Does Eru care?

[TheLostPilgrim]

Tolkien was truly a genius. It's actually sad, in a way, that he is most known for The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Those works, while beautiful, are shallow compared to The Silmarillion and his other writings. They pigeonhole him as simply a writer of fantasy works, which aren't taken seriously by some, or are dismissed as childish whimsy simply because they are fantasy works. He has an amazing, inspiring, beautiful cosmology and philosophy within those lesser known works, something truly inspired and beautiul. He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

If Tolkien had lived and had written The Silmarillion and his other works in ancient times, we'd probably consider them holy scripture today. That's how beautiful it is, and how much of a brilliant, insightful, gifted man he was.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

Those works, while beautiful, are shallow compared to The Silmarillion and his other writings. … He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

Tolkien disagreed with you.

See Morgoth’s Ring (HoME X), page 370 (emphasis mine):

This descends from the oldest forms of the mythology – when it was intended to be no more than another primitive mythology, though more coherent and less ‘savage’. It was consequently a ‘Flat Earth′ cosmogony (much easier to manage anyway): the Matter of Númenor had not been devised.

It is now clear to me that in any case the Mythology must actually be a ‘Mannish’ affair. (Men are really only interested in Men and in Men’s ideas and visions.) The High Eldar living and being tutored by the demiurgic beings must have known, the ‘truth’ (according to their measure of understanding). What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized and centred upon actors, such as Fëanor) handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back – from the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand – blended and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.

Tolkien’s story of Elvish kings and nobles is not supposed to be true even within his imaginary world. Fëanor presumably really existed in this imaginary world, but much that is told of him in these Manish tales were deeds of other folk that were later “personalized and centered” on Fëanor.

Tolkien certainly knew that in reality Fëanor was invented by him.

Tolkien tried to rework his Silmarillion material to fit with scientific findings, which Tolkien himself really believed. However, in trying this, he found that he was destroying most of the basis of the Silmarillion story. So he ended up accepting it as yet another false Mannish mythology. Occasionally in his later writing Tolkien refers to what must have supposedly really happened.

If Tolkien had lived and had written The Silmarillion and his other works in ancient times, we'd probably consider them holy scripture today. That's how beautiful it is, and how much of a brilliant, insightful, gifted man he was.

Who are this we you mention? Do you mean the exclusive we, which means yourself personally and some others but not everyone you are posting to. Or do you mean the inclusive we which means yourself and everyone you are posting to? European languages avoid making it easy to make such an obvious distinction in simple speech. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity .

I personally resent being told by anyone what I would believe, especially when it is something I very much do I not believe. Speak for yourself only and for others who you have reason to believe agree with you, and speak clearly.

As to people who believe in religions, there are thousands of differing contradictory religious beliefs in the world. It is possible that somewhere there are some people who believe in Manwë and Varda as non-fictional entities, just as occasionally one discovers that some people believe that Sherlock Holmes is real. I don’t find either belief at all uplifting. I very much doubt that Tolkien would.

Tolkien often makes it clear that he knew quite well that he was inventing, though at times he hoped that his inventions would prove pleasing to God. Tolkien certainly believed his fictional creations were in some way true, in the same way that almost every writer believes that his or her fictional creations are true in some way when they are writing them.

But the same writers also know that their creations are fictional.
Tolkien himself when writing about his fiction often appears to take it less seriously than some obsessive fans.

Tolkien was no different from most writers. Sometimes he was very into playing the game and sometimes he was not. But he knew at some level that it was a game.

From an interview with Henry Resnik, published in Niekas 18, page 38 (http://efanzines.com/Niekas/Niekas-18.pdf ):

T:  Yes I do. I shouldn't call it a fad; I wouldn't call it underground. I'd call it a game.
R: A game?
T:  Yes, because there is a whole lot of stuff that amuses people -- alphabets. history, etc.
R: Then I take it you approve of the game?
T:  I don't mind it, as long as it doesn't become obsessive. It doesn't obsess me.
R: Have you noticed any similar widespread game-playing in England?
T:  No, I don't think things catch on like that here quite so much.
R: I wonder if you have any suggestions about why it has caught on so widely in America; could it be anything other than the paperback edition, which came along logically?
T:  Why I've even had letters from children who have saved up, you know, who have gone to some work to get the hardback edition. I think it is, if you really want to know my opinion, a partly reactionary influence. I think it's part of the fun after so much more dreary stuff, isn't it?
R: What sort of dreary stuff are you referring to?
T:  I should say the Lord of the Flies, wouldn't you?
R: Many people I've spoken with here told me they enjoy the sheer fun of being in Middle-Earth.
T:  It's meant to please; it doesn't horrify.

