Why the Valar needed 🧝Earendil's prayer?

[TheManInTheMoon]

So in Morgoth's Ring it is explained Manwë's strike was well calculated and happened in the best possible time. So what's the point of Earendil if Manwë knew when to strike ?

What would've happened if Earendil had not asked the Valar for aid?

 

[Aldarion]

So in Morgoth's Ring it is explained Manwë's strike was well calculated and happened in the best possible time. So what's the point of Earendil if Manwë knew when to strike ?

What would've happened if Earendil had not asked the Valar for aid?

It happened at the best possible moment because Morgoth was certain in his victory and believed nobody would dare attack him now. But that does not mean that Manwe was planning to move before Earendil came: nothing is for free, and I think Earendil had to arrive to Valinor for the Valar to actually do anything.

 

[Alcuin]

It happened at the best possible moment... [T]hat does not mean that Manwe was [not(?)] planning to move before Earendil came...

I agree with Aldarion.

I believe the embassy of Eärendil was adumbrated in the Music of Ainur: Ulmo, Manwë’s closest ally (besides Varda) appeared to Tuor in the sea beside Vinyamar, Turgon’s first fortress in Middle-earth, and made it clear to him that he was fated “to bring the world a hope beyond thy sight, and a light that shall pierce the darkness.” (Fall of Gondolin, “Last Version”. This text, which is not at variance with earlier versions of the tale, seems to me the best of those CJRT reports.)

If I understand the tale correctly, Manwë and Ulmo both opposed the Hiding of Valinor from the Noldor. Manwë sent Thorondor to keep watch over Morgoth: the great eagle (probably a Maia) originally kept his eyrie on the peaks of Thangorodrim, but later moved them to the Crissaegrim in the Encircling Mountains. Ulmo tried many times to speak to Tuor through the streams of Mithrim, but Tuor could not interpret the pleasant sounds he heard in the waters.

Ulmo was aware of the necessity of the coming of Eärendil, a necessity not for the Valar, but for the unfolding of the Tale of Arda as foretold in the Music of the Ainur before ever Arda physically existed. This was not for the sake of the Valar, but to entwine the Eldar and Edain into one thread of life, the descendants of Lúthien and the House of Bëor on one side, and the descendants of the Elf-kings of the Noldor and the House of Hador on the other. From Eärendil came the Kings of Númenor and the Heirs of Elendil in Middle-earth. Through Arwen “the kingship of Men [was] restored” at the end of the Third Age, renewing its vitality in the Fourth, the beginning of the Age of Men. (Elrond’s words to Aragorn in “Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”, Appendix A, RotK)