Odd to think there was a period in the Second Age where there were effectively trade relations between Numenor and the Undying Lands due to elves coming over to visit and bringing stuff. It would be like angels visiting from heaven and being like "This tree I've brought would look SO good in your garden mortal"
I don't think it said that it was valinor that traded with numenor, not directly anyway. Didn't it say it was another island near valinor with elves on? (Avallone on the island of Eressea?) So its like proxy trade, Valinor Avallone/Eressea numenor or maybe those things were just from Avallone/Eressea itself and not Valinor.
I think the issue is a matter of freedom. By allowing the Elves to go wherever they like, back and forth, even though it would make sense for them to be restricted from Middle Earth for the same reasons, you are playing favourites, giving more freedom to one group than another.
Not to mention that the elves frequently brought gifts to Numenor from the Undying Lands. "Look at this cool stuff! We have TONS more just like it over there! Too bad you can't go see for yourselves... lolol" A hard segregation would have been kinder.
@@Shamangirl92 Didnt human sacrifice come after the favourites were already chosen. Seems Eru is as flawed as any parent. Or "works in mysterious ways" as the faithful might say.
Best way I had it described was like how in Lothlorien, the Fellowship spent a month but Sam only felt a week. You go to the undying lands and its even more so. You spend what feels likea week only to find its actually been years and you didn't notice.
Exactly. I mean, that's what happened to a lot of people in Lockdown. When things don't change and there's no real way to mark long-term time passage, it starts to get very hard to tell how much time has actually passed.
That's a very good analogy. The Three Rings are designed to hold back the wearying of the world and thus the fading of the elves, living inside their effect would be similar to being on Valinor time.
I have always viewed Gimli going to Valinor as a mistake by Tolkien. It departs too much from the rules of Middle Earth, as he otherwise lays them out. There is no good reason for it.
@@richardmather1906 I think it makes quite a point. Gimli showed exceptional respect and appreciation for Galadriel, and he had more common sense than many elves seemed to. Plus, he played his part in the Fellowship perfectly when he could have gone back to his own people to fight for them; instead, he aided the victory of Gondor specifically. I say he well earned a special reward, and if that was being allowed to go to the Undying Lands, it is a fair deal.
I think it's obvious that the Valar didn't understand the lack of eternity any more than the humans understood eternity. That's what I think allowed Sauraun to come in. The Valar needed to show a constant presence and needed to convince every generation. For each new generation is new and must be retaught. They aren't like elves. If the devil and demons walked the earth but no angel was ever seen all of humanity would worship the devil.
A better and more logical answer is that Valinor didn't exist and neither did the Valar. They are just the mythology of the elves which they imposed on the men and which the men didn't really buy but they felt pressured to pretend to believe in.... just like all religion.
@@john.premose They could literally see it from shore. Beyond that, this clearly isn't the kind of allegory that Tolkien would have written, given his beliefs
@@GlossArtwhy not? It's just his version of the Adam and Eve story, where God told them they would die if they ate the fruit, and they didn't die. The irony of that story is that the serpent was actually right.
@@john.premose That's my point. Except that Sauraon, big fire monsters, dragons, and giant spiders exist that work for evil. Like I said it's like having the devil and demons openly interact with people while angels never show up. It would end with every one worshiping the devil.
Nothing shows Sauron's power more than the knowledge and skill he used to guide Celebrimbor to work into the Great Rings -- specifically the spells that arrested the decay and normal swift changes of lands like Rivendell and Lothlorien in Middle Earth as to replicate the timelessness of Valinor. It allowed Elves to avoid the weariness of time that normally makes them incompatible in Middle Earth.
The Valar where anyway rather 'I don't care' with respect to humans. When the elves appeared they went to war and guided the elves to safety. When the humans appeared they did nothing. Sauron was only pestered by a few fairly ineffectual Istari with the result of thousands upon thousands dying before Sauron finally got the boot. Just send an emmisary to Sauron with the message ' dude, not cool. The boss is annoyed'. Might have prevented centuries of war(s) and suffering. They didn't care.
I figured that since men were more easily corruptible than eleven or dwarves, it was meant to keep another kinslaying-like event from happening. And as we saw with Saurons invasion of Valinor, it think they were right to keep men out
Seems to me like the Valar could've allowed some enjoys to travel there, stay a few months, then return and tell people, "yeah, it's nice, but I aged, like, thirty years just being there. Probably best to stay away."
Did you comment this before watching the section of the video where Robert clarifies that mortals wouldn't literally age faster while in the Undying Lands but only perceive it that way?
Allowing a brief visit would have taken away the "forbidden fruit" aspect of the Ban. Letting visitors visit Eressea or even Tirion wouldn't endanger anyone, although of course visiting the seat of Manwe upon Taniquetil would be understandably be off limits.
Valar to the elves, after they regularly screwed up: *it's okay, everyone makes mistakes.* Valar to men, after they are completely ravaged by morgoth and sauron from day one: *our leader might be named Manwe, but this is a Manyou problem.*
I LOVE how Tolkien depicts human and elves as almost envying the others’ fate in a way due to the differences in their perspectives. The long-lived elves find that it would be a gift to ascend in death to rest in a place away from Middle Earth, while humans wish that their lives would go on for longer, not understanding that with such length and achievement also comes weariness as seen by immortals in places outside of the Undying Lands.
Yeah except we know for a fact that all of these people were created on purpose by a god. That god thinks its a good thing that mortals suffer, get sick, get old and die. Why not just make paradise? It's the same reason IRL religions are so stupid.
@@ArchonShon I think you've got that backwards. Their bodies could perish, but their spirits (souls/minds, whatever. Tolkien uses the word spirit) were immortal
Mortals would be happy in Valinor for like a week. Then they would realize that nothing ever changes there, ever. It would be torture after a while, seeing the same scenery, hearing the same songs, the same music, the same poetry. Sure, the elves do make new things from time to time, but with eternity to work on stuff, I imagine you’d be lucky to see one new thing in your whole remaining life.
A comment above suggests it might actually be worse than that, they'd be bored after a week only to look in the mirror and realise it's actually been 30 years.
8:43 "The most swift-passing of all beasts..." suggests there are mortal beasts in Aman, such as the wildlife like birds and game that presumably the Eldar kept or hunted. So for the fauna of Arda, there was nothing particularly "undying" about the Undying Lands.
I can still imagine an "undying ecosystem" there tho. on earth ecosystems change and evolve over time, species appearing and disappearing over the (thousands or millions of) years. I can picture in the undying lands the ecosystem stays exactly the same. the same amount of animals are born year after year, and the same amount die year after year. the overall population never growing or shrinking, no species coming or going, no change to environment even tho the specific individual animals are not permanent
The beasts could be immortal like the Elves are. But Elves don't really "eat" like humans. Or, rather, they do, but much less frequently. Most of their sustenance seems to be spiritual in nature, not physical. But the Elves do hunt, as do the Valar. It is said so explicitly in the Silmarillion. So, presumably, they DO eat at some interval. Perhaps the quote is referring to their natural lifespans. The beasts of Aman, if not hunted, live for a very long time. Huan lived for thousands of years and, other than the fact that he spoke three times, is never implied to be anything other than a regular dog.
@@weezact7 Certainly, elves eat. Why else would they make their famous waybread? Bilbo comes across them feasting in Mirkwood. There are plenty of descriptions of elves eating. They eat just like anyone else.
This is the analogy that came to my mind: I require air to live. I can hold my breath and swim in the ocean for a very short time, but I cannot live there. A fish requires water to live. They may crawl up on the beach for a short period of time, but neither can they live upon the land. The different lives are neither a blessing or a curse, but just how we are made to live.
The problem is, the Valar didn’t allow humans to hold their breath and swim for a little. They weren’t even allowed to put a toe in the water. But the elves were allowed to roam all over Middle Earth. That’s gonna breed discontent.
@@JerbPa Because the Valar feared that if they allowed the humans to hold their breath and swim, they'd have such a great time, they'd never come back up for air and then die.
and then you got aquatic and sub-aquatic animals who completely throw that theory in the toilet and go wherever they want. worse in the case of aquatic birds.
Isn't that what it is though? Gandalf is forever leaving Middle Earth and discarding his mortal shell to return to the Undying Lands. Isn't that pretty much what dying is, minus the uncertainty?
I mean, Pippin would sort of go there, just not stay there. Mortal souls of Men and Hobbits have a quick stop over in the Halls of Mandos before passing on.
@@seekerofalice9787 Not really. Gandalf does not need to discard his shell to go there. The Maiar and Valar are capable of donning and discarding physical forms "like garments". Aman is not the afterlife. It is just more life. You don't go there when you die. You go there because you CANNOT die. Gandalf will remain there (unless he or one of the Valar chooses to send him back for some reason) until the end of time, at which point (depending on the version of Tolkien's writing that you accept as canon) either the world will end in big Ragnarock-esque battle and all the souls (immortal and mortal) that still remain in Ea will return to the Halls of Illuvitar or...something unknown. Pippin, though, will not go there when he dies (other than a brief stop at the Halls of Mandos). Pippin will never see Aman proper. It's also worth noting that the Undying Lands are a physical place and, prior to the sinking of Numenor, you could travel there. They weren't in some other dimension or anything. They were just a different continent of Arda that had been blessed by the "gods". That's why the Ban was needed. Elves, Valar, Maiar, and even a Man or two travel back and forth from there during the first two ages. Even after the world is made round, Valinor doesn't seem to be inaccessible to normal boats as long as you know the way; the "Straight Path" which Ciridan and some other select Elves knew. It was a long voyage and difficult, so you needed a good ship, but there is no explicit mention of needing any kind of magic boat to get there. So, while Manwe probably wouldn't allow him to do so, there's nothing really STOPPING Gandalf from coming back to Middle Earth at any point if he so desires.
