You choose an interesting example. Tolkien (or his writings, at least) are a pure, quintessential example of glorifying death, mysteries, the ‘ordained’ or ‘natural’ feudal order, a past golden age, being wise, etc. He’s responsible for a lot more than just Gandalf. I wonder if you gave that example out of snark?
To make sure everyone here’s talking about the same thing, here’s some background on Tolkien’s views of mortality (in the context of Middle-Earth).
Tolkien elves who were killed got reincarnated, and most of them knew this. Granted, there was still separation from everyone you knew—they were reincarnated in the West and most of them could not ever return home. Still, they couldn’t really die, not even if they wanted to.
Tolkien called death the “Gift of Men”—given by God—and his elves envied men for it, and wanted to “escape the world” as men did. He wrote that the fear of death and desire to escape it was purely an evil corruption and due to the original Fall of Man. Uncorrupted Men, the ideal to which all of his heroes aspire, love death and welcome it.
The Downfall of Numenor (Atlantis) happened because Sauron “corrupted” its king; the nature of this corruption was that the king stopped wanting to die of old age. Anyone who stepped on the Western Islands where the gods (Valar) and the highest elves lived, became immortal; of course, the Gods forbade men from ever going there (so as not to take away the Gift of death). The king was told by Sauron he was as good as any elf, so he sailed there.
The creator God (not one of the minor Valar gods) intervened directly, destroyed not just the king’s army but sinking the whole island of Numenor, killing everyone who lived there except the rebels on a few ships who remained righteous (i.e., kept saying they wanted to die). The tsunami from sinking the island killed off several whole nations on the mainland for good measure, and changed the coastline.
There’s lots more where that came from. If you cherry-pick a bit, Tolkien ranges from Norse mythology to explicitly Catholic Christan legends.
Now, I’d love to hear your thesis that those stuck-up elves would benefit from dying—for some other reason than “death is explicitly good in that setting” :-)
You’re factually wrong on several minor elements. The people of Numenor had been wanting to stop dying for several generations—the particular corruption that Sauron inflicted on the king wasn’t that desire, but rather that he made him think the proper way to go about actualizing this was to worship Melkor (essentially Satan), do human sacrifice in his name, and go about conquering the world, including the land of men. Sauron also argues that immortality should not be given to all, he just convinces the King of Numenor deserves to steal it from others and take it to himself.
Also, it’s explicitly said that Men did NOT become immortal by stepping on the Western Islands—they were called the Immortal Lands, not because they made people immortal, but because the immortal peoples had gathered there. The Elves and Valar indeed said to Men, that Men would die faster if they went to the Immortal Lands, like moths burning in too bright a fire.
The “righteous” weren’t righteous by “saying they wanted to die”—indeed, it’s described that this part of the shadow they didn’t escape from, and it followed them to middle earth (it’s noteworthy that the only king of Gondor or Arnor who gave up his crown to his son and surrended his life by willing himself to die was Aragorn—that leaves dozens of kings, good ones, who failed to follow their ancestors’ death-embracing example)
The righteous, the Elf-friends, were primarily “righteous” by not engaging in human sacrifice, and by not supporting the wars of conquest.
I think Tolkien is actually pretty sympathetic to those people that desire immortality (as long as they DO NOT go about killing other people to ensure it) -- he even has Arwen not being cool over Aragorn’s death, wishing him to go on living a bit longer despite all their lore proclaiming dying was the right thing to do. There were likewise many many centuries of Numenoreans that wanted to avoid death, and they weren’t punished as long as they didn’t go about conquering the world in order to do so.
I omitted some details to simplify things. But now let’s enter into full Tolkien geek mode! Unfortunately I gave away my Tolkien collection years ago when I realized how un-humanistic it was, so I can’t provide quotes and page numbers, but I do rely on my memory.
The people of Numenor had been wanting to stop dying for several generations
True—I omitted this part to make things simpler.
he made him think the proper way to go about actualizing this was to worship Melkor (essentially Satan), do human sacrifice in his name, and go about conquering the world, including the land of men
Not quite. He made him think that to be immortal he had to go to the land of the Valar and possibly fight them. I don’t remember if it’s stated explicitly what purpose the human sacrifice had. And conquering the world was something the Numenoreans had been doing for generations, without Sauron, and anyway it’s hard to see how they could have expected that to grant them immortality.
