#mando meta

[communistkenobi]

the individual intentions of the writers feels kind of secondary when talking about how reactionary the mandalorian has become, but if you wanted to be extremely generous about what’s going on, I think that the very simple and boring answer is that there is no financial incentive to care about what happens in the show anymore. Disney lost over a billion dollars on Disney+ last year, despite the wild success of the mandalorian and other D+ shows. I’m assuming the primary way they make money is off of mando and baby yoda merchandise - this would explain why the showrunners reunited both of them before the first episode of the third season even aired. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the mandalorian now exists primarily to sell the mandalorian merchandise. it has become an advertisement for itself.

and this would explain a lot! It explains why virtually all of the narrative threads from the previous two seasons have either been dropped or quickly resolved. It explains the exponential increase in nauseating Star Wars references like “Han shot first” “it’s a trap” yoda doing backflips etc. It explains why Din has become something of a zombie, going through the motions without any particular motivation beyond whatever deranged escapade he and Bo-Katan get up to on a given week. There’s no point to caring because the only real pressure is getting eyes on the screen and selling more baby yoda stickers. This is why we went from an Ahsoka cameo in season 2 (an obvious ploy to launch another show but still somewhat reasonable for the story) to having Lizzo and Jack Black in season 3 (literally no narrative reason at all). Those celebrities are really popular and their inclusion in the show produces media headlines that combine their names with the mandalorian, optimising search engine results and presenting the opportunity to sell merchandise to Jack Black and Lizzo fans, even if they aren’t Star Wars fans.

but the shape of this not-caring takes on a particular political form in the show - its lack of care for politics doesn’t equally produce progressive and reactionary political conflict, it’s only reactionary. And one of the reasons for this is because I think a lot of pre-existing Star Wars canon, which this show is leaning more and more heavily on, is so politically fraught that using it without thinking about it produces reactionary narratives. I think this is a large reason why 3x03 was so deeply disturbing politically, because it was all set-up for the arrival of the First Order in the Sequel Trilogy. The show doesn’t seem to take any specific perspective on this aside from telling the audience that its all very ominous, but it’s only ominous because the First Order are established as the villains of the Sequels, not because the rise of fascism in a fictional world is a specific horror that Favreau wants to explore, and the reasons for its rise are extremely lazy, boiling down to “the government is too wrapped up in bureaucratic processes to care and too forgiving of the empire to notice.”

and two I think that in general, positioning your story in opposition to politics - not a specific set of political beliefs, just “politics” as a whole - also produces de facto reactionary narratives. the show is not espousing any positive beliefs about what an ideal world may look like, nor is it precise in its criticisms about what it believes to be the flaws that currently exist in the present day world. It’s just against bureaucracy in general, democracy in general, technology in general. and the show abdicates responsibility for taking a position on why it thinks any of these things are bad. Din dismissively scoffs “politics” in 3x06, perhaps the laziest possible admission that the show is not interested in exploring anything it considers political, and aims to position the characters as being outside of politics. but that itself is a reactionary position, to assume that presenting a “direct democracy” as an overly-decadent, hyper-tolerant society who is too scared to give cops guns but will arm citizens if their cultural “feelings” allow them to carry firearms as “not political.” Again to be way too overly generous, perhaps Favreau is attempting to wave in the general direction of current society and say wow doesn’t this suck! too much democracy produced trump, too much technology produced ipad babies, too much bureaucracy produced complicated tax forms. That’s still stupid and wrong but it’s at least not an openly fascist position. but when you don’t confront those things as political and just say “they suck” in a way that you believe to be outside of politics, the perspective you take is that of a reactionary. a refusal to confront what you consider political is itself a political position, one where you intentionally shrink your imagination of politics to, like, government employees who work at the government building, and everything outside of it is just “natural” society - or, in this case, deeply unnatural, perverted by politics. the only apparent solution for the political conflicts in the show is to scale back “the politics” that are preventing natural society from flourishing. That’s fucking reactionary! and like sorry to pull this card but the whole “I’m above politics” schtick has a pretty extensive history of appearing in fascist slogans, from Mussolini to fucking Alex Jones, a rallying cry that these people eternally get behind - “We’re above the Left-Right divide.” positioning yourself as above politics is itself a political act, one that has a lot of baggage that, by virtue of positioning yourself as being too good for politics, you will not engage with.

