Exiles

Stan Brown wrote:

> I've been rereading /Letters/ lately, and was struck by a passage in
> Letter 96 (January 1945, to his son Christopher, stationed in South
> Africa):
>
> "I do not now feel either ashamed or dubious on the Eden 'myth'. It
> has not, of course, historicity of the same kind as the NT, which are
> virtually contemporary documents, while Genesis is separated by we do
> not know how many sad exiled generations from the Fall, but certainly
> there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and
> we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and
> least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with
> the sense of 'exile'. If you come to think of it, your (very just)
> horror at the stupid murder of the hawk, and your obstinate memory of
> this 'home' of yours in an idyllic hour (when often there is an
> illusion of the stay of time and decay and a sense of gentle peace) -
> eithe genoimen, 'stands the clock at ten to three, and is there honey
> still for tea' - are derived from Eden. As far as we can go back the
> nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb,
> peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss."
>
> I don't have any very profound thoughts about it, but I was struck by
> the repeated use of the word "exile", which as you know he uses of
> the Noldor in Middle-earth.
>
> I think there's a difference, though: I don't get much of a sense of
> the Noldor missing Valinor. Even after hundreds of years of war with
> Morgoth, they don't seem to me to desire Valinor for its own sake,
> but rather for the peace and safety contrasted with the terror of
> Morgoth. Is that my failure as a reader or Tolkien's as a writer, or
> did he really not intend for us to see that in the Noldor?

It's an interesting thought. I'm sure you're right that it's different, at
least to a degree. In Tolkien's own belief, humanity was exiled from Eden
for "original sin", and we are paying the price of another's transgression.
For the Noldor, they are paying the price of their _own_ transgressions, and
I've always felt that Galadriel in particular did not return to Valinor when
she could, because she didn't feel she had fully atoned. To the extent that
they are still living with their "original sin", the Noldor's exile differs
from humanity's.

On a different level, surely part of the Noldor's failing - at least in the
eyes of the Valar - was that they _didn't_ miss Valinor for its own sake.
The Valar thought that the Elves, on hearing the call, would all want to
dwell in Valinor forever. Shades of the stereotypical Christian heaven,
which seems horribly boring to me. But even if I wouldn't want to live
there, I can wish that _this_ world was better.
--
derek
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On 3/12/2010 4:51 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
> I think there's a difference, though: I don't get much of a sense of
> the Noldor missing Valinor. Even after hundreds of years of war with
> Morgoth, they don't seem to me to desire Valinor for its own sake,
> but rather for the peace and safety contrasted with the terror of
> Morgoth. Is that my failure as a reader or Tolkien's as a writer, or
> did he really not intend for us to see that in the Noldor?

I suspect there is some connection with their pre-Valinor history.
The Age of Starlight was the Elves' Eden. Their first exile
was from Middle Earth to Valinor. And that was connected with
the threat of Morgoth causing a fall, of sorts, of their Eden.
That was different from the biblical Eden because the fall
came from without rather than from within.

Tolkien's letter summarizes how the feeling of exile from
Eden is, partly, a feeling of exile from a better human
nature before the fall to sin. The Elvish exodus from
Middle Earth was not associated with that kind of fall.
That may be one reason Elves don't have that same feeling.
The later return from Valinor to Middle Earth did have
a sort of fall, at the Kin-slaying. But that does not
seem to cause Elves to long for the way they were before
that happened. One more way the two kindred of Children
of Eru differ?

The two-stage Elvish journey also reminds me of historical
human migrations. I know something about where my ancestors
were, and left, two centuries and five centuries ago. But I
don't feel exiled from those places. I do feel other kinds
of connections to them.

--
Glenn Holliday holliday DeleteThis @acm.org
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Glenn Holliday wrote:
> On 3/12/2010 4:51 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
>> I think there's a difference, though: I don't get much of a sense of
>> the Noldor missing Valinor. Even after hundreds of years of war with
>> Morgoth, they don't seem to me to desire Valinor for its own sake,
>> but rather for the peace and safety contrasted with the terror of
>> Morgoth. Is that my failure as a reader or Tolkien's as a writer, or
>> did he really not intend for us to see that in the Noldor?
>
> I suspect there is some connection with their pre-Valinor history.
> The Age of Starlight was the Elves' Eden. Their first exile
> was from Middle Earth to Valinor. And that was connected with
> the threat of Morgoth causing a fall, of sorts, of their Eden.
> That was different from the biblical Eden because the fall
> came from without rather than from within.