Also, it’s explicitly said that Men did NOT become immortal by stepping on the Western Islands
That may depend on what version of the Alkallabeth you’re reading. I don’t remember which version(s) this is, but after Eru caused the Downfall, the punishment of the King and his army who had disembarked on the shore of the Undying Lands wasn’t death. They were “imprisoned in a cave beneath the earth”, IIRC, and there they would not die until the end of the world and the Last Battle.
In other words, they became so immortal that even Eru couldn’t kill them, although he killed everyone else in Numenor...
Yes, of course, I realize this is reading out of context. Firstly it’s an older story left from before the legendarium became much more explicitly Christian. And second it makes no sense for Men to become immortal just by stepping on the shore of the West.
But considered as a legend told by later Men, it’s illuminating.
The Elves and Valar indeed said to Men, that Men would die faster if they went to the Immortal Lands, like moths burning in too bright a fire.
And you believe them? They’re obviously speaking in their own self interest :-) Incidentally, these are the same guys who said that they had no idea what death was for, except that it must be good for something since it was a gift of Eru.
The Light Elves and the Valar are an evil, immoral bunch who never helped others when they saw them suffering. They abandoned Men for the first several millenia of their existence to Melkor (and later Sauron), and then blamed Men for “falling”. Later they abandoned all non-Numenorean Men to Sauron, and then blamed them for becoming “corrupted and evil”, and supported the Numenoreans in enslaving them. All this was before the Fall of Numenor, so they hadn’t had the excuse of the West being “removed from the circles of the world”.
The “righteous” weren’t righteous by “saying they wanted to die”
It’s the ideal. As you note, Aragorn and some others (e.g. the early Kings of Numenor) actually achieved it.
Later men were lesser men, in keeping with the story. But I’m pretty sure someone like Faramir would say that anything done by the early Numenoreans must have been right, and would claim to want to want to die on that basis.
The righteous, the Elf-friends, were primarily “righteous” by not engaging in human sacrifice, and by not supporting the wars of conquest.
True. And I expect they also kept saying they wanted to want to die without protest in old age.
I think Tolkien is actually pretty sympathetic to those people that desire immortality (as long as they DO NOT go about killing other people to ensure it)
Where do you see even a hint of this?
The Nine Kings of Men who were given rings by Sauron became immortal—and became Ringwraiths. It’s implied pretty clearly, in Bilbo’s descriptions of the One Ring (he felt “spread out like butter over too much bread”, i.e. had lived too long), that this is partly due to becoming immortal in itself, and not just due to being dominated by Sauron’s will. Orcs and Southrons were dominated by Sauron’s will and weren’t wraiths. And the Nine Rings did not AFAIK confer “trivial” invisibility as did the One Ring.
he even has Arwen not being cool over Aragorn’s death
Meh. She chose to became mortal to marry him. She was angsting over her own impending death. After he died, she willed herself to die just a year later—explicitly in despair. And before that, her father and family never really accepted her choice, and they “parted in bitterness”, i.e. fought and never made up. Hard to say if Tolkien was sympathetic, but other people in Middle-Earth definitely weren’t.
The Light Elves and the Valar are an evil, immoral bunch who never helped others when they saw them suffering. They abandoned Men for the first several millenia of their existence to Melkor (and later Sauron), and then blamed Men for “falling”.
Dude, they created the whole of the Sun for Men’s benefit. That’s a big thing, the whole of the Sun.
As for the first fall of Men, Tolkien leaves it deliberately vague, so we can’t know how much they were to blame.
And after Melkor was defeated, they raised Numenor out of the oceans, and increased the lifespan of Numenoreans to like three times the normal amount, also ensuring that there would be fair weather, their ships would never sink, etc, etc.
Both the expulsion of the Noldor, the fall of the Numenoreans, and I can assume the first fall of Men as well, all those times where the Valar seem to abandon people to their fates, it seems to be when these people deliberately rebel against the Valar’s authority—and so in a sense force them to NOT help. The Valar seem to be only able to help people when people acknowledge them as authorities.
I think Tolkien is actually pretty sympathetic to those people that desire immortality (as long as they DO NOT go about killing other people to ensure it)
Where do you see even a hint of this?
Check out the theological discussion between Finrod and the human woman Andreth in the History of Middle Earth volume “Morgoth’s Ring”. Andreth argues that Men aren’t supposed to die, that it’s a great darkness ahead of them that they correctly despise and recoil from. Finrod, though disagreeing, is sympathetic throughout—and I can’t imagine that the author disagrees with his attitude in this.