so like I don’t know if Favreau is “really” a reactionary. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter because his current cultural output is deeply reactionary. but I don’t think any of this is done with intentional malice. I think when you turn art into a purely financial instrument you produce art that is fascist by default, because its only goal is to concentrate financial and political power for the ruling class by appealing to “common man” interests like. fucking Star Wars!!!!!!

#mando.txt #sw.txt #mando spoilers #mando meta

[ujalayi]

“This hero veteran fought bravely for YOUR Republic in the clone wars and asked for nothing in return. Find a way to get him the right pomade, aruetii…”

Dank ferrik! He’s a Dapper Dan man!

You’ve heard of Elite commando/Captain of Foxtrot group Gregor, get ready for Mando!Gregor.

Compiling the sketches and AU ideas courtesy of the psychic damage I took after watching TBB War Mantle again - pass the bacta!

Anyways- AU where Gregor reconnects with his instructor/ drill sergeant after being rescued on Daro - gets a shiny new suit of armor, all the resources he needs for his PTSD and TBI, and a little family who loves and looks out for him between missions with his brothers to help other clones. Most importantly though - he doesn’t die on Lothal because the beskar holds up under fire.

I want to clean this up a little more later and I am still brainstorming, but sound off if you are a fellow Gregor appreciator!! I would love to hear other people’s thoughts like what do you think Foxtrot Group was like etc. With your help + contribution we can post even more Gregor!

#captain gregor #gregor #The bad batch #tcw fanart #gregor tbb #ujalayi art #star wars fan art #mando meta #star wars

[dreamslikepaperlanterns]

I was thinking about The Mandalorian (lol, when am I not), and I think one of the unexpected little world building details that I enjoyed the most was the variety of armor. Like, at this point in the show there have been six different chest plate styles and four helmet styles (plus small variety in other pieces), when they could have very easily have had all the same armor just with different paint jobs. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is still a fair amount of same armor, different paint, but not as much as there could’ve been and I just think that’s neat

#with rumored cosplayers filling the ranks in s3 it'll be exciting to see even more variety! #i just think it's cool that the show acknowledges that not every mandalorian has the exact same style of armor #there the boba fett segmented style din's early armor his upgraded armor #just makes it more realistic #mando meta #the mandalorian

[mandalorianbrainweasel]

Just wanted to hop in your inbox and say that I loveeeee the little Cuy'val Dar snippets you write!

It's such an interesting era with awesome characters, so it's really fun to see it given more attention ^^

I really love the clones more, but I realized recently that the CVD in most recent fanfic seems to just kind of be. Antagonists or these badasses that are looked up to or both. And like. They were on Kamino for like eight years. Some of them were pretty young when they were there! And others are their own form of drama.

(I have an au I jokingly call “Tipoca High” where I dropped Dred Priest’s behavior down to “shitty gym coach” and adjusted everyone else’s behavior on a curve based on that. These fics have kind of been that but also not. The Wad’e & Mij fic was probably the closest. But I grew up in education and I’m very aware of how teachers, even the worst of them, act behind closed doors)

So I just kind of wanted to. Demystify them on Kamino and dig into their fucked up little psyches and show that the adults can be just as chaotic as the cadets. There are Shenanigans. There are Rivalries. And next to none of them want the cadets to know because they’re trying to save face.

