuminates the process of transferring thought via the Palantíri and muddies it. Jumping off the page is the oxymoron “silent speech,” which in its description seems more like thought because “silent speech” is not voiced. But Tolkien uses the term “silent speech” to differentiate this kind of communication from sharing thoughts, even writing that “silent speech” might have been spoken aloud before being communicated via the Palantíri. Silent speech is “already formalized in linguistic form in their minds or actually spoken aloud,” and so is differentiated from “full or true thought” which is not “formalized in linguistic form.” This characterizes silent speech as something more intentionally shaped (dare I say created) than thought. Where else do we see speech as a creative act? Well, Genesis.

This differentiation of silent speech from thought suggests that, in his description of the Palantíri, Tolkien figures the mind and its multitude of thoughts as a kind of nothingness out of which somethingness, or speech, arises. The mind, then, mimics the nothingness of the cosmos before creation, which Dorothy Sayers says only became nothingness when God spoke. “What I want to suggest is that Being (simply by being) creates Not-Being, not merely contemporaneously in the world of Space, but also in the whole extent of Time behind it…Or, to use the most familiar of all metaphors, ‘before’ light, there was neither light nor darkness; darkness is not darkness until light has made the concept of darkness possible” (Sayers 101). So thought is the darkness that is only darkness when the light of silent speech comes into being, and the Palantíri are the plain upon which silent speech is expressed. The instrumental role of the wills of each communicator then makes sense. Communicating through the Palantíri is only possible through an act of creation that establishes both being, the “silent speech,” and not-being, thought.

The Seven Palantíri - Art by Peter Pracownik, via tolkiengateway.net

            What nags is that this suggests that thought, as a kind of not-being, is evil, or has the potential to become evil. Even the suggestion that thought is a form of not-being bothers me, a frequent woolgatherer. My thoughts feel very much like “being” to me, even if I do not always verbalize them. This reminds me of what Sayers says about writers sharing their creations: “his creation is safe from the interference of other wills only as long as it remains in his head” (Sayers 104). Perhaps my thoughts are neutral objects inside my head, and only by sharing them do they gain the potential for good and evil.

This brings to my mind a quote from Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando regarding the poet’s duty: “We must shape our words till they are the thinnest integument for our thoughts” (173). What a naïve and romantic thought, that a poet should craft their words to most accurately depict their thoughts! Throwing other important aspects of poetics aside, such as rhyme or meter, Woolf’s narrator takes the position that poetry’s value lies in how accurately it expresses thoughts. On the opposing side, we have the Palantíri, which appear as battlegrounds for two wills and what they wish to reveal and conceal (at least when we encounter them in The Lord of the Rings). Even our hardy hero, Aragorn, returns exhausted following his battle of wills with Sauron through the Orthanc stone. Like poetry, “secret speech” is a medium for conveying thoughts, but unlike poetry in Orlando, it seeks to conceal thoughts rather than reveal their full nature. I use the word “conceal” because that is how I envision the interaction between Aragorn and Sauron going. That said, I do not think that the secret speech is meant to conceal thought so much as it is meant to refine it. After all, who would want to reveal the entire messy contents of their mind to another (even if to spare the other person from all that disorganization)?

What increasingly emerges to me is the essential communal nature of secret speech, and the relationship between communality and good and evil. Secret speech is only necessary when one person wants to share something with another. This is also when artistic mediums like painting, writing, or music become necessary. Sayers writes that “we may redeem the Fall by a creative act” (107). In his writings about exchanging thoughts via the Palantíri, the value of the stones is not only in translating one’s disordered thoughts into secret speech, but also in sharing this secret speech with another. Sayers does not emphasize community too much in “Maker of All Things—Maker of Ill Things,” but I think it underlies this statement about the anti-Hamlets: “That is to say, it is possible to take its evil Power and turn it into active good. We can, for example, enjoy a good laugh at David Garrick” (106). Key here is the “we.” Collectively, we can laugh at David Garrick, and this turns the evil into a new form of Good. We can all detest the Amazon adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, but in discussing it with each other, we have made it Good. To further disrupt Amazon’s attempt to profit off Tolkien’s creation, we are doing so in a very low-tech way: in the classroom, and simultaneously persuading anyone who was thinking of watching it to avoid that at all costs. A clever transformation of evil indeed.

-ACB

My edition of Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle Earth is the following: 

Tolkien, J. R. R. Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin, 1980. 

The Shadow with no Source

There is something that reading Augustine, Sayers, and the description of Numenor share that remains hard to articulate. The impression, after working through all three, is not simply that they are making the same argument but that they are making it defined by absence, by what is deliberately withheld, and by the theological weight that absence is made to carry.

Augustine's privation theory in Book 12 of the City of God shows that evil has no positive ontological status but is a deficiency, a falling away from being rather than a rival force. This is illustrated most precisely in Chapter 7, where seeking the cause of evil will is compared to trying to see darkness or hear silence. Darkness is known by the eye only where it ceases to see, and one does not encounter it as a thing but notices it through the failure of the faculty that requires light. Evil is structured identically: not something encountered but something registered through the absence of what ought to be present.

 

Sayers’ Hamlet analogy in Chapter VII of The Mind of the Maker explains something Augustine leaves underdeveloped; namely why passive privation becomes active depravity. When Shakespeare writes Hamlet, everything outside the poem acquires retroactively the character of exclusion, and the category of the wrong word does not exist before the right word is chosen. Not-Being, once a conscious will make it a centre of opposition, draws its power from the Being it negates, which is shown most clearly when Garrick rewrote Hamlet with good intentions and commercial success, producing a worse corruption than a malicious alteration would have, since the stronger the will behind a distortion the more power it draws back into contact with the original.