The Nine Kings of Men who were given rings by Sauron became immortal—and became Ringwraiths. It’s implied pretty clearly, in Bilbo’s descriptions of the One Ring (he felt “spread out like butter over too much bread”, i.e. had lived too long), that this is partly due to becoming immortal in itself, and not just due to being dominated by Sauron’s will.
Yes—in Tolkien’s world the human spirit is designed to leave the world, so immortality within the world is like trapping it in too constrained a jail.
Dude, they created the whole of the Sun for Men’s benefit. That’s a big thing, the whole of the Sun.
Huh? You’re saying the Elves and Valar themselves didn’t benefit from the existence of the Sun? It was an altruistic action? I don’t buy that. The Sun was even instrumental in fighting against Melkor—without it, he would have been able to destroy the Moon.
Not to mention that they would never have done it if Melkor hadn’t killed the Two Trees. They would have been happy to sit in their closed garden forever and let the world rot.
As for the first fall of Men, Tolkien leaves it deliberately vague, so we can’t know how much they were to blame.
Whatever the Men themselves did, the Valar are to blame for leaving them to Melkor and Sauron.
Sauron made Orcs out of Men (or out of Elves in other versions), and these Orcs then became Melkor’s and Sauron’s soldiers for millenia. Orcs are, to put it mildly, not leading a happy life. Do you seriously suggest that anything the first Men may have done made them deserve the punishment of becoming Orcs? Did their descendants for all eternity deserve being Orcs? Did the Valar ever try to help latter-day Orcs, or just kill them on sight? For that matter, did the non-Orc descendants of those first Men deserve being “corrupted” for the sin of their ancestors? It’s a Catholic Christian story, and it’s unambiguously evil.
Incidentally, the story related by Andreth does say what the Original Sin of Men was: sacrificing to Melkor instead of sacrificing to Eru Iluvatar, and falsely believing that Melkor was their creator. Boo, they believed in the wrong god.
And after Melkor was defeated, they raised Numenor out of the oceans, and increased the lifespan of Numenoreans to like three times the normal amount, also ensuring that there would be fair weather, their ships would never sink, etc, etc.
Yes, as a reward to one small group of Men for fighting on the right side in the war and for sending a messenger to shame the Valar into fighting too. Pity they left the other >90% of Men to suffer on the mainland, though, with ordinary lifespans and Sauron.
Both the expulsion of the Noldor, the fall of the Numenoreans, and I can assume the first fall of Men as well, all those times where the Valar seem to abandon people to their fates, it seems to be when these people deliberately rebel against the Valar’s authority
In the First Fall of Men, they didn’t rebel against the Valar. They didn’t even know the Valar existed! They woke up and all they knew was Sauron and Melkor!
And what about the Dark Elves? They chose not to go to Valinor, but they never knowingly chose to remain in lands dominated by an evil Vala. If they’d been warned about it, they probably would have chosen to go to Valinor. And yet, not only do the Valar never go back to help them, but they don’t allow them to sail to the West themselves from the Grey Havens.
The Valar seem to be only able to help people when people acknowledge them as authorities.
It’s nowhere stated that they are restricted in this way. (They are the regents of the world, after all, not of Valinor.) Rather, it is implied they choose to be that way.
Andreth argues that Men aren’t supposed to die, that it’s a great darkness ahead of them that they correctly despise and recoil from. Finrod, though disagreeing, is sympathetic throughout—and I can’t imagine that the author disagrees with his attitude in this.
OK, I agree. The author is sympathetic with “wanting not to die”. He’s just not sympathetic with actually not dying.
You choose an interesting example. Tolkien (or his writings, at least) are a pure, quintessential example of glorifying death, mysteries, the ‘ordained’ or ‘natural’ feudal order, a past golden age, being wise, etc. He’s responsible for a lot more than just Gandalf. I wonder if you gave that example out of snark?
To make sure everyone here’s talking about the same thing, here’s some background on Tolkien’s views of mortality (in the context of Middle-Earth).
Tolkien elves who were killed got reincarnated, and most of them knew this. Granted, there was still separation from everyone you knew—they were reincarnated in the West and most of them could not ever return home. Still, they couldn’t really die, not even if they wanted to.
Tolkien called death the “Gift of Men”—given by God—and his elves envied men for it, and wanted to “escape the world” as men did. He wrote that the fear of death and desire to escape it was purely an evil corruption and due to the original Fall of Man. Uncorrupted Men, the ideal to which all of his heroes aspire, love death and welcome it.
