The
Valar did not “abandon”
Dwarves and
Men. And the Moriquendi did not include the
Sindar, who though they never saw the
Two Trees of Valinor (excepting
Elu Thingol) were still counted among the Eldar, as were the
Nandor or Green-elves of
Beleriand, who acknowledged the overlordship of
Thingol and
Melian after repenting of their fear of the
Misty Mountains, following
Denethor son of Lenwë (Lenwë originally led them after their initial refusal to cross the Misty Mountains) over those
mountains as well as the
Blue Mountains.
In one of the earlier tellings (I cannot find it in
Silmarillion tonight: it must be in one of the volumes of
HoMe) of the death of the
Trees and the Hiding of
Valinor, so that the
Noldor were shut out,
Manwë and
Ulmo opposed the harsher judgments of their fellow Valar. Manwë set Thorondor the
great Eagle to watch over the
Elves and keep track of
Morgoth’s actions, and Ulmo continued to communicate not only with the Noldor of
Middle-earth (most famously in his dreams sent to
Turgon and
Finrod so that one founded
Gondolin and the other
Nargothrond), but even to Men, speaking in person to
Tuor and providing him a guide, Voronwë, whom he spared from the storms of Ossë in order to lead Tuor to Gondolin.
In
Morgoth’s Ring, in the essay “Notes on motives in
the Silmarillion”,
Tolkien remarks that because of his centuries-long war against Elves and Men,
[Morgoth’s] ruin [of Middle-earth] was limited to the small (if beautiful) region of Beleriand. Morgoth was … actually
made captive in physical form, and in that form taken as a mere criminal to
Aman …judged, and eventually …
executed: that is
killed like one of the Incarnates.
Of all the Valar, Námo
Mandos seems to have been the harshest: he wanted to kill
Eärendil as a Noldo because he had entered unbidden into Valinor, and as a Man because it was forbidden for Men to set foot upon Valinor. Ulmo, ever a friend to Elves and Men, spoke against this, and Manwë sided with Ulmo’s position, giving not only Eärendil and Elwing a choice of fate, but extending that choice to their sons,
Elros and
Elrond (and laterally to Elrond’s children as well).
As far as the Dwarves were concerned, before even the Elves awakened in Middle-earth,
Aulë made them “a tough, thrawn
race” (
RotK, Appendix A, “
Durin’s Folk”) so that they could resist Morgoth and his influence. (They “slept” in Middle-earth until the Elves awoke.)
Oromë urged the Valar to bring the Elves to Valinor to protect them from Morgoth, upon whom they first made war and took captive the first time, so that Middle-earth had some millennia of relative peace during which Elves and Dwarves flourished. But I think their decision to remove Elves from Middle-earth to Valinor, instead of leaving them to interact with Men to teach and help guide them, was an error on the part of the Valar, one they – and to some extent the Eldar who completed the journey – eventually recognized. This realization is one of the half-truths that underlay the power of
Fëanor’s speeches to the aggrieved Noldor that led to their rebellion and return to Middle-earth.
