The Silmarils

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Though Melkor was the greatest (arguably) of the Ainur and the most powerful of the Valar, Morgoth, however, was just a pitiful Dark Lord, striving for dominion. I have always imagined the two as different entities in one body.

Yes, Melkor is the Vala, Morgoth the tyrant of Angband. But pitiful? I don't think so. He was still just as powerful if you ask me, although it is true that as an actual entity his power was decreased. Even this wasn't so bad -- when squashed Fingolgin with his foot, this was said to be like the weight of a mountain (and I like to think it would grow again and compound with the force of his evil in time for the Dagor Dagorath) -- although certainly grown less, while not in mind, than Manwe.

No-one has yet said anything related to the main point of my posts so far -- that is, the subject of Morgoth's immense 'invested power'. Melkor himself has been diminished in power, but that is only because the immensity of this power has already been used to good effect. As you say, the very essence of the universe bears his evil stain unremovably, and forever. From without the 'Doors of Night', this enables him to still have some sort of influence in Arda; he is still a real threat.

And supposedly he will again muster his power, and challenge the Valar and the free world for the fourth, final and greatest time in the Dagor Dagorath, Last Battle. The power which he will come up against the West, supposedly, will then be so great that the world itself is shattered in a final Armageddon-style wave of destruction; Morgoth holds his power still, and it is perhaps even more deadly now that he has put it forth into the fibres of the essence of the world.

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About the Noldor, though, Inderjit. I think you are incorrect in this statement:

The Noldor, Sindar and Edain would never be overcome. The Valar chose the perfect time in which to attack Morgoth, when there was little hope left.

The Valar only sent out a Valinorean army to attack Morgoth upon the plea of Earendil. The Noldor, Sindar and Edain would have been overcome, were it not for the intercession of the Valar; and for the Valar's part, the entire thing was far from some grand plan with which to finally bring down Morgoth, as you seem to suggest. Of course, the exile of the Noldor -- while evil, as Mandos and Ulmo discuss -- was 'better to have been' -- however, it was not Valar-incited or planned, and would have ended in sorrow for all if not for the turning of events.

Of course, this turning of events was meant to happen. The Valar did not plan for it to happen, though.