Talk:Valar/Archive 1

Dwarves

On the right where it lists the Races of Middle-Earth, the Dwarves should be counted among the Children of Iluvatar; Iluvatar explicitly refers to them as his adopted children in the Silmarillion.

I have no idea how to make that change myself, however. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.175.69.178 (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Valier?

I was redirected here from Valier. Why did that happen? I was hoping for something about Austrian publicist and rocket enthusiast Max Valier and I am a bit confused about why I've been sent on to the Valar (I suspect Valier would not be unhappy at the connection between himself and mythical god-figures, however ;)). --Trithemius 03:40, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

Valier are also the female Valar. Disambiguated Valier.Ausir 12:51, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Siblings

I'm a little hazy on the explanation for some of the Valar having brothers and sisters. Is it because they came from the same part/overlapping parts of Eru's mind (relating 'each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came' from the Ainulindalë to 'brethren in the thought of Ilúvatar' from the Valaquenta), or just because he decided that's what they would be?

AGGoH 19:41, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Valar as Gods?

I have to disagree that the Valar are not gods. They seem more like a second order of gods, with Ilúvatar being the sole member of the first order. Ilúvatar is, of course, the creator God, but many mythologies have creator gods, and this does not preclude lesser beings from being considered Gods. The Valar do seem more like gods than like angels, for example, having specific areas of responsibility in the world, as do many gods in mythology.

Oh, by the way, the Valar are not gods although in Arda/Middle-Earth they were worshipped as demi-gods but they are actually when you think about it, the equivolent of the Seraphim in Christianity. The only actual god in Tolkien's legendarium was Eru Illuvatar, an allegory of the Monotheistic Christian God. That's my take on it anyway. -User:Anon 13/6/06

Illuvatar doesn't seem too much of an allegory for the God of Christianity, Illuvatar is much less directly involved, almost a deistic god. They were not gods as Tolkien thought of gods, but they do seem to operate with more autonomy than one typically thinks of angels having.--RLent 23:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

J.R.R. Tolkien himself has said in his letters that the Valar are not gods, but should be referred more to as "Powers". -User:Anonymous —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.208.2.91 (talk • contribs) .

In the polytheisms that I've looked at, the creator deity is not such a big deal (if there even is one). The most important Greek gods are grandchildren of the creators. Brahmā and Odin are honored less for their roles in creation than as the source of sacred speech (B) and as patron of wisdom (O). Or so I misunderstand, for whatever it's worth. —Tamfang (talk) 19:53, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

They should not be referenced as Gods, as based on the letters. Eru/Illuvatar is a direct parallel to the God of the Bible, as he is the creator and his name is "father of light" in elvish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.220.19.50 (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Tolkien himself refers to them many times as "Gods" in the Letters, see e.g. p. 146 (Letter 131) and many references in the index under Ainur. The comment above about "powers" misrepresents Letter 131, which says "God and the Valar (or powers: Englished as gods)". In his view "gods" was an appropriate English word for them, and owes much to the use of the word in Greek mythology. (C. S. Lewis similarly introduced similar notions in his own fiction.) Though Tolkien also described them as "angelic", he specifically resisted the direct comparison with "angel" or "archangel", fearing that the Christian understanding of the word would color the reader's understanding of his intention. (Added) And as pointed out above, though Tolkien probably intended Eru as a version of the Christian God, Eru's role in the world of Middle-earth is very different than the Christian understanding of God in our world; so "direct parallel" distinctly overstates the case. -- Elphion (talk) 19:25, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

On the subject of Melkor

He is one of the Valar. The article doesn't describe that in enough detail.

Melkor is not one of the Valar. From the Valaquenta: "The Lords of the Valar are seven; and the Valier, the Queens of the Valar, are seven also...Melkor is counted no longer among the Valar, and his name is not spoken upon Earth." AGGoH 16:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

He is still one of their number. And he didn't lose his position as a Valar until after he stole the Simiril and Ungoliant poisoned the Trees. JONJONAUG 12:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a semantic difference. Melkor both was and was not a 'Vala' depending on the usage of the term. To be precise, he was their equal (or better at some points) in power and intended to be one of the 'governors' of Arda... however since he rebelled against Eru and did not work with the Valar he was not considered one of them. Tolkien lists the fourteen Valar - excluding Melkor from their number, but then he also calls him the 'evil Vala'. To put it another way, the prayer "May the Valar turn him aside" used in LotR was clearly not meant for Melkor... in common Middle-earth usage 'the Valar' are the fourteen. Melkor is excluded from his proper place amongst them because of his Fall. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 13:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

All true. I would say the article should explain how Melkor lost his title, but continue to refer to the fourteen Valar and deal primarily with them, as that's the best figure for most contexts. In general usage would it be a good idea to describe Melkor as an Ainu rather than a Vala to avoid confusion? AGGoH 20:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Melkor was originally the greatest of the Valar, who lost his position when he rebelled and was renamed Morgoth. rowley (talk) 19:07, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree -Anon

Vala?