Hi Robert! One issue with elven immortality was they weren't just immune to age, but they seemed immune to disease and famine and fear and cruelty. How much of the human condition has been defined by its constant struggle against the evils of nature and each other? Meanwhile, the elves seem blissfully above such issues. They did not know illness. They did not have to toil for their survival. By the second age, they did not know crime or civil war. Their only conflict was with the forces of evil. If the Numenorians enjoyed the same quality of life, and when old age fell upon them, it simply took them without pain or humiliation, I believe they would never have revolted against the Ban. Humanity wasn't really jealous of elven immortality. It was mostly jealous of elven ease.
Originally the Numenoreans DID accept death. They (at least the ruling class) even had the ability to "let go" when they felt their time was nigh and die peacefully. It was Morgoth's lies festering in their hearts (and Sauron stoking them later on) that fueled that envy. The Elves are not immune to fear. Legolas shits a fucking brick when he sees the Balrog. He literally screams and runs. There are other examples too, but that's the first one that springs to mind. But Tolkien's Elven stories are all very high fantasy mythological and stuff. These are larger than life figures told in stories that have been passed down, translated, and probably embellished for effect. And Cruelty? The First Age is FULL of cruel Elves and Elven figures who were tortured or slain cruelly. Orcs are (depending on your preferred version of Tolkien's notes) Elves who were tortured. I agree that they seem to be immune to disease, but the Elves exhibit most of the same elements of the Human condition that you mention. As for toil, that has more merit. We don't hear much about Elven toil, but again, the Silmarillion is (in universe) a collection of Elven myths and legends. Such stories don't typically feature much mention of their characters eating lunch and taking a shit or spending 6 hours churning butter and other chores. So it's hard to say how accurate that is. I think the reason they seem so above all that in the Lord of the Rings is because by that point most of the Elves are in Valinor (either bodied or not). The remainder are, with few exceptions, very old. They've seen THOUSANDS of years of conflict and suffering and are just tired. But they've also had time to refine their civilizations (what few remain) to a point where they meet their needs easily and, since they are a very stable people, there's not a lot of internal chaos to muck it up. All those chaotic Elves are dead now because Tolkien very much believed that it was the nature of Evil to bring about its own downfall.
Numenoreans enjoyed the same quality of life as Elves. The island of Numenor is called the land of Gift because they never had any illnesses, they were immune to them, and their medicine was elevated also even if they weren't protected by the Valar (which they were), they were given great weather meaning plentiful harvests, they did not need anything at all. And "old age taking them without pain or humiliation"... that's how people lived until they start murmuring about not being able to go West. Kings certainly had this power to be able to simply pass away when they felt their time was nearing, and they could go into sleep and never awake. And it was the Kings of Numenor who after some time began the discord of not being able to travel to the West... Not the Faithful, they lived like that until the fall and even after in Arnor or Gondor.
I think the fall of Numenor could have been prevented if the valar were not so detached from menkind. Reading the Akalabeth, I always feel the envy of men to see the undying lend and excludness from the elves and the valar. Rhe enstrangement made it easier fir Sauron to make the Numenoreans to believe in the false logic that the valar keep the secret of immortality from them. After all if moving closer to the undying land made them live longer, it's only reasonable to infer that living in Aman can cause immortality. It seems that the valar misjudged in this case. Alas, what a tragedy.
But see, for the immortal Valar, Men are just as foreign, as they are for Men. I find it perfectly reasonable that having explained to the first Numenorians why the ban is in place, and seeing that they indeed understood it, they considered the matter explained. It is unreasonable for there to be new Men every idk, 300 years or so, who remember nothing, and must be taught all over again. Some Maiar, the likes of Sauron and Gandalf, devoted much of their lives to the study of Men before they could confidently not make the same mistake. Tragic indeed, but the valar are not solely to blame.
I had never considered that the Ban of the Valar was directed exclusively at the Númenoreans, and technically, the middle men of Middle Earth could have bought a boat from them and tried it themselves, without violating any ban.
@@istari0In the very unlikely event that non-Numenoreans had been up to the job and gotten close, I suspect they would have been treated gently but firmly. The ban would have been applied, but not without some attempted explanations and forgiveness.
I think the Valar just didn't really consider it a likely scenario. It was a long voyage from Middle Earth and the Valar put a LOT of traps in the sea around Valinor. Most of the Men left in Middle-Earth simply didn't have the resources or know-how to build ships that could sail there, even if they knew where it was. A lot of them probably assumed it was just a fairy tale, if they'd heard of it at all. But I do believe the Ban was on Men as a whole and the Valar would have appeared and told any such Middle-Men who tried it to turn around before they got there. They just didn't bother telling everyone else because they didn't feel they were in a position to violate it anyway.
As CGP Grey put it for the Gift of Man, “Thanks, dad.” Also the whole thing about how the different groups need different environments kind of makes me think of zoo enclosures and stimulation for your animals. “Your human isn’t stimulated enough, you need another kingdom collapse or they’ll get restless.”
Humans are made to endure the seasons for as many as they can, but not forever. Elves are made for an eternal spring that lasts countless lifetimes. No matter how beautiful a blooming flower is, the heart of a human needs the cold of winter to appreciate the flower
I don't know if I should be giving credit to Tolkein or to you Robert for describing and analyzing the works so well to describe more than Tolkien ever did, but the distinction between Elves and Men in terms of their essence and why they are suited to different things is such an elegant piece of world-building. Not just that they were meant to live in different places because that's what the god's said, and not just because one species is arbitrarily flawed and dangerous in some way, but because they thrive in one place rather than another. There is understandable reason either race wants the other, but that's just the nature of understanding
@@CursedLink666 at that time, Arda was flat, sailing east would not take them west. Actually, the fall of Númenor was when Eru made Arda into a sphere and have taken Valinor out of it, making it inaccesible for any ship that was not meant to go the "straight path".
I always had the impression that even the Valar don't quite understand the Gift, unsure what became of the spirits of Men. Isn't there some hinting in the Ainulindale?
Men where sort of crammed into the Ainulindale by illuvatar almost as an afterthought (as far as the valar know). So the valar have no special foresight when it comes to man kind. They're independent actors free from "fate" so to speak. The immortal races are bound to the music, mortals are free to act with or against it, as well as abandon it all together.
@@Erowens98 i presume Manwe and Mandos know hence why they take so much pity on beren and luthien idril and tuor and aragorn and arwen the first were offered eternal life but begged to return to beleriand as mortals and idril and tuor remained in aman and also Manwe and Mandos both knew where they went after death so it makes sense they would understand the gift better than most
Had I been a man living in Middle Earth, my curiosity and drive for exploration would've inevitably seen me set sail for Valinor eventually. And if the deal I received would've been to see all of it once and then immediately die, that sounds like a fair bargain.
It’s still possible after the patch. If you bring a plate to a specific corner of the Grey Havens and run into it at the right angle it’s possible to clip through the geometry and get to Valinor.
Every time this channel has a new LotR video, I think, "surely, Robert's covered everything by now!" But in the video, you always say, "but that's another video." I love how fleshed out Middle Earth is, and I love hearing all these stories. Keep it up!
Maybe if the Valar had spent more time in Middle Earth instead of saying "ew, being around mortals is depressing", humans wouldn't have felt such a burning desire to go to Valinor.
@@johnfleet235 Well, be that as it may, they left the race of men and elves to fend off Melkor on their own, while the Valar remained in Aman. Even Tolkien was critical of this as he said that Valinor was supposed to be a new fortress where they could renew their fight against Melkor, but it instead became a secluded paradise.
That's the nice thing about having the Valar from a narrative perspective. I quite like that they are fallible and maybe even a little bit dismissive of men despite Illuvitar's instruction. In some ways it makes entities like Gandalf feel even more important because despite being way less knowledgeable and way less powerful than the Valar, he is humble and caring about the mortals. I like to think he will be considered an extremely wise maia in valinor for his service.
@@johnfleet235 actually Eru itslef say to the valar it was a mistake running away and let morgoth marrying middle earth and summmon the elves vainor should not have existed
My big question is "how would humans have coped in Arda unmarred?" My understanding from the Silmarillion was that middle earth is the way it is because of Morgoth's influence. And Valinor is how the world was meant to be free of evil's taint. So if Morgoth hadn't ruined things, elves wouldn't need to go west to avoid fading, but if mortals can't ultimately bear Valinor, surely all of middle earth would have a similar effect 🤔
The thing is, Illuvatar knew what morgoth would do. Morgoths voice in the ainulindale was discordant but ultimately was still a part of it. Illuvatar created humans, knowing what kind of world they would inherit. Unwittingly, morgoth in his attempt to sabotage the music, plays a pivotal role in the creation of a world compatible with humans.
Outside what is written: the Valar are pissed off that they didn’t know humans were coming so they passive aggressively denied them entrance to club med. Doesn’t everyone that dies go to the Halls of Mandos, which is on Valinor. While it may not be the Club Med side of the island, all Men in Middle Earth technically go to Valinor
Sort of. The Halls of Mandos are in Valinor, but they are more of a divine courtroom than anything else. Valinor more generally is the place of divine healing and renewal where the Elves, Maiar, and Valar live in idyllic comfort, and can be respawned into as needed. The souls of Men also go through the Halls of Mandos for divine judgment, but A, they don't use the same waiting room as the Elves and Maia and such, and B, they get passed through a different door for their eternal reward instead of being released into Valinor.
That is the problem when writing all knowing, all powerful deities like Eru iluvitar, YHWH, their "hidden" motives and agendas would only make them evil and cruel. Like how about putting the undying lands so far out of reach only immortals could live long enough to get there? No wonder nobody in middle earth worships its god, he sucks!
The fear of death isn't something given by the Valar, it was simply a natural consequence of not knowing what comes after. The real problem is that the Valar are eternal. They can gaze upon a flame, but not understand how it feels to have the fuel run out and be extinguished. As such, they didn't understand that the unknown is something feared, and that security is born of knowing, and fear in ignorance. Death, the end of life and what comes after, is the greatest unknown to Men, but the Valar don't need to fear it because they have no ending. They arguably don't even live, unless they take a mortal vessel, which has no impact on the greater entity upon death. It's sort of like reading a book. They know in theory that death exists as a concept, much in the same way we understand the idea of the Nazgul in concept; however, just as we cannot know the fear that being in the presence of a Nazgul brings, they cannot understand the fear that the ever-present spectre of death brings to mortals. It's so far removed from what they know they don't even have the framework to understand it.