 

What both texts leave unresolved is whether the agent is culpable if the defection of will was constituted rather than caused. Augustine's two-men thought experiment argues that only the will itself can explain why one falls and the other does not, but a will whose defection has no efficient cause is also a will whose defection has no prior condition, and Sayers's Hamlet analogy sidesteps rather than answers this, since poems do not have free will and misquoters are not fallen creatures in the theological sense.

 

Ultimately, Tolkien combines both the doctrine and the tension in the Meneltarma. The sacred mountain is defined by absences so systematic they read as some form of theological argument: no building, no altar, no tool, no weapon, no word except the king's at three prescribed occasions. The silence on the summit, so profound that a stranger ignorant of all Numenorean history would not have dared to speak aloud, renders Augustine's darkness analogy in spatial form, where the sacred is felt through the complete withdrawal of everything that would ordinarily mark a place as significant. Sauron's temple introduces not a different religion but the wrong relationship to the same reality, what Augustine in Chapter 8 describes as inordinate love, and the will that places itself at the centre of worship rather than its object is precisely the Anti-Hamlet figure Sayers identifies, constituting itself through active opposition. 

 

Although Sayers argues that the act of recovery is structurally identical to the Incarnation, taking catastrophic material and transmuting it through creative interpretation into a new form of good, and Christopher Tolkien's work assembling fragments into continuity is this act at the philological level. Of all the great heirlooms of Numenor, only the Ring of Barahir survives, passed through the Lords of Andunie to Elendil and eventually to Aragorn. The fall is not undone, but something carried through the catastrophe and arrives in the Third Age still recognisable as what it was, just as the record itself exists against the avoidance of most survivors who refused to study Numenor because it bred only useless regret. 

- RS 

 

Temptation and Technology

         The Akallabeth narrative in The Silmarillion deals with classic mythological themes like fall, temptation, evil, and the fate of mankind. It seems to mirror the Fall from the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. After reading it for the first time, I was tempted to simply conclude that the Númenóreans disobeyed the one, essential commandment not to sail westward in much the same fashion that Eve ate from the forbidden tree. However, I find that accounting—especially considering our discussion in class today—to be insufficient. Tolkien is offering a much broader meditation on the desire to escape death and the dangers of creation. He warns the modern reader to be wary of false promises and new technologies that claim to set us free from the shackles imposed on us by our own mortality. The Númenóreans drank from that particular poisoned chalice. 

            They darkened their own skies by hungering for “the undying city that they saw from afar, and the desire of everlasting life to escape from death.” (Silmarillion, 396). This is their downfall. Tolkien, through the tale of the Númenóreans, depicts a fallen world in which man has allowed evil to slip through his defenses. If they had only known their place, not bothered themselves with visions of power and glory, and certainly never set out on an adventure that would bring about their undoing, the Númenóreans would have enjoyed the fruits of paradise for their long and prosperous lives. Unfortunately, the human condition is to always shoot for a little more than we ought to, get completely out over our skis and spend the rest of our days trying to get back to the moment right before everything went sideways. Life is a journey back to the place from which we fell. We probably will never get there. But, in my opinion, Tolkien’s lost civilization of Númenór allows his readers to imagine a possible justification, an endpoint for the confusing project we call life. 

            The academics in The Notion Club Papers believe that Númenór is a real and accessible place. Lowdham attempts to provide a way for his fellow club members to get back to Númenór through the restoration of old myths and old tongues. As the narrative breaks off, Lowdham and his compatriots are preparing to embark on a journey through both time and language, bracing themselves for the difficulties that await them. It will be a long and treacherous journey. Nevertheless, it seems to all those involved a worthwhile endeavor. Reading The Notion Club Papers earlier this quarter, I was reminded of the late night, ambitious discussions I often have with my friends that seem fraught with danger and tend toward conclusions we did not anticipate. 

            In lecture today, we discussed the idea that these kinds of arguments and discussions often resemble journeys. An argument does have an endpoint—an ultimate resolution that both parties are aiming towards—but contains within it no guarantee that the participants of the argument will arrive at a destination. It’s easy to get sidetracked. It’s fairly common to hear someone refer to “the turns of the argument” or ask that certain points be made more clear for those listening. This understanding of what an argument is invites the interpretation that all arguments, and perhaps stories, lives, and many other such things, rest on a proper ordering of their component parts. Language enables this ordering, allowing us to describe different elements of our lives and imbue them with meaning. A shadow is but a shadow, unless we start enumerating its component parts. Then, by carefully selecting a few appropriate adjectives, we can turn it into an evil, sinister shadow—one that heralds approaching evil and the eternal destruction of mankind. Those few words are themselves instruments of creation, used to bring structure to something that otherwise would remain a shapeless, nameless blob…well actually that is just as much as an act of creation as describing it as evil is but I hope I am making myself clear. 

            All this is to say, language constrains us. Our capacity to describe and interpret our collective experiences is defined by our linguistic capabilities. This cuts two ways. Before taking this course, I might have concluded that these constraints somehow make language less important, deadening the mystical essence that defines our lives and allows us to appreciate fantasy stories. By simply describing something, we drag it through the mud of language and turn it into some disgusting, deformed thing–a laughable imitation of the original, indescribable experience. However, I now believe the opposite may be true. Language, when properly handled, can transport us into new worlds and open ourselves to new civilizations. Words and phrases are like containers, packed with meaning and history. After all, as we discussed in class, Hamlet is just a bunch of words and phrases strung together in a certain order. Yet, as most of us know, it is simultaneously so much more than that. Shakespeare brought those words and phrases to life. That is his creative act.