You know, I'd been thinking that the following sentence from
the Silm:

In the changes of the world the shapes of lands and of seas
have been broken and remade; rivers have not kept their
courses, neither have mountains remained steadfast; and to
Cuiviénen there is no returning.

was just about the only one which gave me a sensation of
"exile" for the Elves in the entire book. Of course, in LotR,
Galadriel shows definite signs of feeling "exiled", but that
was after many more ages.
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In rec.arts.books.tolkien, you wrote:
> I've been rereading /Letters/ lately, and was struck by a passage in
> Letter 96 [...]:

> "I do not now feel either ashamed or dubious on the Eden
> 'myth'. [...] Genesis is separated by we do not know how many sad
> exiled generations from the Fall, [...]

> I was struck by the repeated use of the word "exile", which as you
> know he uses of the Noldor in Middle-earth.

> I think there's a difference, though: I don't get much of a sense of
> the Noldor missing Valinor. Even after hundreds of years of war with
> Morgoth, they don't seem to me to desire Valinor for its own sake,
> but rather for the peace and safety contrasted with the terror of
> Morgoth. Is that my failure as a reader or Tolkien's as a writer, or
> did he really not intend for us to see that in the Noldor?

(Wow, this was hard to snip down to a reasonable length! Well
connected ideas there, I guess. )

The earlier comments about Cuivienen probably get at part of the
difference: that was the Elves' first home, where they declared
themselves the People of the Stars. And the demand by the Valar that
they leave that home and come to Valinor for their safety clearly felt
like "exile" to at least some of them: why else did the Avari refuse
to obey? Whether they blamed their exile from Cuivienen on Morgoth
who made it dangerous for them to stay or on the Valar who insisted
that they leave, their departure certainly wasn't voluntary. (Ok, I'm
forgetting this and I don't have my books at hand: doesn't the
narrator in Silm. express doubts about whether the Valar were right to
bring the Elves to Valinor in the first place? Or at least about the
refusal of the Valar to clean up Morgoth's mess before the Elves
awoke?)

So given the lengths of Elvish lives, I'm not overly surprised that
the Noldor in /The Silmarillion/ didn't show much sense of exile and
longing for Valinor. They'd only just left (and on poor terms at
that), at least on the scale of an immortal lifetime. And
Middle-earth provided a freedom and independence that they'd never had
as permanent guests of the Valar.

But by the time of LotR, that situation has shifted tremendously.
When Gildor introduces his people to Frodo, he says, "We are exiles".
When the Elves of Rivendell sing their hymn to Elbereth, Bilbo
comments that "They will sing that, and other songs of the Blessed
Realm, many times tonight." Galadriel's /Namarie/ is one long lament
that she (unlike her people and her kin) is exiled from Valinor
forever. So I think that after an age or three in Middle-earth, the
Noldor have come to understand what they left behind in Valinor and
what they've given up by refusing to return there.

From my perspective, then, I felt that LotR did a fairly good job of
portraying the sense of the Noldor as exiles (and indeed as exiles who
were gradually but inevitably making their way back home). So the
lack of that sense in Silm. doesn't bother me all that much.

Steuard Jensen
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Steuard Jensen wrote:

> (Ok, I'm
> forgetting this and I don't have my books at hand: doesn't the
> narrator in Silm. express doubts about whether the Valar were right to
> bring the Elves to Valinor in the first place? Or at least about the
> refusal of the Valar to clean up Morgoth's mess before the Elves
> awoke?)

I don't recall anything like it in the Silm, but the essay on the
Istari in UT says this about the decision to send messengers to
Middle-earth whose power was veiled:

And this the Valar did, desiring to amend the errors of old,
especially that they had attempted to guard and seclude the
Eldar by their own might and glory fully revealed[...]
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Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:40:27 +0000 (UTC) from Steuard Jensen
:
> (Ok, I'm
> forgetting this and I don't have my books at hand: doesn't the
> narrator in Silm. express doubts about whether the Valar were right to
> bring the Elves to Valinor in the first place? Or at least about the
> refusal of the Valar to clean up Morgoth's mess before the Elves
> awoke?)

