[davem]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Derogations aside, the essential complaint here is that Eru should not have punished the Numenoreans for disobeying his viceroys because it wasn't a fair fight.

Clarity first: Tolkien is the one who describes Eru's action as punishment for disobedience, which is rebellion.

Which it was. But that's not the issue.

Second: to accuse Eru of 'not being fair' because he is too powerful is like saying that police are not being fair when they arrest someone who has committed a crime because they have guns and the criminal only has a knife.

No - its like saying the Police are not being 'fair' or reasonable if they decide to deal with the knife-wielding criminal by employing tactical nukes to take out half the State the criminal is in. Its to accuse the Police of over-reaction & psychopathic tendencies

Further, to assert that it would have been better if impersonal nature had taken out the Numenoreans instead of Eru, is like saying that it would be better if the knife wielding criminal would take a wrong turn in his escape such that he winds up in a prison cell, than that police should arrest him and bring him in.

Poetic justice. However, I don't think your analogy is ideal. If impersonal nature (the 'Dragon') had brought down the Numenoreans it would have brought home Man's insignificance & his ultimate tragedy far more profoundly than Eru's hissy fit.

The point: those in authority have the right to use power to enforce laws. This is true regardless of whether one is talking about local police, or about a transcendant deity.

The issue of Eru's so-called "boring" role in Tolkien's legendarium has already been addressed.

'With great power comes great responsibility' as Uncle Ben said. Eru psychopathically over-reacts in the case of Numenor, because while the Numenoreans may have disobeyed the Valar they were no threat. It would have been better if the cause had been a natural cataclysm, because Eru doesn't come off well as a character in this incident. In short, I still feel it was a mistake on Tolkien's part to have Eru do something so terrible - we can never think of Eru as a loving creator again without also having to acknowledge he is also a monster. The only acceptable interpretation is that it was a natural cataclysm which post-deluvian inhabitants of M-e wrongly attributed to Eru.

And one suspects it would not have been necessary to include the event at all in the final redaction of the Legendarium, in which Tolkien attempted to make Arda conform to 'current' scientific thinking. The Sun & stars were to pre-exist the earth, which would inevitably have had to be spherical from the start - hence, no need for a re-shaping of the world, so no requirement for Eru to wreak such devastation.