I never fully understood Valinor until this point, but this makes it seem all the more clear, all the more beautiful, and grants me great clarity to why the Valar never allowed Men to set foot there. Valinor was not for them.
Who decided that the "gift of Illuvatar" was a gift? Oh yeah, immortal people who never experienced it. I feel like the Valar made a lot of decisions for the "good" of people without ever understanding why humans felt cheated. Nothing worse than an unwanted gift.
I mean, for all they know after they die mortals end up in the greatest party of all time forever so them not understanding why death is bad makes sense. I guess for endless beings, something completely new and novel is something to be sought after, but for mortals, that same unknown incurs risk of their end, so it is more feared.
I suspect the valar are just trusting illuvatar on this one. Illuvatar says mortality is a gift for men and so the valar treat it as such even though they don't understand it.
It's called a gift because Men are supposed to escape the suffering of the world after death and return to Illuvatar. Whereas the Elves and even the Valar are tied to the world. Hence, they must linger for so long as it lasts. Tolkien even says that later on, the Elves and the Valar would grow envious of the gift, growing weary of the immortality they were given.
@renjonim Yeah I get that, but men weren't making decisions for the immortals were they? The Valar making decisions for the good of a people whose life they could never empathize with seems really presumptuous to me. Here's this beautiful land in your basic eye shot, but you can't go there--we feel you'd burn out there. But how did they know? It's not like they tried it out on a few humans first and then made a decision.
I remember reading somewhere in Tolkien's writings that there was still a question as to how life in Valinor might affect a mortal human *if* it did provide immortality. Perhaps the body *and* spirit might remain intact and together, but since the spirits of Men were intended to leave Arda after a (relatively) short life, this result would be unavoidably hateful to the mortal. After a time, they would long for release from the circles of the world per their nature, but would be denied this and instead live on in misery. This would be a fate not that dissimilar to that of the Ringwraiths; a spirit trapped against its wishes in the world. The other alternative would be that only the body would become immortal, and the spirit would eventually abandon the body and leave the world as Eru intended. But this would leave an immortal, living 'shell' of a man without any soul or spirit; basically a zombie, and an abomination. Not sure if this was in one of his letters, somewhere buried in the vast "History of Middle Earth" set, or just in my imagination...
It is in Morgoth's Ring, MT, Aman and Mortal Men: "Very soon then the fëa and hröa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hröa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman,9 what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hröa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hröa. Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hröa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony; or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hröa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy."
Fun fact, hobbits are a offshoot race of men that evolved to be short enough to think they are a separate race. So when Bilbo, Frodo and the rest of the hobbits sailed to the undying lands, they became the only humans to ever set foot and live their until their time is up
7:47 a small correction. It is not the Valar who tried to explain, but the elves on behalf of the Valar. Ulmo was fine to talk directly to Tuor, yet even he did not visit Númenor.
I have long thought, for Dogs and Cats with their lives been so short in regards to the human life span, it would seem that their owners are imortal, barring illness or injury.
I'm currently reading the relatively recent book "The Nature of Middle-Earth" which talk quite a lot about the differences in the way Elves and Men aged, This video is a terrific and timely complement.
I think we fans skirt around the question, but have we considered: The ban was there because the Valar didn’t truly understand the nature of man. If the world could be bent after the downfall, then surely it could have been bent before - and thus preventing the fruitless attempt of Neumenorians to take it by force. Illuvatar obviously knew this - but it was required for the future to to take place - which was ultimately good. The downfall of Numeneor was not due to Man’s nature - but it was due to Saurons exploitation of man’s nature.
Through my reading of Tolkien and interpretation over the years, I've arrived at this opinion. The Valar grossly mismanaged their interactions, or lack thereof, with the race of Men. With the Elves, as soon as they discovered them, they built report and kinship with them. They taught them many things and invited them to Valinor, away from their natural habitat of Middle Earth and Cuivienen. The Valar became enamored with the Elves. With Men, they left them to the clutches of Melkor and ignored them in their crucial developmental early years. No emissaries, no lessons, no guidance, nothing. Just thoughts and prayers while a rogue god wreaks havoc across your continent. The Valar only ever take thought for Mankind after s**t hits the fan. Also, even during and post Numenore, why weren't Maiar and even Valar in more regular contact and connection with all of Arda, especially Middle Earth? Isn't Manwe King of the entire world? Are not the Valar the shepherds of all Arda? Obviously Melian stays in Middle Earth but has almost zero interaction with Mankind. The Istari come much later but their whole point is hiding who they actually are. I think it would have been much better for everyone if all inhabitants of Arda had interacted and held council with each other. Ainur, Elves, Men, and Dwarves all in contact. I think the self-serving and voluntary isolation of the Ainur in Valinor led to much hardship that could and should have been averted. Middle Earth was also the original home of the Valar in Arda. Middle Earth is where everyone started. The Valar just made a choice to neglect it after they left.
Numenor received emissaries from the maiar, but I don't know about the rest of the world. But in any way it sounds insuficients, I think Tolkien would justify with very christian styled excuses (something something free will)
The Valar and the Elves were more similar in nature...unchanging, 'tied' to Arda. Men were created to be different from this from the start. So of course, the Valar would have an affinity for beings more similar to themselves. Consider that Eru deliberately created Men with this feature of dying then moving on to a place and fate unknown to anyone else (except to maybe Mandos) and it wasn't something revealed or explained to the Valar. Consider that as much as they favoured them and were closer to them in nature, the Valar's first interaction with the Elves created a big mess so imagine how hesitant they would then be with beings so different in nature as Men
One of my favorite lines in the Silmarillion is near end of Akallabeth where Tolkien writes about the Valar allowing some random shipmasters to arrive at Tol Eressea, and maybe even to Valinor, and there had looked upon Taniquetil and died. Or just how well Elendil took the drowning of Numenor, for all that he lost that day.
I do feel like raising Numenor so close to the Undying Lands is a bit of a deliberate temptation, maybe not by the Valar, but Eru Iluvitar maybe. Kinda reminiscent of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It feels like something the Numenoreans were set up to fail. Building them up so much with their rewards, but putting something more just out of reach. I get that the Valar didn't really understand Men's perception of the situation, any more than Men understood the nature of Valinor, but I can't see a world in which Men would never succumb to that temptation. Not sure why either Iluvitar or JRRT would do that, probably some deeper point or exploration of something I'm missing.
I want to remind everyone of the time that the Fellowship spent in Lothlorien. They remark that the time there seemed to fly by, and Legolas confirms that this is how the elves perceive the passage of time. A mortal who spent time in Aman would likely experience that same sensation, of their lives flying away from them. That's the "withering" that Tolkien refers to.
Exactly. A human wouldn't literally age faster (though with the amount of divine energy lying around, who knows), but they'd be so enthralled by the peace and joy of their surroundings that days, weeks, months, years could pass them by. Old age would catch up to them sooner than they think.
This explanation would make more sense if the elves were equally refused access to Middle Earth since it’s not meant for them. I see no reason humans couldn’t be allowed to travel to Valinor on something akin to a traveler or student visa. Any time you outright refuse something to people with free will, you’re just creating desire for it which will eventually lead to trouble.
Before Melkor interfered, the original plan was that the Elves would awaken first and later be mentors to Men before the Elves would eventually join the Valar, leaving the mortal world to Men.
In myopinion, the Valar are stupid. If they had allow Numenorians to visit Valinor, they would have seen that the Valar were right. And it probably would have solved the fall of Numenor and all the Third Age Wars.
In some early drafts Tolkien indeed played with an idea that Numenorians could visit Tol-Eressea and even Valinor. But he soon rejected that concept and I totally inderstand him here. One thing is when you don't know the truth and gets decieved. The other one is when you have seen th truth and still is foolish enough to be decieved. Tolkien didn't want to make Numenorians look completely stupid in that matter.
@@General12thYep. Humans were strictly forbidden to travel to the undying lands and when they did it had seismic consequences. But why? Why weren't humans allowed into Valinor?
@@DivineBanana One of the most important plot points in the second age of Middle Earth, one that had implications for the future of the entire planet, was the Ban of the Valar.
What about Ents? They live a lot longer than most races but without the possessiveness - it does feel as though they'd be better able to cope with eternity than most. Could they not go to Valinor? Or is the issue just that putting an Ent on a wooden ship is a bit... squicky? Morbid? Like cucumber slices and pickles on the same sub?
Well..... I'm still not sure.... Because if the ban was a mercy and not punishment, was Frodo, Bilbo and Gimli then "punished" for their deeds? I'm not arguing against Frodo here, I fully understand that he deserved to go there, but that in itself - "deserved" - makes it the reason so many mortals wanted to go there and couldn't understand why were they prohibited.....
No no, they get there but for them what only feels like a few days, would be months or even years and they die of old age according to their lifespans but they just don't "live" those years as fast.
"Valinor was made for the immortals, Middle-Earth was made for the humans". I don't buy the logic of the Valar, or maybe Tolkien here. It seems like a bit of a contradiction, or an "excuse" to keep humans out, because of course there's no ban on immortals coming to middle-earth. In fact, all the "world-ending" conflicts in Middle-Earth were CAUSED by these immortals. If they really had been banned from Middle-Earth, Middle-Earth would have been a lot better for it. The more I learn about the world, the more I think the various "Men" were somewhat treated as pets. Admired and rewarded in some ways, but in a condescending way. Elves certainly didn't see them as equals, and to me that mentality comes straight from the Valar. Haha this is probably a hot take, huh? In short, I completely understand the Numenorians. Or at least their feelings on the matter. Not so much the "we'll just take it then" mentality, but just the quiet resentment. If they had just said "Humans. You're not immortal, you can't come to the undying lands or we'll destroy you" it probably wouldn't bother me. But trying to justify it in terms of "oh it's just not made for you, you wouldn't like it" seems kinda patronizing
I understand the reasoning for not allowing non-elves to come to the Undying Lands, but putting Valinor within eyesight of Numenor was a massive middle finger and very unnecessary. Y'know, the more I learn of the Valar and what they have/have not done, the more I realize they aren't the greatest lords of their creations.
