Alicornutopia

PlainDealingVillain wrote:

No, I mean, no one got accidentally married by Cuivienen, even though it does just require a certain kind of intent and then ~do you think anyone's told me~, because they did not believe that this could get you married.

OK, this is maybe half clear from context but the sentence structure is confusing, what is up with this euphemism?

I wasn’t able to figure out from that what it meant either, but from other contexts it became clear that the bolded part means “insert verb here”, as Kappa indicates. So it means

No, I mean, no one got accidentally married by Cuivienen, even though it does just require a certain kind of intent and then [have sex], because they did not believe that this could get you married.

combined with the standard complaint from pre-adults about adults not telling you things.

https://vast-journey-9935.herokuapp.com ... eply-26487

(Death by jump drive malfunction is probably what everyone in Miles's fleet currently thinks happened to him. It's an unsettling fate. You start a jump and never finish it, and the best guess anyone has about what happens to you is that you are shredded to a fine subatomic mist and spread out across a vast region of interstellar space.)

Now imagining all the poor unsuspecting worlds that are having to deal with the other surprise guests who've ever been done away with by jump drive sabotage.

snrk <333

At one point there was a Miles wondering about using a stun bolt followed by a wormhole jump to Hell to deal with rogue daeva. I’m worried about the poor world that needs to deal with that.

Downside is kinda like this.

Catching up on Leave of Absence. It occurs to me to wonder if this Sarpalaurë scouting could be a false flag attack by the Enemy.

Not having caught up with anything from today, that sounds plausible.

Melkor wrote:This planet was the personal project of a power called Eru. He's told his people that he is the creator of all the universe. I think the Elves may believe it. The Valar know better, but as lies go, it advantages them. Eru had a plan for exactly how the world would play out. I have different aesthetic sensibilities than he, and altered it. To my surprise he told me that my alterations were all to the good, and were in fact themselves part of his plan. He remains convinced that I am an agent of his will for this world; I am unsure of that myself, but I have space to create new and astonishing peoples, to build great and enduring things.

This sounds like the kind of thing that could all be Technically True. Could you clarify to what extent any of this is true and to what extent it is misleading?

Like most things, the universe began not with a Big Bang or a burger bar but a battle of the bands.

The Valar (and other angel analogues) assisted in creation; they sang about things they liked and Eru announced that surprise, it's real now. They also put a lot of work into arranging the new existence into a cohesive world, so they'd count as creator gods by normal rules. To the extent there is a singular The Creator, it's Eru, from another point of view the Valar were there and know better. The Elves know all this, though, so I'm not sure what part of it could be called a lie.
Melkor's first sentence is misleading only in the implication that Eru is "a power" like the Valar. He's not. They're angels, he's God.

Eru does think Melkor is contributing. Back when they rocked so hard it created the universe, Melkor tried being louder and more exciting than the rest and generally making his part the most important. (Keep in mind that the music is a metaphor for all of time and space, and that the map and territory are the same thing here, so this is him trying to take over the world.) Some of the musicians stop, others join Melkor's music, and it combines into this terrible cacophony. Eru is conducting, and starts up another theme that sounds pretty okay. Repeat a couple times. The end result is, well, the set of things that be. Something about sorrow leading to beauty, but I haven't got the book in front of me. Anyway all this to say, that's the canonical answer to the problem of evil in the legendarium. It results in a cooler-sounding history.

Also, Melkor's line about creating new peoples is a bit politically charged. Only Eru can create and everyone else can only change, but I think Melkor went over that in the thread. It's also technically true either way; even though the Valar are right it isn't a lack of space that stops him.

The parts I was wondering about were 1) a misreading of the second sentence, where the actual version makes a lot more sense; and 2) did Eru actually say that Melkor’s part was indeed for the good and part of the plan? Based on your description it sounds more like Eru tried to stop Melkor from doing what he did, and failing that just tried to make the best of it.

Yep, he did, at least if you trust the Ainulindalë (which, by the way, was composed by our friend Rúmil):

The Silmarillion, Ainulindalë wrote:Then Ilúvatar [=Eru] spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

EDIT: There's obviously room for a little bit of interpretation there: Melkor can't alter the music [=creation] against Eru's will, and the ultimate source of Melkor's theme is Eru, but you could interpret that as "Eru created Melkor, so everything Melkor does has Eru as its ultimate source, and Melkor did indeed alter the music, which was contrary to Eru's original plan but allowed by him anyway." Depends on whether or not you think the Ainur have free will, I suppose, which is a whole fraught topic that I don't have the Tolkien-knowledge to comment on.