# Appearance of the Valar



## cab345 (Jan 29, 2003)

Could they just think, hey it's my pink day and think of pink and "pouf" they were dressed in pink? Or armor? Or naked? 

please tell me if you know


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## Link (Jan 29, 2003)

tough to say

Manwe was clad in sapphires and blue robes and held a blue sceptre.

Orome had the stature of a great hunter.

that's all I can remember.


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## Niniel (Jan 29, 2003)

In the UT it says about Ulmo:
Then Tuor bowed in reverence, for it seemd to him that he beheld a mighty king. A tall crown he wore like silver, from which his long hair fell down as foam glimmering in the dusk; and as he cast back the grey mantle that hung about him like a mist, behold! he was clad in a gleaming coat, close-fitted as the mail of a mighty fish, and in a kirtle of deep green that flashed and flickered with sea-fire as he strode slowly towards the land. In this manner the dweller of the deep, whom the Noldor name Ulmo, Lord of Waters, showed himself to Tuor. 
However, it says 'in this manner he showed himself', suggesting that he might have chosen another appearance.


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## Gothmog (Jan 29, 2003)

> Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar, save only in majesty and splendour. *Moreover their shape comes of the knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself*; and thy need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present. *But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female*; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby. *But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread*.


 from the published Silmarillion: The Music of the Ainur

I think that this shows the answer. The Valar and the Maia choose however they wish to be seen.


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## Niniel (Jan 29, 2003)

'Clothe themselves in their own thought', wow, that is such a beautiful idea.


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## Thorondor_ (Sep 12, 2005)

> It was because of their love of Ea, and because of the pan they had played in its making, that they wished to, and could, incarnate themselves in visible physical forms, though these were comparable to our clothes (in so far as our clothes are a personal expression) not to our bodies. Their forms were thus expressions of their persons, powers, and loves. They need not be anthropomorphic (Yavanna wife of Aule would, for instance, appear in the form of a great Tree.) But the 'habitual' shapes of the Valar, when visible or clothed, were anthropomorphic, because of their intense concern with Elves and Men.


Letter #212


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## Ithrynluin (Sep 14, 2005)

I think that though they could and would at times change their shapes (e.g. Yavanna as a tree), the appearance of the great Ainur was more or less set, because they loved the Elves and wanted to take up similar shapes for love of them, and keep these shapes so as to be recognizable to the Children.


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