#cuy'val dar shenanigans #mando meta #kind of

[blackkatmagic]

I am fully in support of all of those posts that critique fandom's obsession with making the clones completely Mandalorian in every way curse you Traviss, and I think it's valid to take a second look at the impulse, but I also take umbrage with the idea that the clones have nothing to do with Mandalorian culture at all. Literally the most visible clone in the whole of TCW wears jaig eyes, used the same way the Mandalorians use them, and so do multiple other clones. Multiple clones also picked Mando'a names for themselves, or wear traditional Mandalorian hairstyles, and Boil isn't the only clone who wears some sort of Death Watch insignia (which is fascinating in its own right).

There's just - nuance to all of it, I think. The clones aren't wholly Mandalorian, but they aren't not Mandalorian either. Whatever canon you want to take re: Jango and the trainers he picked, the clones clearly picked up bits of the culture from them, whether because of or despite them. Especially considering Mandalorian culture was largely spread through conquest originally, and adoption, the clones have as much of a right to it as anyone, and writing that off or ignoring the fact that at least some of them clearly do consider themselves part of the culture in some way removes a lot of the grey area from them as their own thing, imo.

The clones are a grey area, as a whole. I think that's part of the tragedy of them. They don't have one people who are their own except other clones. They don't have one specific homeworld or culture. They were created literally to die as cannon fodder, and they made themselves into a people despite that. Taking away one of the major pieces they incorporated into their lives (in strict canon, even if you want to ignore everything Traviss ever touched) is weird and overlooks a lot of what's presented about the clones in TCW.

They don't have to be perfectly Mandalorian in every way. That's just as much of an injustice to them. But removing the Mandalorian bits entirely strips away a lot of how they clearly see themselves, too.

#kat rants #meta #star wars #finally saw one too many 'how dare you portray the clones as mandos' posts whoops #anyway #the way the clones incorporate and relate to their mando heritage is fascinating and it deserves more than to be brushed off #just because some bits of fandom take it to the extreme #clone troopers

[actual-bill-potts]

A thought about the Halls of Mandos. What is finrod famous for, above anything else? His friendships with and love for mortals. What kind of love must that cultivate, by necessity? A love that can let go. A spirit that can give up the old and welcome the new.

What was Fëanor’s fatal flaw? Same as Anakin’s: he can’t let go. Of his mother, of his father, of his resentments, of his children. He cannot bear to lose anybody. And Fingolfin cannot bear to lose Fëanor.

Anyway the halls of Mandos are a literal rebirth, a letting-go: one must be willing to give up all one’s old scars, all one’s old hurts, the map that life has left on your body, the resentments that war has left on your spirit, and that is why Finrod was able to shed his old skin and don the new, and why Fëanor will wait in the Halls until the breaking of the world.

#finrod #feanor #Mandos #silm meta #queuenta silmarillion

[toaarcan]

Hi, hey there, did you know that the whole "Jedi can deflect blasters so Mandalorians used solid-shot weapons to kill them because blocking a bullet with a lightsaber just results in molten metal spraying the Jedi" meme is actually bullshit?

Like, first thing you have to know about that lore is that it was written by Karen Traviss. Traviss is fairly infamous for writing a shitton of military wank and really hating the Jedi, portraying them as cruel, cold, fascist idiots, who are much, much lamer than the cool Mandalorians, who are badass military types and definitely haven't carried out multiple genocides in the past (they have). She was also known for not exactly playing ball with other writers, and ultimately ragequit the franchise when TCW started to include Mandalorians and portrayed them differently. This was not a detail that basically any other writer in anything Star Wars ever actually backs up.

And like, here's the thing... this exists.

That's a Jedi using the Force to deflect bullets with her bare hand.

This is Tutaminis. And/or Force Deflection, it's not really clear whether they're the same thing or not. It's a pretty standard Force ability that a bunch of characters have demonstrated. Obi-Wan blocks both bullets and a flamethrower with it in the 03 Clone Wars microseries. It's how Yoda catches and redirects Force Lightning during his duels with Dooku in Attack of the Clones and Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. It's how Vader absorbs Han's shots with his hand in The Empire Strikes Back.

It's also evident from the amount of times that the Mandalorians fight the Jedi with normal blasters instead of breaking out their "anti-Jedi" weapons for their ancient enemies. And the fact that the Mandalorians lost their wars against the Jedi.

