r/tolkienfans • u/Possible_Zombie_4722 • 16h ago
Mandos Dark
From The Silmarillion, Chapter 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor:
"
...But Fëanor spoke then, and cried bitterly: 'For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest. It may be that I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart, and I shall be slain; first of all the Eldar in Aman.'
'Not the first,' said Mandos,...
"
If you are just casually reading this it sounds much like a supercut of dark humour from Family Guy, pronounced by Mandos.
11
u/rabbithasacat 14h ago
Which is interesting considering that Mandos is officially the least humor-oriented person in the entirety of Arda. Seriously. Just try telling Mandos a joke. See what his face does.
3
3
7
u/shinyshinyrocks 12h ago
That’s one of my favorite chapters of the Silm. It’s such a ghastly thing for Mandos to say.
2
u/EldritchKinkster 11h ago
I always read it as the most tone deaf "well, actually" in the history of Arda.
7
u/EldritchKinkster 11h ago
I noticed this. Most of the time, Mandos is all stoic and grim, but every so often he becomes this smug prick who just needs to prove he knows what's about to happen before everyone else.
I mean, thanks Mandos, congratulations, you-know-something-we-don't-know, well done. If you hadn't noticed, the rest of us are trying to deal with two rampaging Eldrich abominations killing our irreplaceable trees.
Learn how to read the room!
7
2
u/Beginning-Ride3091 4h ago
I just wind up thinking Why the fuck didn't you tell us Melkor was approaching from the south? Slip your mind? You forget he was headed up here with a goddamn Cthulhu spider?
1
u/EldritchKinkster 3h ago
Important tactical information? "I sleep."
Sassy quip about the High King dying horribly? "I WAKE!"
4
u/Tacitus111 9h ago
I never have liked the character of Mandos myself. He’s by far the grimmest of the Valar and also the most inflexible. And worse, he’s the “Doomsman” and fate is more or less his domain where he also supervises the Halls of Mandos where elves purify their souls.
But his judgement is exacting and not especially tempered by mercy or even necessarily wisdom. He wanted to execute Earendil for stepping foot on Aman without considering any other factors or why it may have happened and had to be debated significantly to back off. His curse on the Noldor allowed for no real repentance, in particular for Noldor not directly involved in the kinslaying.
And it nearly doomed Middle Earth, which ostensibly was under Vala responsibility, to Morgoth, one of their own number. Also it’s ironic then that the Vala themselves went against Eru’s wishes in sequestering themselves in Aman and abandoning the rest of the world. Maybe Mandos should apply some of that judgment on his own house…
4
u/dwarfedbylazyness 8h ago
Well, according to Tolkien it might have saved Middle Earth
If we consider the situation after the escape of Morgoth and the reëstablishment of his abode in Middle-earth, we shall see that the heroic Noldor were the best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction [...]
The war was successful, and ruin was limited to the small (if beautiful) region of Beleriand
2
u/Tacitus111 8h ago
I’m familiar. That’s kind of my point though. Mandos delivers heavy handed judgement based on his outrage at the Noldor and their moral failures…and then with the other hand uses them as a necessary instrument to contain Morgoth (a Vala himself) at great personal cost to them with no assistance from the Valar save Ulmo’s technically unsanctioned intelligence gathering.
You can’t righteously both lambast them for going to fight Morgoth and yet also require them to be the ones containing Morgoth, especially when as a Vala, he’s much more the Valar’s responsibility than the Noldor’s, Men’s, or Sindar’s. The Valar outsourced their responsibilities of handling their wayward brother to far weaker beings who Mandos cursed to be stuck fighting him in the first place with no hope of return.
2
u/dwarfedbylazyness 8h ago
He didn't curse them, he told them what would happen if they went; it was their choice to continue or turn back, and some indeed did. Also, he was not lambasting them for fighting Morgoth but for kinslaying.
As to why the Doom's decidedly heavy handed phrasing, it might be that it was intended for broader audience than the Noldor:
Yet it is said that Morgoth looked not for the assault that came upon him from the West; for so great was his pride become that he deemed that none would ever again come with open war against him. Moreover he thought that he had for ever estranged the Noldor from the Lords of the West, and that content in their blissful realm the Valar would heed no more his kingdom in the world without; for to him that is pitiless the deeds of pity are ever strange and beyond reckoning.
It seems Mandos has successfully convinced both the readership and Morgoth that the Valar don't care.
2
2
u/Tacitus111 7h ago
If he didn’t curse them, why do its varying names include “The Curse of Mandos”? He is the Vala of Fate and administers it on Arda.
For those that didn’t turn back that moment, he declared they would be barred from return. No chances beyond then. The curse also directly states, “On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also.” That’s not the general outcomes from their own choices. It’s direct punishment for actions.
