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Q: Short Questions and Answers Volume 10
ANSWER: Here is another round of questions for which the answers aren’t long enough to be their own articles.
Why Wasn’t Morgoth Forgiven A Second Time?
This first question was submitted in September 2022:
Morgoth committed evil and was brought imprisoned in the Halls of Mandos for three ages, then given the chance to claim that he repented. Manwë was forced to trust his word and let him free. Then, it happened again and Morgoth immediately asked for pardon. But he was instead mutilated and thrown into the Void. Why was he not again given a chance to repent? Was it this time a direct order by Eru? Why did he not order it the first time?
I can only guess at Tolkien’s intentions concerning Melkor/Morgoth. So far as I know, there is no direct statement that Ilúvatar commanded this. Morgoth’s second punishment is described anecdotally in a text published in Morgoth’s Ring (Volume X of The History of Middle-earth):
The war was successful, and ruin was limited to the small (if beautiful) region of Beleriand. Morgoth was thus actually made captive in physical form, and in that form taken as a mere criminal to Aman and delivered to Namo Mandos as judge – and executioner. He was judged, and eventually taken out of the Blessed Realm and executed: that is killed like one of the Incarnates. It was then made plain (though it must have been understood beforehand by Manwe and Namo) that, though he had ‘disseminated’ his power (his evil and possessive and rebellious will) far and wide into the matter of Arda, he had lost direct control of this, and all that ‘he’, as a surviving remnant of integral being, retained as ‘himself’ and under control was the terribly shrunken and reduced spirit that inhabited his selfimposed (but now beloved) body. When that body was destroyed he was weak and utterly ‘houseless’, and for that time at a loss and ‘unanchored’ as it were. We read that he was then thrust out into the Void. That should mean that he was put outside Time and Space, outside Eä altogether; but if that were so this would imply a direct intervention of Eru (with or without supplication of the Valar). It may however refer inaccurately to the extrusion or flight of his spirit from Arda.
So I will guess that the Valar were exasperated with Melkor. They didn’t know what else to do with him. Keeping him imprisoned or paroled in Aman would not rehabilitate him. Hence, for his repeated crime of rebellion – and perhaps because of the way he corrupted the Elves (and Men) – they seem to have felt that execution was the best punishment.
Why Could Fëanor Not Ever Be Reembodied?
The question put to me was: “Why was Fëanor not allowed to be rebodied when even Morgoth was allowed to repent and be freed once?”
I’m not sure that was Tolkien’s final thought about Fëanor. However, he was rebellious and toxic even at the end of his life, laying it upon his sons to fulfill their [evil] oath. He was responsible for a great deal of the horror and suffering of Elves, Men, and Dwarves. He led the first Kinslaying and was indirectly responsible for the second and third Kinslayings.
I think until Melkor had shown his corruption was full and complete the Valar hoped he could be redeemed. He was, after all, one of their own. But his rebellion and corruption of the Noldor made it clear he could not be redeemed. So I think by the time Fëanor died it was clear that some evils were simply too great to be forgiven.
Why Did Morgoth’s Influence on Arda Persist after His Death?
And then I was asked: “Why did the Rings and the One Ring lose their power, Barad-Dur crumble when Sauron died, but Morgoth’s effect on Arda endured when was cast into the Void? Why is Morgoth’s influence permanent when Sauron’s wasn’t?”
I think the passage I cited above explains it. Morgoth’s essence – that part of himself with which he imbued Arda – had become disassociated from his core will, and he was no longer able to master it. But this really isn’t much different from what happened with Sauron and the One Ring. Sauron died twice in the Second Age but the Ring survived.
It wasn’t until the One Ring itself was destroyed that Sauron’s return was finally rendered impossible. The destruction of the Ring released all of that power, more-or-less causing it to be irreparably unfocused. The Valar or Ilúvatar would have to destroy Arda in order to render Morgoth’s remnant power similarly unfocused or dispersed.
Where were the permanent havens the Númenóreans built in the 1200?
This question was submitted in November 2022:
What can be assumed? That they were destroyed by Sauron during the war of Eriador? That seems very convenient and highly poor. Of course in the Unfinished Tales there is mention of forts in the haven (how fortifications can be inside a haven?) and along the Gwathló, but fort and haven are not the same thing, and even if it did count, it is said that Sauron’s raiders only burned the wooden stores, it is not said that they would have attacked the forts or destroyed.
There are no havens, and unattacked forts magically disappear after the war.