If solid-shot guns/slugthrowers were the amazing anti-Jedi weapons that totally always worked against Jedi, then we'd see a lot more slugthrowers and a lot fewer Jedi. We see the CIS' Droid armies fight against the Jedi for three years, we see the Clones being designed from the get-go to kill the Jedi at the end of the war and being highly successful at it, we see the Empire hunting Jedi for the next 19 years and the rest of the Galactic Civil War after that, and y'know what they have in common? None of them use slugthrowers. They all just keep using blasters.

The answer to "How to kill a Jedi" equation has traditionally been depicted as "Use more blasters than they can actually physically deflect."

There's also the detail that Jedi are precognitive space wizards who can move with superhuman speed. If you're actually in range to shoot one with a gun, they'll sense you, evade or block with the Force, close the gap before you can chamber the next round, and revoke your Hand Privileges.

Even the "You'll kill them with a spray of molten metal from the melted bullet!" thing doesn't actually track with what we see on-screen. At the climax of Revenge of the Sith, we see Obi-Wan and Vader fight in the middle of an active volcano. They get splashed with showers of lava a couple of times, and at the end of the fight, both of their clothes are scorched and burned from the embers. Obi-Wan continues to wear his charred robes throughout the rest of the movie. And he's fine. No lava burns. Neither of them actually gets hurt by the lava until Obi-Wan cuts Vader's limbs off and he can no longer move or protect himself, and even then, Vader survives getting burned to a crisp by being really fucking mad about it.

So yeah, it's nonsense. A dumb "Hurr, Jedi are so lame and my unproblematic genocidal warrior race could totally kill them super-easy" take written by Star Wars' own version of Ken Penders.

#Star Wars #Jedi #Meta #Yeah sorry the Legends Mandos were pretty much straight-up villains most of the time

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Where did the dead elves go before orome discovered the elves?

Bc if they went to the halls of mandos, then Mandos probably would have been aware of their existence, but he wasn’t?

Therefore: the elves that died before orome discovered the elves either A: were waiting for mandos to notice them, either as ghosts or in a sort of celestial waiting room.

Or B: went to a different afterlife all together.

#or i forgot smth in the text that explained what happened to those elven souls #halls of mandos #dead elves #pre orome days #tolkien meta #lord of the rings #lotr #silmarillion #lotr elves #the hobbit

[aces-to-apples]

I think i like the idea of clones using mando'a/mandalorian cultural stuff because in my brain it always has an element (large or small) of spite to it. Like no we are not mandalorian yes our abusive progenitor was mandalorian no he did not want us to be mandalorian yes we will take what parts of this denied heritage we can use and discard the rest. It's another piece of rebellion, to my mind, like the paint on their armor and their insistence on names over numbers. They have to cobble together their own culture piecemeal because they aren't given (or allowed) one to begin with, and they'll start by cannibalizing the one that they were never supposed to touch in the first place. They'll take words and values and concepts, rituals and beliefs, and transform them into something that can be theirs, even (and sometimes especially) if it makes a bunch of shitty abusive bigots spin in their fucking graves. Like love and light to everyone who doesn't like/doesn't give a shit about mandalorian-inspired clone culture but we don't exactly have a lot to work with here and lbr mando'a and mandalorian armor kinda pops off.

#by apples #star wars #the clone wars #clone troopers #also there's definitely an element of spite with MY use of mando'a because of my Fandom Nemesis #that shithead who basically said 'stop using mando culture for clones and just have the jedi be their White Saviors' #so tbqfh i pretty much double- triple- and quadruple-downed on the use of mando'a by clones. choke 😘 #sw meta

[camille-lachenille]

