I am happy to post this interview what is binary option with author Benita J. Prins, fellow lover of all things Tolkien and a great writer in her own right too! I read her fantasy, Sea of Crystal, Sea of Glass recently and recommend … Continue reading
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion presents destiny as a powerful structure within the world, but never as an excuse for passive living. The great events of Arda unfold under the design of Eru Ilúvatar, through the Music of the Ainur and the history shaped by divine providence. Yet the inhabitants of Middle-earth and the Undying Lands continue to choose, resist, swear, betray, forgive and sacrifice. Their decisions have real consequences, even when those decisions seem to fulfil a larger pattern.
This tension gives Tolkien’s mythology much of its emotional force. The doomed lives of Fëanor, Túrin, Beren and Lúthien, and the long struggle against Morgoth are not simple examples of people trapped by prophecy. They reveal a world where freedom operates inside limits: mortality, inherited history, oaths, curses and the designs of powers greater than any individual. For Australian readers encountering the book through a local library, a Melbourne independent bookseller or a Sydney fantasy discussion group, this combination of grandeur and moral uncertainty remains one of Tolkien’s most compelling achievements.
The opening of The Silmarillion gives the question of fate its cosmic foundation. In the Ainulindalë, the Ainur make music under Eru’s direction, and Melkor introduces discord because he wants to create independently. His rebellion appears to disrupt the harmony, yet Eru incorporates even that discord into a greater theme. The famous suggestion that nothing can be played which does not have its ultimate source in Eru establishes a providential universe, but it does not make Melkor’s malice morally innocent.
Melkor chooses pride, domination and destruction. The fact that Eru can draw a greater good from those acts does not transform them into good choices. Tolkien therefore separates foreknowledge from coercion. Eru knows what will happen and can govern the final shape of history, while the created beings remain responsible for what they intend and do. This is close to a classical theological distinction between providence and free will: the world has an ultimate order, but individual motives are still significant.
The image also makes history artistic rather than mechanical. A musical composition contains an overall design, yet a singer can still introduce a dissonance through rebellion or error. In The Silmarillion, the meaning of an action may become clearer only much later. A sacrifice that seems futile in one age may prepare the conditions for hope in another, while an apparently triumphant act may plant the seed of future ruin.
Elves and Men are central to Tolkien’s treatment of agency because they possess different relationships with time, death and destiny. The Elves are bound to Arda until its end, and their long memory makes every decision part of an accumulating history. Men, by contrast, receive the mysterious Gift of Ilúvatar: death and departure from the world. The Elves often view this gift with fear, but the text presents it as something beyond the understanding of the Valar and therefore beyond the complete control of the created order.
That uncertainty matters. If Men knew exactly what lies beyond death, their choices would lose much of their existential weight. Their freedom is connected to not knowing the whole story. Aragorn later describes the Gift with greater confidence in The Lord of the Rings, yet The Silmarillion leaves the mystery intact. Mortality is not merely a punishment or a narrative inconvenience. It is a boundary that allows human beings to hope for a destiny outside the circles of the world.
Elvish immortality creates a different burden. The Noldor carry memory, grief and guilt across centuries, while their actions continue to shape descendants they may never meet. Their freedom is therefore exercised under the pressure of permanence. A decision made in Valinor can become a political crisis in Beleriand, and a private vow can turn into a historical force. Tolkien’s treatment of destiny is especially acute here: the past does not dictate every future act, but it narrows the field in which later choices are made.
The Doom of Mandos follows the Noldor after their revolt and the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. It announces suffering, exile and betrayal, and it appears to confirm that their future has already been fixed. Yet the Doom functions in several ways at once. It is a judgement, a warning and a description of consequences already set in motion by the Noldor’s actions. It does not operate like an impersonal spell that forces every later decision.
Fëanor’s oath provides the clearest example. He and his sons swear to pursue anyone who withholds a Silmaril, invoking the name of Ilúvatar. The oath becomes a power that constrains them, but they chose to make it. Their later violence is not excused by the strength of the vow. Tolkien presents the oath as a form of self-imposed bondage, showing how a free act can reduce future freedom. The characters remain agents, yet they become agents inside a trap of their own construction.
This pattern resembles the way inherited conflicts can shape Australian communities and families without making every later response inevitable. A dispute carried through generations may influence a local association, a rural property or a political movement, but each generation still decides whether to renew or break the pattern. In the same way, the Noldor inherit catastrophe without being relieved of moral responsibility. Fate often enters Tolkien’s story through choices that harden into conditions for those who come afterward.