Because the Valar aren’t about control. Never have been. It’s their main tenets. As well as the elves that have the same laws and virtues. Which also applies to Númenor They took an unspoken vow to not take direct action. When Ainur clash: land masses sink to the bottom of the sea like Beleriand in the the War Of Wrath etc. this was why the sun and moon from the last flower and fruit being set in an area where Morgoth couldn’t go to ruin them. He followed Tillion and Arien & got majorly burned by Arien as she was evidently stronger than him in her unbound form, remaining faithful (tethered to Eru and therefore her purest version of herself.) Even the Valaraukar that became balrogs were of similar type of Ainur to Arien. Same as when Eru didn’t attack anyone. Moving Valinor into a limbo zone between Eä and the rings of the world which caused arda to bend and caused tidal waves that didn’t just sunk Númenor. It destroyed entire coastline of middle earth and killed many innocent people. People who think Eru intentionally levelled middle earth don’t know much about the AllFather and free will and how sacred it is! See. The larger the character the larger the consequences. Even for Eru when bending reality itself to out Valinor into a safe space where hardly anyone could reach it ever again. Only two known ways to get there physically remain. Straight from the Grey Havens is functional as if the world had not been bent which is why it begins to look like the boats are flying at some point etc etc. and the route Idril and Tuor ventured together. Where Tuor became the first man to ever become an elf essentially. Great grandfather of Elrond. Father to Eärendil. ❤️ The ban wasn’t so much as a BAN as we think of it. It was kicked off after the Kinslaying. TalesOfTheRings animated it all and it was epic.
This is a great video, but I think this topic is one where Tolkien falls short. In truth, there doesn't seem to be any downside to actually being an Elf, at least none explicitly explained or mentioned. They're apparently "tied to Arda" but.... so what? Because we have no knowledge of what lies beyond for Men, it really does seem like a raw deal. The fact that mortals are rewarded with long life and access to the Blessed Isles flies in the face of the idea that the Blessed Isles and long life "aren't a good fit". Were that true, why offer them as gifts? This is further exacerbated by the fact the Elves are allowed to be in Middle Earth - by the Valar's logic, they should be banned from Middle Earth.
I've always felt the point Tolkien made is that there ISN'T an overall downside (or upside) to being an elf, or human, or dwarf, or ent, etc... the different peoples were just that, different. Elves were tied to the world, their seeming immortality represented that. Men were no less immortal; their seeming mortality was simply that the very first part of their existence was as a part of the world. And the rest beyond.
Tolkien, from what I have gathered so far, seemed to be less than enthused about industrialization and how the output of said industry changed how people lived. From that perspective, the immortal in the Undying Lands and the mortal on Middle Earth makes sense. The Elves, while endless, are also unchanging to a point, and are ill suited to the world around them changing in response. Likewise, mortals(Men) are dynamic and ever-changing, so a world where nothing ever changed would be anathema in the long term as boredom set in. Being unable to have new experiences would be unbearable after long enough, and an undying Man would inevitably hit that point, as they would never die. The elves are the lingering of what once was, sort of the equivalent of being nostalgic for a world pre-internet or electricity, but that must inevitably fade as those times are gone. Men as the drivers of change, for better and worse, in the same way as the internet gave us both access to content like IDG, but also created the perpetual outrage machine on various social media. However, such innovation cannot last forever. The geni of centuries past would be limited by the ideals of their times, and eventually would be unable to keep up, just watch your grandparents play a video game and you will get what I mean. In that way, death is a blessing as it means that, presumably, where they go after would allow for a fresh start of some kind, unbound by the expectations they held.
If you have a copy of Morgoth's Ring, read the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. In it, Tolkien writes that the Elves knew they were tied to the fate of Arda and did not know if there was anything for them once the world ended whereas Men did go somewhere else.
It does sadden me a little to think that Sam in old age got to the undying lands and saw Frodo’s grave. Though as Sam would have been very old by then and had helped to bury many dear ones it seems appropriate.
@ I’m a little confused by what you mean, mortal life ends faster in the Undying Lands, ironically. Between Frodo leaving and Sam sailing it was close to 70 years and Frodo was older by at least a decade.
@@lipingrahman6648 no mortal life doesn’t end quicker time just passes faster we see it in Lorien they thought they had been their less than a day but actually it had been weeks
Recently started loving these Videos. Has Mr. Geek covered the idea of the one ring needing to be "claimed" by its wielder before they could gain all the same benifits as Sauron?
Robert don’t know if you’ll be encouraged by this - but I’ve fallen into a routine of falling asleep to your LOTR videos. I have them on repeat basically all night. Can’t imagine how many views I’ve clocked!
Humans were given the gift to go to heaven or Erus realm after death the Valinor and elves don’t have such a gift so they probably think it’s bonkers men don’t love it. I think they did until Sauron decived them
If you have a copy of Morgoth's Ring, read the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. In it, Tolkien writes that the Elves knew they were tied to the fate of Arda and did not know if there was anything for them once the world ended whereas Men did go somewhere else.
It was discussed at the Council of Elrond that the Elves would have to leave Middle-Earth especially after the Destruction of the One Ring. So, I think this video and others like it are missing why the Elves are effectively banned from Middle Earth by the Third Age and definitely by the Fourth Age? Also, the video misses that the Valar tried to get Elves to Valinor long before the events of the Ages of the Sun. It seems like Elves and Men had a short time when it was "acceptable" for both races to intermingle, but at some point, the races each had to move down different paths.
It's just another example of how the great father makes and treats the two of his children different, where one is allways greater than other one. And then the father explains that it is in the very nature of the leeser child to be, well, leeser, so it cannot get what the greater child is given. Like, for example, why don't grant to humans about a one tousand years as a normal lifespan? It's far enough to show those unrest humans that they need to experience this"winter" in their life as well as this "elvish spring" etc.?
The Valar only accepted hot babes, and I guess the elves were “hot enough overall” (… I mean, ok sure, one can have “preferences”). But on the bottom level: Men had a strict BAN :D
Odd to think there was a period in the Second Age where there were effectively trade relations between Numenor and the Undying Lands due to elves coming over to visit and bringing stuff. It would be like angels visiting from heaven and being like "This tree I've brought would look SO good in your garden mortal"
I don't think it said that it was valinor that traded with numenor, not directly anyway. Didn't it say it was another island near valinor with elves on? (Avallone on the island of Eressea?) So its like proxy trade, Valinor Avallone/Eressea numenor or maybe those things were just from Avallone/Eressea itself and not Valinor.
@@Orii-RaePoole It does says the Elves traded with Numenor and the Elves are everywhere...
@@Orii-RaePooletol eressea is a part of valinor and could not be reached due to the ban it was later also removed from the world
I think the issue is a matter of freedom. By allowing the Elves to go wherever they like, back and forth, even though it would make sense for them to be restricted from Middle Earth for the same reasons, you are playing favourites, giving more freedom to one group than another.
Not to mention that the elves frequently brought gifts to Numenor from the Undying Lands.
"Look at this cool stuff! We have TONS more just like it over there! Too bad you can't go see for yourselves... lolol"
A hard segregation would have been kinder.
yep. Men did nothing wrong! They were right!
Human sacrfice to Morgoth seems a bit wrong to me...
@@Shamangirl92ehhh that was SOME men. There's plenty of humans who only fought against darkness and they aren't welcome, either.
@@Shamangirl92 Didnt human sacrifice come after the favourites were already chosen. Seems Eru is as flawed as any parent. Or "works in mysterious ways" as the faithful might say.
Best way I had it described was like how in Lothlorien, the Fellowship spent a month but Sam only felt a week. You go to the undying lands and its even more so. You spend what feels likea week only to find its actually been years and you didn't notice.
Exactly. I mean, that's what happened to a lot of people in Lockdown. When things don't change and there's no real way to mark long-term time passage, it starts to get very hard to tell how much time has actually passed.
That's a very good analogy. The Three Rings are designed to hold back the wearying of the world and thus the fading of the elves, living inside their effect would be similar to being on Valinor time.
Gimli arriving in Valinor could have been such an awesome short story.
Being a Dwarf it certainly wouldn’t be a tall tale.
I have always viewed Gimli going to Valinor as a mistake by Tolkien. It departs too much from the rules of Middle Earth, as he otherwise lays them out. There is no good reason for it.
neither gimili, nor the hobbit ring-bearers would have been allowed in valinor, they would have had to stay in tol eressëa.
@@richardmather1906
I think it makes quite a point. Gimli showed exceptional respect and appreciation for Galadriel,
and he had more common sense than many elves seemed to. Plus, he played his part in the Fellowship perfectly
when he could have gone back to his own people to fight for them; instead, he aided the victory of Gondor specifically.
I say he well earned a special reward, and if that was being allowed to go to the Undying Lands, it is a fair deal.
@@richardmather1906Tolkien made it so therefore it is good.
I think it's obvious that the Valar didn't understand the lack of eternity any more than the humans understood eternity. That's what I think allowed Sauraun to come in. The Valar needed to show a constant presence and needed to convince every generation. For each new generation is new and must be retaught. They aren't like elves. If the devil and demons walked the earth but no angel was ever seen all of humanity would worship the devil.
@@Untolddead great post
A better and more logical answer is that Valinor didn't exist and neither did the Valar. They are just the mythology of the elves which they imposed on the men and which the men didn't really buy but they felt pressured to pretend to believe in.... just like all religion.
@@john.premose They could literally see it from shore. Beyond that, this clearly isn't the kind of allegory that Tolkien would have written, given his beliefs
@@GlossArtwhy not? It's just his version of the Adam and Eve story, where God told them they would die if they ate the fruit, and they didn't die. The irony of that story is that the serpent was actually right.