Mandos is a place of rest and healing for the fëar of dead Elves. It is a non-place, somewhere not quite physical yet enclosed within clear boundaries by the power of Námo. If feels utterly safe and warm, and the fëar can rebuild themselves before their rebirth - as if in the womb once more - or dwell forever in this place. Mandos is enclosed yet open, for the stars always shine upon the healing fëar, and the dead Elves revel in this cherished light, be it for a time or until the remaking of the world. The floors are of the darkest water, and each Elf who passes through the halls experiences what it was to wake at Cuiviénen, surrounded by silence, and marvelling at the countless stars reflecting upon the still water. Mandos is a place beyond comprehension, where the Song fills every nook and cranny, nurturing each of the Firstborn back to life or to timeless peace. It is both terrible and beautiful but, ultimately, it is a place sung to be the safest, most peaceful and healing possible to the Elves. And maybe, in this non-place, this timeless hall, they can catch a glimpse of what Arda unmarred could have been, until they awake anew and remember only the hope and healing this place brought them.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #halls of mandos #námo mandos #námo #musings #silm headcanons #silm meta #silm elves #tolkien elves #valar #half baked ramblings by a sleep deprived tolkien fan

[kanskje-kaffe]

The New Republic subplot in ep3 was explicitly anti-statist. That was the point. As @gffa pointed out, we didn’t see a single friendly or trustworthy face representing the New Republic, and that was the point, because this subplot is saying: the state is not your friend, nor is it trustworthy.

The only person who seemed to be a sympathetic ally turned out to be the O’Brien to Pershing’s Winston Smith. But more than that, the New Republic officers who place so much trust in her were unable to tell the difference between a fascist and one of their own.

At every turn, the idea that “the New Republic isn’t the Empire” is subverted. Pershing is encouraged to touch the mountaintop because “this isn’t the Empire, live a little” - but in fact, touching the mountaintop IS prohibited. At surface level it’s presented as a harmless prank to make Pershing jump, but in fact, his tentative faith that they live in a free world is misplaced. Pershing does not touch the mountaintop.

Pershing acts to continue his research illegally because he has made the error of actually believing in the principles the New Republic promotes for itself. His chatbot therapist social worker says: yes, we should do everything we can to help the New Republic. Pershing is punished for engaging directly with the ethics. Will his research do good? Will the citizens of the New Republic benefit? Will people live better lives as a result? It’s irrelevant for these purposes what the actual answers are; only that asking the question at all is prohibited.

Pershing fails to realize that the New Republic is not its own propaganda, something that the more socially sophisticated people around him all understand. The wealthy man in the opera house says: that’s why I should just keep my mouth shut, like it’s a joke. But it’s not a joke. These people clearly did not recently come into their status. They went to the opera house under the Old Senate, and under the Emperor, and they’ll continue to do so under the New Senate. Pershing attempts to engage with morality on first principles. The New Republic does not, but uses the impression that it does to legitimize itself anyway.

The mind flayer scene is saying this: the state machine is always the same, the only difference is the intensity at which it’s applied. This was so on-the-nose explicit that they depicted a LITERAL machine with a LITERAL Intensity Knob. The mind flayer is a metaphor for the exercise of state power itself. Pershing experiences horror at the sight of the machine. Don’t you know what this is? Don’t you know what it’s done? What it always does? The New Republic officer says: don’t worry, we know how to use it. It’s beneficial in small doses. We’ll exercise restraint. And of course, once the machine is in use and you’re strapped in, there’s nothing you can do if someone stops exercising restraint. The function of the machine is the same.

“Beneficial in small doses” is the mantra of the complacent statist. In a show called THE MANDALORIAN are you that surprised that it’s taking the side of the Mandalorians? We’re on to our third season of Din refusing to cooperate with the police, refusing to do police enforcer’s work, refusing to trust institutions of power to save him, and people still expect the New Republic to come out of this as the good guys? The Jewish subtext of the Mandalorians (hunted to extermination by a state power, breaking all rules to save a life multiple times, orthoprax, lost homeland) is now literally just text (Din bathed in a mikveh and was witnessed by another Jew Mandalorian) and you STILL expect the state to come out of this as the good guys?? Do you think the Nazis were the only government to ever mistreat Jews?