            Returning to a discussion of themes, I wish to conclude by emphasizing the role that Akallabeth plays in Tolkien’s project. This course has sharpened up my appreciation for the many layers present in Tolkien’s mythology. His work operates on several levels—imaginary, historical, and mythological—that are still relevant for all of us. In the Akallabeth, he engages with the eternal question of what happens when one tries to escape death. It is a cautionary tale. Tolkien is concerned about the growing power of technology and the ways in which it acts upon those who use it, molding and shaping their moral character. Sauron persuades the Númenóreans into committing human sacrifices by convincing them that they can achieve immortality if they only set aside most of their principles. People can do terrible things if they believe it will get them what they want. Tolkien does believe in Goodness but he allows for the possibility that man can be turned away from the path of righteousness. On the one hand, we can choose to exercise our Free Will in damaging ways. Like the Númenóreans, we can disobey sacred commands handed down from on high. Or, and I believe this is the far more informative lesson for today, we can be manipulated and led astray, often without our knowledge. 

            Marshall McLuhan famously argued that the medium is the message, that the information conveyed by some technology is secondary to the effect that it has on the user. He was writing as the introduction of television into the American home upended domestic life, creating a culture in which sitting around watching Gilligan's Island with Grandpa became a way—perhaps the way—to connect with one’s family. In other words, technology transforms how we interface with our world, changing our behavior. Tolkien’s Palantíri—or, for us moderns, our IPhones—crack open brand-new channels of communication, collapsing distances, allowing people to communicate with each other instantaneously, and placing all available information at our fingertips. I can find out, with just a few strokes on the keyboard, when and where Tom Petty was born. Does that make for a better world? Do I really need to know that? As Thoreau put it in Walden, we may be in “great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” 

            - ES

Lost Identity and Found Myth in The Lost Road

In the opening chapters of The Lost Road, Tolkien centers Alboin, at first a young boy curious about language and the past. He asks his father about his name: is it real? Alboin wants to know if his name means something, if it is meant to be name, and who has had it before. This echoes a few themes common to Tolkien’s work. First, Alboin seems to inherently connect his name, of course a piece of language, to his heritage. Tolkien seems to firmly believe that language has an inextricable link to culture. In the opening chapters, Alboin says just that to his father, making an assertion about ‘language atmosphere,’ and attributing language changes to ‘substratum.’ This, of course, sounds like Tolkien speaking. 

Alboin seems to be a parallel to Tolkien, carrying many of his beliefs and interests, as well as later pursuing an academic career at Oxford. Alboin also represents another one of Tolkien’s sentiments: a sense of separation from heritage. Alboin expresses this frustration with his name, and it is one his main motivating factors in his studies. Like Tolkien, he is particularly interested in the seemingly lost culture and language of the British Isles and the ‘north.’ His father mentions how the “old days of north are gone beyond recall, except insofar as they have been worked into the shape of things as we know it, into Christendom” (38). This reminded me of Tolkien’s work on Beowulf as well as Tom Shippey’s recent book on the subject. Shippey writes about how the tale may represent the death of a culture through invasion, with Beowulf’s trials representing an intense period of violence and upheaval. The epic, however, was never interpreted this way until recently, and was rather seen as motivated and catalyzed by Christian interests. This tracks with what Alboin’s father says: we only seem to understand the pre-historic north through the lense of Christianity, which produces an incomplete view. A massive amount of history, language, and culture have seemingly been lost, a mystery that consumes Alboin. Tolkien of course translated Beowulf and had particular affection for the text, and it seems reasonable to say that he was attracted by exactly this mystery. 

Indeed, Tolkien’s purpose in writing was largely to ‘fill in the gaps,’ and create a mythology for England. Unsurprisingly, Alboin has similar goals, and says that he wants “myths, not only bones and stones” (40). Alboin feels a strong pull to a culture that he feels is lost. He seems unsatisfied with Latin and Greek and instead feels a strong compulsion to speak northern languages. This reminds me of certain similar sentiments I’ve heard from Irish people learning Gaelic in recent years. These people often claim that they feel as if Gaelic is the language that they are meant to speak in and are overwhelmed with a feeling of deep cultural connection. This of course supports Tolkien’s idea that language is ingrained within groups of people and is parallel of Alboin’s frustration. He wonders “if there is any Latin in [him],” answering his own question: “not much” (38). He likes western shores, and the real sea, which is nothing like the mediterranean. Just as with Tolkien, this sense of cultural disconnection motivates Alboin to seek out language and mythology that feels more familiar. In Alboin’s case, however, this involves finding out the real history of middle earth, as the rest of Tolkien’s legendarium acts as the history and heritage that has been lost. For Tolkien, of course, his solution is sub-creation, as he is unable to locate a mythology for England. 

This distinction brings up interesting questions about the nature of myth. What is the difference between the ‘real’ myth in Alboin’s world and the imagined in Tolkien. Isn’t myth not supposed to be ‘real’ in the first place? An interesting answer, and perhaps what Tolkien would say, is that a myth is not more or less real based on its historic accuracy, but rather other factors. To make his myths ‘real,’ Tolkien tirelessly researches language in attempt to make his myths sound right. He crafts his narrative around surviving epics like Beowulf and writes prose in the style of a religious text or fable. But can such a myth achieve true authenticity? I don’t think that even Tolkien would think so. Consider language: Tolkien maintains that languages are foundational to societies, and each one is deeply connected with its ancestral speakers. When Tolkien, through an act of sub-creation, invents a new language, no such connection is possible. While Tolkien may borrow Norse and Old English in order to make such a language ‘look more real,’ it will only be attached to an imaginary people. It seems that the same would apply for myth… if Greek myths are only ‘real’ in the sense that they are intrinsically connected to Greek people through ancient Greek culture, then Tolkien’s myths certainly aren’t. England, however, does have an individualized circumstance: it seemingly does not have a national myth to begin with. In this case, does it make sense for Tolkien to create one? Could LOTR and Tolkien’s legendarium really fill that place for England? How long could it take? It seems for language and myth to be ‘real,’ or in other words legitimately connected to a group of people, it could take generations. There seems to be a requirement that both must be adequately ancient… is this necessary? 

