Food For Thought: A Meta Feast by Grundy

Starters - A New Day: The Dawn of the Second Age

The bit at the end came as a surprise to me, but I stand by it.

While the Silmarillion includes the Akallabeth, and an account of the line of Elros is included in the Unfinished Tales, very little is written about the early years of the Second Age. Yet it is clear it was a time period that was full of not only possibility and promise, but great upheaval.

The end of the First Age had seen not only the defeat of Morgoth, but the near complete destruction of Beleriand, with only the Blue Mountains and parts of Ossiriand surviving the catastrophe. This left the elves of Beleriand starting over in Eriador unless they elected to accompany the Army of the West back to Aman. The Men who had formerly made Beleriand their home faced a similar choice – make a fresh start in Eriador or sail to the new land of Elenna, an island in the western sea raised by the Valar. Two of the great dwarven cities, Nogrod and Belegost had been destroyed, leaving what remained of the Firebeards and Broadbeams facing decisions of their own about how to proceed.

In either case, whether they elected to remain in Middle Earth or sail to a new land, the Men and Elves of Beleriand largely faced starting over from scratch. (There is no indication how much the dwarves may have been able to salvage/evacuate from their cities.)  Any cities or realms they had built for themselves had been swept away; it is likely that not only the places they had known but also many plants and animal species familiar to them were gone, destroyed along with their habitats.

While it was surely a relief to have the prospect of peace, some must have been as conscious of what had been lost as the possibilities of the new Age. What’s more, while there was cause for optimism, there was also a lingering thread of uncertainty. Sauron had not been taken back to Aman to face judgement, nor had all of Morgoth’s forces been destroyed – at least one balrog and several dragons also remained at large, threats that would persist all the way to the end of the Third Age.

But on the whole, the early Second Age was a dynamic time, in which people and ideas were on the move and possibility was in the air. Elros, the new King of Men, was preparing to lead his new people to the land the Valar had raised for them, there to build a new kingdom to be proud of. Gil-galad, the High King of the Noldor, established the new realm of Lindon in what remained of Ossiriand, now on the western shores of Middle-Earth, and began construction of the new port of Mithlond. Celeborn led the surviving Sindar concentrated in Harlindon. (It is unclear whether Oropher moved east at the outset of the Age, or took some time to decide he did not wish to remain in Lindon.) The dwarves too were looking for a new start, with many survivors of Nogrod and Belegost moving to Khazad-Dum, but some choosing to remain in the Blue Mountains to rebuild.

Thus far I have limited myself to what can be said with some certainty; however, one can also speculate that it is likely that with the new peace, both Elves and Men saw something of a ‘baby boom’ in addition to the shuffling of their existing populations. It is also not unreasonable to suspect that it would have been a fruitful time in terms of invention, song/literature, and science. With so many of the peoples of Middle Earth coming into contact with each other as they sought their places in the new Age, not to mention the presence of the Army of the West prior to their departure, the time would have been ripe for an unprecedented interchange of ideas and knowledge. (For the first time, it would have been possible to have Vanyar, Noldor, Lindar from both sides of the Sea, Nandor, and Avari along with various kindreds of Men and Dwarves all interacting without their focus needing to be on the war against Morgoth.)

What’s more, there is a possibility the defeat of Morgoth meant there was also another people to be considered: the orcs. Tolkien never seems to have settled the problem of the orc to his satisfaction, however the published Silmarillion states that this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves…And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. There are further passages that indicate that prior to battle, Morgoth filled them with lust of ruin and death. We should also bear in mind that Morgoth’s ability to distort and manipulate the Children was made clear in his treatment of the children of Hurin – he was able to show Hurin all that was done to and by Turin; what’s more, Glaurung, a lesser being than Morgoth, was shown to cause Turin to be blind and deaf to the captive Finduilas being dragged past him. If Glaurung was able to affect Turin so profoundly, it is safe to assume that Morgoth himself is capable of far more potent manipulation.

If we take all this to mean that orcs were not acting of their own free will in serving Morgoth, but were rather the result of a process designed to break elves, producing an enslaved population even more susceptible than usual to the domination or manipulation of their spirits by Morgoth and/or his lieutenants, then the defeat and removal of Morgoth potentially meant that those who had been orcs could for the first time determine the course of their own lives. As they were of elven stock originally, there is no reason to suppose they would not be capable of living peacefully without the distorting influence of Morgoth or Sauron acting on them. They would presumably also be as welcome to sail West as any other elves, and would have powerful motivation to do so, given that the potential for healing/rehabilitation in the Gardens of Lorien and the power of Estë.  So in addition to Men, Elves, and Dwarves, the new Age may have also been a time of great possibility for those who had suffered under Morgoth the longest and most intimately.