11-12-2007, 11:18 AM | #1 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 306
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Men free from fate?
I was going to post this question on the philosophy thread, but they seem to have quite a lively discussion going on there now, so…
It is said that Men are free from fate, but all of the other inhabitants of Arda are not. How could this be possible? I don't see how beings (or for that matter, even inanimate objects) who are bound by fate could exist as such among people who are not. For example, say a particular Elf is fated to shake a certain Man's hand at a certain place and time. If things work out this way, then wasn't the Man just as fated as the Elf? On the other hand what if the Man decides not to be at this certain place at the certain time? How can the Elf then do what he is fated to do? Another example, this time not involving any direct contact between fated and unfated people: What if a Dwarf was fated to pick up a particular rock one day, but some uncooperative Man had come by a week earlier and thrown it in a lake? The Dwarf's and rock's supposed fates couldn't happen. Was Tolkien's world containing fated and unfated beings impossible or am I missing something? Last edited by CAB : 11-12-2007 at 11:19 AM. |
11-12-2007, 12:11 PM | #2 |
Advocatus Diaboli
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Reality
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I think he was referring to the future ages, when man would become the dominant force in Arda, with all other races either disappearing or heading to Valinor.
The first three ages seem to have been planned out, more or less, by Eru from day zero, with the later ages being controlled by mankind, for better or worse. I suppose you could think of them as a schooling period, and they graduated and went out on their own post-Third Age.
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11-13-2007, 10:25 PM | #3 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2004
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Could you provide a quote?
I would go along with "Men are bound by fate", but free from it... Is it exact Tolkien's words? Seems everything in his (and correspondingly in ours) world have been predestinated by the " Primal Chorus" up to the time when the subsequent choir will sing up "a Great Predestination Plan" for another millenias to come. But then again Tolkien was very "contrasistent", as it has been put by Carpenter, especially in his late years... In my understanding the fate of the world and of the Eruhini has been weaven by Ainur into the music in two different ways, thanks to Melkor's "discord". Thus it was not one predestined way, but two.So there was a Choice created by Melkor. In another words the Men are "free from fate" because they have options to pick up.
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11-14-2007, 06:16 PM | #4 | ||
Elven Warrior
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Here are two quotes sir. Both come from "Of the Beginning of Days" in the Silmarillion
Quote:
Quote:
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11-14-2007, 09:02 PM | #5 |
AngAdan
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Boerne, Texas
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Man's freedom to break the fate of the music of the Ainur was likley a prime reason for Eru creating them.
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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Older, richer, and wiser than you "Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor, but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, ... And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me," |
11-15-2007, 12:45 AM | #6 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Quote:
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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11-15-2007, 10:07 AM | #7 |
AngAdan
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Boerne, Texas
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I believe the key contribution of Beren in thw War of the Jewels was an example of a human breaking the fate of the music of the Ainur. Indeed the name given the story Lay of Lethian, Release from Bondage, is a recognition of this.
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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Older, richer, and wiser than you "Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor, but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, ... And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me," |
03-26-2008, 01:13 PM | #8 |
The Ñoldóran
Join Date: Mar 2008
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CAB, have you read Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth in HoME X?
There is a long discussion there of the fate of men versus the fate of elves, and the place of both in Arda Remade...
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04-07-2008, 05:26 PM | #9 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 306
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I have several years ago. It has been quite a while since I looked at any of the HoME books. I don't think it addresses the umm…"practical" problems I was trying to question in this thread, but I could be wrong. I will have to go by the library and read this one again.
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05-27-2008, 09:48 PM | #10 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 455
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Assuming quantum mechanics held in ME as it does in our Universe I cannot ascribe determinism even to the Elves. At best, it seems to me that the range of motion, so to speak, of the Elves was relatively more circumscribed than that of men in some aspects just as a person with only a bicycle cannot travel where a person with a submarine may venture yet, within their respective fields of travel, each is equally subject to stochastic processes.
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