At this point, I am somewhat confused as to Tolkien’s goals… does he really believe he is creating England’s national myth? He seems to know better than anyone how such myths are not only tied to ancient, common language, but also to long periods of shared history. In this way, it seems impossible for Tolkien to just create a ‘myth’ by himself. But then what is his purpose? Does he hope his work will last long enough to be ancient? Is he encouraging us to become sub-creators ourselves?

Check out this cool map from reddit that claims Tolkien modeled Middle Earth after Ice Age Europe!!!

—JW

Subcreation and Free Will

In this post, I’d like to discuss the relationship between the ability and right of creation and free will in The Silmarillion.

Free Will, by Tolkien’s own definition, is “derivative, and is . . . only operative within provided circumstances; but in order that it may exist, it is necessary that the Author should guarantee it, whatever betides: sc. when it is ‘against His Will’ . . . at any rate as it appears on a finite view.” (Letters 294) Within the legendarium, this could be equated with the right to sub-create, as Tolkien further explains that “He gave special ‘sub-creative’ powers to certain of His highest created beings: that is a guarantee that what they devised and made should be given the reality of Creation.” (Letters 295) In his letters, Tolkien is making reference to the Catholic God when he discusses the Maker who "gave special ‘sub-creative’ powers”, while in The Silmarillion, the equivalent is Eru/Ilúvatar, as he “showed to [the Valar] a vision, giving to them a sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a New World made before them.” (QS 5) What distinguishes the divine being in Tolkien’s mythology from non-deified ones, in this case, is the power and right of creation — that is, world-making. Yet, this power and “Will” is not excluded entirely from the children of Eru, since even Melkor's discordance in the Great Music, with his resentment and jealousy, remained in the melody and eventually became part of it. It is valid to claim, then, that sub-creation, or “Free Will,” endowed upon elves and human beings, is an extended part of sacred creation. However, the product of sub-creation does not always correspond to the theme of creation, with Melkor as an apt example. This being the case, the power of sub-creation will not be withdrawn from the sub-creators, nor will their products or creatures be unmade, which Tolkien calls “a guarantee that what they devised and made should be given the reality of Creation.” (295) I find this dimension of the permitted sub-creation and its physical, material realization in the world, particularly intriguing. From this perspective, what results from sub-creation is just as concrete and “real” as those that emerge from divine creation. Can we then, in this particular context, arrive at a common understanding that Free Will in Tolkien’s theory is a decisive force, a driving potential that is capable of transcending the sub-creators themselves?

It is necessary to bring Fëanor into this discussion at this moment. During class discussion, someone raised the point that the creation of the Silmarils involves the capturing of the light from the Trees, which raises questions about the originality of the gems. Indeed, despite the fact that the Silmarils are considered a masterpiece that even Fëanor himself is unable to remake, they are not created entirely ex nihilo, as what is essential to the Silmarils is the light of the Trees they contain. The Silmarils, then, could also be interpreted as products of Free Will, as Fëanor, their creator, is endowed with the talent that leads him to become a kind of sub-creator who draws upon an originary element (i.e., the light of the Trees) and incorporates it into his own work. After Varda consecrated those gems, it seems that the Silmarils truly transcend the sub-creation from which they originate and become genuinely sacred objects. This can therefore tie to the question raised in class discussion of whether the Silmarils are alive or possess consciousness. One passage in QS that bears on this question is the fact that the Silmarils would burn those of evil intent who dare to lay their hands on them, such as Morgoth, which makes them capable of functioning as instruments of judgement. Even till the very end, those jewels remain uncontaminated and pure, still refusing the touch of the dishonorable. Fëanor, the creator of the jewels, with Free Will being granted to him, is fully capable of falling and turning to a darker path; yet, the product of his Free Will,  his sub-creation, would not fall or be disgraced because of his deeds. In this case, the Silmarils bend to no will but their own or the will of the divine. When the story of the Quenta Silmarillion comes to an end, the Silmarils remain forever beyond the grasp of the Children of Ilúvatar, which also indicates that their fate is even beyond the reach of the Valar, let alone the elves and men. While it is guaranteed that the products of sub-creation will never be deprived of their material existence within the world, regardless of the intentions behind their making, the ultimate fate of the Silmarils is reflected in the resting places they come to occupy.

Thus, what is Free Will? It is a divinely regulated power bestowed upon the Children of Eru, which carries within it the possibility of transcendence, not for the sub-creator, but for the sub-created. What is brought into being through Free Will is not permanently bound to the fate or the moral trajectory of its maker. It is released into the divine order as an entity in its own right, subject no longer to the will of its creator, but to the deeper design of the divine plan. The Silmarils are perhaps the most significant embodiment of this, as they are born of Fëanor’s will, yet finally belonging to no will but the divine.

—YW

The Binding of the Dwarves

        In the second chapter of Tolkien’s Quenta Silmarillion, the cycle that makes up the bulk of The Silmarillion as printed, he describes how the Vala Aulë created the Dwarves. Aulë, he writes, was impatient awaiting the coming of the true Children of Ilúvatar, the Elves and the Men, and decided that he wanted to create his own speaking things to be his protégés. Working in secret, he made them hardy and in the image of the others, working in secret lest the other Valar be wary of his insubordination to Ilúvatar in doing so.

Catching him in the act of endowing them with speech, the defining characteristic of a higher being, Ilúvatar comes to Aulë and tells him that he is aware of his insubordination. Repentant, Aulë readies to strike down the Dwarves to show his loyalty, but Ilúvatar stays his hand from sacrificing his children, saying that his renewed loyalty is confirmed.

