Who was Morgoth? | Legends of Middle Earth

who was morgoth or melkor the original big baddie in tolkien's legendarium let's find out hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek if you like theories background history and lore about the lord of the rings a song of ice and fire and the witcher then this is the channel for you there's a subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen the main villain of the lord of the rings was obviously sauron but sauron was himself in his own time lieutenant to a greater more primal evil morgoth and to understand morgoth we need to go way back before the beginning of time middle earth ardor and all that is was created by aru eluvitar through the song of the inor as set out in the silmarillion basically aru created the ainur divine spirits each the offspring of uruz thought and given understanding of that part of uruz mind and plans that gave birth to them and the ainur sang at uru's direction singing creation into life one of the ainur though melkor did not want to sing a louvitar's song he sang his own tune discordant to the main song of the eluvitar stopped it started up again stopped again when melkor again created discord started again and finally called a halt to the whole thing eluvitar's final theme was unquenchable though and finished on its own terms but that didn't stop melchor trying to oppose it despite melkor's constant interruptions aru iluvatar showed that creation happened anyway and that nothing happened without his express will he said thou melchor shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me nor can any alter the music in my despite for he that attempteth this shall but prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful which he himself hath not imagined melkor was for a time humbled and joined the i know that wish to go down to this new creation watch over it and aid to the children of a louvitar when they arrived but his heart was still his own and he secretly then not so secretly wished not to guide and steward this new creation but to control and dominate it he rebelled and fought against the faithful einer those who fey with christian theology will see a lot of echoes of lucifer here this is clearly intentional on tolkien's part we talk often of his influences from norse and other mythologies but he was a committed practicing catholic and there are few places in his legendarium where this influence is clearer so melkor fell and what followed was untold eons of struggle between him and the valar the loyal upper echelon einer who had descended to arda to protect and rule it which is all covered in a couple of pages of the silmarillion we read that he descended upon ardour in power and majesty greater than any other of the valar as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire and the light of the eyes of melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold melkor was immense and powerful the most powerful of all the valor the most powerful being of ardor and middle earth the valar shaped and molded arda and he destroyed eventually another valor did arrive tulkas the laughing warrior and tipped the balance of power against malkor but though he retreated for a while he gathered his strength and the other creatures that had fallen with him bellrocks and others and attacked again destroying the lamps the first main source of light for arda building his mighty fortress of atumno and the valar retreated they set themselves up in amman a different continent made themselves a new source of light the two trees and largely abandoned middle-earth to melkor which is how he discovered the elves first when they awoke he corrupted many of them turning them into orcs killed others and turned still more of them against the valar before they had even encountered them eventually though the valar did discover the elves and decided to go to war once more and this time they were successful melkor was captured and imprisoned for three ages these three ages were when the eldar elves came to live in peaceful harmony with the valar and velinor many more stayed in middle-earth this tooing and throwing of the balance of power between malcor and the valar is one of the main themes of this early part of ardas history sometimes the valar held the upper hand and sometimes melchor pushed them back he had many allies including many maya the second and lower order of loiner but in terms of the valar it was one against fourteen and malcor triumphed almost as often as his opponents there is no doubt that he was not only the most powerful valor but was by a long way tolkien says that to melkor among the inor had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren he was different special and greater both in the heights he could have reached and the depths he plumbed and while he was chained arder and middle earth could thrive it would always be marred by his initial interference but for a time it was at peace then his prison term ended and he was freed after promising to be a very good valor from then on he obviously lied his revenge was to turn the noldor elves against the valar destroy the new light source the two trees with the help of angoliant steal the silmarils which held the last light of the trees and escaped back to his stronghold in middle earth the naldor followed led by feyenoor who wanted his silmarils back feyen or it was he renamed melkor morgoth which means the black foe and he was known by that name from then on