# Why did the Valar Foresake Men?



## Celebthôl (Jan 26, 2003)

why did they then?

I mean they helped the Elves in the last battle against Morgoth, but they wont help or even give word/advice to defeat Sauron/Saruman, why? its the last bands of men on the planet the last Free men anyway, i really cant see why they dont help!

Thôl


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## Anamatar IV (Jan 26, 2003)

Possible because the men waged war upon the Valar.......

Or possibly because the Valar were removed from the circles of the world....


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## Celebthôl (Jan 26, 2003)

they could still come to earth surely, and why should the children of Ilúvatar who the Valar are there to watch over suffer, because their forefathers were foolish?

Thôl


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## Ithrynluin (Jan 26, 2003)

Morgoth was a foe beyond _any_ strength of Elves.
Sauron is only his lieutenant, but still a powerful being of course.
The Valar didn't abandon Men in the Third Age, that is why they sent the Istari - to aid the free peoples, but not to fight Sauron themselves. The Powers of the West basically wanted the free peoples to take a stand for themselves, but because Sauron was too great a foe for them to defeat him on their own, the Istari were sent to ME.


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## Celebthôl (Jan 26, 2003)

but they didnt even succed in the way that it took Hobbits and more luck than Mr Bilbo had to win, they may i guess have had a part in that, but it was running a very fine line, but with the Elves they sent the entire streangth of Valinor, for Men they sen wot, a Wizard it helped a little, but not like the full might of the Eldar...

Thôl


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## Ithrynluin (Jan 26, 2003)

Like I said, Sauron is NOT Morgoth. Don't look at the _numbers_ of persons that were sent to Middle Earth in the Third Age, look at _who_ came - Five powerful Maiar.
Saruman helped the White Council with his deep knowledge, and Gandalf did too. With joint forces, they drove Sauron out from Mirkwood.
But the most successful was of course Gandalf. Without him, Middle Earth would have been covered in darkness. He was the main "actor" in the resistance to Sauron, and his chief foe.
He was the leader of the Fellowship, he organized the Quest to Erebor, sacrificed himself in the fight with the Balrog...


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## Anamatar IV (Jan 26, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Celebthôl _
> *, but with the Elves they sent the entire streangth of Valinor, for Men they sen wot, a Wizard it helped a little, but not like the full might of the Eldar...
> 
> Thôl *



The Valar didn't just randomly go help, though. It took one of the greatest deeds in the world (a mortal man sailing to Aman) to get the Valar to lift the ban and help Beleriand.

And also, when helping the Elves of Belerian the Valar also helped the Men.


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## Celebthôl (Jan 26, 2003)

well not really...i mean they could let any Man walk about in Valinor if they wanted, but whos war was it mainly?...um Elves, they started it...Men only got caught up in it and you have to admit that much! Men are so troden down by the Valar why?

Thôl


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## Eriol (Jan 27, 2003)

From what I gathered out of quotes of an interesting debate between Andreth (a woman) and Finrod written in one of the volumes of HoME that I don't have , the Valar were attracted to Elves because they were more like themselves, while Men were an 'unknown quantity', they did not quite know what to do with them, since they are mortal (and this is beyond their understanding, or at least was at first). But at that same dialogue it is said that men heard the Voice of Eru himself in their first generation, so it does not seem they were shortchanged.

Also, the Valar interfered in subtle ways in the War of the Ring besides sending the Istari. The dreams of Faramir/Boromir were probably Ulmo's doing, that unexpected wind that bore Aragorn to Minas Tirith and dispelled the darkness was probably a contribution from Manwë, and so on.


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## Arvedui (Jan 28, 2003)

I think we should be quite happy with the Valar not intervening directly. They did against Motgoth once, and:
"Goodbye Beleriand!"
And once against Sauron/Númenóreans:
"Goodbye Númenór!"

Isn't twice enough?
I guess they though so themselves, and that is why they sent the Istari to help out.
Actually I think this was rather smart of them. Send someone with cunning to help Men to get rid of Sauron, and in the course of that, establish a belief among Men that they were actually able to accomplish something good for themselves. To be able to fight evil and keep Middle-earth a good place to be, through their own actions.


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## Lantarion (Jan 28, 2003)

That's right, "Through their own actions". The Valar wanted Men to prove that they could still accomplish great, heroic deeds like the ones they did in the First Age, and that they didn't rely on the Valar to solve all their big problems.
Haha, Arvedui has a point; Ilúvatar seems to have gotten carried away both times he tried to help his Children. Maybe he was sick of blowing whole continents up.. And more importantly, answering to the insurance agencies..