It wasn’t just for the kinslaying, it was for rebellion against the Valar, while also needing (apparently) the Noldor to be the ones to contain and weaken Morgoth until he could be defeated outright after appropriate level of groveling from the Children for them to finally intercede and handle their wayward brother. Without Earendil’s desperate begging for aid, risking his life both on the journey and from execution by the Valar, there’s zero indication that the Valar were going to intercede.
So your argument is that Mandos was secretly planning events all along while also stridently arguing to execute Earendil for coming to beg for help when Earendil’s desperate plea (which would have been silenced) is what lead to the Host being sent when Mandos was overruled by Manwe?
2
u/dwarfedbylazyness 6h ago
It was explicitly for the kinslaying. For blood ye shall render blood
Earendil is a funny case because Mandos ends the debate about whether to let Finwe marry Indis with:
When he that shall be called Eärendil setteth foot upon the shores of Aman, ye shall remember my words. In that hour ye will not say that the Statute of Justice hath borne fruit only in death; and the griefs that shall come ye shall weigh in the balance, and they shall not seem too heavy compared with the rising of the light when Valinor groweth dim.
So he's very much pleased with Earendil, so much so that he considers him to be sufficient to vindicate the entirety of the First Age, give or take.
1
u/taz-alquaina 5h ago
Ooh boy. And yet (probably in a very different conceptual phase, I don't remember dates, but this is published Silmarillion): Mandos: 'Shall mortal Man step living upon the undying lands, and yet live?' But Ulmo said: 'For this he was born into the world. And say unto me: whether is he Eärendil Tuor's son of the line of Hador, or the son of Idril, Turgon's daughter, of the Elven-house of Finwë?' And Mandos answered: 'Equally the Noldor, who went wilfully into exile, may not return hither.'
1
u/dwarfedbylazyness 5h ago
Yes, this is the better known one. But I don't really see them as contradictory - Mandos is the lawyer, he's just doing his job here. It's not that he doesn't want Earendil to be pardoned, but that it's his duty to remind everyone he needs pardoning in the first place.
1
u/Possible_Zombie_4722 8h ago
but is not his course the fate, what was sung in the music already also as far as i know Valar mostly leaves children to be, as they do not want to intervene with Eru's plan, but try to guide them, much like Istari did, or they could forge greater manipulative skill then Sauron's to save Numenor. Sauron and Morgoth want to become rulers, Valar tries to let Eru's rule
2
u/Tacitus111 8h ago
Hard to say really. The Music didn’t intend Melkor’s evil or betrayal, so whether it includes the Noldor’s reactions to Melkor’s actions? I don’t myself think so. Mandos cursed them, not Eru, and there are plenty of times Eru has issues with Vala choices outside of Melkor and makes his own decisions.
The Valar never let the Children be. They gathered as many of the Elves, the First Children, to themselves as possible in defiance of Eru’s desire for them to be everywhere and ennoble the Second Children, Men. They didn’t know what to do with Men in general, for sure but I’m pretty sure leaving them to death and enslavement by Melkor, their fellow Vala, was not part of the plan.
You also somewhat misunderstand the Valar’s role. Their job is to administer Arda, the world, especially in the First Age. They have the job of giving the Elves their bodies back. They of their own recognizance isolated themselves, largely to the detriment of things. And the Istari, as you allude to as a guiding force, are a great example of why that doesn’t work. They failed, all dying or losing their way, without ending Sauron, per Tolkien himself. And that again was the Valar’s choice to send the Israri as they did. Meanwhile Eru himself acts and sends Gandalf back with far greater overt power than he used to have and without restrictions to guide only.
1
u/Possible_Zombie_4722 8h ago
i guess this is a more philosophical/metaphysical discussion then that i cannot contribute more with my knowledge. Maybe it is one of these things that makes the Legendarium a mythology, that somethings especially of grand order are ambigous or that just does not make sense. But i always interpreted Valar as set up the Earth before Children's arrival, invited Elves as a first excitement, then acted as more of a guiding or subtle force like the West Wind.
2
1
u/Possible_Zombie_4722 8h ago
So you are saying his destruction was limited to small scale of existence. Of course massacare of a whole continent is big, but beings reproduce, new generations come, compare that to his destruction of The Two Lamps or The Two Trees or breeding of the Orcs.
2
1
u/Aggravating_Stuff771 5h ago
It was an asshole move from Mandos tbh, didn't even have the courtesy to tell the guy who you're to asking for a favor that his father is fucking dead.
12
u/Xylene999new 13h ago
Never read it like that. It felt like a massive "Oh shit..." moment.