This narrative has a striking resemblance to another, more famous story of near-sacrifice: the Binding of Isaac. In Genesis, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his favorite son Isaac as a test of his faith, and, at the last minute before Abraham delivers the fatal blow, God stops him saying that his faith has been affirmed. God instead provides a ram to sacrifice in a normal way, saying that he will never expect human sacrifice and that the whole affair was a test which Abraham passed.

Both of these sacrifice narratives center on an adherent to God/Ilúvatar whose loyalty is strong but whose absolute commitment is in doubt; they are prepared to sacrifice their chief joy, their children, to appease Him; and they are instead asked to sacrifice something lesser in the knowledge of their true commitment. For Abraham, this last thing is a ram; for Aulë, it is that the Dwarves must sleep until the coming of the Elves, the divinely-ordained Firstborn. It is difficult to think that Tolkien, a devout Catholic, could not have been aware of the striking similarities between the two narratives.

This parallel is curious, however. Aulë and Abraham, as a human being, are subcreators of the kind with which Tolkien is concerned throughout his work, but Aulë is far from the only Vala that is one. They are all, together, responsible for shaping and filling out Arna in harmony with Ilúvatar’s song that first envisaged it. And it is not just that Aulë subcreated life, either: his own wife, Yavanna, created plants and, moreover, sentient animals, but she receives no such test from God/Ilúvatar. (While the Valaquenta only associates her with plant life, presumably animals are her “kelvar” that “can flee or defend themselves” that she mentions in the Quenta Silmarillion (The Silmarillion 27, 45).) Aulë feels compelled to tell Ilúvatar that he created the Dwarves in childish imitation rather than in mockery, but it is unclear in what way that distinction should make him more like Abraham than any of the Valar.

Perhaps it is worth looking at the particular way in which Abraham-as-subcreator is relevant to his relationship with God: as progenitor and patriarch of the Israelites (and the Ishmaelites!). So, too, is Aulë the progenitor of the Dwarves. Even if he was more consciously involved in his subcreation than Abraham would have been as a father, it is in that role that Ilúvatar casts him. They are his children and he is their father (The Silmarillion 45). And, it is worth noting, both of them were prepared to sacrifice the very children that made them subcreators to demonstrate their loyalty to God/Ilúvatar’s plan that did not seem to involve their subcreations.

Still, how is this different from Yavanna’s living animals that could perceive and interact consciously with the Earth? Was she not also their progenitor? The difference appears to be that the “speaking peoples,” which Ilúvatar did not appear to Aulë until he confirmed that the Dwarves were to be, were themselves capable of subcreation independent of their creator (The Silmarillion 44). While Ilúvatar reminds Aulë that he would have been incapable of making the Dwarves independent himself, that is clearly his design and is ultimately granted. Such free will, however, gives them the capacity to stray from what higher or prior powers might want of them. Indeed, Yavanna is deeply concerned that the Dwarves will wreak havoc on her designs in pursuit of their own creations, but Manwë reminds her that this is not substantively different from what the Elves and Men will do as well.

The parallel, then, appears to be this: the subcreators of those who themselves wield the capacity to subcreate must be in alignment with God’s will. St. Augustine writes in The City of God that evil cannot create anew but merely corrupt, and Tolkien seems to be more or less in alignment with this belief throughout his work. Melkor seems as though he should have some power of subcreation, but in exacting his evil, he is far more concerned with ruining the creations of his fellow Valar and corrupting servants from among the Maiar (Balrogs), Elves (Orcs), and Men that already existed prior to his involvement. As T.A. Shippey observes in The Road to Middle-Earth, Tolkien also seems to want the fundamental character of his actors to remain more or less static, with their traits in some way inborn. This is, as Shippey remarks, in tension with the (Augustinian) idea of corruption, but not entirely so if not read too strongly. If only good can create, how can one create something meaningfully better than oneself? Free will, perhaps, but the influence (even if not overriding determination) of nature makes the goodness of their progenitor nonetheless seem like a matter of great importance. If Abraham or Aulë were not sufficiently good, how could their descendants be expected to be so?

Indeed, Tolkien places much emphasis on the parentage and origins of the various characters in the Quenta Silmarillion as defining their behavior. The fact that Fëanor does not share a mother with his siblings is presented as a key fact in determining their inability to get along, and his background also seems to inform his refusal to grant the Valar a Silmaril even when it could save the trees Telperion and Laurelin and his decision to slay the Teleri.

It may also be worth considering how this idea figures into Tolkien’s idea of himself as a subcreator of a mythic world, in the subcreation of which he expected others might participate. Tolkien is clear that he is not overly concerned with making his world perfectly aligned with proper theology—it is, as he insists, ultimately literary and not historical—but he is nonetheless scrupulous in endowing it with as solid a groundwork as he can make for it, both in its harmony with Catholic cosmology and as an apparent historical artefact. Not all who have come after him to Middle-Earth have been so diligent, but their creations are elevated by his original efforts.