Christopher Tolkien, who should know, writes in The Children of Húrin, page 7:

It is undeniable that there are a great many readers of The Lord of the Rings (as previously published in varying forms in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth) are altogether unknown, unless by their repute as strange and inaccessible in mode and manner.

It was Christopher Tolkien’s hope that by publishing The Children of Húrin in full for the first time, with little commentary, he might present some of this “inaccessible” material more accessibly.

Other fantasy writers have created what one might call universes in more than one book before Tolkien: William Morris, George MacDonald, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, Mervyn Peake, E. E. Eddison, and probably others.

I do not think it does the works of Tolkien or any of these writers any favours to compare them with numerous books that disagree with one another: the Qurʼan, the Book of Mormon, the Mahabharata, the Gathas of Zarathusta, any of the Christian Bibles, Jewish scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, the Norse Eddas and so on.

[Morthoron]

Who peed on your lembas, Jallanite? Here you have a poster, TheLostPilgrim, who I will assume is young (if that is not the case, please excuse me), and who has just read The Silmarillion for the first time within the last year (and I believe I remember Pilgrim saying so). The poster is excited, as excited as I was when I first read The Silmarillion, a far different book than The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. When Pilgrim said:

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

Those works, while beautiful, are shallow compared to The Silmarillion and his other writings. … He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

You, Jallanite, tried to find a Tolkien quote to disprove a noble sentiment of a reader in the first blush of love for an author and his great work. What a way to quash enthusiasm (and conversation for that matter)! But Tolkien certainly did not disagree with the poster's sentiment, and the quote you provided has literally nothing to do with what the poster was saying. In a long letter circa late 1951 (Letter 131, to Milton Waldman of the Collins Publishing House). Tolkien stated:

They [the stories of The Sil] arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labor (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics): yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.

This, to me, sounds like someone believing, on some level, what was written. The greatest danger in quoting Tolkien is finding how often he disagreed with himself.

For instance, in the same letter to Waldman, Tolkien makes no reference to the cosmological mythos as a "mannish affair"; on the contrary, he states the early myths are literally devoid of mannish thought and intention:

As the high Legends of the beginning are supposed to look at things through Elvish minds, so the middle tale of the Hobbit takes a virtually human point of view - and the last tale blends them.

and later in the same letter:

As I say, the legendary Silmarillion is peculiar, and differs from all similar things that I know in not being anthropocentric. Its centre of view and interest is not Men but 'Elves'. Men came inevitably: after all the author is a man, and if he has an audience they will be Men and Men must come into our tales, and not merely transfigured or partially represented as Elves, Dwarfs [sic for Tolkien], Hobbits, etc. But they remain peripheral - late comers, and however growingly important, not principals.

This way of thinking is at odds with the quote from Morgoth's Ring, and, as is often the case, Tolkien seems to rebut his own beliefs. Whether the belief quoted in Morgoth's Ring is the final say, who knows? Tolkien changed opinions on his cosmos like other men change underwear. But the first section of The Silmarillion is certainly written in an Eldarcentric and not anthropocentric tone and point of view, which is at odds with a retelling with the usual conceits, flaws and historiographical integration of later mannish political and sociological creeds and concerns.

When TheLostPilgrim said:

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

If Tolkien had lived and had written The Silmarillion and his other works in ancient times, we'd probably consider them holy scripture today. That's how beautiful it is, and how much of a brilliant, insightful, gifted man he was.

You again decided to attack, presumably in regards to the use of the "Royal We" . When Pilgrim refers to "we" he is speaking of mankind, a greater part of which seeks the supernatural as a means to systematize and make sense out of the world.

Taken in context with that Pilgrim actually said, if Tolkien's work was written during the time of the writing of the Mosaic Laws in the Babylonian exilic period, why wouldn't his cosmology be taken as scripture now? It certainly not as boring as the Bible or the Quran. The breathtaking description of Creation in the Ainulindalë is more stirring than Yahweh plopping down cows on the Fifth Day.

The stories in The Silmarillion are far-fetched, certainly, but then so is most scripture from the Bible, Quran or the Vedas. In its mode of storytelling, The Silmarillion is a unique synthesis of biblical, Icelandic, Norse and Finnish legends with a bit of the Greek Pantheon sprinkled on top, and I don't see Snorri Sturluson or the writer of Beowulf being at odds with what was presented. And as far as a synthesis, it is less dependent on source material than the huge amount Mohammed lifted from the Torah when he cobbled together the Quran (amounting to plagiarism in the current litigious climate).

