[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I would also mention that the body of the elves, while in Arda is being weakened by the marring of Melkor and consumed by the fire of their spirit. I wonder if the diminishing of the balrog's power might have been balanced to an extent by Melkor.

Corruption isn't a good thing even for baddies. It could be argued that corruption is what eventually bound Melkor, Sauron, and Balrogs to their material bodies, and weakened their spirits to the point that they could be rendered impotent by physical destruction.

That said, Morgoth's power at the time that he was responsible for the shaping of Middle-earth wasn't wholly corrupting; he originally loved light, and was nevertheless one of Eru's firstborn. Melkor corrupted Arda in many ways after it came into existence, but his connection to it was far deeper than that. He made his indelible imprint on Arda before it even became physical: in fact, before he ever committed any great evil. His part in the Music of the Ainur was, for all its contentiousness, still considered part of Eru's greater theme, its utter origin being claimed by him. Could the Music have included those crimes he later perpetrated?

Moreover, I'd say that at some point Melkor was severed from his fundamental connection to Arda. Arda was, at least for a time, "Morgoth's Ring": he and it were bound together because of his dominant hand in shaping it, and the result of the destruction of either would be the destruction of the other. Yet, in a late essay (within Myths Transformed, I believe), Melkor is said finally to have been executed as a mortal. If his connection to Arda was ultimately cut with no cataclysmic consequences for Arda, his corruption and diminution must have been driving him farther from that original vitality he had as Arda's counterpart. His later evil was thus unnatural, while the primeval theme of discord he wove into the music can still be considered natural; an observable aspect of nature, free from and above the qualification of "right" or "wrong", as Melkor himself was in his beginning.

Anyway, my point is that I don't think "Arda Marred" was a pool from which bad things received Melkor's lingering evil.

I am also curious if by "they were by no means normal even prior to their near-apotheosis" you mean that they are enhanced by the light of Valinor.

Actually, I'm not really prepared to speculate on what made Ecthelion and Glorfindel the mightiest of the Elves of Gondolin. Still, were they not extraordinary?