Valar
The Powers; the guardians of Arda
The Valar
Names and Order
The Valar — “the Powers” — are those of the Ainur who, after the making of the world, “came down into it and dwelt within it, and its shaping is their work”. The name comes from vala (power); in the earliest tongue they are the Lords of the West, the Guardians of Arda. The Valaquenta names them in an order and a dignity that never changes: | Lords | Queens | |—|—| | Manwë (Súlimo) | Varda (Elentári, Elbereth) | | Ulmo | Yavanna (Kementári) | | Aulë | Vairë | | Oromë (Aldaron) | Estë | | Námo (Mandos) | Nienna | | Irmo (Lórien) | Vána | | Tulkas (Astaldo) | Nessa | Seven Lords and seven Queens, “fourteen in all”; Melkor — the greatest in original might — “is no longer counted among the Valar, and his name is not spoken upon the earth”.
Origin and Shaping
Before the world, the Valar were of the choir of Eru in the Timeless Halls; at the utterance of “Eä!”, “some of the Ainur… even the greatest and most fair, entered into the world for love of the Children of Ilúvatar… and these are the Valar”.
Their first work was the ordering of the world out of the discords of the Music
— a labor that the rebellion of Melkor thwarted at every turn (the building, ruin and reshaping of the great works (the Lamps), and the shaping of Aman as their refuge).
Their Government
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Seat of council: the ring of the Valar in Valmar, and the high throne of Manwë on Taniquetil, their whole realm is Valinor in Aman.
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Their will: they are “the lords of the world”, ordering its seasons, watching over Elves, Men and Dwarves (the Dwarves especially to Aulë), and the growing and living things. They are bound to Arda until its end: “they may not leave it while it lasts… for its wearing out is their doom”.
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Their limitation: they cannot compel the wills of the Children; their authority over Elves and Men is counsellor and warden only. And they err — Manwë’s trust, the long delay over Melkor and the imprisonment — their own part in the doom is weighed in the Quenta.
The Valar and the Elves
The Elves bow to the Valar as their guardians; the Noldor learned their craft from
Aulë, the Vanyar loved the light of Varda and Manwë, the Teleri the sea of Ulmo. The Exile of the Noldor splits the kindred — the Valar “fenced Valinor against them” and spoke the Doom; yet the Return of the host at the end and the rescue of the Silmarils belong to the Valar’s final justice.
In the Texts
The Valaquenta is their portrait; the Ainulindalë their origin; the Quenta their tragedies and victories. Their evolving concept — from the barely-drawn gods of the Book of Lost Tales (“the gods of the Noldor”) to Tolkien’s considered angelic guardians — is one of the great subjects of the History of Middle-earth, culminating in the philosophical essays of Morgoth’s Ring.