Morgoth
Morgoth Bauglir ([ˈmɔrɡɔθ ˈbau̯ɡlir]; originally Melkor [ˈmɛlkor]) is a character, one of the godlike Valar and the primary antagonist of Tolkien's legendarium, the mythic epic published in parts as The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin.
Melkor has been interpreted as analogous to Satan, once the greatest of all God's angels, Lucifer, but fallen through pride; he rebels against his creator.
Tom Shippey has written that The Silmarillion maps the Book of Genesis with its creation and its fall, even Melkor having begun with good intentions.
Marjorie Burns has commented that Tolkien used the Norse god Odin to create aspects of several characters, the wizard Gandalf getting some of his good characteristics, while Morgoth gets his destructiveness, malevolence, and deceit.
Verlyn Flieger writes that the central temptation is the desire to possess, something that ironically afflicts two of the greatest figures in the legendarium, Melkor and Fëanor.
The name Morgoth is Sindarin (one of Tolkien's invented languages) and means "Dark Enemy" or "Black Foe".
His name in Ainulindalë (the creation myth of Middle-earth and first section of The Silmarillion) is Melkor, which means "He Who Arises in Might" in Quenya.
The Sindarin equivalent of Melkor is Belegûr, but it is never used; instead, a deliberately similar name, Belegurth, meaning "Great Death", is employed.
[T 5] Melkor is renamed "Morgoth" when he destroys the Two Trees of Valinor, murders Finwë, the High King of the Noldor Elves, and steals the Silmarils in the First Age.
[T 6][T 7] Before the creation of Eä and Arda (The Universe and the World), Melkor is the most powerful of the Ainur, the "angelic beings" created by Eru Ilúvatar.
[T 8] In an early draft, Tolkien has the elf Finrod state that "there is nothing more powerful that is conceivable than Melkor, save Eru only".
Note that in the early age of Arda he was alone able to drive the Valar out of Middle-earth into retreat.Since the Great Music stands as template for all of material creation, the chaos introduced by Melkor's disharmonies is responsible for all evil.
[T 14] His first reign ends after the Elves, the eldest of the Children of Ilúvatar, awake at the shores of Cuiviénen, and the Valar resolve to rescue them from his malice.
[T 22] Over the next several decades, Morgoth destroys the remaining Elven kingdoms, reducing their domain to an island of refugees in the Bay of Balar, and a small settlement at the Mouths of Sirion under the protection of Ulmo.
[T 23][T 24] Before the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, the Man Beren and the Elf Lúthien enter Angband and recover a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown after Luthien's singing sends him to sleep.
Her husband Eärendil, wearing the Silmaril on his brow, sails across the sea to Valinor, where he pleads with the Valar to liberate Middle-earth from Morgoth.
Morgoth flees into the deepest pit and begs for pardon, but his feet are cut from under him, his crown is made into a collar, and he is chained once again with Angainor.
The Valar exile him permanently from the world, thrusting him through the Door of Night into the void until the prophesied Dagor Dagorath, when he will meet his final destruction.
[T 26] In this more complete version of a story summarized in Quenta Silmarillion, Húrin and his younger brother Huor are leaders of the House of Hador, one of the three kindred of elf-friends.
[T 2][T 32] Similarly the Old English translations devised by Tolkien differ in sense: Melko is rendered as Orgel ("Pride") and Morgoth as Sweart-ós ("Black God").
[T 33] Morgoth is once given a particular sphere of interest: in the early Tale of Turambar, Tinwelint (precursor of Thingol) names him "the Vala of Iron".
[T 34] Melkor has been interpreted as analogous to Satan, once the greatest of all God's angels, Lucifer, but fallen through pride; he rebels against his creator.
[2] Tolkien wrote that of all the deeds of the Ainur, by far the worst was "the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron".
This "temptation of creativity" is echoed in Tolkien's work by Melkor's opponent Fëanor, who is prepared to fight a hopeless war to try to regain his prized creations, the Silmarils.
In The Silmarillion, too, the farseeing Vala Manwë, who lives on the tallest of the mountains, and loves "all swift birds, strong of wing", is Odinesque.
And just as Sauron and Saruman oppose Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, so the enemy Morgoth gets Odin's negative characteristics: "his ruthlessness, his destructiveness, his malevolence, his all-pervading deceit".
She writes that it is appropriately ironic that Melkor and Fëanor, one the greatest of the Ainur, the other the most subtle and skilful of the creative Noldor among the Elves – should "usher in the darkness".