why is this article called Vala instead of Valar, I'm sure there's a good explanation (maybe Vala is plural for Valar or something), but it's not given and it should be. Jztinfinity 20:41, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I added a parenthetical statement explaining that 'Vala' is the singular form of 'Valar'. --CBDunkerson 23:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Vala is the single of Valar and Valar is the plural of Vala. Just like Maiar is the plural of Maia and Ainur is the plural of Ainu. -User:Anon 13/6/06

Redirecting

Maybe we should create separate articles instead of redirecting Ainur to Valar. Valar are the greater Ainur, and Ainur are the Valar and the Maiar altogether. Leader Vladimir

There used to be separate articles, but as both were rather small I merged them. Additionally, all the named Ainur from the Ainulindalë became Valar (and Morgoth). -- Jordi·✆ 05:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Middle-earth and Arda discrepancy

According to the article Middle-earth #Usage and Misunderstanding, that Middle-earth is geologically small and therefore the name of the article should be 'Vala (Arda)'

Also, these "Vala" are supposed to be celestial gods/angels watching over the Eä

However, Arda is not as famous as Middle-earth, so a reasonable compromise would be 'Vala (Lord of the Rings)' --Kelvin_HO^{Wiknerd(talk)} 15:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I would oppose renaming the article over such niggly points. In respect to the Valar, "(Lord of the Rings)" is no more precise than "(Middle-earth)", since they appear principally in other books. Besides, most of the Tolkien articles are disambiguated, when necessary, with "(Middle-earth)". I think we should maintain this uniformity. Ideally we should have chosen something with broader applicability, like "(Tolkien)", but it would now mean moving a lot of articles. Elphion (talk) 03:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I object to the word "niggly"... it's racist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.77.67 (talk • contribs)

No it's not. See niggle. Carcharoth (talk) 06:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite the section on Origin

I have made many changes in the section Origin and acts, though for the most part these are stylistic. The following paragraph, however, I believe seriously misstates Tolkien's intention, and I have materially rewritten it:

With the Akallabêth, the Valar were removed from power by Eru Ilúvatar, and Aman was removed from the world. With this, the Valar's influence on the world was ended, and in the Third Age their final deed would be to send the Istari to Middle-earth to aid against the mounting threat of Sauron.

Elphion (talk) 01:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ungoliant

Why is Ungoliant listed under the "Queens" of the Valar? She is not listed in The Silmarillion alongside the other Valar and, even in her own article, is not called a Vala but shown to have an ambiguous identity. I strongly recommend that this be corrected, unless someone can show support for Ungoliant as a Vala. —Preceding unsigned comment added by UrsaLinguaBWD (talk • contribs) 05:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Ungoliant is not clearly accounted for. Like Bombadil, her origin is never related. It's not even clear that she was originally one of the Ainur. Certainly Tolkien would never have agreed that she was one of the "Queens of the Valar". I have removed her from the list. I also moved Melkor out of the list of the "Lords" of the Valar (which is clearly inappropriate), but left him in his own section among the Chief of the Valar.  Elphion (talk) 16:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

Why have you unified Mandos with this page? 87.14.218.13 (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Evidently the reasoning was that (a) he is one of the Valar; (b) he is discussed at some length here; but (c) there really isn't enough material to justify a separate article. Elphion (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Comparison with the Eldila of C.S. Lewis

This section is somewhat inaccurate, especially the line "while each Eldil has the responsibility for a single planet..."

Lewis's term "Eldila" refers to the entire species of angelic beings. The term is more analogous to "Ainur" than to "Valar." It is only the Oyéresu (singlular Oyarsa), a subset of Eldila, who correspond to a particular planet. Since there is only one Oyarsa per planet, correlation to the term "Valar" is dubious.

216.254.74.147 (talk) 05:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Source

The Kinslaying was the Elves' equivalent of Man's Original Sin, in that they fell to evil and were expelled from paradise. It feels very... off, this sentence, and unsourced. Is it something stated by Tolkien on any account (and if so, can we have a link?) or is it artistic license? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hackeru (talk • contribs) 15:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The offending passage (which is indeed incorrect, on Tolkien's own account in The Silmarillion) seems to have been removed. -- Elphion (talk) 19:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

[This space was formerly occupied by a suggestion from 89.215.95.22 that Tolkien might have derived the Valar from the Bulgarian Veile (and more elaboration was supplied below), but the IP withdrew the suggestion and removed the remarks. -- Elphion (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2012 (UTC)]

Do you have a source for your comparison and the Slavic inspiration? De728631 (talk) 19:28, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Tolkien never claimed that his stories came without antecedents in (mostly northern) mythology. There are many parallels, as our article on J. R. R. Tolkien's influences indicates, and as Tolkien implies in On Fairy Stories. Your specific conjecture concerning veela/vala probably has no merit; I have certainly seen no evidence adduced for it. The word vala is simply a derivative of the root -bal in Tolkien's languages, which appears in several contexts (see under -val in the appendix of The Silmarillion), and the similarity with veela merely coincidental. As concepts, the veela (which appear much more widely than just Bulgaria) and the valar are very different. -- Elphion (talk) 19:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

As long as nowhere is mentioned Talkien i am removing my article.
Best
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.215.95.22 (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

None of those sources mention Tolkien (I haven't bothered checking the Wikipedia articles as they're invalid sources for Wikipedia), you need to provide a source that makes the link between these legends and myth and their impact on the works of Tolkien. We cannot draw our own conclusions GimliDotNet (talk) 10:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Some questions

Aren't their Valarin names their true names? If so, then why is it said here that their true names are "nowhere recorded"? And since some of the names here are just Quenya adaptations of these Valarin names, why are they all called "titles" here then? Yes, they were originally explained with Elvish etymologies, but later this was changed so that they were now borrowings from Valarin. (This also appears to contradict the second paragraph of the "Internal history" subsection.)

