# Going back the way they came?



## Ithrynluin (Jun 26, 2007)

After the Noldor fled from Valinor, the Valar shut the land off and set a ban against their return. They raised the Enchanted Isles in the Shadowy Seas before their lands, so that even if a mariner made it so far -- managing to escape the wrath of the sea -- he would be trapped there.

So, clearly, sailing back to Valinor was not an option. 

But what of a land route, the very one most of the Noldor used to get to Middle-earth in the first place, the Grinding Ice? Sure, it was a dreaded road and many would be grieved to even think about it due to the losses they endured there, but it must have been an option in the woes that would befall them!

Do you think the Helcaraxe, too, was somehow "fortified" by the Valar, made still more impassable and perilous, though this was nowhere stated as far as I know?

Perhaps the Grinding Ice was intentionally destroyed after the Noldor had traversed it?

Is this merely an oversight by JRRT/CT? Or is it one of those issues we should simply not worry our pretty little heads about, much like Sauron in his spirit form making off with the One Ring at the sinking of Numenor?!*

*Sauron was first defeated by a 'miracle': a direct action of God the Creator, changing the fashion of the world, when appealed to by Manwë: see III p. 317. Though reduced to 'a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind', *I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring*, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended. That Sauron was not himself destroyed in the anger of the One is not my fault: the problem of evil, and its apparent toleration, is a permanent one for all who concern themselves with our world. The indestructibility of spirits with free wills, even by the Creator of them, is also an inevitable feature, if one either believes in their existence, or feigns it in a story.
-- Letter 211


----------



## Sagan369 (Jun 26, 2007)

_You bring up a good point! Just one of those things that make you go hmmmmmm!_


----------



## YayGollum (Jun 26, 2007)

Hm. Well, I don't remember reading anything about that path being specifically blocked. I'd figure that bits of Grinding Ice became some of those creepy islands. Why not? I doubt that the Valar types would count on everybody being too afraid to sneak back. Easy for giant as well as terrifying and overly magically powered types to make such a path a bit less passable, in some way. 

But towards the conundrum of how something incorporeal carried a ring ---> Simple! How long did he live on that Numenor place? A superly special as well as newly created chunk of land, and you never considered how many Aule type Ainur would have been hanging around the place, superly proud of it and happy to have had the chance to get involved in some more continent shaping? Well, that's just craziness. He got to know of few of those guys. Some spirit of sandbars helped him out by keeping track of his accessory for him. Who knows how many superly cool souvenirs Sauron got to keep from the many gift shops?


----------



## Sagan369 (Jun 26, 2007)

Ummm, what??? Please say that again Yay!


----------



## YayGollum (Jun 27, 2007)

Okay. How's about a translation? ---> I agreed that I had no definite answers first. I hypothesized that the Helcaraxe path could have been blocked by way of the Valar types turning bits of it into some of the Enchanted Isles. I backed up this hypothesis by pointing out that they were capable of doing that. I agreed with the ithynluin person's point that heading back to Valinor by way of this path would have been scary, as well as that the topic was a decent one, since it is a bit of a loose end. I then mentioned that, if nobody liked the idea of bits of the Grinding Ice being turned into Enchanted Isle type places, the Valar types would have been able to block the path in some other way. I didn't hypothesize any further because I had other posts to get to.  Thus ends the first paragraph.

I offered an explanation for the other question that I noticed unanswered. I offered an exclamation point to show that it was the answer that I was more interested in. I asked a question that I doubted anyone would attempt to answer, mostly to remind people who already knew that answer that it was a decent sized chunk of time. My next question didn't demand an answer, either, since it was merely meant to induce consideration for the hypothesis that at least one type of Ainur had the motivation to have been within Sauron's range of contact. I pointed out that a lack of consideration for the hypothesis would be hasty. I tossed in the obvious fact that Sauron was known to network. I then added the conclusion that many should have already figured on from the earlier parts of the post, that at least one type of Ainur could have had the ability and motivation to transport Sauron's Ring Of Power. Merely to entertain, I attached the seemingly useless observation that, if any of the other stuff that I wrote could have happened, Sauron could have run off with products from Numenorean gift shops. It made me think of him returning to Mordor with cool little souvenirs to use for bragging if ever he felt like it, but the more interesting bit of fantasy that I wished for people to glean was that he could have made off with all kinds of superly cool as well as crazily magically powerful stuff. Numenor was full of it. Good idea for an R. P. G. Some random Orc or plunderer of any race checks around in Mordor's wreckage and eventually happens upon some not necessarily already invented by Tolkien sort of magical object.


