Concerning free will in Middle Earth, it is fairly succinctly stated in The Ainulindalë by Eru himself, that
Basically, it is a fairly lucid resolution of the question of omnipotence and free will, yes, you have it, and yes he knows what you are going to do with it.
Also, concerning eagles. They are not summoned by anyone in Middle Earth, they are sent by Manwe. Likewise wind is pretty much an agent of his purposes. Light, on the other hand is the realm of Varda, whom the elves call Elbereth. Even speaking her name brings strength against the power of the darkness.
That reads to me like there is no free will. Put another way I read that as, “Nothing happens in Middle Earth that I did not choose to happen.”
I know this goes to an age old argument of omniscience precluding freewill and not for this thread to explore but still my take is nothing happens that Iluvatar did not mean to happen (hence no free will…just the illusion of it).
Concerning Huorns–Gandalf (or Treebeard) mentions a black one. I assume he means black in character and not of the negroid race (I was going to put African, but realized that made no sense!).
so, there are Huorns who went bad?
Re the Balrog–did they only fight mano a mano? Or could 5 elves take one on and win (w/o dying)?
Pippin has peeked into the palantir, much to his dismay (although a neat way of dividing the hobbits, so as to bring into focus Gondor and Edoras–very well done, JRRT!).
I can’t help but like the film Aragorn better. This Aragorn keeps posturing with his arms akimbo and straddling his legs and pronouncing his kingliness. It’s getting on my nerves. Gandalf is right to warn him about hubris. And who can resist the Ultimate Female Fantasy: Viggo? But I digress…
Off to work. Denethor et al await tonight.
WhatExit–the green is fine, except when I first looked at it. I squinted and blinked and rubbed my eyes etc. Never occurred to me to READ it…
Yes in this case Tolkien used black as in “Black Hearted” not as in brown skin pigment.
In the final battle, most of the remaining Balrogs were slain, one or maybe two escaped (or if we don’t subscribe to the only 7 note, maybe a few more).
Yes, it does seem as Gandalf believes that fate played a hand in The One Ring being found when and how it was. Even to the point of Merry and Pippin being rushed to the Ents at just the right moment to seriously ruin Saruman’s plans.
Who’s fighting them and more importantly when? As noted earlier in the “early” days of ME individuals seemed considerably stronger. In the old days Ecthelion of the Fountain (an Elf) defeated Gothmog (the greatest of all the Balrogs). He died doing it but he won.
So, a “mere” Elf (in comparison to a Maiar) went mano-y-mano with the meanest of all the balrogs and won. Move to present day ME and Gandalf (a Maia of considerable power) fought a ‘normal’ Balrog for ten days straight and Gandalf also died for his trouble.
The other Balrog was killed by Glorfindel who likewise died doing it.
Beyond that though the Balrogs were used in plenty of battles and fought many. Feanor’s sons fought off the Balrogs after Feanor was mortally wounded by them so together they were enough to thwart the Balrogs but not defeat them.
EDIT: I wonder if Galadriel could ever solo a Balrog. Either currently or in the past.
Thanks for all of the Glorfindel-info…always bugged me, and now I’m good. I kinda wonder why he wasn’t in some position of rulership, but I can get over that. If I recall, he was as old as Galadriel (if not older)…was he Noldor, or am I forgetting?
Slight hijack…I remember my parents buying me (for X-Mas) a “World Map” of Middle Earth. I remember loving it at first, until I started to notice how friggin’ much of ME there was. I think I was seriously angry that there was that much untouched by any of the stories. Seriously…the whole scope of LOTR plays out in a tiny corner of ME. Urrrgh.
Don’t forget that Fingolfin fought and permently injured Morgoth by himself. Morgoth was of course a Vala and not a mere Balrog.
I don’t think Galadriel was as powerful a warrior as Glorfindel, but perhaps she could have prevented a Balrog from entering Lothlorien, that might likely. I think Gandalf doubted she could have stopped Smaug however, so, I am not sure if it was even in her power to stop a Balrog.
I went looking, what I was thinking of was in the appendix of RotK.
So not Galadriel, but Elrond and his people not being up to the task. This also plays into Gandalf hinting that fate was involved.
Glorfindel was one of the Lords of Rivendell, he was Noldorian, we don’t know if he was older than Galadriel or not. There really wasn’t any large populations left for Glorfindel to rule over. Besides, it appears he was sent back to ME as a messenger and not to rule.
I can’t seem to help myself,Glorfindel is one of the most intriguing characters.
When Elrond’s household escort Arwen to Minas Tirith, up front road his sons Elrohir and Elladan and then rode Glorfindel and Erestor. So, we see that Glorfindel was the most important Full Noldorian left besides Galadriel herself.*
Minor note, it was not stated if Glorfindel left with Elrond and Galadriel, this was left open.
Jim
Well, okay, we are given the impression, it is not a fact, just likely.
As I’d discussed earlier, that’s pretty much how I’d interpreted that passage. However, Illúvatar’s later discussion with Aulë seems to imply that Aulë’s creation fo the Dwarves was not in Illúvatar’s original design (although it was shoe-horned in). So it’s kind of a muddle.
Apparently Morgoth didn’t have free will, though, for what that’s worth.
I vaguely recall that when Glaurung first issued forth, he had “Balrogs in his train”, as though the dragon were the more serious threat.
No, it was clearly said that even Morgoth’s discord was part of the Song.
As to Glaurung, that is one more reason why I stated that the 7 Balrogs does not add up to their use in the Silmarillion. I could understand that passage is their were many like I believed there to be.
Well, after Boromir dies, one of the PCs doing a wilderness adventure ‘just happens’ to run into this brand-new character Faramir who then becomes a major part of the story. At least he rolled a decent WIS the second time around
I forget where I read it now but something I saw indicated that Gothmog, at least, was more powerful than Glaurung.
And why is it the bad guys get all the badass characters? Morgoth, Sauron, Gothmog, Glaurung, Ungoliant, Carcharoth, Balrogs in general, dragons in general…the list goes on. Obviously Elves and some few good guys were quite powerful but nothing as overt as the bad guys.
Hello, Valar? Oromë and Ulmo were badass cool. Also, Morgoth was afraid of Fëanor, and Figolfin faced him one-on-one… and did some damage. Not to mention Túrin Turambar, Beren, Lúthien Tinúviel, Eärendil, Gil-Galad, Galadriel, Gandalf…
To be fair, I think everyone looked askance at Feanor (OK, I don’t have that typeset, so sue me for the lack of the umlaut! )…he was one of those ‘mavericks’, wasn’t he?
I always found Glorfindel to be one of the more intriguing Elves as well. I hate to say it, but I may have to go to my old paperback Silmarillion to review the family trees. For some reason, I’m stuck on who would be higher up in the food chain…Lady G or Glorfindel. Guh…stupid brain.
No-one else wanted to read a story set by the Lake of Rhun? I must be a map-geek.
Yeah but as mentioned before they are mostly hands off (at least after the War of Wrath).
Sure but no wings or fire breathing or nasty, pointy teeth (and lets face it, the Rabbit of Caerbannog would own all in ME). Gotta have the bling to go with the attitude ya know!
Oh, and a quick question…Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast…did we ever get names for the other two Istari? I think they “went East”…that’s one of the reasons I wanted to hear more about the rest of ME.
Istari were Maiar, and then were named Istari once they came over from the Valar-area, correct? We didn’t hear anything from Radagast after Gandalf implied that Saruman manipulated him, correct?
Sorry to get so deep, but I find this has reawakened my Silmarillion-fandom. I always preferred the Silmarillion to LOTR anyway (gasp!).