What I loved about Andor - and what I love about the direction mando s3 is moving - is the exploration of regime change. The brutal reality of it, the sense of plus ça change plus c’est la même chose, beyond the propaganda and the things people long for: relief, security, peace. Yeah the delivery is janky as fuck but I’m not delusional enough to expect Quiet Flows The Don here. Regardless of artistic technique, the story being told is about as antifascist as it gets.

So like sorry but if you perceive this subplot to be “Nazi apologism” because it validates the armed and insular pogrom survivors while criticizing the concept of state machinery beyond its branding, you may want to examine your priors. The cure for Nazism is not FDA-approved.

#mandalorian s3 #mandalorian meta #the Mandalorian #mando s3 spoilers #spoilers #the Mandalorian is Not Art but #it’s not exactly vague about what it’s trying to say #metastippus

[communistkenobi]

one of the more interesting conflicts of season 2 was that Din got the Darksaber from Moff Gideon by defeating him in combat, but he doesn’t actually want it. He tries to give it to Bo-Katan and she refuses it because the only way you can win it is by defeating your opponent. However, she also can’t challenge Din for it because he would yield the fight immediately because he doesn’t want it. But that would also confirm all of Bo-Katan’s worst fears - that she is not fit to be Mandalore, that her station was granted to her because of her noble birth and not her fighting prowess. They have an incredibly unique conflict where Din does not want the Darksaber and Bo-Katan does not want him to give it to her. The only way this conflict can be resolved is by her killing him. And presumably the biggest thing stopping her is the fact that Din is taking care of an incredibly powerful force sensitive child who attacks anyone - even friends - who physically threaten him. Recall the baby attacking Cara because she and Din were roughhousing in chapter 7. That has to be the narrative justification for why Bo-Katan is sparing his life because she has demonstrated MANY many times that she is willing to sacrifice anyone if it means she gains power, including friends and family. Bo-Katan is probably the closest you’re going to get to having the Mandalorian version of a Sith.

You don’t get stakes more clear than that! But apparently none of this matters now and Din is giving her the Darksaber because of some technicality. This tension between them has collapsed and now there is no reason for them to work together, and this also means that Din has - literally - no narrative reason to be in the show aside from the fact that he’s the main character

#mando spoilers #mando.txt #mando meta

[ujalayi]

Late for Tech Tuesday again osikyr… Tech Thursday it is.

Mandalorian love language…

Clone troopers and Mandos understand the importance of the right finishing touch on a fresh paint job.

Tech gets a karta beskar for kar’taylir - to know

(and this Star Wars insider article that is so 🥹)

Tech Badbatch of clan Badbatch :3c

#tbb tech #tech the bad batch #clone trooper tech #ujalayi art #the bad batch tech #tech tbb #mando meta #my wips

[madsmadart]

(Repost from 2022)

Rewatching Mando and im starting to notice the similarities between him and Meta Knight, both being silent caped warriors babysitting adorable babies of destruction. Also mk is def propped up on a lil box...or on Grogus hover thing lmao

Bonus timelapse!

#kirby #kirby fanart #kirby art #meta knight #kirby meta knight #star wars #the mandalorian #mando #grogu #the child #madsmadfanart #madsmadart

[melestasflight]

What if the Halls of Mandos is not an actual, tangible place but a walling off of the fëa? Disembodiment where the spirit exists houseless in that somewhere that's nowhere in particular?

The tapestries of Vairë as threads of deeply-encoded memories? Those moments of lived experiences that have shaped the spirit even beyond its corporeal form?

Nahuatl has a word for this strange 'in-betweenness' - nepantla - a liminal space that is neither here nor there. A space occupied by those that find themselves between two cultures, two states of mind, two states of the body. Something undefined, unfinished. Nepantla is not necessarily painful but almost always challenging.

The fëar occupy nepantla, somewhere between Middle-earth and Valinor, between the living and the dead. Some wander forever.

But when the fëa is healed, and the tapestry is woven, the walls crumble, the Halls open, and the spirit returns to a body. It finds a home again.

