Úlairi, as you well know since you parsed my post so closely, I never said you made any claims that
Maiar did not inhabit other than those of the Incarnates. I built a case that they did, because you seem to have built a case that they did not inhabit
dragons, at any rate.
…I couldn't actually find anywhere where it says: Mel jammed
spirits into Dragons in The
Fall of Gondolin… Surely you disagree Yay as
Melkor couldn't possibly not have had the power to be able to absorb an
Elvish fëa into a
Dragon. … It was only
Eru through the agency of the
Valar that could allow an Elvish fëa to assume a new identity.
I believe I have elided this citation fairly. Feel free to disagree.
In response, to your assertion that, “It was only Eru through the agency of the Valar that could allow an Elvish fëa to assume a new identity,” I say,
yes, as long as the
Elves and the Valar followed the path prescribed for them by Eru; but the whole point of
Morgoth and
Sauron and all their followers is they are
in rebellion against Eru. That this rebellion is doomed to failure before it began, that it is self-destructive, or that it produces bad fruit is beside the point: that’s what these characters are doing in
Tolkien’s subcreation. Necromancy and sorcery are, by their very nature, forbidden in the real world, and they are likewise forbidden in Tolkien’s subcreation.
(BTW, the word
subcreation is Tolkien’s own to describe his
opus corpus (body of work). I believe you questioned where it had arisen, and asked about my use of it elsewhere. See “On Fairy Stories”, most easily found in
Tolkien Reader.)
The History of
Middle-earth X: Morgoth's Ring - Myths Transformed: Text X - page 418 of my copy
For Morgoth had many servants, the oldest and most potent of whom were immortal, belonging indeed in their beginning to the Maiar; and these
evil spirits like their Master could take on visible forms.
THAT IS THE LAST TIME THAT WILL BE POSTED. All you've accomplished here is proving that in a time where quotes are purported to be meaningless; we now need them more than ever.
Balrogs were Maiar and his oldest servants. Thus they were the most potent. Quod erat demonstratum.
Well, it wasn’t quite the last time: now I have posted it, too.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your QED is flawed. You have failed to exclude incarnations other than balrogs. “If and only if” is proof; you demonstrate sufficiency, but not uniqueness. You have also failed to exclude the movement of balrogs, the “oldest [noparse][[/noparse]and[noparse]][/noparse] most potent” of Morgoth’s servants, into other forms: your argument would not, for instance, preclude a
balrog inhabiting the body of a particularly large, intelligent monster: say,
Ancalagon the Black, for example.
Before you jump to (or post) conclusions, I have not claimed that any balrog ever did do such a thing, only that you have not excluded it. You have, however, powerfully implied that anyone who made such a claim must be either a moron or some kind of raving lunatic.
Alcuin said:
As for Maiar that inhabited other forms, there is the example of Boldog in Lays of
Beleriand, a lesser Maiar that took the form of an
Orc and acted as an Orc captain for Morgoth. After all, if Melian can do it, or
Olórin, why not the fallen Maiar, too?
Never said they couldn't Alcuin.
I’m sorry, maybe I misunderstood the thrust of your argument. Clarity often suffers badly at the hands of competition if one’s goal is to overbear and defeat the ones around him; but it shines through cooperation.
Alcuin said:
The Balrogs were “spirits of fire.” Nowhere does Tolkien say that these were the only Maiar that fell and followed Morgoth. Some of them were definitely not spirits of fire: Ossë fell and then repented, although he remained rather wild and sometimes unreliable afterwards. And there were apparently others, too, that owed no allegiance to Morgoth, but served their own ends, yet still in rebellion against Eru:
Ungoliant, for instance.
Never said that either. I'm aware of Boldog and Ungoliant. In
The Silmarillion section, there is an Ungoliant thread. Have a look at my post there.
The large print is hard to miss, but sometimes the point is lost in the noise: “
what I don't understand is a cogent and coherent point.” I am glad to learn, however, that you will allow
YayGollum room to speculate that “
Mel jammed spirits into Dragons and they destroyed Gondolin.” It is always nice to be given room for one’s own thoughts and private speculations, even if others believe them misdirected: Sauron and Morgoth begrudged others this room of maneuver.
Just between friends,
This isn't amateur hour, chrysophalax.
might easily be mistaken for plainly insulting. This
IS amateur hour: we
are amateur Tolkien scholars, even you. This is not moot court, either: winning at any cost is not conducive to open debate. You will frighten away the shy, and revolt those who have not the patience to deal with lawyerly revile. I am certain that, if you reflect upon it, you did not intend any such.
By the way, a lot of the work I see at
TTF and other Tolkien forums, work prepared by
amateurs, is frequently a good deal better than a lot of the “professional” work I see, particularly from college and university professors of English: excepting a few really outstanding scholars who clearly love the subject matter (i.e., they really like the stories and dig at them the way the rank amateurs do), the professional work I have seen is mostly dismally prepared, with little or no insight into the material, drawn up by the hacks from the
Modern Language Association who clearly loathe the society and culture that produced the material they constantly belittle and subvert by means of “deconstruction.” (I would share a quote about deconstruction from one of my college English professors, a man of considerable accomplishment who actually loves his subject matter, but the use of such Anglo-Saxon terminology is forbidden by the rules of the board; suffice it to say they he found the practice a means to empty a text of all an author’s intentional meaning in order to fill it with the biases and intents of the person engaged in deconstructing it.)
Let me know as soon as you pass the Bar. If I ever need a lawyer in Sydney, I want your mobile number!