Thread: New class

Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

None of them could choose to stay behind at all. It wasn't their choice to make - unlike Elves, whose spirits could refuse to go to Mandos after death (rarely, and usually because they'd done something terrible), the spirits of Men had to go.

Actually in both the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin, Tolkien makes it very clear that no one is exactly sure what happens to the souls of men after death precisely because they don't show up in Mandos. If there is an afterlife for the Second Born of Illuvatar (men) is a huge question that simply isn't answered in the lore.

It is one with the gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful. For the Elves do not die till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries, and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandoes in Valinor, whence they may in time return. But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Illuvatar, which as the Time wears even the Powers shall envy.

Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 1, final paragraph

Even the Valar were rather cryptic in this regards as that paragraph also states:

Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Illuvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World's end, and Melkor has not discovered it.

But even that statement does not say that the specific Men who died during the world of Middle Earth will return after the First Music of Ainur finishes and that world ends. The Valar only state that there will be Men in the Second Music of the Ainur.

Once released the Oathbreakers go to where none know, possibly not even the Valar.

Originally Posted by Beorthnoth

And I suspect you would lose your cookies .

Adan is the Sindarin pronunciation (given the linguistic similarities of d and t) of the Quenya word Atani (the second people) (source: Simarillion Index p 318 in my hardback edition).

Remember that Tolkien was primarily a philologist. He was a Professor of English Language at Oxford, not Literature. In creating languages primarily from the Nordic language tree, it seem improbable that he would deliberately insert a word of Aramaic origin to make an allegorical point. Indeed, given his "cordial dislike" of allegory, the idea would probably never have occurred to him. It would also represent a piece of academic clumsiness entirely at odds with his character.


Whilst Tolkien's deep Catholic faith is a matter of record, I think its influence on his fiction has had a tendency to become overexaggerated by readers who want to impute allegory on him. Tolkien drew a typically academic distinction between allegory (where the, usually heavy handed, moral double meaning is intentionally placed by the author) and what he called applicability (where the reader perceives an allegorical meaning not intended by the author). Those who see overt religiosity in the books would, in his terms, fall into the latter category.

I've ploughed through his letters to see if I can find any reference to the linguistic source of Atani, to no avail, but, given that Quenya is derived to some degree from Old Finnish, I'd start looking there.

Absolutely excellent point. It was only in creating the barest sketch of the hidden dwarven tongue that Tolkien borrowed items from Semitic languages and he very publicly drew inspiration for some of the dwarven characteristics from some aspects of the Jewish Population of his day - one of those being the use of the common language with all around them and a special hidden language when only amongst themselves. And before anyone starts spouting off about racism and anti-semitism, it has also been reported from his writings that the Dwarven resistance to being corrupted by Morgoth and Sauron is also drawn from what he felt was the extremely moral character of Semites as a whole.

Originally Posted by Beorthnoth

Whilst Tolkien's deep Catholic faith is a matter of record, I think its influence on his fiction has had a tendency to become overexaggerated by readers who want to impute allegory on him. Tolkien drew a typically academic distinction between allegory (where the, usually heavy handed, moral double meaning is intentionally placed by the author) and what he called applicability (where the reader perceives an allegorical meaning not intended by the author). Those who see overt religiosity in the books would, in his terms, fall into the latter category.

And if you pay attention to his friendship with C.S. Lewis, Tolkien criticized the entire Narnia lore both publicly and privately for being to overtly Christian.

Tolkien was deeply moved by his desire to create a pre-Christian mythos for England - something which he felt many other nations had preserved but which England had lost along the way to modernity. With that in mind, the idea of him deliberately putting into his work such Christian elements seems preposterous.

Originally Posted by Tolkien-Addict

Actually in both the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin, Tolkien makes it very clear that no one is exactly sure what happens to the souls of men after death precisely because they don't show up in Mandos. If there is an afterlife for the Second Born of Illuvatar (men) is a huge question that simply isn't answered in the lore.

It's their ultimate fate that's kept a mystery. Their immediate fate, though, was to go to the Halls of Mandos for a while, which appears to have been Tolkien's version of Purgatory, and then they went on... somewhere else, beyond the world.

Given Tolkien's religious convictions I think we can readily guess where Tolkien believed the spirits of Men would end up, but he was much too sensible to try to describe Heaven (and unlike C S Lewis he didn't believe in imposing his beliefs on his readers, either) so it's kept mysterious - and that way, everyone can imagine whatever they like. But it's 'beyond the world', regardless.

Now, you may ask, how do I know that the spirits of Men went to the Halls of Mandos for a while? It's in the Sil, that's where Beren's spirit goes when he dies. His spirit 'tarries' there at Luthien's bidding (just before he died, she'd asked him to wait for her there), rather than moving on to that mysterious somewhere else.

Here's the relevant quote: 'For the spirit of Beren at her bidding tarried in the Halls of Mandos, unwilling to leave the world'.

Originally Posted by Tolkien-Addict

And if you pay attention to his friendship with C.S. Lewis, Tolkien criticized the entire Narnia lore both publicly and privately for being to overtly Christian.

Tolkien was deeply moved by his desire to create a pre-Christian mythos for England - something which he felt many other nations had preserved but which England had lost along the way to modernity. With that in mind, the idea of him deliberately putting into his work such Christian elements seems preposterous.

