The Book of Lost Tales Part I: A Readthrough

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by jallanite

They have as much relevance as Hel, Ereshkigal, and Elli. I wished to point out the differences of Despair and Death in a different mythology. So, point out where Tolkien actually calls Fui Nienna the “Goddess of Despair”. Fui Nienna sets many of her mortal prisoners free to dwell in Arvalin to the sound of their guitars to await the Great End. A smaller number she turns over to Nornorë, to dwell with the Valar until the Great End. So Fui Nienna is not only a Goddess of Despair. Blackening Fui Nienna by ignoring what Tolkien does say about her and exaggerating what he does not say is unconvincing.

of course she does, I corrected myself to say sinister instead of evil. I just wanted to point out that she is also the bringer/creator of despair.

Gandalf took on the earthly form of an old man. Why should it matter if his teacher had the fana of an old woman? Tolkien makes no comments, so far as I am aware, on what appearance Fui Nienna or Nienna took?

Sorry I wrote that bad. I mean here that Fui Nienna had "only cold feelings" for other beings and spent much of her time creating sorrow and despair, so she would have been not as good a teacher as Gandals as Silmarillion Nienna who is pure compassion. I did not mean to comment on Fui Nienna's appearance here, but on her character/modus operandi (both of which we only get the vaguest clues of in the BOLT, I'm actually surprised how much prominence Nienna gained later in comparison to Fui Nienna)

Yes Ishtar/Inanna corresponds to the Greek Aphrodite, the Latin Venus, and the Norse Freyja, more or less. Tolkien naturally removes the self-indulgent and petty and adulterous qualities from his Vána. The name itself may reflect theories that the Norse Vanir were etymologically related to the Latin goddess Venus. In short, I thank Inanna/Ishtar/Aphrodite/Venus/Freyja=Vána works better than other comparisons with real mythological figures that I can think of. Inanna is the cloest counterpart to Tolkien Vána in Sumerian mythology. Most of Tolkien’s Valar are based mainly on divine figures from real mythologies, but modified to his own tastes.

No, no I meant the theories that the cult of Aphrodite (not Venus who has a very different history) entered Greece through the Phoenicians and that she originally was Innana/Ishtar and that both goddesses had a very capricious character.
About Frejya I think we don't know enough to really reconstruct her character most of what we know about the Germanic deities comes after all from either Latin or already Christianized (and thus Roman influenced) sources.
I would place Vana closer to spring/youth goddesses like Flora and Idun, though Vana from the primitive mythology does have a certain childishness/self-indulgence which she displays during the hiding of Valinor before she redeemed herself by sacrificing her hair for the creation of the sun ship.

It is an interpretation not indicated by anything that Tolkien wrote.

Stories of Annis are not part of my collective well of stories. You posted our. See http://www.merciangathering.com/black_annis.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Annis for what is available on the web, mostly a folktale and disputed theories.

That's why I admitted the interpretation and repented.

The crone is part of folktales, and to me folktales are part of the collective well of stories, and since Tolkien adapted so much of Germanic mythology I made the mistake of translating too literal.

Fui Nienna and Vána were sisters, not opposites necessarily. Many mythologies have characters that are in part opposites, but not complete opposites. Do not use a term that you have to struggle so hard to defend,

They are in many ways opposites and you can be sisters and opposites.
Mistress of Life -Mistress of Death
Bringer of Joy - Bringer of Sorrow
Bringer of Spring -Bringer of Winter

For example, Tom Bombadil is closer to a complete opposite of Fui Nienna than Nienna. I cannot really imagine a complete opposite of any of Tolkien’s characters. You can quite easily demonstrate that Fui Nienna and Nienna are different, without such a troublesome idea as complete opposite. You say that two characters could be further apart from each other than Fui Nienna from the BOLT and Nienna from the Silmarillion. This puts you in the absurd position have having to prove that Treebeard is not so far apart from Fui Nienna as is Nienna, or that Saruman is somehow closer to Gandalf than Fui Nienna to Nienna.

Any similarity that is undeniable you try to avoid by calling superficial. You have defined a position with which I mostly agree, but wrapped it in an envelope which makes it impossible for me to accept your whole package.

Complete opposite was strong.
But you understand that I want to express that they have almost opposite roles in their relation to suffering? Inflicter and healer.
The idea of a being that has no compassion whatsoever and one that is compassion incarnate are very far from each other. In that aspect, which is however the whole being of Nienna in the Silmarillion, they are opposites, that's what I meant and phased it very unlucky.