(Chapter 1 of the Silmarillion)


Melkor was formed from the thoughts of Eru by the thoughts of Eru. Was the possibility of his evil already in Eru's thoughts? Was Melkor a 'wild-card'? Was he deliberate? What was Eru's reason for allowing it?

The Ainur came from Erus thoughts, but they came alive and got thoughts and ideas of their own. They were not a part of him anymore, they where given a free will and Melkor chose to turn away from Eru, the others chose to stay. Eru is not evil, but his "offspring" can choose to be. That is what I think anyway.

Melkor had a "brother" didn't he? They came from the same thought or part of Eru?

My opinion is that Eru knew what he was doing, and deliberately created Melkor.




I think the idea is that through evil, good/beauty becomes more magnificent and more appreciated.

I fully believe that Eru was totally good, and he made his Children have a choice, not just be robots, but he knew that Morgoth would turn evil.

[Philosophy]
Without evil there can be no good.
if there is only good the universe becomes unbalanced.
[/philosophy]
they say power corrupts, and Melkor was the most powerful of all the valar which is most likely the case here.
If they were all good then the elves would never have travelled to the Undying lands and the Numenorians wouldn't have got their island (they got it for good deeds in war) and there would be nothing exciting in LOTR or any related books so we wouldn't be here discussing it.

Eru is pure. He gave his creations free will because he wanted them live and flourish, to love and experience things, not to be mindless puppets like Aul’s dwarves was. There is no free will without choices.

The ainurs choises were to follow Eru or not to follow Eru, which is shown in the singing of the first song, the ainur can add their own notes (thoughts) to the song (the creation of earth), but Melkor starts to sing his own song.

Eru can't stop him because he has given him a free will, and that can't be taken back. Then Eru changes the pattern of the song, Melkor fights it with his, but he can't win. Erus final note pattern absorbs the stongest and "worst" parts of Melkors song and makes it beautiful. No matter what evil (though Melkor wasn't pure evil yet, just starting to be) would come, it would become part of Erus plan.*Ama notices Vilyons post and gets an ide* This is where Eru creates the balance between good and evil.

Ardas path is now set, some of the places it will go is already decided, how to get there is unsertain. All depends on what choises are made. Arda is an experiment, it is a travel towards the perfect, towards the Second Song (paradise), which is pure and flawless.

Because Melkor is destroying Erus plan and Melkor doesn't understand what he is doing. If Eru had an evil side he would/could have destroyed Molkor for oposing him. When the ainur is shown what the song has created, Melkor feels ashamed of what he has done. Eru tries by changing the song the first time to gently show Melkor the way to go.

The good of the many outweigh the good of the one. If the one uses the gift of free will to bring harm or discord to the many then he must be stopped or chaos will occur.

*takes Aule's comments very very seriously & commits seppaku* Ach!


Has anyone thought to conjecture as to what the sources of Tolkien's creation myth are? I mean do folk think that its of Judea-Christian origin, or some chimera of the Norse Saga, or older still, has a Sumerian/Babylonian (Gilgamesh & Enkidu) ring to it... Or even that Tolkien developed it in isolation and without reference to any mundane earth-bound cultures?

I'd be interested to hear someone elses view on this...

Since Eru knows the future, why would he create Melkor knowing what he'd do? He knows Melkor will not behave after being warned too, so why bother? There is evil in Eru. If not , i'd call him an idiot for creating Melkor, knowing he'd be evil and destroy the rest of Ainur's works.

I think that Eru knew what Melkor would do when he created him. Melkor was a catalyst for a lot of huge events. Maybe Eru knew this, knew what the outcome would be and thought it was worth it. I look at Eru as being omniscient, he sees the bigger picture and the suffering that Melkor caused in the 'short term' was justified by what would happen as a result in Eru's overall creation.

From The Ainulindale - The Silmarillion



Left alone the Valar would have created the perfect world but it would have lacked that beautiful ruggedness that gives it its character. Melkor was different to the other Valar in that his power lay in several realms. He seemed to have a little bit of everyone elses skills. He was also master of cold and fire. By attempting to destroy bits of Ea, he was actually making it even more beautiful by creating diversity. I think this is the thought Eru had when he conceived Melkor. Unfortunately, this desire to be different caused Melkor to want to alter the Children too, and to eventually become a Lord of them. His own nature eventually sent him down the evil path he eventually trod because he had the desire to create life. I'm not sure how far down that path Eru expected Melkor to go, but I suspect he knew it would happen, just as he knew he could eventually set things to right before they got totally out of hand.

Sometimes rather than wondering why Eru created Melkor, I look at the situation from another perspective. Many ancient religions have nature gods/deities etc. These gods were created by men to explain the forces of nature. Maybe Tolkien was doing the same. He has Valar for the Wind, the Sea, the Mountains and Forests etc. He also needs Valar to explain the destructive forces of nature; the earthquakes, volcanoes, and seering heat that creates deserts, etc. Some of his Valar rather than being concerned with nature are avatars of emotion; joy, dance, grief, dreams etc. Hate and jealousy are also very powerful emotions. He needed a Valar to portray those too. In this way, by becoming Lord of destuctive forces of nature and negative emotions, Melkor came into being. In this scenario Tolkien does not try to explain Eru's reasoning for creating evil any more than other religions attempt to justify the creation of their own evil gods. Maybe Tolkien was deliberately vague because he did not have a reason why Eru would have created him.

Of course, unlike Eru, Tolkien had a very real need to create Melkor. The books would have been pretty pointless without him.

Hi there, I just have been redirected from the Death of the Witch-King thread... Wow this is a great topic. Thanks Amarie!

