Arda

The halls of Iluvatar, in which the music of the Ainur takes place, is an entirely spiritual realm.

It is only after the music that the physical world of Arda comes into being.

While it is true that much of music comes out in a physical way in Middle-earth, it is equally true that the stark examples we see of the power of music tend to go to a much deeper level than a mere physical reaction.

Tom Bombadil threatens to sing the roots off of Old Man Willow if he doesn't cooperate.

These are all actions that cannot be explained on a merely physical level.

We might even go so far as to call these examples miraculous.

They defy normal explanation, even in the fantastical world of Arda.

I would assert that, in these examples and others like them, Tolkien lets music play the role of manifesting spiritual realities.

I'm pretty sure.

I thought we needed to send to Aya and Arda in order to reach a microphone.

I didn't know they were.

I guess there must be microphones in heaven.

Yes.

I think that that's correct.

That centers the emergence of the elves as like the inheritors of the creation of the earth, of Arda.

Yes, I think that that...

But yeah, I'm sure you know more about this than just about anybody.

Give us the story of how we got from, obviously it's a lot to ask, but how we got from the music that created Arda to this guy whose existence is purely in the form of an eye in a tower.

So in the beginning, there was Eru, the one, who in Arda is called Iluvatar, which is the first line of-

Of course I do.

I'm an obscure Lord of the Rings facts guy.

To borrow from the language of the Shire, these are the mathoms of Middle-earth's music.

I shall explore them in roughly chronological order, starting with the earliest history of Arda.

Though some observations may seem disconnected and rather random at first, I believe that together they further demonstrate the grand symphony of music's importance in Arda.

Of the beginning of days and the Two Trees.

It's unclear just how much time elapses from the creation of Arda with Ainulindalë to the coming of the Elves.

It is perhaps ages upon ages, millions of our own years.

It may be best simply to call it a long but indeterminate amount of time.

This is a kindling by the fire of stars, for Varda is known as the Star-kindler.

And so when you asked is Manel or Manel, a word that means air, I immediately was like, Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense because Manel door is an Eagle who is named in the game.

And, I looked it up, and sure enough, the root Menel, both in Quenya and Sindarin, does mean air or the area above Arda.

And so that's why you have Meneltarma and Meneldor.

And the Meneldor that you were talking about was obviously this Numenorean.

Correct.

So when did he start, like when they were weaving the songs that would ultimately lead to the formation of Arda, what really caused him to really want to get so rebellious at that point? I think that's probably like the first part of the question.

Man, what a first question, most abstract one you could probably comment on all this.

So Melkor represents a lot of things.

If that, he's not really physically there.

But he becomes obsessed with Manwe, and that kind of strings him along into what he does.

And, you know, all he wants to do is dominate Arda going forward.

But it all begins with the disturbance of his music.

Much bigger.

He dispersed his vast native essence, his malice, and his absolute will to conquer directly into the physical matter of Arda into Middle-earth itself.

The revelation that the entire physical world of Middle-earth is effectively Morgoth's ring.

it radically shifts your understanding of every conflict.

You cannot.

Not without destroying the entire world.

The elves realized that Arda healed could only happen at the end of time, when the physical world is completely unmade and remade perfect.

Every time Frodo resisted the One Ring, he wasn't just fighting Sauron, he was physically fighting against the dispersed, corrupted atomic makeup of the very dirt he was standing on.