@@john.premose That's my point. Except that Sauraon, big fire monsters, dragons, and giant spiders exist that work for evil. Like I said it's like having the devil and demons openly interact with people while angels never show up. It would end with every one worshiping the devil.
Nothing shows Sauron's power more than the knowledge and skill he used to guide Celebrimbor to work into the Great Rings -- specifically the spells that arrested the decay and normal swift changes of lands like Rivendell and Lothlorien in Middle Earth as to replicate the timelessness of Valinor. It allowed Elves to avoid the weariness of time that normally makes them incompatible in Middle Earth.
He learned well from Aule.
@@TheArcV This^^
It's one thing to ban humans from going to Valinor, but putting it right at the edge of what the Númenóreans could see was just a d*ck move.
The Valar where anyway rather 'I don't care' with respect to humans. When the elves appeared they went to war and guided the elves to safety. When the humans appeared they did nothing. Sauron was only pestered by a few fairly ineffectual Istari with the result of thousands upon thousands dying before Sauron finally got the boot. Just send an emmisary to Sauron with the message ' dude, not cool. The boss is annoyed'. Might have prevented centuries of war(s) and suffering. They didn't care.
I suddenly feel a little bad about letting my dog eat his dinner so close to the dinner table.
@@martinschouwenburg506 Thanks, Eru!
Gods have sick senses of humor. Schadenfreude seems to be what gets a god off the most
I figured that since men were more easily corruptible than eleven or dwarves, it was meant to keep another kinslaying-like event from happening. And as we saw with Saurons invasion of Valinor, it think they were right to keep men out
Seems to me like the Valar could've allowed some enjoys to travel there, stay a few months, then return and tell people, "yeah, it's nice, but I aged, like, thirty years just being there. Probably best to stay away."
Yes, my thought exactly.
Did you comment this before watching the section of the video where Robert clarifies that mortals wouldn't literally age faster while in the Undying Lands but only perceive it that way?
@1ThisIsMyNameNow1 my point being, their experience could be used by others to gauge the effects of being in Valinor to begin with
@@michaeljebbett160 I understand. If they had cared to, they could have extended some PR
Allowing a brief visit would have taken away the "forbidden fruit" aspect of the Ban. Letting visitors visit Eressea or even Tirion wouldn't endanger anyone, although of course visiting the seat of Manwe upon Taniquetil would be understandably be off limits.
Valar to the elves, after they regularly screwed up: *it's okay, everyone makes mistakes.*
Valar to men, after they are completely ravaged by morgoth and sauron from day one: *our leader might be named Manwe, but this is a Manyou problem.*
Hhha
I LOVE how Tolkien depicts human and elves as almost envying the others’ fate in a way due to the differences in their perspectives. The long-lived elves find that it would be a gift to ascend in death to rest in a place away from Middle Earth, while humans wish that their lives would go on for longer, not understanding that with such length and achievement also comes weariness as seen by immortals in places outside of the Undying Lands.
Yeah except we know for a fact that all of these people were created on purpose by a god. That god thinks its a good thing that mortals suffer, get sick, get old and die. Why not just make paradise? It's the same reason IRL religions are so stupid.
Well said. Also, having gift of life only in the physical, which is sure to pass away, whereas no one knows where 'men' go.
The bodies of the the elves are immortal but not their minds!
It's, in true Tolkien fashion, careful warning to be careful what you wish for and wishing for what you cannot have.
@@ArchonShon I think you've got that backwards. Their bodies could perish, but their spirits (souls/minds, whatever. Tolkien uses the word spirit) were immortal
Thanks! You have no idea how much your videos help me get through the grind of each miserable day.
What a great life lesson, we really should admire the seasons of our life since nothing stays the same, even we change, and we must enjoy that ride.
Mortals would be happy in Valinor for like a week. Then they would realize that nothing ever changes there, ever. It would be torture after a while, seeing the same scenery, hearing the same songs, the same music, the same poetry. Sure, the elves do make new things from time to time, but with eternity to work on stuff, I imagine you’d be lucky to see one new thing in your whole remaining life.
A comment above suggests it might actually be worse than that, they'd be bored after a week only to look in the mirror and realise it's actually been 30 years.
8:43 "The most swift-passing of all beasts..." suggests there are mortal beasts in Aman, such as the wildlife like birds and game that presumably the Eldar kept or hunted. So for the fauna of Arda, there was nothing particularly "undying" about the Undying Lands.
I can still imagine an "undying ecosystem" there tho. on earth ecosystems change and evolve over time, species appearing and disappearing over the (thousands or millions of) years. I can picture in the undying lands the ecosystem stays exactly the same. the same amount of animals are born year after year, and the same amount die year after year. the overall population never growing or shrinking, no species coming or going, no change to environment even tho the specific individual animals are not permanent
Well, the elves can't have their weekend barbeques without mortal beasts to hunt.
The beasts could be immortal like the Elves are. But Elves don't really "eat" like humans. Or, rather, they do, but much less frequently. Most of their sustenance seems to be spiritual in nature, not physical. But the Elves do hunt, as do the Valar. It is said so explicitly in the Silmarillion. So, presumably, they DO eat at some interval.
Perhaps the quote is referring to their natural lifespans. The beasts of Aman, if not hunted, live for a very long time. Huan lived for thousands of years and, other than the fact that he spoke three times, is never implied to be anything other than a regular dog.
@@weezact7 Certainly, elves eat. Why else would they make their famous waybread? Bilbo comes across them feasting in Mirkwood. There are plenty of descriptions of elves eating. They eat just like anyone else.
Thank you, Robert, for sharing your vast knowledge.
Great username!!
@@ThommyofThenn Thank you. 😊
This is the analogy that came to my mind: I require air to live. I can hold my breath and swim in the ocean for a very short time, but I cannot live there. A fish requires water to live. They may crawl up on the beach for a short period of time, but neither can they live upon the land. The different lives are neither a blessing or a curse, but just how we are made to live.
The problem is, the Valar didn’t allow humans to hold their breath and swim for a little. They weren’t even allowed to put a toe in the water. But the elves were allowed to roam all over Middle Earth. That’s gonna breed discontent.
@ I was referring to the world we live in, not Tolkien’s world.
@jerbpa Númenor and the gift of extended life kind of were that.
@@JerbPa Because the Valar feared that if they allowed the humans to hold their breath and swim, they'd have such a great time, they'd never come back up for air and then die.
and then you got aquatic and sub-aquatic animals who completely throw that theory in the toilet and go wherever they want. worse in the case of aquatic birds.
One of the many heresies of the RTK film was Gandalf describing the Undying Lands to Pippin as his afterlife.
Isn't that what it is though? Gandalf is forever leaving Middle Earth and discarding his mortal shell to return to the Undying Lands. Isn't that pretty much what dying is, minus the uncertainty?
Sorry for the confusion when I said his afterlife I meant Pippin’s. You are correct about Gandalf.
I mean, Pippin would sort of go there, just not stay there. Mortal souls of Men and Hobbits have a quick stop over in the Halls of Mandos before passing on.
@@seekerofalice9787 Not really. Gandalf does not need to discard his shell to go there. The Maiar and Valar are capable of donning and discarding physical forms "like garments". Aman is not the afterlife. It is just more life. You don't go there when you die. You go there because you CANNOT die. Gandalf will remain there (unless he or one of the Valar chooses to send him back for some reason) until the end of time, at which point (depending on the version of Tolkien's writing that you accept as canon) either the world will end in big Ragnarock-esque battle and all the souls (immortal and mortal) that still remain in Ea will return to the Halls of Illuvitar or...something unknown.
Pippin, though, will not go there when he dies (other than a brief stop at the Halls of Mandos). Pippin will never see Aman proper.
It's also worth noting that the Undying Lands are a physical place and, prior to the sinking of Numenor, you could travel there. They weren't in some other dimension or anything. They were just a different continent of Arda that had been blessed by the "gods". That's why the Ban was needed. Elves, Valar, Maiar, and even a Man or two travel back and forth from there during the first two ages. Even after the world is made round, Valinor doesn't seem to be inaccessible to normal boats as long as you know the way; the "Straight Path" which Ciridan and some other select Elves knew. It was a long voyage and difficult, so you needed a good ship, but there is no explicit mention of needing any kind of magic boat to get there. So, while Manwe probably wouldn't allow him to do so, there's nothing really STOPPING Gandalf from coming back to Middle Earth at any point if he so desires.
@@josephsonderling2384 Yeah, but that's like the shitty airport terminal, not the beautiful vacation destination.
Hi Robert!
One issue with elven immortality was they weren't just immune to age, but they seemed immune to disease and famine and fear and cruelty. How much of the human condition has been defined by its constant struggle against the evils of nature and each other? Meanwhile, the elves seem blissfully above such issues. They did not know illness. They did not have to toil for their survival. By the second age, they did not know crime or civil war. Their only conflict was with the forces of evil.
If the Numenorians enjoyed the same quality of life, and when old age fell upon them, it simply took them without pain or humiliation, I believe they would never have revolted against the Ban. Humanity wasn't really jealous of elven immortality. It was mostly jealous of elven ease.
Originally the Numenoreans DID accept death. They (at least the ruling class) even had the ability to "let go" when they felt their time was nigh and die peacefully. It was Morgoth's lies festering in their hearts (and Sauron stoking them later on) that fueled that envy.
The Elves are not immune to fear. Legolas shits a fucking brick when he sees the Balrog. He literally screams and runs. There are other examples too, but that's the first one that springs to mind. But Tolkien's Elven stories are all very high fantasy mythological and stuff. These are larger than life figures told in stories that have been passed down, translated, and probably embellished for effect.
And Cruelty? The First Age is FULL of cruel Elves and Elven figures who were tortured or slain cruelly. Orcs are (depending on your preferred version of Tolkien's notes) Elves who were tortured. I agree that they seem to be immune to disease, but the Elves exhibit most of the same elements of the Human condition that you mention.