Túrin Turambar is perhaps Tolkien’s most powerful study of the conflict between personal agency and an apparently hostile destiny. Morgoth places a curse on Húrin’s family, and Túrin’s life becomes marked by exile, misunderstanding and disaster. He does not simply surrender to the curse. He resists it repeatedly, seeking honour, independence and protection for others. Yet his determination is frequently distorted by pride, incomplete knowledge and a refusal to accept guidance.
The tragedy lies in the way his virtues become entangled with his weaknesses. Courage turns into recklessness, independence into suspicion, and the desire to defend others into a need to control events himself. When Túrin adopts new names and identities, he attempts to escape the story imposed upon him, but his choices also deepen the confusion surrounding him. The curse does not force every action; instead, it exploits character and circumstance until free decisions produce catastrophic results.
Tolkien avoids making Túrin’s suffering a neat moral lesson. He is not destroyed because he is simply wicked, and his enemies are not the only source of his downfall. Morgoth’s malice creates the larger condition, while Túrin’s responses give the tragedy its particular shape. This is why the tale can feel painfully recognisable to modern readers, whether encountered in a Brisbane book club or through a well-worn Australian paperback. Fate may set the weather of a life, but character determines how a person moves through the storm.
The story of Beren and Lúthien offers a striking contrast to Túrin’s tragedy. Their love appears impossible from the beginning: Beren is a mortal exile, Lúthien is the daughter of a powerful Elven king, and Thingol demands a Silmaril as the bride-price. The task seems designed to send Beren to his death. Yet the narrative does not treat the lovers as helpless pieces on a board. Beren chooses to accept the challenge, and Lúthien chooses to act rather than remain protected within Doriath.
Lúthien’s agency is particularly important. She crosses boundaries imposed by her father, escapes confinement, confronts supernatural danger and enters the fortress of Morgoth. Her power is not merely romantic or decorative; it changes the direction of history. At the same time, her actions do not amount to self-sufficient heroism. She depends on courage, loyalty, song, disguise and partnership. Tolkien’s ideal freedom is relational: it becomes strongest when directed towards love rather than possession.
Their story also complicates the idea of a fixed doom. The quest succeeds through events that no character fully controls, including the intervention of divine or supernatural powers. Beren and Lúthien do not manufacture victory through willpower alone, but their willingness to risk themselves makes the unexpected outcome possible. Hope in Tolkien is therefore neither optimism nor certainty. It is a decision to act for the good when the visible evidence suggests that action will fail.
The final movement of The Silmarillion shows providence working through figures who do not attempt to master history. Eärendil’s voyage to Valinor succeeds because he carries the needs of both Elves and Men, and because his appeal is grounded in humility rather than conquest. The resulting intervention leads to the War of Wrath, but the victory comes at an immense cost. Beleriand is destroyed, and the end of Morgoth does not restore everything that was lost.
Eärendil’s role suggests that free will is most fruitful when it recognises its limits. He cannot defeat Morgoth by personal strength, and he cannot command the Valar. He can choose to undertake the journey, speak on behalf of others and accept the danger involved. His act becomes part of a providential answer, but the answer exceeds his intention. Tolkien repeatedly gives history this shape: a character makes a faithful choice without knowing the complete consequences, and a larger pattern emerges from it.
The same principle helps explain why Tolkien’s world continues to matter in the Australian literary market, where readers move between classic paperbacks, illustrated editions, audiobooks and contemporary fantasy recommendations. Works such as Anne Marie Gazzolo’s Tolkien essays invite attention to the moral and literary texture beneath the battles and genealogies. The Silmarillion rewards that kind of patient reading because its account of destiny is built from contradictions that are never entirely dissolved.
Tolkien ultimately presents freedom as meaningful within limitation, not as independence from every power or condition. Eru’s design encompasses rebellion without approving it; the Doom of Mandos records consequences without removing responsibility; curses and oaths restrict action without fully replacing choice. Characters become most destructive when they try to possess the future, and most generous when they accept risk without demanding certainty. In that vision, fate is the shape of the world, while free will is the moral answer each person gives within it.
An essay I wrote about the desire of Tolkien and the TCBS to be a light to their darkening world. A century later, he still provides light. Thank you, Professor and God trade binary option bless! Art by Justin Gerard … Continue reading