The Downfall of Numenor (Atlantis) happened because Sauron “corrupted” its king; the nature of this corruption was that the king stopped wanting to die of old age. Anyone who stepped on the Western Islands where the gods (Valar) and the highest elves lived, became immortal; of course, the Gods forbade men from ever going there (so as not to take away the Gift of death). The king was told by Sauron he was as good as any elf, so he sailed there.
The creator God (not one of the minor Valar gods) intervened directly, destroyed not just the king’s army but sinking the whole island of Numenor, killing everyone who lived there except the rebels on a few ships who remained righteous (i.e., kept saying they wanted to die). The tsunami from sinking the island killed off several whole nations on the mainland for good measure, and changed the coastline.
There’s lots more where that came from. If you cherry-pick a bit, Tolkien ranges from Norse mythology to explicitly Catholic Christan legends.
Now, I’d love to hear your thesis that those stuck-up elves would benefit from dying—for some other reason than “death is explicitly good in that setting” :-)
You’re factually wrong on several minor elements. The people of Numenor had been wanting to stop dying for several generations—the particular corruption that Sauron inflicted on the king wasn’t that desire, but rather that he made him think the proper way to go about actualizing this was to worship Melkor (essentially Satan), do human sacrifice in his name, and go about conquering the world, including the land of men. Sauron also argues that immortality should not be given to all, he just convinces the King of Numenor deserves to steal it from others and take it to himself.
Also, it’s explicitly said that Men did NOT become immortal by stepping on the Western Islands—they were called the Immortal Lands, not because they made people immortal, but because the immortal peoples had gathered there. The Elves and Valar indeed said to Men, that Men would die faster if they went to the Immortal Lands, like moths burning in too bright a fire.
The “righteous” weren’t righteous by “saying they wanted to die”—indeed, it’s described that this part of the shadow they didn’t escape from, and it followed them to middle earth (it’s noteworthy that the only king of Gondor or Arnor who gave up his crown to his son and surrended his life by willing himself to die was Aragorn—that leaves dozens of kings, good ones, who failed to follow their ancestors’ death-embracing example)
The righteous, the Elf-friends, were primarily “righteous” by not engaging in human sacrifice, and by not supporting the wars of conquest.
I think Tolkien is actually pretty sympathetic to those people that desire immortality (as long as they DO NOT go about killing other people to ensure it) -- he even has Arwen not being cool over Aragorn’s death, wishing him to go on living a bit longer despite all their lore proclaiming dying was the right thing to do. There were likewise many many centuries of Numenoreans that wanted to avoid death, and they weren’t punished as long as they didn’t go about conquering the world in order to do so.
I omitted some details to simplify things. But now let’s enter into full Tolkien geek mode! Unfortunately I gave away my Tolkien collection years ago when I realized how un-humanistic it was, so I can’t provide quotes and page numbers, but I do rely on my memory.
True—I omitted this part to make things simpler.
Not quite. He made him think that to be immortal he had to go to the land of the Valar and possibly fight them. I don’t remember if it’s stated explicitly what purpose the human sacrifice had. And conquering the world was something the Numenoreans had been doing for generations, without Sauron, and anyway it’s hard to see how they could have expected that to grant them immortality.
That may depend on what version of the Alkallabeth you’re reading. I don’t remember which version(s) this is, but after Eru caused the Downfall, the punishment of the King and his army who had disembarked on the shore of the Undying Lands wasn’t death. They were “imprisoned in a cave beneath the earth”, IIRC, and there they would not die until the end of the world and the Last Battle.
In other words, they became so immortal that even Eru couldn’t kill them, although he killed everyone else in Numenor...
Yes, of course, I realize this is reading out of context. Firstly it’s an older story left from before the legendarium became much more explicitly Christian. And second it makes no sense for Men to become immortal just by stepping on the shore of the West.
But considered as a legend told by later Men, it’s illuminating.
And you believe them? They’re obviously speaking in their own self interest :-) Incidentally, these are the same guys who said that they had no idea what death was for, except that it must be good for something since it was a gift of Eru.
The Light Elves and the Valar are an evil, immoral bunch who never helped others when they saw them suffering. They abandoned Men for the first several millenia of their existence to Melkor (and later Sauron), and then blamed Men for “falling”. Later they abandoned all non-Numenorean Men to Sauron, and then blamed them for becoming “corrupted and evil”, and supported the Numenoreans in enslaving them. All this was before the Fall of Numenor, so they hadn’t had the excuse of the West being “removed from the circles of the world”.
It’s the ideal. As you note, Aragorn and some others (e.g. the early Kings of Numenor) actually achieved it.
