The downfall of the Noldor can be attributed to a variety of factors. For instance, the fall is often attributed to their refusal to heed the words of higher powers: Ulmo cautioned Turgon to “‘love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart’” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 125), but when Tuor came as an emissary of the Valar to deliver Turgon from his city, Turgon had become “proud” and he “trusted still in [the city’s] secret and impregnable strength, though even a Vala should gainsay it” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 240). In addition, the fall could come from their desire to create facsimiles of paradise: Fëanor created the Silmarils to preserve the glory of the Blessed Realm (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 67); Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion crafted the rings to make Middle-earth as fair as Valinor (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 287); and Turgon built Gondolin to mirror the beauty of Tirion (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 240). I argue, however, that these factors fundamentally stem from the same source: the desire of the Noldor to possess their own gems and, through them, claim mastery over their own selves. The Silmarillion describes the Noldor as those who first discovered, shaped, and carved the gems of the earth (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 60). At first, they “hoarded them not, but gave them freely, and by their labour enriched all Valinor” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 60). But as the noontide of Valinor waned, and the words of Melkor wound in their hearts, the Noldor grew proud: they forgot “what they had and knew came to them in gift from the Valar” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 68), and they viewed their gems and their crafts as possessions to be owned only by themselves. The Lays of Beleriand highlights the covetous nature with which the Noldor grew to value their crafts: Fëanor uses possessive pronouns to describe them (“our gems are gone, our jewels ravished” (Tolkien, “The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor,” line 103; emphasis added)) and reframes the gifts they fashioned for the Valar as the work that should have remained theirs (“to contrive them gems and jewelled trinkets / their leisure to please with our loveliness” (Tolkien, “The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor,” lines 85-6; emphasis added)). These possessions, however, are not simply a sample of their crafts: they are also a representation of the people of the Noldor themselves. This symbolism is best encapsulated by the Silmarils: The Silmarillion describe the Silmarils as crystal that is to the “body of the Children of Ilúvatar: the house of its inner fire, that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 67). Thus, when Fëanor laments that the jewels have been “ravished,” he implies that the Noldor themselves have been violated. His accusation extends beyond Morgoth: even the Valar, to whom the Noldor once freely gave their treasures, become participants in the corruption of the Noldor’s own being.
Consequently, when Fëanor stirs the Noldor to flight to reclaim the Silmarils (and their lost gems), he is also urging them to escape their servitude to the Valar (“guard us here / to serve them … hath held us slaves” (Tolkien, “The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor,” lines 83-4, 101)) and to become masters of their own selves (“‘But when we have conquered and have regained the Silmarils, then we and we alone shall be lords of the unsullied Light … No other race shall oust us!’” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 67)). But Fëanor fails to realize that the corruption of their gems was not because they were wrought for or given to the Valar: the corruption of the gems stems from their removal from Valinor, and so the fall of the Noldor is incited by their desire to remove themselves as well. Tolkien’s translation of Pearl offers a useful theological framework for understanding the relationship between gems and souls. In Pearl, the narrator prays for God to “[m]ake precious pearls Himself to please” of “[u]s inmates of His house divine” (Tolkien, Pearl, stanza 101). The pearls are a material representation of those who have died and now reside in Heaven; they--and other gems--are pure and eternal, just like incarnated souls imbued with the Imperishable Flame. As these jewels are fragments of paradise, they belong in Heaven: To that high city we swiftly fare As soon as our flesh is laid to rot; Ever grow shall the bliss and glory there For the host within that hath no spot. (Tolkien, Pearl, stanza 80) Thus, in leading the Noldor out of Valinor, Fëanor is also removing what ultimately belongs in paradise from paradise. This flight is mirrored in Genesis: Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden to walk east into the world (“So [God] drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims…” (KJV, Genesis 3:24)), just like how the Noldor sail from the Undying Lands east to darkened Middle-earth. Yet unlike Adam and Eve, whose exile came as divine judgment after the Fall, the Noldor embraced exile willingly, choosing separation from paradise before they were cast from it. Thus, Fëanor’s stirring of the Noldor to flight is the fundamental source of their fall. Tragically, the Noldor could have found salvation from their fall if they had returned to Valinor and appeared before the Valar in “humble lowliness” (Tolkien, Pearl, stanza 34). But most of them did not. Their fate is reflected in the fate of the Silmarils: Eärendil and Elwing were able to enter the bounds of Valinor because they possessed a Silmaril (“it was by reason of the power of that holy jewel that they came in time to … the Bay of Eldamar” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 248)). They entreated the Valar for pardon, pity, and mercy (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 249), and the Valar lent them comfort and removed their griefs (Tolkien, Pearl, stanza 30) by providing aid to the Noldor at last. Eärendil and Elwing thus acted as messengers to deliver the fragment of paradise back to its rightful place--they were missionaries who brought a lost soul back to Heaven. Eärendil and Elwing never returned to Middle-earth because, like the Silmaril they bore, they had become things sanctified within Heaven itself; to depart would have been another fall. Maedhros and Maglor, however, were burned by the Silmarils because their ultimate goal was to keep the Silmarils out of Valinor and in their own hands (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 253). Just like the Silmarils they held, Maedhros and Maglor were lost to the world, for they refused to return to Valinor--they turned away from Heaven--where they would have found salvation for their crimes (“‘it may be that in Valinor all shall be forgiven and forget, and we shall come into our own peace’” (Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 253)). Thus, the fall of the Noldor is a product of their very flight from Valinor. In desiring to master their gems, they desired to master themselves and so were blinded to their true natures as beings designed to reside in Heaven as part of its divine order. As a result, they refused to relinquish themselves to God and denied their own salvation.
—GMH
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