As for toil, that has more merit. We don't hear much about Elven toil, but again, the Silmarillion is (in universe) a collection of Elven myths and legends. Such stories don't typically feature much mention of their characters eating lunch and taking a shit or spending 6 hours churning butter and other chores. So it's hard to say how accurate that is.
I think the reason they seem so above all that in the Lord of the Rings is because by that point most of the Elves are in Valinor (either bodied or not). The remainder are, with few exceptions, very old. They've seen THOUSANDS of years of conflict and suffering and are just tired. But they've also had time to refine their civilizations (what few remain) to a point where they meet their needs easily and, since they are a very stable people, there's not a lot of internal chaos to muck it up. All those chaotic Elves are dead now because Tolkien very much believed that it was the nature of Evil to bring about its own downfall.
Numenoreans enjoyed the same quality of life as Elves. The island of Numenor is called the land of Gift because they never had any illnesses, they were immune to them, and their medicine was elevated also even if they weren't protected by the Valar (which they were), they were given great weather meaning plentiful harvests, they did not need anything at all.
And "old age taking them without pain or humiliation"... that's how people lived until they start murmuring about not being able to go West. Kings certainly had this power to be able to simply pass away when they felt their time was nearing, and they could go into sleep and never awake. And it was the Kings of Numenor who after some time began the discord of not being able to travel to the West... Not the Faithful, they lived like that until the fall and even after in Arnor or Gondor.
I think the fall of Numenor could have been prevented if the valar were not so detached from menkind. Reading the Akalabeth, I always feel the envy of men to see the undying lend and excludness from the elves and the valar. Rhe enstrangement made it easier fir Sauron to make the Numenoreans to believe in the false logic that the valar keep the secret of immortality from them. After all if moving closer to the undying land made them live longer, it's only reasonable to infer that living in Aman can cause immortality.
It seems that the valar misjudged in this case. Alas, what a tragedy.
But see, for the immortal Valar, Men are just as foreign, as they are for Men. I find it perfectly reasonable that having explained to the first Numenorians why the ban is in place, and seeing that they indeed understood it, they considered the matter explained. It is unreasonable for there to be new Men every idk, 300 years or so, who remember nothing, and must be taught all over again.
Some Maiar, the likes of Sauron and Gandalf, devoted much of their lives to the study of Men before they could confidently not make the same mistake.
Tragic indeed, but the valar are not solely to blame.
@@gressorialNanites "We have explained to you why dying is good like 500 years ago. Why don't you remember our lesson?"
I had never considered that the Ban of the Valar was directed exclusively at the Númenoreans, and technically, the middle men of Middle Earth could have bought a boat from them and tried it themselves, without violating any ban.
No, the Men of Middle-Earth would not have been allowed either but they did not have the ability to build ships that could make that voyage.
@@istari0In the very unlikely event that non-Numenoreans had been up to the job and gotten close, I suspect they would have been treated gently but firmly. The ban would have been applied, but not without some attempted explanations and forgiveness.
I think the Valar just didn't really consider it a likely scenario. It was a long voyage from Middle Earth and the Valar put a LOT of traps in the sea around Valinor. Most of the Men left in Middle-Earth simply didn't have the resources or know-how to build ships that could sail there, even if they knew where it was. A lot of them probably assumed it was just a fairy tale, if they'd heard of it at all.
But I do believe the Ban was on Men as a whole and the Valar would have appeared and told any such Middle-Men who tried it to turn around before they got there. They just didn't bother telling everyone else because they didn't feel they were in a position to violate it anyway.
@@jameshart2622 Ulmo: "What do we do if a non-Numenorean wants to come here?"
Manwe: "We tell them politely, but firmly, to leave."
As CGP Grey put it for the Gift of Man, “Thanks, dad.”
Also the whole thing about how the different groups need different environments kind of makes me think of zoo enclosures and stimulation for your animals. “Your human isn’t stimulated enough, you need another kingdom collapse or they’ll get restless.”
Thats real 🤣
The Stockholm syndrome known as "accept death it's natural" should be recognised as a mental illness
Humans are made to endure the seasons for as many as they can, but not forever. Elves are made for an eternal spring that lasts countless lifetimes. No matter how beautiful a blooming flower is, the heart of a human needs the cold of winter to appreciate the flower
well put
For many winter never end.
...until we can learn to appreciate the flower without the winter.
This should be top comment
Getting off work and an In Deep Geek video has dropped, is the best feeling!
This is like the third video on this topic I've seen from In Deep Geek. Thanks for keeping this topic alive.
Also Melkor’s hand in corrupting the gift and filling it with terror was almost a sure thing that men would do anything to escape death.😢
I don't know if I should be giving credit to Tolkein or to you Robert for describing and analyzing the works so well to describe more than Tolkien ever did, but the distinction between Elves and Men in terms of their essence and why they are suited to different things is such an elegant piece of world-building. Not just that they were meant to live in different places because that's what the god's said, and not just because one species is arbitrarily flawed and dangerous in some way, but because they thrive in one place rather than another. There is understandable reason either race wants the other, but that's just the nature of understanding
Ban of Valar prohibited Humans from sailing west. But what about flying.
"Gents, take a walk!"
Just keep sailing east, unless there's an ice barrier or something.
@@CursedLink666 at that time, Arda was flat, sailing east would not take them west. Actually, the fall of Númenor was when Eru made Arda into a sphere and have taken Valinor out of it, making it inaccesible for any ship that was not meant to go the "straight path".
I’m a simple man, I see In Deep Geek, I click.
Thanks for your service.
Agreedo
Same same
Im a simple man, I see a "I'm a simple man" comment, I click (like)
@tadejpeckaj1151 This is two sentences.
The map at 09:30 is stunning
I always had the impression that even the Valar don't quite understand the Gift, unsure what became of the spirits of Men. Isn't there some hinting in the Ainulindale?
No, even the Valar weren't sure where Men's spirits went.
Men where sort of crammed into the Ainulindale by illuvatar almost as an afterthought (as far as the valar know). So the valar have no special foresight when it comes to man kind. They're independent actors free from "fate" so to speak. The immortal races are bound to the music, mortals are free to act with or against it, as well as abandon it all together.
@@Erowens98 i presume Manwe and Mandos know hence why they take so much pity on beren and luthien idril and tuor and aragorn and arwen the first were offered eternal life but begged to return to beleriand as mortals and idril and tuor remained in aman and also Manwe and Mandos both knew where they went after death so it makes sense they would understand the gift better than most
in deep geek the GOAT
A new one from Robert, my day just got better!
Had I been a man living in Middle Earth, my curiosity and drive for exploration would've inevitably seen me set sail for Valinor eventually.
And if the deal I received would've been to see all of it once and then immediately die, that sounds like a fair bargain.
It’s still possible after the patch. If you bring a plate to a specific corner of the Grey Havens and run into it at the right angle it’s possible to clip through the geometry and get to Valinor.
Babe wake up! New In Deep Geek dropped!
When you look up and babe is harfoot
Hmm
Would you date a hobbit?
I appreciate the current tempo of uploads man. I know its alot of work but thanks for the great content.
Thanks for the explanation! As a casual fan, I've always wondered!
Also, your narration is absolute world-class.
Every time this channel has a new LotR video, I think, "surely, Robert's covered everything by now!" But in the video, you always say, "but that's another video."
I love how fleshed out Middle Earth is, and I love hearing all these stories. Keep it up!
You have no idea how happy I felt seeing that you’ve uploaded another video
Maybe if the Valar had spent more time in Middle Earth instead of saying "ew, being around mortals is depressing", humans wouldn't have felt such a burning desire to go to Valinor.
I can see your point, but the hard part is that when the Valar came to Middle Earth it was usually a disaster.
@@johnfleet235 Well, be that as it may, they left the race of men and elves to fend off Melkor on their own, while the Valar remained in Aman. Even Tolkien was critical of this as he said that Valinor was supposed to be a new fortress where they could renew their fight against Melkor, but it instead became a secluded paradise.
That's the nice thing about having the Valar from a narrative perspective. I quite like that they are fallible and maybe even a little bit dismissive of men despite Illuvitar's instruction. In some ways it makes entities like Gandalf feel even more important because despite being way less knowledgeable and way less powerful than the Valar, he is humble and caring about the mortals. I like to think he will be considered an extremely wise maia in valinor for his service.
Spoken like a true numenorian.
@@johnfleet235 actually Eru itslef say to the valar it was a mistake running away and let morgoth marrying middle earth and summmon the elves
vainor should not have existed
My big question is "how would humans have coped in Arda unmarred?"
My understanding from the Silmarillion was that middle earth is the way it is because of Morgoth's influence. And Valinor is how the world was meant to be free of evil's taint. So if Morgoth hadn't ruined things, elves wouldn't need to go west to avoid fading, but if mortals can't ultimately bear Valinor, surely all of middle earth would have a similar effect 🤔
The thing is, Illuvatar knew what morgoth would do. Morgoths voice in the ainulindale was discordant but ultimately was still a part of it. Illuvatar created humans, knowing what kind of world they would inherit. Unwittingly, morgoth in his attempt to sabotage the music, plays a pivotal role in the creation of a world compatible with humans.
@@Erowens98 "I meant to do that!"
Allowing the choice of mortal or immortal lives for the offspring of Elrond but not for the offspring of Elros was a real dick move.
Truly a fantastic channel and a true scholar of great topics teaching us all.
Why can’t men go to the undying lands? Signed, Ar Pharazon.
Appreciate ya. Thanks for sharing.
Keep up the big picture ideas and videos💯
I think I speak for all Numenoreans when I say 'a thirty-day trial period would have been nice.'
Outside what is written: the Valar are pissed off that they didn’t know humans were coming so they passive aggressively denied them entrance to club med.
