[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

But did they realise they were good & happy? Did they realise anything at all?

Well, nobody even existed prior to Melkor's work apart from the Ainur. The Children were simply thoughts in Eru's mind, and from the way the Sil is worded, it seems maybe only Elves existed, and that Eru may have created Men as a response to Melkor:

Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Iluvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon another in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.
Then Iluvatar 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. Then again Iluvatar 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.

Bold one - Elves
Bold two - Men - made in response to Melkor?

If so, that's quite fabulous, as Men were created to respond to and to resist Melkor's themes.

Anyway, to draw out some sense, I've argued before that using the text strictly, Darkness (note, not 'evil', but 'Darkness') must stem from Eru ultimately. From the start he is called the All Father and he is Omnipotent, and the very nature of that means that he creates everything, or causes every possibility.

Eru creates the Ainur from his own thought:

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Illuvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made

Melkor then, from what he has been given by Eru, which must include the potential to self-realise and imagine, makes up his own themes, different from the tune Eru has asked them to sing:

But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Iluvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself.

And then the Killer Quote from Eru, where he tells Melkor that although he may wish to make up his own theme and may believe he is being a true rebel, those thughts and ideas of Darkness all have their source in Eru:

Then Iluvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful which he himself hath not imagined.'

And what's more, because Everything stems from Eru, even if he who reveres Darkness thinks he is doing something different, heis not because Eru planted that there too, along with the fluffy stuff. And the Darkness only serves to make the Light that much brighter.

A lot of readers might not like that as they have the notion that Eru was all 'goodness' in our terms, yet this is at odds with an Omnipotent Eru who states he is the source of everything. This might make some uncomfortable as they believe their God is all 'good' - and I admit I too would be uncomfortable with this perception of God as someone who can cause things I see as quite dark. To me, there is no point in having a God if he is not all sweetness and light in contrast to the evil that people inflict on one another - why believe in a deity that can hurt you for no fathomable reason?

But this is Eru, and we cannot possibly hope to know Tolkien's own relationship with God and if he saw God as the source of all in the Real World, including Darkness, but if Eru is his representation of his own God then he may well have done. It's a common enough belief, especially in Catholicism, that everything stems from God, even the 'bad' things ('bad' because we see them as bad, but does God? Does he abhor war? Does he control tornadoes? Or is this all in his plan?) - it's simply his mysterious way; just take a look at The Book of Job to see an unfathomable God exercising his Omnipotence. By the by, this is assuming Eru is a representation of what Tolkien saw in God - it may well not be at all!

But we will never know. All we have to work on is what Eru is like in the text and in the Sil he creates All, including the potential for Darkness, and just as say Yavanna makes strawberries with her potential, Melkor makes cold temperatures with his. Eru gives them that potential and asks them to sing for him, and not all sing what he wanted them to sing because he also gives them the freedom to do as they will with the potential he has bestowed on them from his own thought.

Yet at the end of it all, even though Melkor does choose to use his potential in that way - it only serves to further glorify Eru, thus proving that in Arda, Eru has the Last Laugh.

And that's way, way more than I wanted to write...