Unknown beings!?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Ulvenok

I don't think he fought at all, all his minions were destroyed or fled then they cut off his legs and used his crown as a collar and threw him out of the world. He was never defeated or killed just subdued and that most likely by the other valar. I find it hard to believe that elves or maias would be able to cut off his legs and turn his iron crown into a collar. It just seems unlikely...

I can believe that he didn't put up much of a fight by that point but someone did cut off his legs when he was caught in the depths of Angband. Morgoth actually was killed, although it was after being brought back to the West. According to the Professor in Morgoth's Ring he was "made captive in physical form, and in that form taken as a mere criminal to Aman and delivered to Namo Mandos as judge - and executioner. He was judged, and eventually taken out of the Blessed Realm and executed: that is killed like one of the Incarnates". Obviously Mandos, another Vala, did that. By that point the Valar did have the power to kill him, albeit only because he had so thoroughly confined himself to a single body as a consequence of his own evil. As I say, Morgoth is a bad example because of how drastically his personal power was reduced over the course of the First Age (from being the mightiest of the Ainur to being relatively weak in comparison to the Valar). In that way it doesn't seem to me that it would be beyond the capacity of Ëonwë, mightiest of the Maiar, to at least be the one who subdued him beneath Angband. He was the Captain of the Host of the West so presumably there was no one of higher spiritual statue (ie any Valar) present. By comparison the Professor writes in Morgoth's Ring that it took Manwë himself to subdue Melkor at the end of the Siege of Utumno.