Manwë stumbles

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

And note that I've wondered about this in regards to Abrahamic religions in that if a third of the angels fell with Lucifer (and they had no snake to tempt them), what would stop another third from falling sometime between now and the end of eternity?

Perhaps because they remember the battle in heaven wherebye Lucifer and the rebel angels were defeated and thrown into the torments of Hell and don't want to be similarly tormented and placed? Of course, I'm thinking of Milton's Paradise Lost, the theology of which is dicey. The Vatican, after all, placed it on its list of banned books.

Melkor had no forerunner so he could not conceive what his loss would be like. Manwe knew/knows what the cost of pride/ambition/rebellion is. This is the right use of longevity, rather than the nostalgia to which the elves were prey.