[andrepd]

One of the central themes of Tolkien's world is 'decay': The world was perfect at the very start, then Melkor ruined it. The Third Age is merely a faint shadow of the Elder Days, the future is even fainter still, etc. Elves are understood as old beings, part of nature as it were. Abandoning middle-earth, fitting in that pattern of decay, of 'now is a shadow of the past'. Analogy with modern history is, according to Tolkien himself, "completely foreign to my thought".

Also, Valar and Maiar are greater and lesser Ainur, primordial spirits. Angels might be the closest thing, not elemental forces.

[thisrod]

> Analogy with modern history is, according to Tolkien himself, "completely foreign to my thought".

Which, of course, strikes everyone except Tolkien as hilarious, seeing that he wrote LotR in the 1940s.

[DrScump]

Tolkien was more influenced by World War 1 than WW2.

[magduf]

WWII was basically an extension of WWI. WWI was remarkable in that it was the first really mechanized war, and for the time, a really huge war unlike wars before it, which is why it was called "the Great War" before WWII happened. It was a real turning point for western society.

I think you can see a big parallel in LOTR here, with the Elves/Hobbits/etc. basically being pre-industrial peoples, while the "evil" forces were industrial societies: they felled trees, burned forests, causing widespread destruction to build their society.

[erikpukinskis]

What about the idea the Noldor had, that they had seen great beauty in Valinor but they’d see even greater beauty through their suffering? They could’ve stayed and let the Ainur protect them from Melkor, but they chose to stoke a sense of honor, and fight for themselves.

I don’t think Tolkien sees this as a fundamentally deleterious development. But I haven’t seen how it ends for the Noldor so I don’t know. :)

As for Melkor, I don’t see him as fundamentally a force of decay. Destruction, yes. But Ilúvatar seems to have constructed Eä such that Melkor will always fail, that destruction will lead to differentiation and new lifeforms: not decay.

I wonder if this is an allegory for the way that life seems to defy the 2nd law of thermodynamics... not literally, the end always comes, but by creating a kind of a standing wave which seems to defy entropy, even if it is doomed to eventually decay.

[ItsMe000001]

I don't see the "decay" theme. You are concentrating on one thing only, overall there is just change, so yes, what was has to go and is replaced. The age of humans replaces what came before in Middle Earth.

That "decay" interpretation would just as well to our earth: The old has gone, "decayed". You misinterpret change just as in "Today's youth is the worst generation", a theme that can be traced through history.

[feanaro]

No, I think that was pretty spot-on. This might be of interest: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Arda_Unmarred