Technically, we don’t know when the Gwathló forts would have been abandoned. They could have been maintained throughout the Second Age and even well into the Third Age. I suspect the very latest they could have been abandoned would be after the Great Plague of Third Age year 1636. Or they might have been abandoned soon after the War of the Elves and Sauron in the Second Age, if there seemed no further threat from Mordor.
Gil-galad’s power grew considerably while Sauron was in Númenór and that would have been an unfriendly time for the Eldar anyway. So I don’t think Tolkien would have imagined royal Númenórean troops maintaining forts along the Gwathló at that time. He would eventually have needed to pull in those troops for his assault on Aman (if they indeed remained there throughout the Second Age). Or they could have been loyal members of the Faithful Númenóreans. We just don’t know.
I think what can be assumed is that Vinyalondë became a permanent haven sometime between Second Age year 1200 and 1700. My guess is that it would have been no later than when the Númenóreans began fortifying the Gwathló. And probably most of the “named” havens would have been forgotten in Arnor and Gondor, perhaps destroyed as a result of the Changing of the World, and at the very least they would have become hostile to the Dúnedain of Arnor and Gondor.
And, yes, it’s convenient to say the records were lost and the colonies destroyed, but that is precisely what Tolkien says. Not much survived the cataclysm. The names we have are for cities that were established in the lands that became Arnor and Gondor because it was their records that were preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch.
How Long Was the First Age?
I received this question in May 2023:
Hello, what do you think about this passage from the Appendix F of the Lord of the Rings, quoted below?
“The High-elven was an ancient tongue of Eldamar beyond the Sea, the first to be recorded in writing. It was no longer a birth-tongue, but had become, as it were, an ‘Elven-latin’, still used for ceremony, and for high matters of lore and song, by the High Elves, who had returned in exile to Middle-earth at the END of the First Age.”
P.S.: Capitalization here is mine.
Another way to ask this question is “when did the ‘First Age’ begin?” Many fans think of the First Age as covering only that period from when the Noldor returned to Middle-earth until the overthrow of Angband. But the First Age refers to the “first age of [time measured by] the Eldar”. Most online references now define it as the First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar, although that expression is not canonical (in the sense that it’s not used in a majority of J.R.R. Tolkien’s dating schemes). The phrase is only found in “Annals of Aman” in Morgoth’s Ring.
David Day popularized the expression “First Age of the Years of the Sun”, referring only to the years measured since the sun first rose. That corresponds to the “Tale of Years” provided in The War of the Jewels (Volume XI of The History of Middle-earth). But it would be more correct (and also more awkward) to say “the Years of the Sun in the First Age” or “the Years of the Sun at the end of the First Age”.
Whatever you wish to call it, however you wish to refer to it, the First Age began by all of Tolkien’s accounts (as best I can determine) when the Elves awoke at Cuiviénen and the “ages” as such are measured in the Eldarin calendar system. So, yes, the Noldor returned (in exile) to Middle-earth near the end of the First Age (according to the calendar they had developed and kept in Aman). They would not have thought of it as “the First Age” until after the overthrow of Morgoth and the establishment of Lindon. I suspect that the “ages” were really a nominal convention developed under Gil-galad in Lindon (but that’s purely fannish speculation).
See also
Where Were the Permanent Havens the Númenóreans after S.A. 1200?
When Was Lond Daer Enedh Abandoned?
Were the Corsairs of Umbar Númenóreans?
What Is the History of Tharbad?
Could Melkor Ever Become as Powerful as Ilúvatar?
How Does Death Work in Middle-earth?
Magic by Melkor, No Returns Accepted (Classic essay)
What Are the Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar?
More Short Question and Answer Articles
Short Questions and Answers, Volume 9
Short Questions and Answers, Volume 8
Short Questions and Answers, Volume 7
Short Questions and Answers, Volume 6
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I think it’s telling that the Second Age ended not with the Changing of the World but with the death of Gil-galad and the defeat of Sauron. To me, this suggests that the Ages were a concept that the Eldar of Middle-earth used to organize their own history.
The Third ends when Elrond leaves, so that would appear to give credence to your theory. Surely, if they were to mark events, the age would end with the destruction of Sauron and refounding of the United Kingdom.
As regards Morgoth, I don’t know what the Valar-speak would be for “he had his chance and blew it”, but I suspect that’s what the decision amounted to. I would assume that the Valar had Iluvatar’s backing for their punishment of Morgoth.
With Feanor, my guess would be that, just as Feanor and his sons were driven by their (to say the least) ill-advised oath, the Valar were constrained by the Doom of the Noldor:
“For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.”
After that, they could hardly let him return to life.