Blarg

High princes were Fëanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finwë, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions. .... And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears. Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another; and these only they wore abroad, and of other weapons they did not speak, for each believed that he alone had received the warning.

The language of rights and possessions is interesting here, especially in context of proud and jealous. proud and jealous ofc suggest the establishment of barriers, of enclosure and fencing to prevent the blurring of boundaries and borders that denote "ownership" and therefore "possession". It also denotes a move from having wealth because this is a land of abundance, to displaying wealth as a means of status - which we can understand to mean that the accrual of more wealth than others becomes vital. In a land where hard work is immaterial to the gain of any wealth, we can infer that more wealth is generated by the process of creating scarcity: hoarding jewels (as Feanor does with the Silmarils & other jewels, later on), hoarding land, hoarding other natural resources, closing them off to public access and use. This scarcity must be artificially maintained, which means new laws to enforce new structures and to maintain a rigidity and separation between class structures, rather than allow permeability and mobility.

The language of rights also suggests several possibilities. One is the "rights" of a mere prince versus a crown prince, which I delved into more over here, so I won't go over it again. The other possibility is also the rights of a "lord" over his "following", not only in terms of obedience or nebulous "support", but specifically in commanding various feudal duties or aids: e.g. paying various fees and tributes, having the responsibility to raise a certain number of soldiers (or other resources; most likely swords / bows / axes atp), commanding various services etc. until this moment, we have a sense of the Elves as open-handed and generous creatures, who are happy to share without a second thought. Now we have this preoccupation with rights, which ofc raises the question of "whose rights"? And therefore, also, whether a prince and a commoner will have similar rights? If so, what distinguishes a prince from a commoner? What confers on him greater power and status in this society?

The natural fallout of this hardening of a class system into something that relies on delineating rights and possession (i.e. ownership) is the need to enforce these rights and ownership. The quick segue in the narrative into the accusation of theft and usurpation and therefore, into forging weapons, suggests that in addition to the inference we can make that new laws had to be created, force and violence is now seen as a possible avenue for enforcing these rights, entitlements and ownership. No one has to use it yet, because this is still at a nascent stage in a society where generosity rather than hoarding control has been operative; but it is beginning to emerge. It also means this is the point at which in Noldor society, a series of exceptions are being created and seeded: violence is wrong, except when it is a means of enforcing rights, ownership and entitlements. In doing so, it necessarily produces a subject against whom violence can be wielded, and whom it would be just to wield violence against: in other words, a subject who is less than the person who can claim to have faced an infringment on their rights, entitlements or ownership.

right! And the other thing about the Valar constructing Manwe as king of Arda is that Tolkien himself, in Myths Transformed, points to the fact that the Valar have neglected their duties of kingship in their dealings with Middle Earth - choosing to retreat behind the Pelori with the Trees, rather than advance and heal the wounds of Middle Earth while Morgoth was in custody -

 They became more and more enamoured of Valinor, and went there more often and stayed there longer. Middle-earth was left too little tended, and too little protected against Melkor.

and

Thus the ‘Hiding of Valinor’ came near to countering Morgoth’s possessiveness by a rival possessiveness, setting up a private domain of light and bliss against one of darkness and domination: a palace and a pleasaunce (well-fenced) against a fortress and a dungeon.

The latter ofc takes place after the Doom is placed, so all the rationalisations that follow in the text hold (i.e. that to make war on Morgoth would have been world destroying, v. a long war of attrition which weakened him), but it fails to account for the interim three ages in which the Valar have Morgoth in their custody, but don't really attempt to make an effort to go to Middle Earth and heal it, or to share the light of the Trees with Middle Earth in any meaningful way. And I think that also connects to the problem of the Unsullied Light, because in Valinor, the Unsullied Light is used to illuminate the world in a way where most of its "goodness" will accrue to the Valar first and then flow outwards to the rest of the world if at all* (with the only concession being the stars that Varda places in the sky).

Which, I think to bring it back around to the original point of this post - how might the High Elves have an understanding of the many other possibilities of existing in the world, when the Valar presented them with one that was squarely hierarchical, which was based on enclosure and which legitimated the hoarding of something that was meant to benefit all, even if there were many very "rational" reasons for doing so? The Valar very much do establish themselves as figures of greater authority and wisdom, with greater craft and skill, with deeper theological and cosmogonical understanding, and therefore possessing greater authority to define what the "correct" means of understanding the world is. In the face of this, it seems nearly inevitable that the Elves would have both internalised a hierarchical understanding of the world (in initially racial terms, i.e. the split between High and Dark Elves framed entirely in terms of proximity to a) the Unsullied Light and b) the Valar, but later inwards amongst themselves) and that there is nothing 'wrong' with enclosing resources from those framed as 'lesser'. An entirely systemic social failure at multiple levels.

Thuringwethil, the vampiric messenger of Melkor, is assumed to be a Maia, is not explicitly named as anyone’s original Maia. While it’s possible she was one of the original Maiar of Melkor, I wanted to explore a few examples of other Valar she was originally meant to serve

Perhaps she was a messenger originally to Varda, her form little more than the wisps and vapors that frequently make up the Maiar that sere the queen of the stars. She materializes rarely.

When she joins Melkor, her form changes and smoke becomes sinewy wings, teeth forming and piercing.

Now, she is a shadow that passes over the stars she once worshiped

Many of the beings associated with Oromë are the representations of animals such as Huan and Nahar. While Thuringwethil isn't explicitly associated with bats as a whole, it is a bat like skin that Lúthien steals from Thuringwethil and the vampires as a whole are associated with bats.

Thuringwethil as a primeval hunter, fastened and shaped by Oromë to blur lines, to live in shadows, as an ambush predator who strikes not with great tearing claws but in smaller, burrowing ways. There is nothing unnatural about this and in the natural world there is nothing evil. But corrupted, her predation takes on a new form

I mentioned here that Vána’s realm, which I associate with cycles of life and death, spring and winter and growth and decay could be terrifying combined with the active malice of Morgoth

Thuringwethil starting out as a fruit bat, fluttering in the glades of Vána, a pollinator. Drawn to Melkor for the extremes he embodies. Pollinating the poisoned flora of the Ered Engrin, feasting on flesh as much as fruit.

Thuringwethil originally serving Irmo. Dreams and visions transmitted through teeth and wings. Thuringwethil not only as messenger but a guardian of Angband’s many nightmares

Thuringwethil, Ungoliant and Fluithuin

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Instead of a cutesie reference to film censorship it was an explicit statement of defiance of Maryland's criminalization gay sex, which was not repealed until 2002. This wasn't a guy saying "Oh they can't put what I do in the movies according to a completely voluntary industry code" he was saying "The State of Maryland wants to put me in jail for being gay and having gay sex."