I think we are - we are probably by our nature unable to do else - focusing too much on the "embodied" forms of the
Valar /
Maiar (though for both
Morgoth and
Sauron this became a serious issue near their respective ends and finite powers as embodied beings in
Arda, as each had dissipated so much of his native powers, each in his own way, by then). I'm certain that none of the
Ainur, taking this term to mean the disembodied form of those that chose to enter Arda and become embodied, could "do" anything to one another. The only times the Valar / Maiar "did" anything against the embodied form of
Melkor / Morgoth was at the end of the war against Morgoth upon the
awakening of the Elves (by
Tulkas), and at the end of the
War of Wrath (presumably by Eonwë). The rest of the time, JRRT shows almost a PJ-ish streak of constantly stacking the deck in favor of the baddies, as they all don't give squat about any of
Eru's prohibitions, while the good side abides by them to a point of near-masochism. There is also his wallowing back and forth on the enormous (excessive) original power of Melkor between the BoLT stage, then the stage that basically ended up in
the Silmarillion, and back again in the "
Mannish tradition" fixation that he showed in what Christopher wrote about in "Myths Transformed" in HoMe volume 10 "Morgoth's Ring".
In letter #131 in Humphrey Carpenter's 1981 book "
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", an enormously long one covering almost 19 pages of the book, probably written late in 1951 to Milton Waldman of the publisher Collins (Harper would be added years later), for a short while looking to be the publisher of LoTR, JRRT states:
"(since the
Númenóreans directed by Sauron could have wrought ruin in
Valinor itself)"
To me, this statement is a definite title contender for the single most horrific failure of the imagination that JRRT ever committed to writing. Instead of totally laying down their rule over Arda, the Valar could also have asked Eru to lift his ban against direct actions by the Valar against the Eruhini, at least for these specific ones, as their were products of Sauron's, and thus ultimately Melkor's, malice.
Item 1: Ossë, using a bit of wind from
Manwë, could have reduced the whole fleet of
Ar-Pharazôn's to splinters in nothing flat and drowned the whole lot.
Item 2: even allowing Ar-Pharazôn's armament to land on the shores of Valinor, it would have taken Tulkas, perhaps with a little help from
Oromë and Eonwë, about five minutes to mop the floor with the lot. Any attempted interference from Sauron would have been dealt with by Tulkas with a back-handed slap that would have sent Sauron flying back to the eastern gates of flat Arda like a meteorite streaking through the atmosphere.
But probably, the whole make-the-world-round event was already part of that
Music of the Ainur … 🤨
