#iluvatar

Traditional arts were made before 2021, digital arts were made after this date. I'm not proud of everything but that's fine, drawing is not always serious and not successing/finishing is okay.

Then Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty. But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and again there was a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and sang no longer, and Melkor had the mastery.

Eru even alters his initial theme, but Melkor still tries to contest him and to drown him out:

Then again Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand, and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.

It seems to me that the third theme, which was the one that created the Children, was a musical manifestation of the natural progression of the music of the Ainur. The more I read this passage, the more it seems that Eru tried to incorporate Melkor's music into his own. And this is fascinating to me because it shows how essential Melkor was in Eru's plan. Eru did not want to exclude him. He did not want to suffocate him or for him to be powerless. But he DID need him to be part of a whole. It is not Melkor's original ideas, but his desire for dominion that angers Eru.

back to middle-earth month 3/6/26 | 2010: the last battle | the great sea | “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

But Ilúvatar showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Númenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it, and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was shaken... ...But the land of Aman and Eressëa of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men for ever. And Andor, the Land of Gift, Númenor of the Kings, Elenna of the Star of Eärendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.

Legendarium by  Rene Gross

1. Eru Ilúvatar

2. Creation of Melkor and Manwë

3. Wedding in Valinor

4. Telperion and Laurelin, the Two Trees of Valinor

5. Eärendil Sails to Valinor

On a somewhat lighter note: Manwe absolutely learned and in time mastered this power from witnessing Iluvatar's "I'm very disappointed in you, Melkor" face given to Melkor after the Ainulindale-which was one of the few times that Manwe ever saw his brother so utterly decimated-and later wondered-in Arda when Melkor was causing chaos-if he could somehow pull that off too in order to keep his brother in line.

And it worked. every. single. time.