feyenoor though was killed by balrogs but his sons laid a very long siege to angband morgoth stronghold and the valar well they just largely ignored what was happening in middle-earth except ulmo of course he's the best of the valar and he never forsook the elves and humans even when the other valar did anyway all that led to what we know as the first age of middle earth the elves may have thought that they had had morgoth besieged in his own fortress but in reality he was just biding his time and building his forces he grew his orc army invented dragons and trolls and plotted his world domination plan eventually his forces broke the siege and one by one the elven strongholds of middle earth fell morgoth's victory seemed inevitable it was only a final mass assault by all the might of the valar and valinor that ended morgoth's rule morgoth was flung into the void never to return to arda while the valar watch over it except perhaps in the last battle at the end of time according to the second prophecy of mandos where he will finally be slain by turin turamba in righteous vengeance for all those wrongs done to him and all mankind but although morgoth was defeated at the end of the first age his legacy and influence live on this is where the rings of power tv show will pick up after morgoth's defeat part way into the second age many perhaps will have thought that with morgoth's defeat the threat of evil was gone but it lived on firstly through the many of his followers who survived the war of wrath sauron is chief among them but also the balrog we know as durin's bane and a lot of orcs and trolls and some dragons but secondly and perhaps even more importantly tolkien explains that morgoth had poured his will so much into the very matter of arda that he marred it beyond the ability of any but a louvitar himself to mend his lies live on in the hearts of elves and men and now evil can never truly be ended just hemmed back before it returns somewhere else like a new shoot on a dark tree this idea of arder mard and morgoth's ring is a central part of tolkien's philosophical backdrop to his legendarium and i'll be sure to do a video on it at some point soon in practical terms this continuation of morgoth's legacy is shown through sauron his chief lieutenant who had escaped judgment at the end of the war of wrath then rose to power later in the second age yes sauron was his own man or maya but at a conceptual level he was also an echo of morgoth that more primal evil tolkien wrote that in after years he sauron rose like a shadow of morgoth and a ghost of his malice and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the void noticeably when sauron corrupts the people of numenor and builds a great temple in it it is not for them to worship himself but morgoth so what are we to make of morgoth well he is undoubtedly more complex than just a big baddie his drive was to conquer and control yes but his initial fall came from his desire to create to do something new and different to have the freedom to do what he wanted not just what uru luvitar expected it's like milton's lucifer in paradise lost makes him a figure we know we need to oppose but we understand his drive and need to be free and to create for himself we are ourselves sub-creators as tolkien would put it so we understand the irony here of course is that for all morgoth's freedom he claimed for himself and everything he did we have to come back to uru eluvitar's speech to him before time began no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me nor can any alter the music in my despite for he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful which he himself hath not imagined morgoth may have turned the world upside down in pursuit of freedom and control but ultimately everything he did was in louvitar's plan and all the evil that he did was actually for good his destruction of the lamps led to the creation of the trees his destruction of the trees that the creation of the sun stealing the silmarils led to the naldor returning to middle earth and saving many elf lives and so on perhaps the most damning irony though is that which eru iluvatar said to melkor before he fell thou malcor wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to creation's glory in other words morgoth may have fought for his freedom and thought he was free but he was not all that he did and all that he was was a part of aru louvitar's ineffable plan from the start and eventually morgoth himself realized this in his long ages imprisoned in the void he will have been tortured by the realization that everything he had done had ultimately been for the glory of aru eluvitar the master he revolted against if you'd like to see more lord of the rings videos please click on the link appearing now on the left of your screen or to support this channel and get access to exclusive in deep geek content please click on the link to patreon on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching i'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

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Keywords: in deep geek, idg, deep geek, tolkien, jrr tolkien, middle earth, morgoth, melkor, history, lore, morgoth lord of the rings, melkor lord of the rings, lord of the rings, lotr, the lord of the rings, the rings of power, lord of the rings the rings of power, amazon, history of middle earth, the silmarillion

Id: B5WT9VORxvU

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 14 2022