----------



## Ithrynluin (Jun 27, 2007)

YayGollum said:


> I'd figure that bits of Grinding Ice became some of those creepy islands. Why not?



I reckon the Ice would have melted in those latitudes, although of course the Valar could have magically prevented that. Still, seems like too much hassle, it's more likely to me that Ulmo just raised new isles from the Sea. The Valar either made the Helcaraxe dissolve or put some sort of enchantment over that too, perhaps a kind of thick mist that would daze and confuse anyone who would attempt to pass through, and just lead him back the way he came, i.e. Middle-earth.



> How long did he live on that Numenor place? A superly special as well as newly created chunk of land, and you never considered how many Aule type Ainur would have been hanging around the place, superly proud of it and happy to have had the chance to get involved in some more continent shaping? Well, that's just craziness. He got to know of few of those guys. Some spirit of sandbars helped him out by keeping track of his accessory for him.



First off, any Maiar of Aule would also have drowned, or rather have their bodies destroyed in much the same way as what happened to Sauron. So, if anyone could have helped Sauron carry the Ring back to M-e, I'd say it would have been a Maia of Ulmo, because the way I imagine it those were some deep waters, not shallows. But the problem with that is that there never were any Maiar of Ulmo, that we know of, who aligned themselves with Melkor or Sauron, and water was always feared by servants of evil.

Secondly, even if there was some way to squeeze the above through, why would Maiar have come to live to Numenor? Seems to go against the (unwritten?) rule that Numenoreans couldn't live together with the Ainur, and it seems to me that the presence of many wonderful angelic beings with strange and wondrous powers would have only quickened the Numenoreans' desire to go to Aman, witness some beings with even greater powers and perhaps grab some of it for themselves? You could argue that perhaps these spirits lived and laboured there under a disguise, but I'm very much reluctant to accept that the Valar would have agreed to that.


----------



## YayGollum (Jun 27, 2007)

What I meant by Grinding Ice becoming Enchanted sorts of Isles, I mostly meant one of the versions that you wrote about. The one where some sort of enchantment would be tossed at bits of ice. I merely made a translation of my original post. Looks like I should have added a few more explanations, though. oh well. 

Anyways, no, not any Ainur thing with the same sort of mind as Aule would have drowned. Check out the many bodies available to Ainur type things ---> Anything relating to their natures! Something made out of sand can't drown and could easily transport trinkets while drifting back towards Middle Earth. The Ainur of Aule's persuasion was the most obvious answer, to myself, but I never read anything that informed me that Sauron didn't possess the ability to make friends of a more watery sort. Manwe type things hung out there, too, and could have flown stuff away, why not? All kinds of options. That Tolkien dude wrote that lots of Ainur invisibly hung around regular people. I don't see why they'd need any Valar type's permission. When were living arrangements of every little Ainur ever strictly monitored?


----------



## Sagan369 (Jun 27, 2007)

Thanks for the translation Yay! I was having a little trouble following your train of thought there.


----------



## Ithrynluin (Jun 27, 2007)

YayGollum said:


> Anyways, no, not any Ainur thing with the same sort of mind as Aule would have drowned. Check out the many bodies available to Ainur type things ---> Anything relating to their natures! Something made out of sand can't drown and could easily transport trinkets while drifting back towards Middle Earth. ?



That's pretty far fetched to me. I don't think the Ainur had _that_ much freedom in choosing their shape. I don't believe Sauron had any servants or accomplices in Numenor, not counting the men he corrupted there, but of course we have no proof for that. Also, I think an evil Maia might be just a bit too arrogant to serve another Maia, even if that another was greater than itself. I'm thinking of the Moria Balrog here, and Saruman could also be fitted within this definition.



> The Ainur of Aule's persuasion was the most obvious answer, to myself, but I never read anything that informed me that Sauron didn't possess the ability to make friends of a more watery sort.



