[William Cloud Hicklin]

With the caveat that the BoLT was very early and in a LOT of areas superseded. In particular, its Valar owe a lot more to RW pagan pantheons, including the bloodthirsty war-Valar Makar and Measse; while Mandos in this early period fit in well with the "gloomy caverns" of Hades or Hel, later descriptions of them lined with Vaire's tapestries invoke, for me, something more like a monastic rest home than a subterranean dungeon.

Also, the concept of the Second Prophecy is fraught, especially given his later flat statement that the Valar were forbidden to take away the Gift of Men. In the BoLT phase, Men as well as Elves went to Mandos, in segregated accommodations.