The fact that the setting is fundamentally monotheistic is one such 'Christian element'. It's not overt, but Tolkien went on record as saying that his thinking was fundamentally 'Christian and Catholic'. An imagined deep past means pre-Christ, obviously, but God's supposed to be eternal. And in Tolkien's mind, Eru Iluvatar was not just like God, he was God, going under a pseudonym. Tolkien's religious belief was such that he didn't want to imagine any other divinity than the one he believed in. Hence all the rest, with the Valar not being gods in their own right but merely beings who could be mistaken for gods by men.

(Disclaimer: I'm an atheist but I was brought up Catholic, so I can appreciate where Tolkien was coming from).

Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

It's their ultimate fate that's kept a mystery. Their immediate fate, though, was to go to the Halls of Mandos for a while, which appears to have been Tolkien's version of Purgatory, and then they went on... somewhere else, beyond the world.

Given Tolkien's religious convictions I think we can readily guess where Tolkien believed the spirits of Men would end up, but he was much too sensible to try to describe Heaven (and unlike C S Lewis he didn't believe in imposing his beliefs on his readers, either) so it's kept mysterious - and that way, everyone can imagine whatever they like. But it's 'beyond the world', regardless.

Now, you may ask, how do I know that the spirits of Men went to the Halls of Mandos for a while? It's in the Sil, that's where Beren's spirit goes when he dies. His spirit 'tarries' there at Luthien's bidding (just before he died, she'd asked him to wait for her there), rather than moving on to that mysterious somewhere else.

Here's the relevant quote: 'For the spirit of Beren at her bidding tarried in the Halls of Mandos, unwilling to leave the world'.

It is true that Beren's spirit tarried in the halls of Mandos but Tolkien also makes very clear that Beren was an exception to the rule.

In the second to last paragraph of Chapter 12 Of Men, Tolkien wrote of men "some say that they too go to the halls of Mandos; but their place of waiting is not that of the Elves..." this implies that even if they do go to Mandos, they do not wait in the same location as that of Elves and so their actual presence there is assumed by the Elves but is not certain. Tolkien also wrote "Mandos under Iluvatar alone save Manwe knows whither they go..."

So yes, Beren went to the Halls of Mandos, but that honor was due to his special place as having touched a Silmaril. It is still not certain exactly what happens to the souls of lesser men.

Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

The fact that the setting is fundamentally monotheistic is one such 'Christian element'. It's not overt, but Tolkien went on record as saying that his thinking was fundamentally 'Christian and Catholic'. An imagined deep past means pre-Christ, obviously, but God's supposed to be eternal. And in Tolkien's mind, Eru Iluvatar was not just like God, he was God, going under a pseudonym. Tolkien's religious belief was such that he didn't want to imagine any other divinity than the one he believed in. Hence all the rest, with the Valar not being gods in their own right but merely beings who could be mistaken for gods by men.

(Disclaimer: I'm an atheist but I was brought up Catholic, so I can appreciate where Tolkien was coming from).

I don't disagree that Tolkien had a fundamentally monotheistic conception for Iluvatar. However, the complete lack of any type of worship among the people's of middle earth and the obvious Pre-Christian nature of the work militats against there being any obvious Christian allegories placed within his work. And just something is monotheistic does not mean it is necessarily Christian. Monotheism is common to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and a few other faiths.

Originally Posted by Tolkien-Addict

It is true that Beren's spirit tarried in the halls of Mandos but Tolkien also makes very clear that Beren was an exception to the rule.

In the second to last paragraph of Chapter 12 Of Men, Tolkien wrote of men "some say that they too go to the halls of Mandos; but their place of waiting is not that of the Elves..." this implies that even if they do go to Mandos, they do not wait in the same location as that of Elves and so their actual presence there is assumed by the Elves but is not certain. Tolkien also wrote "Mandos under Iluvatar alone save Manwe knows whither they go..."

So yes, Beren went to the Halls of Mandos, but that honor was due to his special place as having touched a Silmaril. It is still not certain exactly what happens to the souls of lesser men.

Beren's exception was that he was subsequently brought back to life; so far as I recall, Tolkien says nothing about how Beren going to Mandos was special treatment, or that it was because he'd touched a Silmaril. You need to back that up with a quote, please. And yes, it's implied Mandos had a different hall for Men, but keeping Men and Elves separate doesn't mean it wasn't still the Halls of Mandos. And once again, it was where Men went when they left the Halls which was the big mystery.

I don't disagree that Tolkien had a fundamentally monotheistic conception for Iluvatar. However, the complete lack of any type of worship among the people's of middle earth and the obvious Pre-Christian nature of the work militats against there being any obvious Christian allegories placed within his work. And just something is monotheistic does not mean it is necessarily Christian. Monotheism is common to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and a few other faiths.

As I mentioned earlier, he said what it was himself:

'The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.'

-Tolkien, in a letter

i.e. Christian. Why should that be any surprise given that he was a devout Catholic? And I certainly wasn't talking about allegory, either, since Tolkien didn't care for it (he said that he 'cordially disliked allegory in all its manifestations'), but the work is heavily freighted with symbolism. Tolkien also said that there was no overt religious element:

'That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.'

But it's there, all right, again because the author says so.