 

—JZ

Free Will, the Valar, and Tolkien’s Cosmogony

    Something that we discussed for the majority of class on Tuesday was the nature of creation, goodness, and free will within the world of The Lord of the Rings and its broader mythological foundation in The Silmarillion. The cosmogony that Tolkien presents dramatizes the tension between divine intention and free will. Melkor/Morgoth, introduced discord into the world, and disagreed with the supreme creator Eru Ilúvater. It seems however, almost as if Melkor/Morgoth could not help it as Tolkien writes that the Valar “comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came” (Ainulindalë). In a way it almost seems as if the fall was inevitable. This begs the question, if Eru Ilúvater did not want treachery and covetousness into the world, why did he create Melkor/Morgoth the way that he did? In addition Melkor/Morgoth, are not the only Valar that are capable of being disobedient/rebellious, as demonstrated in the incident where Aulë created the dwarves in an overstep of his authority.
    In Tolkien’s cosmogony, evil is not a rival power that is equal to good. It arises instead as a corruption of an ultimately good creation which is a very Christian idea, echoing both the fall of Lucifer (the rebellion of a favored son/angel), and the garden of Eden (in which a perfect creation is ultimately corrupted). Tolkien does not just replicate Christian doctrine in his literary works, however. I would argue that while Tolkien may have taken inspiration from a variety of sources, including potentially Paradise Lost which we discussed in class, there is no one to one parallel between a single cosmogony and Tolkien’s metaphysics.
    An example of an interesting case is the Valar. What are they, and do they have free will? Some in class proposed that they were akin to the Greek gods, and some said the saints, still others proposed angels. Each of these comparisons captures something true, but none are perfectly correct. The Valar are not objects of worship, which distinguishes them from deities in polytheistic systems, but they appear to each have control over a different aspect of the world, for example Ulmo with water, and Yavanna with the Earth in they way that deities do in polytheistic systems. The Valar, unlike polytheistic deities, are also subject to a singular higher authority that is the ultimate creator. The comparison to saints is also limited as saints are human elevated by holiness, but the Valar are primordial beings who existed before the physical world. Saints may have some degree of closeness to God, but not in the same way the Valar do to Eru Ilúvater. The Valar almost seem to be extensions of Ilúvatar’s will, as shown in the quote referenced earlier from Ainulindalë ((so are they closer to the Christian Trinity in that way?) (But that wouldn’t make sense because then the creator would have an aspect of evil within him?)).
    Tolkien himself refers to them as angels on occasion in Letter 153, but that also does not seem quite right (193-194). The Valar have a degree of creative participation in the world that goes beyond traditional roles of angels within Christianity as messengers, servants, and occasionally warriors, but they “cannot by their own will alter any fundamental provision” (what counts as a fundamental provision?) (194). This question of what counts as a fundamental provision implies that the Valar can only do things that agree with the will of Eru Ilúvater, but then that would mean that the fall of Morgoth/Melkor and the creation of dwarves by Aulë was in fact a part of Eru Ilúvater’s plan. Tolkien also refers to a ”Divine Plan for the enablement of the Human Race” which further complicates this picture (194). Characters appear to have destinies, and there are prophecies which implies at least some degree of predestination, while still including a dynamic development of events in which choice is a key aspect. According, once again to Letter 153 (there’s a lot of good stuff in there) “it is the Pity of Bilbo and later Frodo that ultimately allows the quest to be achieved” (191). Taking that into consideration, while combined with Tolkien’s later metaphysical creation, the fate of the world does not depend on these larger forces, instead what matters are small choices towards mercy. It is the decision on multiple occasions to spare Gollum, for instance, that ultimately leads to the destruction of the One Ring.
    While writing this post I kept thinking back to Tolkien’s own almost ambivalence as to whether or not to delve deeper into his work on a metaphysical level. He tells Peter Hastings, when pressed about his theological underpinnings, that Hastings might be taking things too seriously. The internal consistency and depth of his world however, really does invite rigorous analysis. Tolkien himself may caution against over-systematizing what is, a work of imaginative sub-creative fiction, and itself an action of free will, but it is still deeply interesting to do so. This tension may in fact actually mirror the themes that Tolkien explores. Just as the Valar cannot fully comprehend Iluvatar’s mind, readers will never be able to fully decode Tolkien’s work completely, according to how he may have wanted, no matter how much one reads of his letters/work. As shown by the extensive parenthetical questioning within this blog post, there are no answers, only further questions, and more room to play within Tolkien’s world. 

—JM

Citations

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

But What Does That Mean?

    I left Tuesday’s class feeling quite stuck. Mind scrambled from a multitude of word paths, I looked to my notes to find a similar landscape. Thought after thought regarding the Ainur and their status of being, but no conclusion about what, to put it bluntly, is going on with them. While writing this reflection, I thought about what started this process, which was our human tendency to understand and prescribe meaning to everything, even when it is not there. Let me first make clear that I do not think “lack of meaning” is the reason the Ainur, and many other aspects of the LOTR universe, do not fit perfectly into theology. I do not think we are digging at nothing, even though that might be an easier conclusion to land on (and one I was tempted towards when reading Tolkien's Letter 153 to Peter Hastings). What I hope to accomplish in this post is an analysis of metaphor and allegory so as to have a frame to assist in confronting Tolkien's own allegory.

    What first drove me to this question of metaphor was Dorothy Sayers’s thinking in The Mind of the Maker, surrounding the need for metaphor in human language. Sayers explains that the only means we have to explain things is “in terms of other things” (Sayers 23). Drawing upon things, however, creates a complication as not everything perfectly matches what it is being used to describe. We struggled with this idea during class as we attempted to classify the Ainur as angels. From the power of creation to intelligence, we were always blocked from stating certainly that “yes, the Ainur are angels.” But does this make the comparison so unusable that we must dismiss it? Sayers confronts a similar problem, noting the grievances people take with explaining God in earthly terms, such as Maker or Father: “To complain that man measures God by his experience is a waste of time; man measures everything by his own experience; he has no other yardstick” (24). I take this as permission to continue with the use of our imperfect angel allegory because its flaws do not render it useless. We can still build off of our fuller understanding of angels in order to understand the new concept of Ainur. In this case, it feels okay to run with imperfection through a lack of clarity/depth. But what about when imperfection seems to come through contradiction? I think specifically of Tolkien's Letter 156, a draft to Robert Murray, where he explicitly calls Gandalf an angel (Tolkien 298). Well… we certainly know Gandalf is not an Ainur, so does this void our classification of Ainur with angels? It may feel like these two beings would have to be mutually exclusive, but this may not have to be the case. Sayers confronts a similar issue and explains that the components “of the world of imagination increase by a continuous and irreversible process, without any destruction or rearrangement of what went before” (29). This quote pertains to the example that Shakespeare did not have to destroy one work in order to create another, but I feel it can be applied to help remedy Tolkien's habit of contradictions. One explanation for allegory or writing choice does not mean the other is untrue; it just means that we have more information to clarify each statement with.

