Manwë
Súlimo; the Elder King; King of Arda
Súlimo
Names and Titles
- Manwë — “the Elder King”, “King of Arda”, the “Lord of the Breath of Arda” (Q. súlimo, from súrë “breath, wind”). -
In Valarin, Mānawenūz; his wife Varda is called Tintallë in Quenya. Manwë is the noblest and most puissant of the Ainur who entered the world; “greater in majesty and in the knowledge of the designs of Eru”. In the order of the Valar he is first among the Lords, and he with Varda alone dwells in perpetual light on the summit of Taniquetil, the highest mountain of the world, established as “the king’s high seat” where the Sign of Eru looks upon all the earth.
Life
Manwë is the eldest brother (in the mind of Ilúvatar) of Melkor. In the Ainulindalë he appears as the chief singer of the theme of Eru; when Melkor’s discord rose, Manwë’s music “went on in the midst” and sustained the harmony. He is the closest of all beings to the will of Ilúvatar — “dearest to Ilúvatar and clearest in understanding” — and for that reason the vicegerent of Eru upon Arda: the Kingship of the world is his seat, and all the Valar bow to his counsel. He is wedded to Varda, Elbereth, the Lady of the Stars, and together they are the greatest and most beloved of the Valar to the Elves. His abode with her is in the halls of Ilmarin on Taniquetil; his messengers and ministers are the Eagles of Manwë, chief among them Thorondor, who in the years of the Shadow kept watch over Beleriand at the bidding of his lord.
Dominion and Character
Manwë governs the airs, the winds and the clouds; he shapes the “strange lights” and weathers of the world. “He that glimpse the wind” is a rendering of his name: he “lives and moves in the thought of the air”.
His gaze is the swiftest of all eyes, and his eagles feed his sight far beyond the reach of the Valar’s other messengers. His character is unblemished by ambition: “Manwë has no thought for his own honour, and is not jealous of his power, but rules all things to a settled peace and well-being of the world of the Valar and of the Children of Ilúvatar.” This very cleanness is his one weakness, for he “knew not the thought of Melkor” — he could not conceive of pure malice, and thus was slow to perceive, and then slow to condemn, the deeds of his brother. It is a central moral motif of the legendarium that the good cannot easily understand evil, and that Manwë’s trust permitted Melkor’s release following the awakening of the Elves.
Role in the Tale
With the other Valar he shapes Arda after the Music, and for ages endures the assaults of Melkor upon the Lamps and the Trees. At the coming of the Elves, when Oromë brought word of the awakening, Manwë marshals the Valar for the War for the Sake of the Elves, overthrows Utumno, and has Melkor bound with Angainor. Persuaded by the counsel of the wisest (and against his own shadow of doubt), Manwë grants Melkor pardon and parole; Melkor’s later deeds are the source of the deepest grief of the Elder King, who is said to weep “dirrer tears at the pity of the world”.
- At the end of the First Age he sends Eönwë with the Host of Valinor in the The War of Wrath, and the Elder King’s justice and mercy are shown in the exile of the Noldor and the fate assigned to the wayward. In the Second Age his anger falls upon Númenor at the time of Ar-Pharazôn, and he surrenders the sceptre of the world “for a time” — the kingship of Arda passing, in the mythology’s later development, to the keeping of others.
Powers and Perception
Manwë’s might is “not in strife or battle”, but in command and foresight: he is the clear voice of Eru’s law in the world. Against him the power of Melkor was afraid, “for all the words of the One were known to him”. Tolkien notes in the Letters that Manwë is not so much “timeless” as the one who sees furthest and clearest, standing closest to the will of God.
In the Texts
In the earliest Book of Lost Tales Manwë appears among the Valar forming Valinor; his role is expanded in the Quenta Noldorinwa and the Quenta Silmarillion, and given its most mystical depth in Morgoth’s Ring (“Manwë is the mouth of Eru and the herald of his will”). Source-history details vary (for instance whether it was Manwë or the council of the Valar who released Melkor), and these are noted by Christopher Tolkien throughout the History of Middle-earth.