Middle-earth Connections: Lore of the Rings

over Sea. The invitation which previously had been withdrawn to include only the Eldar (the original Elves who had actually accepted the summons the first time) was now extended to ALL Elves. Many of the surviving Noldor and Sindar of Beleriand responded and left Middle-earth. But the remaining Noldor and Sindar joined the Nandor and Avari in Middle-earth. They "lingered". Tolkien notes that "in the first [Second Age theme] we see a sort of second fall or at least 'error' of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of 'The West', and yet to remain on ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading', the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming -- even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts...." (Ibid.) Elsewhere Tolkien reiterated this situation by saying "the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasuance, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' -- and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret...." (Letters, No. 154) Sauron had also lingered in Middle-earth. Having seen the complete overthrow of Morgoth, he actually repented (according to Tolkien). Seeing that the powers of Light had indeed overcome the power of Darkness, he realized that maybe his earlier choices were not the right ones for him. But when Eonwë summoned him to Valinor to be judged by the Valar, Sauron refused, and he fled away to hide himself in exile.

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