The Original Breaking of the Fellowship

[piosenniel]

Kalessin -

Melkor/Morgoth is offered opportunities for redemption at various points in The Silmarillion, but remains Fallen ... he simply pretends in order to survive and rebuild. At the last, all opportunity to repent is removed and he is subject to summary judgement and timeless punishment. These contrasts between characters (and narratives) seem to me pretty compelling reasons not to read too much into parallels.

Where is it said that ALL opportunity to repent is removed. I agree that Melkor is subject to timeless punishment being cast into the Void 'forever'. Still he also is immortal, timeless, with opportunity to recant his choices at any time.

I wasn't thinking of the 9 Valar and the 9 of the FOTR as being directly parallel in comparison to each other. What struck me was the cycling of the mythos (on a smaller scale, granted with Boromir as the source of disharmony), the repetition of the introduction of disharmony into a group effort for 'good'.

The fact that Boromir realizes the wrongness of his choice seems a break in the cycle of continuing evil first started by Melkor's choice to be disharmonious.