My 2 eurocents on what has been discussed so far (I will try to make it not such a long post):



But eum. Why on earth give someone who you made yourself and that you know so well, the freedom of will to do as he or she pleases? And rein him back later on, even worse, correct what that person has made. It is like giving someone an idea or a job to do, say to him: you have the complete freedom to do as you will and later on, visible to all others, correct that person on that??
It puzzles me, sounds to me like bad parenting all the way.

No I agree with Asteroth on this one and I wonder if this was the cause of Melkor's demise. I have to admit that on every posy made by Asteroyth in this thread I wanted to reply like: I agree, my thoughts exactly.

But then Valedhelgwath wrote:


Hate and jealousy are part of being pure, imho. If you would deny such feelings, would you ever be complete? Define purity. Is being pure only being Good? What is Good? How can you be Good and know that you are if you do not know the opposites of it? Order needs chaos. Hate balances Love. Yin & Yang.



I fully agree!! Thank you Tolkien!!

Free will doesn't mean you can do exactly what you want. Free will means you have a choise. You are not a mindless puppy, like Aules dwarves were before Eru gave them life. But you are also given the knowledge of right and wrong. If you do something wrong, and you know it is wrong, you must also expect to be punished.

Melkor was forgiven for disrupting the Music because none of the Valar really knew what they were making untill Eru showed them. So he didn't really understand what he was 'disrupting'. Later he knew what he was doing, he knew he was acting against Erus wishes, knew he was destroying what others had worked hard to create, but he did it anyway. Over and over and over agian. That is when he became Morgoth the Enemy.

It is a bit like like when your parents tell you to be home at 10. You can choose to be home in time, or ignore them and suffer the consequence. And then they have to choose how much they are going to yell at you.

About free will as part of Erus plan. Frodo was given a choise, like Isildur was, to take the Ring or to leave it and then later: to destroy the Ring or to keep it. Neither of them could give it up in the end, even if they knew they should. Smaegol/Gollum had the choise to take it or leave it. A choise that lead to the ring being destroyed. Seems to me Eru had updated his plans greatly, a looong line of choises for a whole buch of people leading to the Ring being destroyed.

A lot of free will leading to Erus wish being fulfilled.

I choose not to do that.


Hehe, yes exactly.


Yes all we can do is guess. Tolkien is the real god in Tolkiens Middle Earth, only he knows why Eru does thing the way he does.

Free will and destiny is a little like time travel....... does your head in!

But..... as someone (Vir I think) said, who are we to understand how a god's mind works? We cannot grasp the concept of an infinite universe, what chance do we have to understand Eru? Why should he not know all that is to happen? It doesn't mean that he has taken free will away or that he is controlling. It doesn't mean that because he knows what will happen there is no such thing as free will. The two run parallel. Free will is there, the choices will be made....... but such is the awesome power of Eru that he IS time and he knows all that will happen, whether by his own design or not. Maybe he throws in the occasional demand that something happens at an appointed time just to jog people along in the general direction?

One important thing missed here by most except one, is a point made by V.

Was ME an experiment etc... (I'm too lazy to quote, sorry!)

Anyways, I'm not saying anything here. I've posted my comments in a journal entry, which I'm in the process of writing right now. I'll post the link here when I'm done writing.

And, another thing. I agree that this thread should be locked. It'll be an endless and pointless conversation, if it's continued!!

LOL we have soapboxes her? Nice!!!



Hear hear! That is the way to put something that I am trying to say but somehow doesn't wanna come out. That bugs me the most when people say: Eru has decided and that is it. It awakens the rogue in me to prove otherwise.



But he did not do it intentionally at first. He was corrected, the way how was wrong imho, and after that it escalated. Eru made a mistake there... but well what followed after it gave us hours, days, weeks, months and even years of reading pleasure.



Two of my characters do that actually in a story of mine.. which was kinda cool to write!

I wonder what Eru was doing while the tale of ME was unfolding? Catching up with email? Ironing? What other 'projects' did he have in mind?

If I ever get round to writing a story this might be the subject......

You see why I said that Eru = Tolkien? Some questions are unanswerable.

But, maybe, Eru was sitting in a cinema, watching the movie that is called the History of Middle Earth play on the ME. Makes you wonder though. If you're the all-knowing, would it be interesting to watch something, that you already know is going happen?

Yes I agree.

Good!!!!!!!!! You finish the book and I will think on your journal entry. There is much there, but I don't have the time now to get back at

I cant keep up with you guys!!!! Your all crazy!!

Yes, Eth-that's the fun of it! Crazy=Alive!

Rednell, I hope you have a wonderful holiday here in the U.S., I hope all of the people you encounter are as pleasant and gracious to you as you have been to us Yank members. Whereabouts are you visiting?

Floyd_n_milian: That is a very engrossing and detailed "essay"/journal entry. You are a great addition to PT's huge base of knowledgable induviduals who share the love of all things Tolkien. Way to go!

Also, I didn't get a chance to say this in any other thread, but Rhapsody, thank you for bringing your inquisitiveness and challenging mind to PT.

Enough gushing! Sorry to all who endured it!

The point of why I posted here was to say that it is correct to say that Tolkien=Eru because Tolkien was the creator of Middle Earth much the way a god is creator of his/her domain. The ability to create is also innate in humans as well; art, literature,speech, buildings, cities, etc. are all sub-creations made by us in attempt to enrich life, similar to an author's creation. So we all have a little god in us!

*blush* Thank you. It is really nice to find a spot where this is welcomed. Honestly. If my posts become essays, please let me know. Then I will behave myself.