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I always got the impression that the Valar never forsook their appointed role as helpers and counsellors to the Children of Ilśvatar but that by the Third Age they wanted to try a more subtle approach both to avoid the kind of disastrous consequences more direct intervention had seemed to cause and to ensure that Men came into their inheritance by their own doing as much as possible. In the end it was cooperation between the Children of Ilśvatar in Middle-earth and an emissary of the Valar which defeated Sauron rather than the Valar taking matters too greatly into their own hands. What's more, this situation came about through the designs of Ilśvatar weaving all these compontents together. The difference to me seems to be that in the Third Age the Valar rendered assistance while letting the mysterious designs of Ilśvatar unfold of their own accord rather than, as they had done up until the end of the First Age, trying to force the events of history to conform to what they perceived as being the right course. Perhaps the Valar needed to learn a certain faith, and that not all eventualities could be planned for and controlled.
One thing I have always found very interesting about the Valar is their capacity to occasionally make bad decisions, however well-intentioned, and the way that their great compassion occasionally overwhelmed their better judgement.
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