Re: questionable conception

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:37:38 GMT, "Mike Schilling"
<mscottschilling@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <slrng0v384.4r2.dbd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>> David DeLaney <dbd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:17:45 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
>>> <djheydt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> With Gandalf, it's a bit different.  In the first place, he is
>>>> not of humble origins.  He is a Maia, a spirit of the second
>>>> rank, created _ex nihilo_ by Eru Iluvatar.  For him to be
>>>> incarnated as something that looked rather like a Man, and sent to
>>>> Middle-Earth to aid its inhabitants and oppose Sauron, must have
>>>> been something of a let-down.
>>>
>>> Oh, I don't know; we might think of ... the world, gah, lost the
>>> word for it for a moment ... Arda as the equivalent of an RPPvP
>>> server. He did level up at least once during the series, after all.
>>
>> Yes, from Grey to White.  But I'm talking about his initial
>> change from a bodiliess spirit dweling in peace in Aman, to a
>> carnate being that has to eat and drink and sleep and is addicted
>> to nicotine.
>
>Why bodiless?  The elves didn't become bodiless when they lived in the 
>West (they kept having children, for one thing.) 

The elves weren't Ainur (angels).  The Maia were.  The Ainur who entered
the world could always take on physical form and walk around in it (and
could also have children, else no Arwen Or Aragorn), but they could also
cast off their physical form (the Valaquenta describes it as like wearing
a
suit of clothes).

But, yeah, nothing in the Silmarillion indicates that the Valar and Maiar
were normally discarnate in Valinor, certainly not when interacting with
the elves.

And the Valar did eat and drink (even though they couldn't starve or die
of
thirst).

-- 
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)