Later men were lesser men, in keeping with the story. But I’m pretty sure someone like Faramir would say that anything done by the early Numenoreans must have been right, and would claim to want to want to die on that basis.
True. And I expect they also kept saying they wanted to want to die without protest in old age.
Where do you see even a hint of this?
The Nine Kings of Men who were given rings by Sauron became immortal—and became Ringwraiths. It’s implied pretty clearly, in Bilbo’s descriptions of the One Ring (he felt “spread out like butter over too much bread”, i.e. had lived too long), that this is partly due to becoming immortal in itself, and not just due to being dominated by Sauron’s will. Orcs and Southrons were dominated by Sauron’s will and weren’t wraiths. And the Nine Rings did not AFAIK confer “trivial” invisibility as did the One Ring.
Meh. She chose to became mortal to marry him. She was angsting over her own impending death. After he died, she willed herself to die just a year later—explicitly in despair. And before that, her father and family never really accepted her choice, and they “parted in bitterness”, i.e. fought and never made up. Hard to say if Tolkien was sympathetic, but other people in Middle-Earth definitely weren’t.
Dude, they created the whole of the Sun for Men’s benefit. That’s a big thing, the whole of the Sun.
As for the first fall of Men, Tolkien leaves it deliberately vague, so we can’t know how much they were to blame.
And after Melkor was defeated, they raised Numenor out of the oceans, and increased the lifespan of Numenoreans to like three times the normal amount, also ensuring that there would be fair weather, their ships would never sink, etc, etc.
Both the expulsion of the Noldor, the fall of the Numenoreans, and I can assume the first fall of Men as well, all those times where the Valar seem to abandon people to their fates, it seems to be when these people deliberately rebel against the Valar’s authority—and so in a sense force them to NOT help. The Valar seem to be only able to help people when people acknowledge them as authorities.
Check out the theological discussion between Finrod and the human woman Andreth in the History of Middle Earth volume “Morgoth’s Ring”. Andreth argues that Men aren’t supposed to die, that it’s a great darkness ahead of them that they correctly despise and recoil from. Finrod, though disagreeing, is sympathetic throughout—and I can’t imagine that the author disagrees with his attitude in this.
Yes—in Tolkien’s world the human spirit is designed to leave the world, so immortality within the world is like trapping it in too constrained a jail.
Huh? You’re saying the Elves and Valar themselves didn’t benefit from the existence of the Sun? It was an altruistic action? I don’t buy that. The Sun was even instrumental in fighting against Melkor—without it, he would have been able to destroy the Moon.
Not to mention that they would never have done it if Melkor hadn’t killed the Two Trees. They would have been happy to sit in their closed garden forever and let the world rot.
Whatever the Men themselves did, the Valar are to blame for leaving them to Melkor and Sauron.
Sauron made Orcs out of Men (or out of Elves in other versions), and these Orcs then became Melkor’s and Sauron’s soldiers for millenia. Orcs are, to put it mildly, not leading a happy life. Do you seriously suggest that anything the first Men may have done made them deserve the punishment of becoming Orcs? Did their descendants for all eternity deserve being Orcs? Did the Valar ever try to help latter-day Orcs, or just kill them on sight? For that matter, did the non-Orc descendants of those first Men deserve being “corrupted” for the sin of their ancestors? It’s a Catholic Christian story, and it’s unambiguously evil.
Incidentally, the story related by Andreth does say what the Original Sin of Men was: sacrificing to Melkor instead of sacrificing to Eru Iluvatar, and falsely believing that Melkor was their creator. Boo, they believed in the wrong god.
Yes, as a reward to one small group of Men for fighting on the right side in the war and for sending a messenger to shame the Valar into fighting too. Pity they left the other >90% of Men to suffer on the mainland, though, with ordinary lifespans and Sauron.
In the First Fall of Men, they didn’t rebel against the Valar. They didn’t even know the Valar existed! They woke up and all they knew was Sauron and Melkor!
And what about the Dark Elves? They chose not to go to Valinor, but they never knowingly chose to remain in lands dominated by an evil Vala. If they’d been warned about it, they probably would have chosen to go to Valinor. And yet, not only do the Valar never go back to help them, but they don’t allow them to sail to the West themselves from the Grey Havens.
It’s nowhere stated that they are restricted in this way. (They are the regents of the world, after all, not of Valinor.) Rather, it is implied they choose to be that way.
OK, I agree. The author is sympathetic with “wanting not to die”. He’s just not sympathetic with actually not dying.