    While getting lost in Tolkien's cryptic descriptions during class, my mind drifted to another text featuring allegory and sometimes explanation. Of course, I am thinking of the Gospels, specifically the Synoptics, as John chooses not to call his allegorical tales parables, and he lacks the story that I want to bring into this conversation. In the Synoptics, the disciples ask Jesus why He speaks in confusing parables to the crowds but reserves the explanations for those close to Him. Quoting Mark, Jesus answers that He does this so that “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!” (NIV Mark 4:12). Jesus speaks of those who have hardened their hearts to God, not wanting them to seek forgiveness only after listening to Jesus. An undoubtedly confusing moment in which it appears that Jesus is withholding forgiveness from a certain group of people. I would like to begin with a focus on the first half of the quote, in which Jesus explains his motive in these parables is to create a lack of understanding for his listeners. It seems that something similar is happening in LOTR as Tolkien walks us down a road of allegory, yet no explanation. We must press further into his writings to discover an answer, and even then, we do not emerge with a clear interpretation. Is Tolkien trying to treat us like these sinners with hardened hearts? I think our initial motivation to discover the truth proves this is not the case. But what is?

    Explaining Beren and Thingol’s desire for the Silmaril, Shippey concludes this section of Chapter Seven by stating that “words overpower intentions. In any case, intentions are not always known to the intenders. This is the sense of ‘doom’ which Tolkien strives to create from oaths and curses and bargains, and from the interweaving of the fates of objects, people, and kingdoms” (Shippey 270). In such interweaving of words, it may be that Tolkien's intentions have been confused and crossed to the point of invisibility, or at least they are quite foggy. What this does not mean is that there is nothing to be found or that Tolkien meant to bar our understanding. Intentional or not, it is up to us to clear this fog and grasp what we can of the allegory so as to most fully understand what Tolkien has given to us.

—AHW

“Tears Unnumbered Ye Shall Shed”: Subcreation, Free Will, the Fall, and Grief

At its core, the stories in The Silmarillion are Tolkien’s exploration of a prideful “desire to make things” (Shippey 273) through subcreation, free will, and the fall. Tolkien all but confirms this at the end of Letter 153, where he wrote:

“I might say that in my myth I have used ‘subcreation’ in a special way … to make visible and physical the effects of Sin or misused Free Will by men. Free Will is derivative, and is [therefore] only operative within provided circumstances; but in order that it may exist, it is necessary that the Author should guarantee it, whatever it betides … He gave special ‘sub-creative’ powers to certain of His highest created beings … Of course within limits, and of course subject to certain commands or prohibitions.” (Letters, pg. 290).

Beyond confirming the motivation behind the stories in The Silmarillion, this quote hints at what I believe to be the core theme of this part of The Silmarillion: the possibility for subcreation to become sin as a result of free will. Tolkien elucidates this most clearly as he discusses the Valar and Fëanor. Many of the Valar, alone or with others, engage in distinct acts of subcreation throughout The Silmarillion (putting aside the fact that all participated in the Ainulindalë). Varda forges the stars (both generally and specifically just before the awakening of the Elves). Yavanna subcreates the trees, beasts, the Ents and the Eagles (with Manwë, and with the Ents, Eru’s sanction), and the Two Trees (with Nienna). Aulë subcreates the many ores of Arda, the Two Lamps (with Varda) and the Dwarves (with Eru’s retroactive sanction). Together, the Valar fashion Valinor, the Pélori Mountains, and the city of Valimar after Melkor’s attack on Almaren. Melkor subcreates the Orcs, Wolves, Trolls, and Dragons. After Arda is made physical, Melkor and the rest of the Valar subcreate at cross purposes as they try to shape Arda into their respective desired forms. Fëanor, of course, subcreates the Silmarils and many things besides. This propensity for subcreation in and of itself shows its importance in Tolkien’s world.

However, three specific episodes of subcreation stand out from the rest: Aulë’s subcreation of the Dwarves, Fëanor’s subcreation of the Silmarils, and Melkor’s subcreation of the Orcs, as they delineate when, to Tolkien, a subcreative fall can occur. Aulë attempts to create (not subcreate) the Dwarves because he is impatient for the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, and wants students to teach his crafts. After Aulë makes them, however, Ilúvatar reminds him that he cannot create independent life with its own free will; the Dwarves would live only when Aulë thought of them and otherwise be idle. From this, we can glean two ways in which subcreation can be criminal: if the subcreator attempts to usurp the role of the Creator, and/or if the subcreator creates beings but does not give them free will (either through coercion or lack of power to do so). Melkor’s “creation” of the Orcs by corrupting Avari Elves is similar to Aulë’s in both of those aspects (though Melkor denies the Orcs their existing free will as corrupted Elves, while Aulë is unable to give the Dwarves free will as he lacks the ability). Both let their “pride of making” drive them to intentional criminality. However, they differ in one critical respect: intention. Melkor subcreates the Orcs out of a desire for power and to dominate Middle-earth. Aulë, meanwhile, subcreated the Dwarves out of a desire to spread his arts; he explicitly tells Ilúvatar when confronted that he “did not desire … lordship” over the Dwarves (The Silmarillion 43). This, I think, is why Aulë can be redeemed while Melkor cannot: he had good intentions even though he did a bad thing. This lines up with Letter 153, where Tolkien says that “things [are] not necessarily evil, but … the nature and motives of the … masters” (Letters, pg. 284). So, it is intention that can make a redeemable action irredeemable, consigning the doer to a subcreative fall

