[ SECRET POST #5745 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5745 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 22 secrets from Secret Submission Post #822.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/DDLVwF8.png

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really follow the theological parts of Tolkien's work - does Iluvatar suck?

[(Anonymous)]

Iluvatar is nonexistent. idk where OP gets the idea, maybe they're mistaking Manwe for the head god? And Manwe is honestly just...more like Zeus without all the sexual excapades. Detached, but still around and eventually when someone nags him hard enough he gets off his ass and does something.

It's hard for Iluvatar/Eru to suck when it literally has zero presence in the story except to be mentioned occasionally as Sir Not Appearing In This Film. Ironically, exactly like the emperor over the sea in Narnia!

[(Anonymous)]

Hm, maybe they have a problem-of-evil beef with Iluvatar then? Weird.

[(Anonymous)]

that's the best guess I have too. "didn't immediately destroy the devil-figure the instant he rebelled and thus allowed evil to exist" is literally the only thing Iluvatar is shown doing in the Silmarillion version of Genesis. like, oh no, anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, if that's what they're talking about, expecting a fantasy writer to come up with a satisfactory solution to the problem of evil is maybe a little much

not OP

[(Anonymous)]

No, it's more like "created the devil in the first place and made it rebel". Iluvatar makes it explicitly clear in the beginning that no one can disrupt it's plans. So everything Melkor/Morgoth did was part of these plans. All of the (literally) bloody mess in the Silmarillion was supposed to happen. Morgoth was only ever doing what Iluvatar wanted him to do even if he (and everyone else) thought he was doing it on his own free will.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

like anon above me says, it's more "you're not supposed to do this, but I planned for you to do this for everything to work out like I want, but also since you're not supposed to I'm going to punish you, but its supposed to work that way"

and this propagates to the Valar-Numenor interactions. There is a "death is a gift from god" underlying that whole saga that is where men are effectively deemed ungrateful for that gift, that either don't want or don't understand, and punished even though they are created to be more susceptible to evil than the more immortal Middle Earth beings.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

idk if you'll see this OP but I get you. I'm an ex-christian personally, so I find a lot of extremely obvious chrstian allegory/metaphor hard to swallow, and that definitely includes Morgoth, the gift of death, and other bits. But if you can take a moment to step back and realize that Tolkien did absolutely nothing with Iluvatar directly outside the Ainulindale, you can divorce the character from the allegory easily - and also laugh that Tolkien got on Lewis' case for heavy-handed allegory and then turned around and did a little heavy-handed allegory of his own. It is really gross how susceptible men are compared to dwarves, elves, and hobbits, but I guess Tolkien saw enough of man's complete inhumanity during the war to be very pro-human.

[(Anonymous)]

Eru does directly intervene to sink Ar-Pharazon's fleet and drown Numenor, no? You could argue that was to deal with Sauron, but Sauron just pops right back up somewhere else while the greatest civilization of Men is destroyed, so I think it was more about punishing Men for the their hubris.

[(Anonymous)]

He's flawed, in that he creates flawed creations.

[(Anonymous)]

Is that Tolkien's view or your view?

[(Anonymous)]

God sucks because humanity sucks, and humanity sucks because god sucks. It is a valid theological standpoint.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I agree that it's a valid theological standpoint, I'm just curious whether that's actually how Tolkien portrays Iluvatar.

[greghousesgf]

Tolkien was a very devout catholic and there is a lot of religious symbolism in LOTR, Boromir's redemption shortly before he died for example. It's less obvious than the Narnia books but that's not saying much.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

thank you for making this secret!