When you made the comment (with the finality of a patriarch):

Originally Posted by jallanite

I do not think it does the works of Tolkien or any of these writers any favours to compare them with numerous books that disagree with one another: the Qurʼan, the Book of Mormon, the Mahabharata, the Gathas of Zarathusta, any of the Christian Bibles, Jewish scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, the Norse Eddas and so on.

Who are you to demand such prohibitions? One fairy tale is as good as the next, or better depending on the writer. Posters here can discuss what they damn well please. A collegiate comparative religion course is replete with varying viewpoints. To make a comparative analysis of Tolkien's creation as opposed to the biblical version is a decent way to waste time posting on a forum such as this.

But I do love Tolkien's ironic quote:

I don't mind it, as long as it doesn't become obsessive. It doesn't obsess me.

If Tolkien were honest with himself, he would have to admit he was perhaps the most obsessive writer that ever lived. And he expects his fans to be different?

So, TheLostPilgrim, revel in The Silmarillion. Enjoy the reading. Just remember, a wet blanket will never keep you warm.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

He has an amazing, inspiring, beautiful cosmology and philosophy within those lesser known works, something truly inspired and beautiul. He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

.

The big question is what you mean by believe. For myself, what I love about Tolkien and possibly why I am not much interested in other fantasy, is the detail and plausibility about it, but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England). Also that he was throughout his life a devoted and devout Catholic and that he commented that some of his fans were involved in his works in a way that he wasn't. I think he loved his world but he knew it was a creation - or subcreation at a fundamental level. However I suppose there could be an argument for "a Velveteen Rabbit" style of reality about it (the kind of reality existing in the relationship between a child and a beloved toy). I will try to post more but am reliant again on library computers and my time for now is up!.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

The big question is what you mean by believe. For myself, what I love about Tolkien and possibly why I am not much interested in other fantasy, is the detail and plausibility about it, but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England). Also that he was throughout his life a devoted and devout Catholic and that he commented that some of his fans were involved in his works in a way that he wasn't. I think he loved his world but he knew it was a creation - or subcreation at a fundamental level.

Tolkien's motives in creating the mythos were discussed by him in Letters # 211.

May I say that all this is 'mythical', and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world.

So Tolkien "believed" in the world he had made only in the sense that it was a reflection of his own thoughts and beliefs. The fact that many of my own ideas seem to fall in line with his is an important factor personally in my affinity for his work.

[Galin]

Whether the belief quoted in Morgoth's Ring is the final say, who knows? Tolkien changed opinions on his cosmos like other men change underwear. But the first section of The Silmarillion is certainly written in an Eldarcentric and not anthropocentric tone and point of view, which is at odds with a retelling with the usual conceits, flaws and historiographical integration of later mannish political and sociological creeds and concerns.

As far as this much is concerned, I do believe Tolkien's final say -- granting that he never published his Silmarillion of course, but let's say 'final say' as in a fair number of late comments from different sources -- was that the Silmarilion was to be imagined as a largely Mannish affair, including a textual migration through Numenor.

In theory. I'm not sure Tolkien necessarily took up all the relevant texts and went through them line by line with this recasting in mind, but I do think such a recasting was his general answer to the problem that he believed existed. In other words, I think he tried a new Silmarillion, illustrated in part in Myths Transformed, but abandoned this in general, realizing that he could retain much of what he had already written if he 'simply' tinkered with the transmission and authorship of the tales rather, despite the older Elfwine model.

I know that somewhere I have listed a fair number (not necessarily all) of the relevant citations that speak to a largely mannish Silmarillion, but who knows where I posted them if I don't. Some of them appear in this thread anyway.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=4390

Granted, as you say, it's possible that Tolkien might have come around again. He had published that Bilbo had produced his Translations from the Elvish, but I think it's easy enough to imagine that the Elvish language is meant; and JRRT (later) published a reference to the 'Numenorean factor' in connection with The Hoard from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (noting: '... No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Turin and Mim the Dwarf.').

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

… but it is necessary to remember that Tolkien was deliberately creating a mythology (for England).

In his letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien writes:

But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story, – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country.

That is not the same thing as “a mythology (for England)”. The phrase “a mythology for England” is repeated again and again by commentators on Tolkien as though it were an expression used by him, but it is never used by Tolkien. It is an invention by commentators, and distorts what Tolkien did say.