Doesn’t everyone that dies go to the Halls of Mandos, which is on Valinor. While it may not be the Club Med side of the island, all Men in Middle Earth technically go to Valinor
Sort of. The Halls of Mandos are in Valinor, but they are more of a divine courtroom than anything else. Valinor more generally is the place of divine healing and renewal where the Elves, Maiar, and Valar live in idyllic comfort, and can be respawned into as needed. The souls of Men also go through the Halls of Mandos for divine judgment, but A, they don't use the same waiting room as the Elves and Maia and such, and B, they get passed through a different door for their eternal reward instead of being released into Valinor.
Maybe giving humanity a fear of death and then calling the land they weren't allowed to go to the 'UN-dying land' was kind of a dick move.
That is the problem when writing all knowing, all powerful deities like Eru iluvitar, YHWH, their "hidden" motives and agendas would only make them evil and cruel. Like how about putting the undying lands so far out of reach only immortals could live long enough to get there? No wonder nobody in middle earth worships its god, he sucks!
I mean Melkor gave them the fear of death as well as the Valar's need to separate the undying from the mortal worlds.
The fear of death isn't something given by the Valar, it was simply a natural consequence of not knowing what comes after. The real problem is that the Valar are eternal. They can gaze upon a flame, but not understand how it feels to have the fuel run out and be extinguished. As such, they didn't understand that the unknown is something feared, and that security is born of knowing, and fear in ignorance. Death, the end of life and what comes after, is the greatest unknown to Men, but the Valar don't need to fear it because they have no ending. They arguably don't even live, unless they take a mortal vessel, which has no impact on the greater entity upon death. It's sort of like reading a book. They know in theory that death exists as a concept, much in the same way we understand the idea of the Nazgul in concept; however, just as we cannot know the fear that being in the presence of a Nazgul brings, they cannot understand the fear that the ever-present spectre of death brings to mortals. It's so far removed from what they know they don't even have the framework to understand it.
Blame Melkor for that. Originally Men did not fear death but Melkor got a hold of them and corrupted them.
@@istari0 As he corrupted everything he touched.
I never fully understood Valinor until this point, but this makes it seem all the more clear, all the more beautiful, and grants me great clarity to why the Valar never allowed Men to set foot there. Valinor was not for them.
its like living in a place that is only ever spring and only ever plays movies like spartacus and Ben Hur on TV ie boring
Who decided that the "gift of Illuvatar" was a gift? Oh yeah, immortal people who never experienced it. I feel like the Valar made a lot of decisions for the "good" of people without ever understanding why humans felt cheated. Nothing worse than an unwanted gift.
I mean, for all they know after they die mortals end up in the greatest party of all time forever so them not understanding why death is bad makes sense. I guess for endless beings, something completely new and novel is something to be sought after, but for mortals, that same unknown incurs risk of their end, so it is more feared.
It was Ilúvatar who made Men mortal, not the Valar.
I suspect the valar are just trusting illuvatar on this one. Illuvatar says mortality is a gift for men and so the valar treat it as such even though they don't understand it.
It's called a gift because Men are supposed to escape the suffering of the world after death and return to Illuvatar. Whereas the Elves and even the Valar are tied to the world. Hence, they must linger for so long as it lasts. Tolkien even says that later on, the Elves and the Valar would grow envious of the gift, growing weary of the immortality they were given.
@renjonim Yeah I get that, but men weren't making decisions for the immortals were they? The Valar making decisions for the good of a people whose life they could never empathize with seems really presumptuous to me. Here's this beautiful land in your basic eye shot, but you can't go there--we feel you'd burn out there. But how did they know? It's not like they tried it out on a few humans first and then made a decision.
Great content as always!
Great video. Love your logical portrayal
Good stuff man!
Beautifully done
I remember reading somewhere in Tolkien's writings that there was still a question as to how life in Valinor might affect a mortal human *if* it did provide immortality. Perhaps the body *and* spirit might remain intact and together, but since the spirits of Men were intended to leave Arda after a (relatively) short life, this result would be unavoidably hateful to the mortal. After a time, they would long for release from the circles of the world per their nature, but would be denied this and instead live on in misery. This would be a fate not that dissimilar to that of the Ringwraiths; a spirit trapped against its wishes in the world. The other alternative would be that only the body would become immortal, and the spirit would eventually abandon the body and leave the world as Eru intended. But this would leave an immortal, living 'shell' of a man without any soul or spirit; basically a zombie, and an abomination. Not sure if this was in one of his letters, somewhere buried in the vast "History of Middle Earth" set, or just in my imagination...
It is in Morgoth's Ring, MT, Aman and Mortal Men:
"Very soon then the fëa and hröa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hröa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman,9 what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hröa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hröa. Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hröa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony; or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hröa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy."
Thank you so much for all the useful information!
beautiful... thanks for this video!
Brilliant as always. Thank you.
Fun fact, hobbits are a offshoot race of men that evolved to be short enough to think they are a separate race. So when Bilbo, Frodo and the rest of the hobbits sailed to the undying lands, they became the only humans to ever set foot and live their until their time is up
beren and tuor
Brilliant essay. 🙏🏼
Thank you for using beautiful art, crediting the artists and staying away from ai. And as always, a truly well done video!
He uses a fuck ton of ai art in his videos tho
7:47 a small correction. It is not the Valar who tried to explain, but the elves on behalf of the Valar. Ulmo was fine to talk directly to Tuor, yet even he did not visit Númenor.
Always quality videos on this channel.
I have long thought, for Dogs and Cats with their lives been so short in regards to the human life span, it would seem that their owners are imortal, barring illness or injury.
I'm currently reading the relatively recent book "The Nature of Middle-Earth" which talk quite a lot about the differences in the way Elves and Men aged, This video is a terrific and timely complement.
I think we fans skirt around the question, but have we considered: The ban was there because the Valar didn’t truly understand the nature of man. If the world could be bent after the downfall, then surely it could have been bent before - and thus preventing the fruitless attempt of Neumenorians to take it by force. Illuvatar obviously knew this - but it was required for the future to to take place - which was ultimately good.
The downfall of Numeneor was not due to Man’s nature - but it was due to Saurons exploitation of man’s nature.
The ban of the Valar seems like a test to me.
Through my reading of Tolkien and interpretation over the years, I've arrived at this opinion. The Valar grossly mismanaged their interactions, or lack thereof, with the race of Men.
With the Elves, as soon as they discovered them, they built report and kinship with them. They taught them many things and invited them to Valinor, away from their natural habitat of Middle Earth and Cuivienen. The Valar became enamored with the Elves.
With Men, they left them to the clutches of Melkor and ignored them in their crucial developmental early years. No emissaries, no lessons, no guidance, nothing. Just thoughts and prayers while a rogue god wreaks havoc across your continent. The Valar only ever take thought for Mankind after s**t hits the fan.
Also, even during and post Numenore, why weren't Maiar and even Valar in more regular contact and connection with all of Arda, especially Middle Earth? Isn't Manwe King of the entire world? Are not the Valar the shepherds of all Arda?
Obviously Melian stays in Middle Earth but has almost zero interaction with Mankind. The Istari come much later but their whole point is hiding who they actually are. I think it would have been much better for everyone if all inhabitants of Arda had interacted and held council with each other. Ainur, Elves, Men, and Dwarves all in contact. I think the self-serving and voluntary isolation of the Ainur in Valinor led to much hardship that could and should have been averted.
Middle Earth was also the original home of the Valar in Arda. Middle Earth is where everyone started. The Valar just made a choice to neglect it after they left.
Numenor received emissaries from the maiar, but I don't know about the rest of the world. But in any way it sounds insuficients, I think Tolkien would justify with very christian styled excuses (something something free will)
The Valar and the Elves were more similar in nature...unchanging, 'tied' to Arda. Men were created to be different from this from the start. So of course, the Valar would have an affinity for beings more similar to themselves. Consider that Eru deliberately created Men with this feature of dying then moving on to a place and fate unknown to anyone else (except to maybe Mandos) and it wasn't something revealed or explained to the Valar. Consider that as much as they favoured them and were closer to them in nature, the Valar's first interaction with the Elves created a big mess so imagine how hesitant they would then be with beings so different in nature as Men
One of my favorite lines in the Silmarillion is near end of Akallabeth where Tolkien writes about the Valar allowing some random shipmasters to arrive at Tol Eressea, and maybe even to Valinor, and there had looked upon Taniquetil and died. Or just how well Elendil took the drowning of Numenor, for all that he lost that day.
couldnt elendil still see his wife and valinor through the palatir in the white towers
I do feel like raising Numenor so close to the Undying Lands is a bit of a deliberate temptation, maybe not by the Valar, but Eru Iluvitar maybe. Kinda reminiscent of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It feels like something the Numenoreans were set up to fail. Building them up so much with their rewards, but putting something more just out of reach.
I get that the Valar didn't really understand Men's perception of the situation, any more than Men understood the nature of Valinor, but I can't see a world in which Men would never succumb to that temptation.
Not sure why either Iluvitar or JRRT would do that, probably some deeper point or exploration of something I'm missing.
The real reason is Valinor didn't have sufficient plumbing infrastructure to support human poop.
Elves don't poop. There are no sewers in Valinor.
I want to remind everyone of the time that the Fellowship spent in Lothlorien. They remark that the time there seemed to fly by, and Legolas confirms that this is how the elves perceive the passage of time. A mortal who spent time in Aman would likely experience that same sensation, of their lives flying away from them. That's the "withering" that Tolkien refers to.
Exactly. A human wouldn't literally age faster (though with the amount of divine energy lying around, who knows), but they'd be so enthralled by the peace and joy of their surroundings that days, weeks, months, years could pass them by. Old age would catch up to them sooner than they think.
This explanation would make more sense if the elves were equally refused access to Middle Earth since it’s not meant for them. I see no reason humans couldn’t be allowed to travel to Valinor on something akin to a traveler or student visa. Any time you outright refuse something to people with free will, you’re just creating desire for it which will eventually lead to trouble.
Before Melkor interfered, the original plan was that the Elves would awaken first and later be mentors to Men before the Elves would eventually join the Valar, leaving the mortal world to Men.
The worst part is that Eru made sure they could *almost* see Valinor keeping it tantalizingly in their minds.