But even though the Valar weren't around very actively at all in the Third Age (apart from sending the Istari), I like to think that those who were especially in love with Arda were still looking out for it.. Ulmo and Aulë and Yavanna at least, I mean they did make most of it..


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## a14jvx (Feb 18, 2018)

Men were shunned from the beginning and supposedly receive the "Gift of Men". Nobody really knows what the result of men leaving Arda is. The alternative, the Undying Lands, is to be bound to Arda and live forever in a paradise. For all we know the gift is no gift at all compared to the fate of the elves. It is entirely expected for men to feel slighted.

The evil in the world is purely due to the Valar. It was Morgoth that introduced the discord and his whisperings were what drove creatures to do evil things. Rather than deal with the corruption they brought, they defeat Morgoth, destroy the Beleriand, ignore Sauron, remove themselves from the world, and begin recalling the elves back to Valinor just as the new threat from Sauron rises. 

So they send the Istari. 3 out of 5 disappear or lose interest in their mission altogether. 1 turns against men. Hard to believe that is all the Valar were capable of in assisting men against Sauron. 

Long story short, the Valar show a very heavy preference toward the elves. Whether that was the will of Eru we will never know, but if we assume Eru has no role in this it seems very biased.


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## Alcuin (Feb 18, 2018)

Celebthôl said:


> …they helped the Elves in the last battle against Morgoth…


The Noldor and Sindar, who had been at war with Morgoth since his escape from Aman with the purloined Silmarilli, sat out the battle. Only the Vanyar fresh from Eldamar and the remnant of the Three Houses of Men joined the Maiar in the War of Wrath. As their reward, the Edain were given Númenor. 


Celebthôl said:


> …why should the children of Ilúvatar who the Valar are there to watch over suffer, because their forefathers were foolish?


This is a recitation of one form of the Problem of Evil known as the Fall of Man. 

In _Morgoth’s Ring_ appears Tolkien’s closest writing to a discussion of theology in “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” or “The Debate of Finrod and Andreth”. Andreth was a mortal woman of the First House who had fallen in love with Finrod’s brother Aegnor, and he with her; but Aegnor would not take her as wife nor consummate their union. Andreth greeted Finrod with bitter joy, and the two began a discussion on the Fate of Men and Elves. In a commentary on it, Tolkien wrote (to which *Eriol* refers),


> [Finrod] would say that Melkor had not “changed” Men, but “seduced” them (to allegiance to himself) very early in their history, so that Eru had changed their “fate”. For Melkor could seduce individual minds and wills, but he could not make this heritable, or alter (contrary to the will and design of Eru) the relation of a whole people to Time and Arda. But the power of Melkor over material things was plainly vast. … His attempt to … alter the designs of Eru … introduced evil … into all the physical matter of Arda. It was for this reason, no doubt, that he had been totally successful with Men, but only partially so with Elves … Some dreadful things of this sort [rebellion against the tutelage of the Valar; or denying the existence and absolute supremacy of Eru], Finrod guesses, Men must have done, as a whole… Finrod … sees … that … no created thing or being in Arda … was powerful enough to counteract or … subdue Melkor … and the Evil that he had dissipated and sent out from himself into the very structure of the world. Only Eru himself could do this.





Ithrynluin said:


> Morgoth was a foe beyond _any_ strength of Elves.
> Sauron is only his lieutenant, but still a powerful being of course.
> The Valar didn't abandon Men in the Third Age, that is why they sent the Istari - to aid the free peoples, but not to fight Sauron themselves. The Powers of the West basically wanted the free peoples to take a stand for themselves, but because Sauron was too great a foe for them to defeat him on their own, the Istari were sent to ME.


Precisely. 



Anamatar IV said:


> It took one of the greatest deeds in the world (a mortal man sailing to Aman) to get the Valar to lift the ban and help Beleriand.


Eärendil’s sailing to Valinor was quite outside the plan of the Valar. Mandos wanted Eärendil and Elwing to die as mortals. Manwë set aside the rule of Mandos in the case of the Half-Elven in order to accomplish the purposes of Eru, which did not become apparent until the union of Aragorn and Arwen. 



Arvedui said:


> I think we should be quite happy with the Valar not intervening directly. They did against Motgoth once, and:
> "Goodbye Beleriand!"
> And once against Sauron/Númenóreans:
> "Goodbye Númenór!"


