After Eru created the music that spawned his Children, he offered the creation of their home to his immortal, angelic beings known to the Elves as the Valar. After Arda’s creation, dissension erupted between the Valar who stood for goodness and beauty and the jealous, destructive Melkor, and the land became their battle ground. Eventually, the Valar retreated from Arda to their own lands in the West. Once the Elves awakened, they became the new battle ground between the two sides.
The Valar’s Intervention in ME: Adequate or Abandonment?
To protect the newly awakened Elves from Melkor, the Valar persuaded them to leave Middle Earth. What resulted was the most fruitful and enlightening time for the Elves who followed them but the darkness in their departure estranged them from the Valar. Led by Manwe, the Valar hid themselves and most discontinued their involvement with the Elves.
What was the Valar’s actual responsiblity in Middle Earth and it’s affairs? Did they abandon the Elves and Men to Melkor’s evil, or was their involvement more subtle? Why couldn’t they strike a balance in their intervention, that seemed neither too much nor too little? Who was more responsible for how the races of Middle Earth evolved through four ages, Melkor or the Valar?
Come join us this week in #thehalloffire as we discuss the Valar’s Intervention in Middle EArth.
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Upcoming topics:
Aug 28-29: Samwise Gamgee
Sept 4-5: The Hobbit: Chapter 13: Not At Home
Sept 11-12: Middle Earth’s Greatest Hero
Sept 18-19: The Hobbit: Chapter 14: Fire and Water
Sept 25-26: The Downfall of Numenor
Oct 2-3: The Hobbit: Chapter 14: The Gathering of the Clouds
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Place:
#thehalloffire on theonering.net IRC server. Need instructions? Go here: http://www.theonering.net/barlimans/instructions.html
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Chat Times:
Saturday Chat:
5:30pm EST (17:30)
[also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 7:30am Sunday morning AEST]
Sunday Chat:
8:00 pm (20:00) CET
[also 2:00pm (14:00) EST and 4:00am Monday morning AEST]
EST = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast
CET = Central European Time, Central Europe
AEST = Australian East Coast
Elijah Wood should be home hibernating by now. Principal photography on Everything Is Illuminated, shot mostly in the countryside around Prague, finished on August 12. “I’ll probably take a bit of a break after this,” Wood told The Prague Post. “With the film that I did previous to this, this movie and then all the publicity for Lord of the Rings, I haven’t had a lot of free time.” [
Gondowyn writes: Christopher Lee will make an appearance in Amsterdam on September 9th at the music theater “Concertgebouw”. Lee will join conductor Jules van Hessen and the Dutch Theater Orchestra in a LOTR concert. The concert will feature parts from the LOTR score, but also LOTR music composed in 1978 by Leonard Rosenman and musical adaptations of Tolkien poems. He will be performing as ‘storyteller’ in Johan de Meij’s “LOTR symphony”, and will recite “Treebeard’s song” which he recorded earlier with the Tolkien ensemble. Tickets for the concert are available at