A fine crafted video
Another banger of a video
Hey Robert! Please do One video on the Bracken VS Blackwood dispute.
In myopinion, the Valar are stupid.
If they had allow Numenorians to visit Valinor, they would have seen that the Valar were right.
And it probably would have solved the fall of Numenor and all the Third Age Wars.
In some early drafts Tolkien indeed played with an idea that Numenorians could visit Tol-Eressea and even Valinor. But he soon rejected that concept and I totally inderstand him here.
One thing is when you don't know the truth and gets decieved. The other one is when you have seen th truth and still is foolish enough to be decieved. Tolkien didn't want to make Numenorians look completely stupid in that matter.
Valor literally knew better like mom and dad!
The ban of the valar is one of the most important concepts in the second age of middle earth
You don't say.
@@General12thYep. Humans were strictly forbidden to travel to the undying lands and when they did it had seismic consequences. But why? Why weren't humans allowed into Valinor?
@@DivineBanana One of the most important plot points in the second age of Middle Earth, one that had implications for the future of the entire planet, was the Ban of the Valar.
What about Ents? They live a lot longer than most races but without the possessiveness - it does feel as though they'd be better able to cope with eternity than most. Could they not go to Valinor? Or is the issue just that putting an Ent on a wooden ship is a bit... squicky? Morbid? Like cucumber slices and pickles on the same sub?
Well..... I'm still not sure....
Because if the ban was a mercy and not punishment, was Frodo, Bilbo and Gimli then "punished" for their deeds?
I'm not arguing against Frodo here, I fully understand that he deserved to go there, but that in itself - "deserved" - makes it the reason so many mortals wanted to go there and couldn't understand why were they prohibited.....
They were perhaps not as likely as others to take harm from the experience.
Buen video.👍
so in short frodo and gimli going to valinor meant feeling like instant death to them, or maybe being pulled to plug😂
No no, they get there but for them what only feels like a few days, would be months or even years and they die of old age according to their lifespans but they just don't "live" those years as fast.
"Valinor was made for the immortals, Middle-Earth was made for the humans". I don't buy the logic of the Valar, or maybe Tolkien here. It seems like a bit of a contradiction, or an "excuse" to keep humans out, because of course there's no ban on immortals coming to middle-earth. In fact, all the "world-ending" conflicts in Middle-Earth were CAUSED by these immortals. If they really had been banned from Middle-Earth, Middle-Earth would have been a lot better for it. The more I learn about the world, the more I think the various "Men" were somewhat treated as pets. Admired and rewarded in some ways, but in a condescending way. Elves certainly didn't see them as equals, and to me that mentality comes straight from the Valar. Haha this is probably a hot take, huh? In short, I completely understand the Numenorians. Or at least their feelings on the matter. Not so much the "we'll just take it then" mentality, but just the quiet resentment. If they had just said "Humans. You're not immortal, you can't come to the undying lands or we'll destroy you" it probably wouldn't bother me. But trying to justify it in terms of "oh it's just not made for you, you wouldn't like it" seems kinda patronizing
The point of the immortals is to prepare humans. If I remember this correctly, even human languages come from the elfs
@@bushit123456 Then they seem to have failed rather miserably at preparing them to understand the "why"...
"Seismic consequences" HAHA Noice!!!
I understand the reasoning for not allowing non-elves to come to the Undying Lands, but putting Valinor within eyesight of Numenor was a massive middle finger and very unnecessary. Y'know, the more I learn of the Valar and what they have/have not done, the more I realize they aren't the greatest lords of their creations.
Because the Valar aren’t about control. Never have been. It’s their main tenets. As well as the elves that have the same laws and virtues.
Which also applies to Númenor
They took an unspoken vow to not take direct action. When Ainur clash: land masses sink to the bottom of the sea like Beleriand in the the War Of Wrath etc. this was why the sun and moon from the last flower and fruit being set in an area where Morgoth couldn’t go to ruin them. He followed Tillion and Arien & got majorly burned by Arien as she was evidently stronger than him in her unbound form, remaining faithful (tethered to Eru and therefore her purest version of herself.)
Even the Valaraukar that became balrogs were of similar type of Ainur to Arien. Same as when Eru didn’t attack anyone. Moving Valinor into a limbo zone between Eä and the rings of the world which caused arda to bend and caused tidal waves that didn’t just sunk Númenor. It destroyed entire coastline of middle earth and killed many innocent people. People who think Eru intentionally levelled middle earth don’t know much about the AllFather and free will and how sacred it is!
See. The larger the character the larger the consequences. Even for Eru when bending reality itself to out Valinor into a safe space where hardly anyone could reach it ever again. Only two known ways to get there physically remain. Straight from the Grey Havens is functional as if the world had not been bent which is why it begins to look like the boats are flying at some point etc etc. and the route Idril and Tuor ventured together. Where Tuor became the first man to ever become an elf essentially. Great grandfather of Elrond. Father to Eärendil. ❤️
The ban wasn’t so much as a BAN as we think of it. It was kicked off after the Kinslaying. TalesOfTheRings animated it all and it was epic.
This is a great video, but I think this topic is one where Tolkien falls short. In truth, there doesn't seem to be any downside to actually being an Elf, at least none explicitly explained or mentioned. They're apparently "tied to Arda" but.... so what? Because we have no knowledge of what lies beyond for Men, it really does seem like a raw deal. The fact that mortals are rewarded with long life and access to the Blessed Isles flies in the face of the idea that the Blessed Isles and long life "aren't a good fit". Were that true, why offer them as gifts? This is further exacerbated by the fact the Elves are allowed to be in Middle Earth - by the Valar's logic, they should be banned from Middle Earth.
I've always felt the point Tolkien made is that there ISN'T an overall downside (or upside) to being an elf, or human, or dwarf, or ent, etc... the different peoples were just that, different.
Elves were tied to the world, their seeming immortality represented that. Men were no less immortal; their seeming mortality was simply that the very first part of their existence was as a part of the world. And the rest beyond.
Tolkien, from what I have gathered so far, seemed to be less than enthused about industrialization and how the output of said industry changed how people lived. From that perspective, the immortal in the Undying Lands and the mortal on Middle Earth makes sense. The Elves, while endless, are also unchanging to a point, and are ill suited to the world around them changing in response. Likewise, mortals(Men) are dynamic and ever-changing, so a world where nothing ever changed would be anathema in the long term as boredom set in. Being unable to have new experiences would be unbearable after long enough, and an undying Man would inevitably hit that point, as they would never die. The elves are the lingering of what once was, sort of the equivalent of being nostalgic for a world pre-internet or electricity, but that must inevitably fade as those times are gone. Men as the drivers of change, for better and worse, in the same way as the internet gave us both access to content like IDG, but also created the perpetual outrage machine on various social media. However, such innovation cannot last forever. The geni of centuries past would be limited by the ideals of their times, and eventually would be unable to keep up, just watch your grandparents play a video game and you will get what I mean. In that way, death is a blessing as it means that, presumably, where they go after would allow for a fresh start of some kind, unbound by the expectations they held.
If you have a copy of Morgoth's Ring, read the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. In it, Tolkien writes that the Elves knew they were tied to the fate of Arda and did not know if there was anything for them once the world ended whereas Men did go somewhere else.
When the sun becomes a red giant in a couple billion years, being tied to Arda will be in a hot seat!
It’s like when god said don’t eat from the tree of knowledge in the bible. Look but don’t touch.
Touch it and you get punished.
It does sadden me a little to think that Sam in old age got to the undying lands and saw Frodo’s grave. Though as Sam would have been very old by then and had helped to bury many dear ones it seems appropriate.
he probably wouldnt have because its likely he would have lived out his full lifespan if not a longer one it would just feel like no time had passed
@ I’m a little confused by what you mean, mortal life ends faster in the Undying Lands, ironically. Between Frodo leaving and Sam sailing it was close to 70 years and Frodo was older by at least a decade.
@@lipingrahman6648 no mortal life doesn’t end quicker time just passes faster we see it in Lorien they thought they had been their less than a day but actually it had been weeks
So much amazing, beautiful artwork featured in this video. The Two Trees of Valinor, Meneltarma & Numenor are some of the highlights 😃
Recently started loving these Videos. Has Mr. Geek covered the idea of the one ring needing to be "claimed" by its wielder before they could gain all the same benifits as Sauron?
Robert don’t know if you’ll be encouraged by this - but I’ve fallen into a routine of falling asleep to your LOTR videos. I have them on repeat basically all night. Can’t imagine how many views I’ve clocked!
Humans were given the gift to go to heaven or Erus realm after death the Valinor and elves don’t have such a gift so they probably think it’s bonkers men don’t love it. I think they did until Sauron decived them
If you have a copy of Morgoth's Ring, read the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. In it, Tolkien writes that the Elves knew they were tied to the fate of Arda and did not know if there was anything for them once the world ended whereas Men did go somewhere else.
A mercy? Most humans are to elves what toddlers are to old people. They just dont want that stress all the time.
It was discussed at the Council of Elrond that the Elves would have to leave Middle-Earth especially after the Destruction of the One Ring. So, I think this video and others like it are missing why the Elves are effectively banned from Middle Earth by the Third Age and definitely by the Fourth Age? Also, the video misses that the Valar tried to get Elves to Valinor long before the events of the Ages of the Sun. It seems like Elves and Men had a short time when it was "acceptable" for both races to intermingle, but at some point, the races each had to move down different paths.
It's just another example of how the great father makes and treats the two of his children different, where one is allways greater than other one. And then the father explains that it is in the very nature of the leeser child to be, well, leeser, so it cannot get what the greater child is given. Like, for example, why don't grant to humans about a one tousand years as a normal lifespan? It's far enough to show those unrest humans that they need to experience this"winter" in their life as well as this "elvish spring" etc.?
The Valar only accepted hot babes, and I guess the elves were “hot enough overall” (… I mean, ok sure, one can have “preferences”). But on the bottom level: Men had a strict BAN :D