There was no Morgoth till the Elves were in Valinor. But the
Valar *did* clean up Melkor shortly after the Elves awoke, and I
don't remember anyone including the narrator expressing any doubt
about whether that was the right thing to. Indeed, it was on orders
from Eru:

"Then Manwë said to the Valar: 'This is the counsel of Ilúvatar in my
heart: that we should take up again the mastery of Arda, at
whatsoever cost, and deliver the Quendi from the shadow of Melkor.'
Then Tulkas was glad; but Aulë was grieved, foreboding the hurts of
the world that must come of that strife. But the Valar made ready and
came forth from Aman in strength of war, resolving to assault the
fortresses of Melkor and make an end. Never did Melkor forget that
this war was made for the sake of the Elves, and that they were the
cause of his downfall."

There *was* doubt, as you recalled, on the wisdom of bringing the
Elves to Valinor afterward. Ulmo is singled out as speaking against
the idea:

"Then again the Valar were gathered in council, and they were divided
in debate. For some, and of those Ulmo was the chief, held that the
Quendi should be left free to walk as they would in Middle-earth, and
with their gifts of skill to order all the lands and heal their
hurts. But the most part feared for the Quendi in the dangerous world
amid the deceits of the starlit dusk; and they were filled moreover
with the love of the beauty of the Elves and desired their
fellowship. At the last, therefore, the Valar summoned the Quendi to
Valinor, there to be gathered at the knees of the Powers in the light
of the Trees for ever; and Mandos broke his silence, saying: 'So it
is doomed.' "

I am not sure whether Mandos' comment means "That is the decision of
the Valar" or "That was part of the Music and we had no real choice
in the matter."


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
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In message , Stan
Brown wrote:
> Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:40:27 +0000 (UTC) from Steuard Jensen:
>> (Ok, I'm forgetting this and I don't have my books at hand: [...]
>> Or at least about the refusal of the Valar to clean up Morgoth's
>> mess before the Elves awoke?)

> There was no Morgoth till the Elves were in Valinor.



> But the Valar *did* clean up Melkor shortly after the Elves awoke,
> and I don't remember anyone including the narrator expressing any
> doubt about whether that was the right thing to.

Right, but I'm thinking of a point shortly before their awakening,
when the Valar were unwilling to wage full-out war on Melkor because
of the hurt that it would inevitably do to the world and the
consequent risk to the Children of Iluvatar wherever it was that they
slept. Hmm... I wonder what reference I'm actually dimly remembering
here.

> I am not sure whether Mandos' comment means "That is the decision of
> the Valar" or "That was part of the Music and we had no real choice
> in the matter."

I think I've tended to read it the second way. But never doubt that
they had a real choice. We all have a real choice, whether our
decisions are echoes of the Music or not. Or so I believe.

Steuard Jensen
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Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:56:43 +0000 (UTC) from Steuard Jensen
:
>
> Right, but I'm thinking of a point shortly before their awakening,
> when the Valar were unwilling to wage full-out war on Melkor because
> of the hurt that it would inevitably do to the world and the
> consequent risk to the Children of Iluvatar wherever it was that they
> slept. Hmm... I wonder what reference I'm actually dimly remembering
> here.

Now I see what you meant. I think you're thinking of an earlier part
of chapter 3. It culminated in Varda's rekindling of the stars.

"It came to pass that the Valar held council, for they became
troubled by the tidings that Yavanna and Oromë brought from the Outer
Lands; and Yavanna spoke before the Valar, saying: 'Ye mighty of
Arda, the Vision of Ilúvatar was brief and soon taken away, so that
maybe we cannot guess within a narrow count of days the hour
appointed. Yet be sure of this: the hour approaches, and within this
age our hope shall be revealed, and the Children shall awake. Shall
we then leave the lands of their dwelling desolate and full of evil?
Shall they walk in darkness while we have light? Shall they call
Melkor lord while Manwë sits upon Taniquetil?'

"And Tulkas cried: 'Nay! Let us make war swiftly! Have we not rested
from strife overlong, and is not our strength now renewed? Shall one
alone contest with us for ever?'

"But at the bidding of Manwë Mandos spoke, and he said: 'In this age
the Children of Ilúvatar shall come indeed, but they come not yet.
Moreover it is doom that the Firstborn shall come in the darkness,
and shall look first upon the stars. Great light shall be for their
waning. To Varda ever shall they call at need.'"


But at just a quick read I don't see any debate about dealing with
Melkor. It seemed almost as though they regarded him as a fixed
point, one that they could compensate for but not actualy remedy.