#meta thoughts on a tuesday #there's more to this that I cannot verbalize fully #namo mandos #vaire #spirituality #afterlife #tolkien

[cilil]

Why is Námo Mandos silent? - Ainur answers

Over the past few months, I've noticed that a lot of Silmarillion readers ask themselves why Námo keeps quiet about his prophecies instead of intervening/actively warning people about the future and are at times quite frustrated with him. In previous posts I've touched on Námo's gift of foresight (here) and the nature of his curse (here), but I thought it'd be helpful to make a post about this question in particular to provide an explanation.

The aspect of free will and what people do with it is a central theme of Tolkien's works, and it's characteristic of villainous characters to not respect the wills of others and/or attempt to take it away (for those who are interested, down below I'm going to link an essay* that goes into more detail about free will in Tolkien's world and provides additional sources; to discuss all of this here would simply go way beyond the scope of this post).

Now, one may contest the notion that free will exists within Eä, since there is an element of fate to it due to the Ainulindalë, as well as an omniscient, omnipotent deity (Eru) that has intervened several times to change the outcome of certain situations. Nevertheless, it's Tolkien's intention that his characters have free will and that they, with the exception of Eru, are fallible and make errors in their judgement.

As such, the Valar have to respect and not interfere with the free will of the Children of Ilúvatar:

So the Valar were faced by the one thing that they could neither change nor heal: the free will of one of the Children of Eru, which it was unlawful for them to coerce - and in such a case useless, since force could not achieve its purpose. (The Peoples Of Middle-Earth)

Take for example Fëanor refusing to give up the Silmarils - Manwë asks Fëanor if he will grant Yavanna's request and Aulë stops Tulkas from pressuring Fëanor.

How does all of this relate to Námo's prophecies? In order to avoid interfering with the free will of the Children, his knowledge of the future must be treated with caution, which is something Námo seems to be more than aware of.

Using Fëanor as an example one more time, do you think he could've decided freely if Námo had told him something to the effect of "If you do this and that, you are going to end up dead"? While Fëanor, stubborn as he is, might have still gone to Middle-earth to fight Melkor, such a prophecy still would have most certainly influenced his decision making and therefore changed the entire outcome, as well as fate itself.

Námo knows he isn't supposed to influence people and it would be wrong of him to do so. He remains silent in critical situations in order to respect that and let people make their choices.

Do you think he wants people to die? Do you think it's fun for him to have so many traumatized fëar wandering his halls? His encounter with Lúthien shows that he does have empathy for the Children.

Then why does he seem so detached and heartless all those other times? Simple; he is the Judge, it's literally the meaning of his name. Judges have to remain impartial. Námo is supposed to provide bits and pieces of wisdom when Manwë (who, in turn, is in contact with Eru) asks him to do so. Aside from that, Námo waits for people to make their decisions and then passes judgement, as is his duty.

Additionally, it shouldn't be forgotten that, while the Ainur themselves possess free will and are their own people, they are also the thoughts of Eru, embody specific ideas and concepts and are arguably limited/specifically designed in certain areas, for example:

For Manwë was free from evil and could not comprehend it [...] (The Silmarillion)

So even if readers may occasionally wish that Námo would say something and are frustrated by his passivity, it is important to understand that he is actually respecting and preserving the free will of the Children, regardless of whether they make good or bad decisions, as he and the other Valar have been ordered to do. While the idea of Námo preventing tragedies by giving out information may seem tempting at times, I doubt many readers would actually like to see a world in which the Valar attempt to control the decisions of other characters all the time and write their own story.

*Fate and Free Will in Tolkien's Middle-earth

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

taglist: @a-contemplation-upon-flowers @asianbutnotjapanese @bluezenzennie @edensrose @floraroselaughter @melkors-defense-attorney @singleteapot

#namo #námo #mandos #namo mandos #silmarillion analysis #silm meta #silm fandom #ainur #valar #silmarillion #tolkien