# Melkor/Arda Marred or Remade



## Maedhros (Dec 30, 2006)

Melkor Marred or Remade

From _Morgoth’s Ring: Myths Transformed:_


> Melkor must be made far more powerful in original nature (cf. 'Finrod and Andreth'). *The greatest power under Eru (sc. the greatest created power). (He was to make/ devise / begin; Manwë (a little less great) was to improve, carry out, complete.)*


I was always under the impression that Melkor was the evil guy, that wanted to conquer all of Arda for himself, and that he deviated from his original purpose that was for him to be the Master architect of Arda.
Certainly, in the making of Arda, if Melkor would have added his power in harmony with the other Valar, it would have been a better Arda for sure, yet he became evil and moved from his Valar brethren.
But you know what, perhaps he did exactly what he was meant to do, make/devise/begin. 


> Melkor 'incarnated' himself (as Morgoth) permanently. He did this so as to control the hroa, the 'flesh' or physical matter of Arda. He attempted to identify himself with it. A vaster and more perilous, procedure, though of similar sort to the operations of Sauron with the Rings. Thus, outside the Blessed Realm, all 'matter' was likely to have a 'Melkor ingredient', and those who had bodies, nourished by the hroa of Arda, had as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melkor: they were none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.
> *But in this way Morgoth lost (or exchanged, or transmuted) the greater part of his original 'angelic' powers, of mind and spirit, while gaining a terrible grip upon the physical world.* For this reason he had to be fought, mainly by physical force, and enormous material ruin was a probable consequence of any direct combat with him, victorious or otherwise.


Melkor, unlike the other Valar, spent a great deal of his “angelic powers” in Arda. If our point of view, is that the creation ended with Arda Marred, then yes, Melkor did fail in his purpose, but if the creation ended with Arda Remade, then Melkor did the will of Ilúvater perfectly. Arda Remade is greater than what Arda Unmarred would have been.

From _The Lost Road and other Writtings:_


> §31 Thus spake Mandos in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor, and the rumour of his words was whispered among all the Elves of the West. When the world is old and the Powers grow weary, then Morgoth, seeing that the guard sleepeth, shall come back through the Door of Night out of the Timeless Void; and he shall destroy the Sun and Moon. But Eärendel shall descend upon him as a white and searing flame and drive him from the airs. *Then shall the Last Battle be gathered on the fields of Valinor. In that day Tulkas shall strive with Morgoth, and on his right hand shall be Fionwë, and on his left Túrin Turambar, son of Húrin, coming from the halls of Mandos; and the black sword of Túrin shall deal unto Morgoth his death and final end; and so shall the children of Húrin and all Men be avenged.*
> §32 Thereafter shall Earth be broken and re-made, and the Silmarils shall be recovered out of Air and Earth and Sea; for Eärendel shall descend and surrender that flame which he hath had in keeping. Then Fëanor shall take the Three Jewels and bear them to Yavanna Palúrien; and she will break them and with their fire rekindle the Two Trees, and a great light shall come forth. And the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled, so that the Light shall go out over all the world. In that light the Gods will grow young again, and the Elves awake and all their dead arise, and the purpose of Ilúvatar be fulfilled concerning them.


Remember, Morgoth in the end was defeated, and Arda was remade, does that means also that Melkor was remade and he became as righteous as in his beginnings?


From _The Book of Lost Tales I: The Music of the Ainur_


> Then said Ilúvatar: “Mighty are the Ainur, and glorious, and among them is Melko the most powerful in knowledge; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo! I have caused to be -- not in the musics that ye make in the heavenly regions, as a joy to me and a play unto yourselves, alone, but rather to have shape and reality even as have ye Ainur, whom I have made to share in the reality of Ilúvatar myself. Maybe I shall love these things that come of my song even as I love the Ainur who are of my thought,4 and maybe more. Thou Melko shalt see that no theme can be played save it come in the end of Ilúvatar’s self, nor can any alter the music in Ilúvatar’s despite. He that attempts this finds himself in the end but aiding me in devising a thing of still greater grandeur and more complex wonder: -- for lo! Through Melko have terror as fire, and sorrow like dark waters, wrath like thunder, and evil as far from my light as the depths of the uttermost of the dark places, come into the design that I laid before you. *Through him has pain and misery been made in the clash of overwhelming musics; and with confusion of sound have cruelty, and ravening, and darkness, loathly mire and all putrescence of thought or thing, foul mists and violent flame, cold without mercy, been born, and death without hope. Yet is this through him and not by him; and he shall see, and ye all likewise, and even shall those beings, who must now dwell among his evil and endure through Melko misery and sorrow, terror and wickedness, declare in the end that it redoundeth only to my great glory, and doth but make the theme more worth the hearing, Life more worth the living, and the World so much the more wonderful and marvellous, that of all the deeds of Ilúvatar it shall be called his mightiest and his loveliest.”*


And you know what, he did exactly what Ilúvatar had wanted.


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## Varokhâr (Dec 30, 2006)

I think Melkor/Morgoth did what he was created to do, and that was make and devise, etc. Of course, the only problem was that he did it in his own way, and furthermore that his own way was oppressive, selfish to the wrong extreme, and destructive.

He did what he was made to do, but just got the details wrong, it would seem. So much for being the product of a "perfect" god


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## Thorondor_ (Dec 30, 2006)

We should keep in mind that Free Will is something that Tolkien wanted in his created universe:


Letter #153 said:


> Free Will 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', as we say, at any rate as it appears on a finite view. He does not stop or make 'unreal' sinful acts and their consequences.


We could also ask ourselves why did Eru let loose such an evil, a "curse" on the creation, if I may say so:


Letter #212 said:


> A divine 'punishment' is also a divine 'gift', if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and *the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments' (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained*...





Ainulindale said:


> And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that *its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern*.


This idea of evil leading to good is apparent in Tolkien's "worldly" philosophy:


Letter #64 said:


> All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: *preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in*. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives.


and in the philosophy of his created world:


Notes on motives in the Silmarillion said:


> Manwe was the spirit of greatest wisdom and prudence in Arda. He is represented as having had the greatest knowledge of the Music, as a whole, possessed by any one finite mind; and he alone of all persons or minds in that time is represented as having the power of direct recourse to and communication with Eru. He must have grasped with great clarity what even we may perceive dimly: that *it was the essential mode of the process of 'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out of it new good should constantly come*. One especial aspect of this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil.


Evil as the measure of good is also an idea that appears in Myths Transformed, HoME X:


> Nonetheless this gift of Iluvatar [the Imperishable Flame] to the Valar has its own peril, as have all his free gifts: which is in the end no more than to say that they play a part in the Great Tale so that it may be complete; *for without peril they would be without power, and the giving would be void*.


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