There's not a whole lot written about many things, but for many of them we can still lean more to one side than the other because of what is written indirectly. For example:

Arguments against Melkor/Sauron having any Maiar of Ulmo as servants/cronies: There was never any attack launched from the Sea; Water is described as the purest element almost impervious to corruption; Their servants such as the orks or Nazgul loathe water;

Arguments in favour of M/S having any Maiar of Ulmo as servants/cronies: Umm..the...err...watcher in the water?








> Manwe type things hung out there, too, and could have flown stuff away, why not?



I don't find that likely either, but it's fun to hypothesize nonetheless. I have a hunch that Tolkien meant to imply with that quote that Sauron somehow carried the ring back by himself.



> That Tolkien dude wrote that lots of Ainur invisibly hung around regular people. I don't see why they'd need any Valar type's permission. When were living arrangements of every little Ainur ever strictly monitored?



Men were not supposed to have contact with the Gods, they were not supposed to long for the Undying Lands because it simply wasn't fit for them to live there. Even occasional contact with the elves made the Numenoreans envious (albeit under the influence of Sauron, but still), and I think the Valar would be against the coming of the Maiar to Numenor, visible or otherwise. And I think the Maiar would adhere to that.


----------



## YayGollum (Jun 28, 2007)

I don't see that much besides using up lots of spiritual power would keep them from using all kinds of crazy shapes. A body composed of fire, smoke, and a bit of steel sounds pretty crazy to myself, and nobody questions it. The only restriction that I saw put on what an Ainur can look like is that it has to display something about his nature. The Balrogs did that in some creepy as well as improbable way. Merely the fact that most chose to look more like regular people doesn't mean that it was required. He could be a giant salamander made out of pearls. Why not?

Anyways, sure, I don't see much evidence that Sauron had any Ainur buddies on Numenor, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, of course.  There could have been plenty of Ainur on Numenor. It seemed like the most similar place to Valinor, at the time, and would have held some interest to plenty. Invisibly hanging around isn't looked down upon. The evil torturer Gandalf was an old hand at it, and I detected no reprimands for that. As well as, there are all types of personalities. This made up Ainur that we are writing about could have been a really nice guy, not too bright, decided to help poor Sauron out when he saw that he was about to be inconvenienced. Not so improbable. I wasn't particularly attached to the idea of watery buddies for Sauron, but I wouldn't be entirely opposed to it. That Sauron dude was tricksy. Recruitment by way of corruption was not the only way for him to obtain help. 

But jumping back towards the idea that is less fun but I would admit seems a bit closer to that Tolkien dude's intention ---> Ainur had all kinds of creepy powers. Check this one out ---> Sauron had telekinesis! Why not? How useful for an Aule type Ainur to have superly precise mental control of whatever he's working with? Makes sense, to myself! The natural form of an Ainur is merely a spirit. Did they all have to put on their physical form when they were shaping the world more towards the beginning of time? Seems like a weird impediment. Can't do anything useful until you've put your clothes on? Check out what Aule's vision of Children Of Eru looked like. Those Dwarves are a bit different from what Eru intended, and Aule was one of the smarter ones. What weird forms did Ainur take before they got to see an elf, or Aule's blueprints for Dwarves?


----------



## Starflower (Aug 31, 2007)

> Do you think the Helcaraxe, too, was somehow "fortified" by the Valar, made still more impassable and perilous, though this was nowhere stated as far as I know?



I have always thought that the simple reason the Noldor did not attempt the crossing of the Ice to make it to Valinor was that the price would have been too high to pay. As the Elves do not die, they also do not forget. So the horrors of the Crossing would have been as real to the refugees 1000 years later as they were on the day, they were not just 'grieving for their lost ones', they were actually experiencing the horror of that loss every day, again and again.


----------



## Confusticated (Feb 1, 2008)

I think I joked about doing a comedy RPG about this once. 

But it is too serious of a matter. I agree with Starflower. Reckon the grief was too great for any large group of elves to agree to do this, no matter what their despair. And it seems like too big a task for a small group. As for any few strays who might have tried it? I guess they were forgotten in the songs and tales.


----------



## Confusticated (Sep 17, 2010)

Didn't I write a fanfic once, where myself and Pengolodh goofed off playing with the king's throne, then snuck out of Gondolin to take the Helcaraxe back?


But seriously... I think that it might have been no longer passable... be nice it if had been mentioned because it is nagging.


----------