Tolkien is obviously referring here to his Book of Lost Tales in which the Lonely Isle was identified with Britain, but Tolkien soon rejected that identification. Quite rightly so. That Britain was the Lonely Isle drawn back to Middle-earth during the days of the Saxon Hengest is historically absurd, as though Roman Britain never existed, or pre-Roman Britain mentioned in Classical Greek texts. Tolkien quite rightly thought better of it. And nowhere in The Book of Lost Tales are the events outside of the Lonely Island made to take place in England.

A “mythology for England” surely should take place mostly in England. But the Eriol material was soon abandoned and the Ælfwine material that was to replace it was mostly never written. The stories of Beren, Túrin, Tuor, and Eärendil were never placed in England, save vaguely where in a few mentions Britain (part of which later became England) is identified as an island among the remains of sunken Beleriand.

The Hobbit takes place in previously unidentified territory. There is not sufficient detail given therein to identify the Hobbit homeland with England. Only in The Lord of the Rings is The Shire supposedly approximately in the area of later England, in days before the English Channel came to be. There indeed the Shire and Buckland and Bree are very English indeed, Edwardian English. But not the rest of Tolkien’s world.

In letter 294 Tolkien complains about the use of the word Nordic in connection to his writing but this rant would almost do as well for the word English:

Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to ‘Middle-earth’. This is an old word, not invented by me, as reference to a dictionary such as the Shorter Oxford will show. It meant the habitable lands of our world, set amid the surrounding Ocean. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of ‘Middle-earth’, equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely ‘Nordic’ area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.

Auden has asserted that for me ‘the North is a sacred direction’. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man’s home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not ‘sacred’, nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil. The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a ‘Nordic’.

In Tolkien’s finished conception the Shire is described by him as “more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of the Diamond Jubilee″. And the language of the Rohirrim is Old English. Esgaroth and Dale are Norse. The rest is more-or-less general medieval European. Neither The Silmarillion as published nor The Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings as a whole is “a mythology for England”.

[Mithalwen]

My main point which you have perhaps chosen to ignoree is that Tolkien knew that his world was created. I don't agree with your assertion that a mythology for Ngland must be set there. We are a nation of Empire builders and Tolkien was colonial born even if at heart a Warwickshre lad. Perhaps because I have roots several centuries deep in Warwickshire soil it's Englishness seems self evident.

[Galin]

It's interesting that, as late as the Etymologies ('late' when compared to The Book of Lost Tales anyway)

'Q Ingolonde Land of the Gnomes (Beleriand, but before applied to parts of Valinor). N Angolonn or Geleidhien.

And in the Silmarillion of the mid to later 1930s, the Land of Leithian survives the breaking of Beleriand. The character of Elfwine lived even longer (externally), granted he became a figure of transmission more than an active player, but he was an Englishman and was supposed to render all these legends into Old English, and (I would argue) would still make connections between the Valar and the Norse gods.

Anyway, in 1956 Tolkien wrote a draft letter, which included:

'Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own: it is a wonderful thing to be told that I have succeeded, at least with those who have still the undarkened heart and mind.'

'It has been a considerable labour, beginning really as soon as I was able to begin anything, but effectively beginning when I was an undergraduate and began to explore my own linguistic aesthetic in language composition. It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. (...)'

So while 'a mythology for England' has turned out to be a misquote, the Waldman letter isn't the only source behind the general notion.

I happen to like the Eriol story myself, the question of the Romans aside. It seems a bold move to play England as not yet in the geographical position of England; but as noted Tolkien certainly abandoned this.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

My main point which you have perhaps chosen to ignoree is that Tolkien knew that his world was created.

I ignored your main point because I agree with it totally and completely. I ought to have mentioned this agreement.

I picked up only on a statement commonly made by Tolkien commentators as though it were by Tolkien when it is not actually by Tolkien. I find that annoying, but understandable, when this statement is wrongly attributed to Tolkien so often, because people blindly accept what they are told. I was disappointed as I would have thought you would have known better. All the more reason to indicate a slovenly error when someone as generally as intelligent as you is making it.

Some claim that it doesn’t matter that Tolkien didn’t say it, because he certainly would have agreed with it. I disagree. Truth matters. And I don’t believe that he would have agreed with it.

Here is an entire thread on the matter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/17214 .

I don't agree with your assertion that a mythology for Ngland must be set there.

I did not quite say that a mythology for England must be set there. I suggested:

A “mythology for England” surely should take place mostly in England.

