Legolas, thanks for the quotes. Did you notice, though, that Tolkien may have contradicted himself in letter 153:
Quote:
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…having mentioned Free Will, I might say that in my myth I have used 'subcreation' in a special way (...) to make visible and physical the effects of Sin or misused Free Will BY MEN… So in this myth, it is 'feigned' (legitimately whether that is a feature of the real world or not) that He gave special 'sub-creative' powers to CERTAIN OF HIS HIGHEST CREATED BEINGS…
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(Emphasis added to show the possible contradiction.)
He first says that subcreation is meant to demonstrate sin or misuse of free will by men, but then says that only certain of Eru’s highest created beings have this sub-creative power. It would seem that we are only dealing with the sin and misuse of free will by these highest created beings, not men. OR, is he trying to say that the Valar are archetypes of the human race (I mean the real human race, not Middle-Earth men), and Melkor is the archetype of Adam? I guess it would depend on how you read it.