Also, what's the purpose of the BoLT quotation under the section for Oromë? I was under the impression that Tolkien later rejected the idea of the Valar having children. If it's to add context of character development, why is the rejection of this idea never mentioned?

In addition, while it's clear from the first paragraph of the "Internal history" subsection that Valarin is unrelated to any other language on Middle-earth, why does the third paragraph then mention the Lhammas idea that the Elvish languages descended from Valarin without any qualification that this idea was later rejected? Double sharp (talk) 13:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Morgoth's Ring

The war with Melkor continued: the Valar realized many wonderful subthemes of Ilúvatar's grand music, while Melkor poured all his energy into Arda (Morgoth's Ring) and the corruption of fell beings like Balrogs, dragons, and orcs.

The bold words were recently added. Does the parenthesis mean "according to the version of Ainulindalë that appears in Morgoth's Ring" or – less plausibly but more literally – that Arda is Morgoth's Ring? —Tamfang (talk) 07:00, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the addition intends the latter interpretation. It's not exactly implausible, as this metaphor is Tolkien's, but I think (on either interpretation) it's a distraction here. -- Elphion (talk) 16:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

(Ah, I really ought to look more closely at articles to which I link.) I agree. On my first reading it's redundant (don't other versions of Ainulindalë say much the same?); and otherwise the sentence only explains the (unnecessary) metaphor rather than being illuminated by it. —Tamfang (talk) 19:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

How broad is the term Vala?

I have removed "greater" from the sentence "Tolkien occasionally used the term Valar to include all of the greater Ainur who entered the world …" -- the point of this sentence is to acknowledge Tolkien's broader usage in "Ainulindalë" (where it is quite explicit) and elsewhere (where it not so explicit). Tolkien used the term ambiguously: sometimes to refer to all Ainur who entered Arda, other times (much more often) to just the "Kings and Queens of the Valar". Christopher Tolkien's critical machinery generally adopts the latter usage, but the former left its footprint in many places (in the Silmarillion, UT, and The Lost Road, e.g.). -- Elphion (talk) 22:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Let's consider whether this should be mentioned, and if so, how and where. As it now stands, it is an aside, discussing variation in usage; and Tolkien had plenty of that, complete with drafts, hesitations, and rethinks. Our job here, especially in the lead section, which is a brief summary of the main points in the body of the article, is to tell the basic story clearly and truthfully, without unduly confusing readers with side-notes, footnotes, and inline asides. My personal view, therefore, is that the whole "occasionally used" thing would be best not mentioned at all, or if it is considered necessary, then somewhere down in the article body, or only in a footnote. Its positioning in a whole paragraph of the lead section is WP:UNDUE, and since it is both uncited and not reflecting anything in the article body, also currently both unverified (WP:V) and inappropriately positioned (WP:MOS). Whether it's worth mentioning anywhere in the article can be debated, but there's no reason to mention it up front. I'd suggest we just remove it, but if you want to write something on it, then it'll need a short section or footnote in the article body, with suitable reliable secondary sources. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:09, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the brief mention in the lead is insufficient -- this should also be presented early in the article proper. We are not talking early drafts here: the inclusive usage is there for all to see in "Ainulindalë" right at the head of The Silmarillion. Other passages in "Valaquenta" are confusing if you're not aware of the ambiguity. It is Tolkien's ambiguity, not this article, that is confusing, and we should explain the ambiguity and mitigate the confusion. I agree that sources should be added. I disagree entirely that this should be relegated to a footnote: the overlap of "Maiar" and "Valar" is important to understanding Tolkien's meaning and clarifying passages that would otherwise be obscure. It deserves broader treatment in the article and the line in lead should remain. "Secondary sources" is a red herring; for the facts of the fictional source, the fictional source itself is the most reliable source. -- Elphion (talk) 13:22, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, well feel free to write something in the text, and cite it reliably; I don't agree you can just use primary sources, as they will indeed conflict, so any resolution you might attempt off your own bat would be original research by synthesis; a decent secondary source will be required so you can say that scholar xyz said something about the issue. Since we agree that it's inappropriate in the lead, I'll remove the uncited sentence now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:10, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

No, pointing out that the author has two conventions is not OR. Drawing conclusions from that would be. I did not say this would be inappropriate in the lead. I said just the opposite. -- Elphion (talk) 22:09, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I have revised the lead to mention the ambiguity, and provided references in the body. -- Elphion (talk) 22:59, 14 May 2020 (UTC)