Tolkien’s tales of the first three ages of Middle-earth are, in their finished versions, set in a fictional era before England (or Britain) even existed. Tolkien’s early idea was to connect his legendarium with historic England through the identification of the Lonely Isle with Britain (including England) and by identifying his Eriol with the father of Hengest, Horsa, and Heorrenda (a younger brother of Hengest and Horsa invented by Tolkien).

Tolkien rejected those ideas.

Instead Tolkien connected his legendarium analogically with England in The Lord of the Rings by making the Shire parallel to the English countryside of his youth and giving to the Rohirrim the Old English language and Germanic heroic ideals also found in Old English writings.

What most people would call the mythology of Tolkien’s legendarium (Manwë, Varda, Ulmo and all that) is not particularly English. The Elvish history is not especially English and Tolkien was later quite insistent that his Elves were his own invention, not owing much to the Elves of folklore. The history of Númenor is largely the Platonic story of Atlantis. Arnor and Gondor is largely a calc of the western and eastern Roman empires. Aragorn is more Dietrich von Bern than identical to any English figure. I think he also owes something to the fictional Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye) of the American author James Fenimore Cooper.

We are a nation of Empire builders and Tolkien was colonial born even if at heart a Warwickshre lad. Perhaps because I have roots several centuries deep in Warwickshire soil it's Englishness seems self evident.

Empire builders? Colonial? Tolkien in letter 53:

For I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!)), and if I was of military age, I should, I fancy, be grousing away in a fighting service, and willing to go on to the bitter end – always hoping that things may turn out better for England than they look like doing.

From letter 77:

I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians. Delenda est Carthago. We hear rather a lot of that nowadays. I was actually taught at school that that was a fine saying; and I ‘reacted’ (as they say, in this case with less than the usual misapplication) at once.

From letter 100:

Though in this case, as I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust, I am afraid I am not even supported by a glimmer of patriotism in this remaining war.

Tolkien clearly and carefully distinguished his personal feelings for England from his personal feelings for Imperial Britain.

The Englishness of the Shire is of course evident to me. It is surely evident to almost all readers. You don’t need to be born in Warwickshire to feel that. Indeed I know at least one person who was not able to read The Lord of the Rings because the early chapters were too English for her.

If you wish to disagree with me, disagree with what I am saying, not with opinions I don’t hold. I am unaware that I have posted anything that would suggest ignorance of the analogical Englishness of the Shire. You rightly blamed me for ignoring most of what you were saying. But you are doing the same, inventing the ignorance that you impute to me.

Tolkien did not say he had ever wished to create a mythology for England. Disagree? Then point out where he said it. He said something like it in the Waldman letter. But he did not say it, and I believe he did not intend to create a fictional mythology that would be believed by Englishmen in place of what he saw as the true religion. Nor did he intend a poetic mythology to be referred to by poets as classical mythology was by custom.

Originally Posted by Galin

I happen to like the Eriol story myself, the question of the Romans aside. It seems a bold move to play England as not yet in the geographical position of England; but as noted Tolkien certainly abandoned this.

Yes, it was a bold move, but one that seems very nationalistic and even racist.

[Galin]

Yes, it was a bold move, but one that seems very nationalistic and even racist.

One reason I like the Eriol tale is because it lends a 'faery' presence to specific places like Warwick -- and more generally (same sense of an ancient faery presence) in that we have an Elvish Isle before it actually becomes 'Britain' in a geographical sense.

I also like the 'impossibility' of the idea of dragging the entire Isle to a new geographical position, including how Ireland became separated -- which goes well enough in hand, I guess, with my liking of Tolkien's 'less scientific' cosmology.

There are other things I find charming or interesting in the Eriol tale, things that seem to have eventually dropped out or fallen away, like the drinking of limpe for example, or the Path of Dreams.

That much noted, I'm not interested in any of the 'was Tolkien a racist?' threads out there, including any discussion of what seems racist to someone.

[Lotrelf]

I was thinking the same. When I read: "The Ainur are the offspring of Eru's thought." I felt does that make Eru a flawed "character"? He is the creator of Arda. Melkor being the the offspring of his thoughts, means He also belonged to Eru. Or Eru created him purposefully, perhaps. The purpose of creation of The Dark Lord meant, that to exist good, there should be evil. Otherwise all the words we use to express goodness will have no meaning.
Eru cared for Arda, and so did Valar. They did not have to directly come and do the favor to the Children of Iluvatar.