Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Well, the Elves fell- or rather, many individual Elves fell. The Noldorin Exiles as a group fell. But that's not the same thing as the Fall of the entire race of Man, predisposed to evil from birth.
|
Hm... I would say the correct formulation would be weak towards evil from start. The fea of Men comes ultimately from Eru, which is good; their essence is good; their predisposition and destiny is from start towards Eru, they are an integral and positive part of his plan for creation. However, they come in contact with something that, by design, they have little defenses against, which is the marring of Arda by Melkor. I am not very impressed by this, since Tolkien said in Myths Transformed that every finite being has an inherent weakness, one way or the other - and that was in direct reference to Manwe no less. If we look at the scale of things, the valar (and elves to a lesser extent) simply have a much higher magnitude of fea, compared to Men, and so their ability to fight inherent corruption is much greater.