Doom of the Noldor

[doug*platypus]

Even the gods/Valar are not perfect. Did the punishment really fit the crime? Almost all of the leaders of the Noldor were willing to forsake the Undying Lands to fight a war of vengeance against Morgoth. But what about the people that they led? I think that many Noldor were unjustly forbidden to return to Aman. The Valar ruled their domain strictly. It was almost a police state. Certainly, Feanor shouldn't have drawn his sword on his half-brother, but did the Valar have to ban him for that? Why couldn't they have tried to understand him, to get to the root of the problem? They may have forgiven the Noldor for their rebellion eventually, but only after many years and much suffering, and then only at the intervention of Earendil and not out of pity. I think that in the First Age, Ulmo was the only one of the Valar who showed the pity that we should hope for in such supposedly enlightened beings.