And before that, in the Years of the Stars, before the Migration of the Elves, the Valar destroyed Utumno extract Melkor, hauling him off in the chain Angainor to Valinor where he spent three ages of the world imprisoned in Mandos. This also caused great destruction to Arda. And before _that_, the Ainur (the Valar and Maiar) had a great war against Melkor and his followers (Umaiar), that resulted in the destruction of the Two Lamps and fearsome ruin in Arda. Moreover, the Valar may later have come to believe they were mistaken to invite - to insist - that the Elves join them in Valinor: they did not dare repeat this error with Men. 



a14jvx said:


> Men were shunned from the beginning and supposedly receive the "Gift of Men". Nobody really knows what the result of men leaving Arda is. The alternative, the Undying Lands, is to be bound to Arda and live forever in a paradise. For all we know the gift is no gift at all compared to the fate of the elves. It is entirely expected for men to feel slighted.


The Gift of Men is to leave Arda and become something else. The Fate of Elves is remain in Arda, but end when it does. As Finrod says in “The Debate of Finrod and Andreth”,


> [W]e [Elves] walk in the shadows of fear. ... I perceive that the great difference between Elves and Men is in the speed of the end. In this only. For if you deem that for the Quendi there is no death ineluctable, you err.
> 
> ...You see us, the Quendi, still in the first ages of our being, and the end is far off. As maybe among you death may seem to a young man in his strength; save that we have long years of life and thought already behind us. But the end will come. That we all know. And then we must die; we must perish utterly, it seems, for we belong to Arda... And beyond that what? …
> 
> Our hunter is slow-footed, but he never loses the trail. Beyond the day when he shall blow the mort[_footnote_: “the note sounded on a horn at the death of the quarry”], we have no certainty, no knowledge. And no one speaks to us of hope.


Yours is the argument that led the Númenóreans to rebel and so bring about the Downfall of Númenor. 

Moreover, it was not living in the Undying Lands that gave the Elves their longevity: it was the nature of the Elves. Were Men to inhabit the Undying Lands, their nature would cause their spirits (_fëar_) to abandon their bodies (_hröar_), which would remain to rove as monsters. (See _Morgoth’s Ring_, “Aman and Mortal Men”, pp 429-430. See also here.)



a14jvx said:


> The evil in the world is purely due to the Valar. It was Morgoth that introduced the discord and his whisperings were what drove creatures to do evil things. Rather than deal with the corruption they brought, they defeat Morgoth, destroy the Beleriand, ignore Sauron, remove themselves from the world, and begin recalling the elves back to Valinor just as the new threat from Sauron rises.


The Valar did not remove themselves from the Circles of the World. Eru did this: it was beyond the authority of the Valar; moreover, _it was beyond their power and abilities._ The Valar, too, are bound to Arda until its end, even beyond the Circles of the World: even there they are not unreachable. The Istari came to Middle-earth in the Third Age, after the destruction of Númenor, after Valinor became unreachable for Men; and the Elves sailed there in ships specially prepared and hallowed for the journey. 


a14jvx said:


> Long story short, the Valar show a very heavy preference toward the elves. Whether that was the will of Eru we will never know, but if we assume Eru has no role in this it seems very biased.


The Valar may indeed have shown a preference toward the Elves. It does not appear to have been the will of Eru; but Eru seems to show no bias. Indeed, the hand of Eru can be seen in many places in _The Lord of the Rings_, most clearly in the series of “chance” events that lead to the Downfall of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron. At the very beginning, a chance meeting with Gildor drives off the Nazgûl and alerts Tom Bombadil, Aragorn and the Dúnedain, and Elrond to Frodo’s plight, as well as disturbing the plans and machinations of the Nazgûl. What appears to be a disaster in the Fall of Gandalf with the Balrog in fact prevents the ruin of Lórien, while solidifying Aragorn’s command. The death of Boromir and the breaking of the Company of the Ring leads to the Boromir’s redemption, the overthrow of Saruman, a renewal of the alliance between Rohan and Gondor, the preservation of Gondor, and Aragorn’s entry into Gondor via the Paths of the Dead, fulfilling the Prophecy of Malbeth the Seer; and so on and on. 

Evil in Arda came from Melkor and his adherents among the Maiar, Sauron chief but hardly alone among them. Men and even Elves sometimes participated in it, or became dedicated to it, but they did not first devise it. Nor was it to leave Arda until the very end.


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## Elthir (Feb 18, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> The Gift of Men is to leave Arda and become something else. The Fate of Elves is remain in Arda, but end when it does. As Finrod says in “The Debate of Finrod and Andreth”



To expand upon this, the Elves will die at the end of the World, yes, just as Men die far sooner, but the Elves themselves have different theories as to what their own fate will be after this death.

Obviously at this point, the Quendi cannot be physically reincarnated again into Arda Marred, but that does not mean the Elves cease to exist (not that you necessarily meant that with "end" in any case), and Finrod also has a vision of their part in Arda Unmarred.


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