> In message , Stan
> Brown wrote:
> > I am not sure whether Mandos' comment means "That is the decision
> > of the Valar" or "That was part of the Music and we had no real
> > choice in the matter."
>
> I think I've tended to read it the second way. But never doubt that
> they had a real choice. We all have a real choice, whether our
> decisions are echoes of the Music or not. Or so I believe.

Yes, but we're Men, and not bound by the Music.

I know we've discussed those words "the Music of the Ainur, which is
as fate to all things else", and what exactly it means that the Elves
and even the Ainur in Arda are bound by the Music; but I don't
remember the outcome. I should look it up in the archives. I did a
Google for
"music of the ainur" fate
and in the first couple of pages didn't find anything useful.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
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Stan Brown wrote:
> Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:56:43 +0000 (UTC) from Steuard Jensen
> :
>> Right, but I'm thinking of a point shortly before their awakening,
>> when the Valar were unwilling to wage full-out war on Melkor because
>> of the hurt that it would inevitably do to the world and the
>> consequent risk to the Children of Iluvatar wherever it was that they
>> slept. Hmm... I wonder what reference I'm actually dimly remembering
>> here.
>
> Now I see what you meant. I think you're thinking of an earlier part
> of chapter 3. It culminated in Varda's rekindling of the stars.

(snip passage)

There's also the passage later on, when the Valar decided not to
intervene in the War of the Jewels because of the potential for
injury to the first Men:

And it is said indeed that, even as the Valar made war upon
Melkor for the sake of the Quendi, so now for that time they
forbore for the sake of the Hildor, the Aftercomers, the
younger Children of Ilúvatar. For so grievous had been the
hurts of Middle-earth in the war upon Utumno that the Valar
feared lest even worse should now befall; whereas the Hildor
should be mortal, and weaker than the Quendi to withstand
fear and tumult.
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On 14-Mar-2010, Steuard Jensen
wrote in message :

[...]

> The earlier comments about Cuivienen probably get at part of the
> difference: that was the Elves' first home, where they declared
> themselves the People of the Stars. And the demand by the Valar that
> they leave that home and come to Valinor for their safety clearly felt
> like "exile" to at least some of them: why else did the Avari refuse
> to obey? Whether they blamed their exile from Cuivienen on Morgoth
> who made it dangerous for them to stay or on the Valar who insisted
> that they leave, their departure certainly wasn't voluntary.

For the record, I'm not sure I'd call the Valar's summons a
"demand", and they certainly didn't *insist* that the Firstborn
leave Middle-earth (although as another poster pointed out, it
might have felt that way to the Elves). We are told a couple of
times that the Eldar in Aman could leave pretty much whenever they
wanted, though of course there was a ban on the return of the
Exiles after the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. For example, from "Of
the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor" in Silm:

"The Valar had brought the Eldar to their land freely, to
dwell or to depart; and though they might judge departure to
be folly, they might not restrain them from it."

And from "Of the Flight of the Noldor":

"...; for the Valar were aggrieved that they were charged
with evil intent to the Eldar, or that any were held captive
by them against their will."

> (Ok, I'm
> forgetting this and I don't have my books at hand: doesn't the
> narrator in Silm. express doubts about whether the Valar were right to
> bring the Elves to Valinor in the first place? Or at least about the
> refusal of the Valar to clean up Morgoth's mess before the Elves
> awoke?)

Others have commented on this.

[...]

--
Jim Heckman
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On Mar 12, 10:07 am, Derek Broughton wrote:
> On a different level, surely part of the Noldor's failing - at least in the
> eyes of the Valar - was that they _didn't_ miss Valinor for its own sake.  
> The Valar thought that the Elves, on hearing the call, would all want to
> dwell in Valinor forever.  Shades of the stereotypical Christian heaven,
> which seems horribly boring to me.  But even if I wouldn't want to live
> there, I can wish that _this_ world was better.

Ah, but Heaven is, by definition, NOT boring. There is no suffering in
Heaven, and boredom is most definitely a form of suffering.

Whether this is logically possible I will leave up to God and to all
the stones He makes that are too heavy for Him to lift...

Interestingly, there most definitely is suffering in Valinor, though
it is rather limited in scope. But even death goes there. Definitely
not the *same* as Heaven...but of course you weren't arguing any such
thing.

Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"it's no more difficult for me to not-believe in a deity who can alter
fundamental logical truths than to not-believe in one who can't." [Wim
Lewis]
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