this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Huh, you do get what I mean. Have you ever imbibed any illicit substances, or just good narratives? (I'm hoping the answer is "both", but I don't judge.)
That's a very good point.
I don't think "weaker". I just think limited until the body burns up and their full might is revealed, sort of. Like if they had to fight another maia, that is. Like a huge bodybuilder in a weird costume that limits their actions, but if you actually started a fight with them, they'd just punch you "for real" and the cardboard of their costume wouldn't be in the way, it'd just tear off while they're punching you through the costume.
I get your point, but I think it's more about the sort of fight that's going on. Like if you have a lense, it's not gonna make the light source more powerful, but it can focus it into a neater beam, making it more powerful in that spot, but then that focusing would mean that there's less light going around "the room" in general. Like a beam of light that's as powerful as an orb of light would burn your eyes if directed at you, but also, would be less blinding than an orb of light if directed away from you. So in that sense, the hröa being able to focus power would be a positive and a negative, depending on the type of environment/enemy you're facing.
Definitely both 😎
I get what you're saying, but it doesn't work that way in middle earth according to Tolkien. We have lots of instances of Ainur vs Ainur combat where they don't pop out of their hröa for more power. The best example is the war of wrath where the host of the valar (including Eönwë, a Maia) goes against Morgoth, the mightiest of the valar, and there's no mention of that happening. It could be that Tolkien omitted it, but that's a big enough fight that I think it would have been mentioned if it occured
Well, the pure power wouldn't matter if it wasn't concentrated enough to destroy the hröa their enemies was using to influence the Seen, I guess. Like they'd have first destroy their enemies physical being to be able to influence their incorporeal being?
And to do that, you'd want to focus your power, so you'd need a "lens" of sorts, meaning you'd use a body to fight the enemy?
Oh wait no, Morgoth didn't have a physical body in that fight? Uh, I'd probably do well to read the Silmarillion again lol.
To my knowledge, Tolkien never wrote about a battle between an unbodied fëa and a hröa
Well shit, does that end the theorising? So did Morgoth have a body or not whilst in that fight you were describing?
Of course not! Just because he didn't write it doesn't mean you can't imagine it. It just means there's no precedent for it, so you have to be creative
Morgoth did indeed have a body for the entirety of the war of wrath.
I believe that in Tolkien's writings, the only Ainur that lost their bodies were Sauron (during the fall of Númenor, then when the ring was destroyed), Saruman (killed by Grima), Gothmog (killed by drowning/stabbed in the fountain during the fall of Gondolin), Durin's Bane (killed by Gandalf the grey), and possibly an unnamed balrog (if indeed dead, then slain by Glorfindel during the fall of Gondolin). There's some mention in Melkor's Ring(?) that during Melkor's first chaining, his original body was slain, but I'm not sure if that's backed up by other writings about his first chaining. Regardless, it's a pretty small club of fëa separated Ainur, so I'd think that if there was a benefit to splitting from the hröa, it would be made clear