# The Void



## Legolas3363 (Mar 11, 2003)

I was wondering if someone could tell me exactly what the void actually is. my initial thought was that it was just black and i pictured melkor floating around and that didnt really seem right. so if someone could tell me i would be much obliged.


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## Anamatar IV (Mar 11, 2003)

It is exactly it's definition: nothing. It is blackness and nothing. Outer space if you will.


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## Celebithil (Mar 11, 2003)

I would say its the lack of everything.


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## Bombadillo (Mar 12, 2003)

It's the stuff in wich space is expanding as we speak....


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## Kahmûl (Mar 12, 2003)

Would it not be like space to us except without the planets and stars.


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## HelplessModAddi (Mar 12, 2003)

I always pictured it as "hyperspace," the actual name of the non-medium the universe exists inside of.

There is a quote somewhere in the Ainulindale to that effect. "it was contained in the Void but was not of it" or something like that.


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## BlackCaptain (Mar 13, 2003)

Where Eru Illuvitar makes his abode. 

Outerspace is innacurate. Its comparable to Heaven i believe, and i DONT wanna start a big Catholicism debate here...


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## greypilgrim (Mar 19, 2003)

The VOID is everything that was "unsung" by all the Valar at the first chapter in the Sil.( in my opinion). Cool ideas in here on it.


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## Idril (Mar 20, 2003)

Found this in the Encyclopedia of Arda:

Void : The emptiness beyond the World
A term used by Tolkien in various ways, but that in general seems to describe the uninhabited regions of the universe. In particular, the Void is that part of existence outside the World, but the Timeless Halls of Ilúvatar seem to be apart from the Void, too. After his defeat in the War of Wrath, Melkor was cast out into the Void, but legends predict that he will return to the World before its end. 


I have to admit, this is kinda what I perceived the 'void' to be whilst reading Sil.


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## Melko Belcha (Mar 20, 2003)

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth


> Void - The adsence of Iluvatar and the Flame Imperishable. Melkor wandered in the Void looking for the Flame (of course in vain), and Ea was set amidst the Void but was not of it. Also called the Outer Void, the Timeless Void (in contrast to the Timeless Halls and the Time of Ea), the Everlasting Dark, the Ancient Darkness, and perhaps nothingness and Outside.



While not always right the Complete Guide and Encyclopedia of Arda are great places for reference.


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## Sangahyando (Oct 8, 2005)

In my opinion, I see the Void as the Mind of Illuvatar, the place where his thought is compiled. Kind of like one's conscious and his thought is the subconsciece.

Sangahyando, great-grandson of Castamir the Usurper


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## Walter (Oct 8, 2005)

*Void, Chaos, Tohuwabohu...*

The nothingness, the inexistence, the absence of Ilúvatar and the FlameImperishable. The Void 'exists' outside the TimelessHalls and Eä. 

Also the two Dark Lords Melkor and Sauron eventually await their final destiny there...

Sindarin iâ for 'void, abyss' also - at least phonetically - resembles the Indo-european root for 'void' euә. 

In many creational myths the state before the world came into existence is called either _void_ or _chaos_.



> [1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,<br>
> 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
> 
> NRS Genesis 1



The original hebrew text has _tohuw va bohuw_ for what is translated as 'formless void', but it has been argued that _tohuw va bohuw_ (or _tohu va bohu_) can also mean a 'waste' and 'wilderness', a 'Chaos'.

Chaos, originating from Greek _khaos_ (Indo-european root: ghēu-), means 'void', 'abyss, 'empty space', thus the two terms 'Chaos' and 'Void' seem pretty much congruent and paralleling the 'Void' in Tolkien's legendarium...


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## Thorondor_ (Oct 8, 2005)

> Also the two Dark Lords Melkor and Sauron eventually await their final destiny there...


 I know of no evidence that Sauron left Ea.


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## Walter (Oct 8, 2005)

This was the part I had in mind:



> In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.


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## Thorondor_ (Oct 8, 2005)

True, but I think it is more of a metaphorical (moral) void; Melkor was cast into the void by the valar, while Sauron wasn't captured, nor do I think he would choose such an exile. Here is what I had in mind, from Letter# 200:


> I note your remarks about Sauron. He was always de-bodied when vanquished. The theory, if one can dignify the modes of the story with such a term, is that he was a spirit, a minor one but still an 'angelic' spirit. According to the mythology of these things that means that, though of course a creature, he belonged to the race of intelligent beings that were made before the physical world, and were permitted to assist in their measure in the making of it. Those who became most involved in this work of An, as it was in the first instance, became so engrossed with it, that when the Creator made it real (that is, gave it the secondary reality, subordinate to his own, which we call primary reality, and so in that hierarchy on the same plane with themselves) they desired to enter into it, from the beginning of its 'realization'.
> They were allowed to do so, and the great among them became the equivalent of the 'gods' of traditional mythologies; but a condition was that they would remain 'in it' until the Story was finished


In one of the notes of Myths transformed, it is said:


> If they do not sink below a certain level. Since no fëa can be annihilated, reduced to zero or not-existing, it is no[t] clear what is meant. Thus Sauron was said to have fallen below the point of ever recovering, though he had previously recovered. What is probably meant is that a 'wicked' spirit becomes fixed in a certain desire or ambition, and if it cannot repent then this desire becomes virtually its whole being. But the desire may be wholly beyond the weakness it has fallen to, and it will then be unable to withdraw its attention from the unobtainable desire, even to attend to itself. It will then remain for ever in impotent desire or memory of desire


which could be corelated with Letter#131:


> if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron's own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will. But that he never contemplated nor feared


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## Walter (Oct 8, 2005)

Of course it is up to you - or to anyone else in that matter - how you interpret certain passages of the text.

However, the passage I quoted above appears pretty self-explanatory and it should suffice to explain my previous point. If you see that differently, I will gladly agree to disagree with you in this issue....


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## Thorondor_ (Oct 8, 2005)

That refference to Sauron following Melkor down into the void could reffer to the void surrounding Arda, not the void outside creation (a confusion between these two being often made by the minds of the humans and elves):


> But this Manwe would not suffer, and there was war therefore in Arda. But as is elsewhere written Melkor was at that time defeated with the aid of Tulkas (who was not among those who began the building of Ea) and driven out again into the Void that lay about Arda


from the Myths transformed - where it is also stated that:


> We read that he was then thrust out into the Void. That should mean that he was put outside Time and Space, outside Ea altogether; but if that were so this would imply a direct intervention of Eru


which could imply that departing from Ea is not within the power of the valar/maiar - all of them (Sauron included, as letter #200 states) being bound to creation till it's end.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Oct 8, 2005)

BlackCaptain said:


> Where Eru Illuvitar makes his abode.
> 
> Outerspace is innacurate. Its comparable to Heaven i believe, and i DONT wanna start a big Catholicism debate here...



Then say 30 _Ave Marias_ and 25 _Pater Nosters — et pax vobiscum!_ 

Barley


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