Quote:
Originally Posted by Galin
Hmm, but did he? While the Elessar manuscript was written after The Lord of the Rings of course, I'll just add that it is not what I would call a very late text, nor did Tolkien revise 'Vilya, the mightiest of the Three' for the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, which came later.
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I agree, and it wouldn't make sense for Celebrimbor to not give Gil-Galad the mightiest of the three, but just because it was the strongest, it doesn't necessarily mean that Vilya was "The one that can best preserve the nearby environment". After all, it doesn't seem that Gandalf used Narya in such a way. The power of Three wasn't the same but just at different strengths. Though they had a hierarchy of strength, they were each related to a different element, and so power they gave their holder probably had different characteristics.