In Fëanor, Tolkien exemplifies subcreative fall: he begins with the intentions of Aulë, but gradually becomes more and more akin to Melkor (through Melkor’s corruption), showing that even well-intentioned subcreators can fall. Young Fëanor is described as “work[ing] with delight, foreseeing no end to [his] labours,” showing he takes joy in his work, just as Aulë does (The Silmarillion 65). However, there are also seeds of “Melkor-intention” in Fëanor: he desired to “master minds” rather than to “understand” them, and was only restrained from doing so, from seeking domination rather than art, by his wife, Nerdanel (The Silmarillion 64). Melkor, as he seeks to sow distrust between the Valar and the Noldor, explicitly seeks to play on this trait (The Silmarillion 68). As a result of Melkor’s rumors, that seed of “Melkor-intention” starts to grow. Fëanor becomes increasingly prideful and possessive of the Silmarils: he wears them only at “great feasts” and keeps them locked away under guard at all other times (The Silmarillion 69). He permits only his father and sons to see them, depriving the rest of Valinor of their beauty. He forgets “that the light within them was not his own” – elevating himself from subcreator to Creator (The Silmarillion 69). The most important aspect of Melkor’s corruption, however, is that he tells the Noldor of weapons, and they begin forging “swords and axes and spears” (The Silmarillion 69). By introducing weapons to the Noldor, Melkor turns their subcreation from art into weapons of war and power. Noldorin subcreation then becomes fully Melkorian. Melkor causes a subcreative fall that precedes, and itself causes the actual fall of the Noldor: without swords, Fëanor could not have been exiled for threatening Fingolfin, and then everything plays out differently. Additionally, without swords, the Kinslaying of Alqualondë would not have happened. This is significant, as the Kinslaying is what caused the fall of the Noldor (not their departure from Valinor): Maglor calls his lament of Alqualondë “the Fall of the Noldor” (The Silmarillion 87). 

The Kinslaying at Alqualondë by Ted Nasmith

Of all the episodes of subcreation thus far in The Silmarillion, the only two in which this desire for power was present are Melkor’s and Fëanor’s. In every other episode, the subcreation is driven by desire for art or to protect others. In those episodes, none of the subcreators loses any of their power as a result of their subcreation. However, Fëanor and Melkor, who have experienced a subcreative fall, do. Included in the Prophecy of the North is the provision that: 

“those that endure in Middle-earth … shall grow weary of the world with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after” (The Silmarillion 88). 

The fulfillment of this Prophecy occurs just as predicted in The Lord of the Rings, when the Dominion of the Elves ends, the Elves either go West or fade into the forests, and the Dominion of Men begins. Similarly, of Melkor, we are told that: 

“as he grew in malice, and sent forth from himself the evil that he conceived in lies and creatures of wickedness, his might passed into them and was dispersed, and he himself became ever more bound to the earth” (The Silmarillion 101). 

As a result, it seems like there are consequences to a subcreative fall. Such a fall necessitates turning from art to power. It is therefore fitting that the consequence of a subcreative fall is the loss of power: what the doer sought, they lose. The sense I get, especially from the description of Melkor’s diminishment, is that this occurs because power requires coercion. Varda subcreates the stars, sets them in motion, and lets them be. Melkor, however, seeks to pervert Arda to his will specifically. So, he constantly has to expend his power keeping what he has already corrupted in its unnatural state. 

As Tolkien said in Letter 153, these subcreative falls can only happen because Ilúvatar has instituted free will, and “guarantee[s] it, whatever it betides” (Letters, pg. 290). These subcreative falls result in significant grief and suffering. However, as we know from the Ainulindalë, everything that occurs in Eä serves to increase its beauty. But how can grief be positive? Tolkien answers this question through the Vala Nienna, whose sole province is grief. Nienna mourns “every wound that Arda has suffered in the marring of Melkor,” but she does not “weep for herself” (The Silmarillion 28). Rather, her weeping, her grief is transformative: “those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope” and “she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom” to those in Mandos (The Silmarillion 28). Nienna, then, transmutes suffering into wisdom, hope, and pity, all positive qualities. Nienna is counted among the Aratar, the High Ones of Arda, so Tolkien clearly felt that her role of grief-transmutation was essential. This is supported by the pivotal role Nienna plays at times. First, she weeps on Ezellohar before Yavanna’s subcreation of the Two Trees (The Silmarillion 38). Nienna’s grief-borne wisdom is thus made prerequisite to the reestablishment of light and the beginning of the Count of Time in Arda. Second, her tears wash away the stain of Ungoliant (The Silmarillion 79) from Ezellohar.  Meanwhile, Ungoliant’s Unlight was able to overcome Tulkas’s strength and Manwë’s sight. Nienna is therefore extremely powerful.

The sole named recipient of Nienna’s grief-borne wisdom we have is the Maia Olórin, whose “ways took him often to the house of Nienna,” where he learned “pity and patience” (The Silmarillion 31). Uncoincidentally, he is the “wisest of the Maiar” (The Silmarillion 30). Olórin, of course, is Gandalf. In Middle-earth, Olórin “was the friend of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness” (The Silmarillion 31). Gandalf, then, is to the people of Middle-earth what Nienna is to those in the Halls of Mandos. Perhaps that is why Tolkien remarked that Gandalf was the only one of the Istari to complete their mission. Through Nienna, then, and through Gandalf her trainee, the grief and suffering arising from free will can be turned towards ends of beauty, cleansing, and wisdom. And so the beauty of Eä is increased.

- WRM