Alicornutopia

"I promise I won't do anything that might get other people hurt. Ever."

Does that count as an oath? Because if so, I can't see any possible way this is going to backfire horribly!

I don’t think so. This was explained to Loki by saying that a child shouting “I won’t!” over and over would never be an oath, but “By the Vala and Eru I swear I won’t!” would. I think a relatively simple promise like this does not count as an oath?

Note I have not seen the context of the thread yet, and the wording of my example oath is definitely not remembered correctly.

Not everything you promise is binding in the relevant sense, no.

I have just read the full text of the Doom of the Noldor (most sources I could find only gave the first paragraph).

One part in particular jumped out at me:

Tolkein wrote:There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.

I am not familiar enough with older dialects of English to know whether this means “all whom ye have slain will entreat for you, yet ye shall find little pity anyway” or “even if all whom ye have slain will entreat for you, ye shall find little pity”. Either way, that seems more extreme than much of the rest. If you want to give a disproportionate penalty for murder, that’s bad, but mostly understandable. If all of the victims think it is too far, you should probably back down.

Also, on an unrelated topic: at one point, somebody said that Melkor was sworn to tell the truth. Is this the same kind of oath that the Elves have? Do the valar not have free will?

DanielH wrote:I have just read the full text of the Doom of the Noldor (most sources I could find only gave the first paragraph).

One part in particular jumped out at me:

Tolkein wrote:There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.

I am not familiar enough with older dialects of English to know whether this means “all whom ye have slain will entreat for you, yet ye shall find little pity anyway” or “even if all whom ye have slain will entreat for you, ye shall find little pity”. Either way, that seems more extreme than much of the rest. If you want to give a disproportionate penalty for murder, that’s bad, but mostly understandable. If all of the victims think it is too far, you should probably back down.

Much more likely the second thing; agreed.

Melkor cheated Ungoliant (bribed her for help destroying the Trees, withheld part of the agreed payment), and Morgoth captured Maedhros by offering a fake peace treaty. Both of those happened after the mandatory truth-telling. So either it was a different kind of oath or it had a time limit or something.

Well, or it was a leaky oath and he found a way to do those things without technically lying in the sense captured in his oath. He seems to be very good at being misleading with "true" statements.

I don't think we have verbatim quotes from the Maedhros incident, but the Ungoliant one is nice and direct.

"Do as I bid; and if thou hunger still went all is done, then I will give thee whatsoever thy lust may demand. Yea with both hands."
Which sounds like a figure of speech, but then when he's feeding her gems stolen from the Noldor she calls him out on the fact that he's literally only using one. (The other hand had Silmarils in it.)

DanielH, I think your second interpretation of the quote is the correct one; if it was "shall entreat" rather than "should entreat" I'd assume the first one.

Re Melkor and any oath to not lie, this is certainly not Silmarillion canon: it explicitly and repeatedly says he lied, e.g. to the Noldor after his release from captivity, including about the nature of Men, when in fact "Little he knew yet concerning Men, for engrossed with his own thought in the Music he had paid small heed to the Third Theme of Ilúvatar," i.e the part of Eru's creation involving creatures with free will. Can you link to some of the times this was said? I also remember it but don't recall the details.