In The Silmarillion, the world of Arda is plagued by the evil that comes from excessive pride. Before the world is created, Melkor is driven by his pride—his “vain” desire for power and glory—to alter his portion of the Great Music taught to him by his creator Ilúvatar, disrupting the music and marring the world born from it. Fëanor and his sons, in their arrogance, swear an oath that’s impossible to fulfill, leading to centuries of war and conflict in Middle-earth. Their pride and anger drive them to take violent revenge on Melkor and kill anyone—such as the Teleri—who impedes them. Pride is what fuels both Melkor and Sauron’s desire to dominate the world and is a signifier of their evil; they feign humility when pretending to be good. However, every excessively prideful being—Vala, elf, or man—is eventually humbled by their own arrogance. During the Wars of Beleriand, Melkor is defeated because he arrogantly believes that no one will challenge him. The Númenoreans grow so arrogant that they try to overthrow the Valar and are wiped out by Ilúvatar’s intervention. Through the downfalls of the prideful, The Silmarillion shows that, though excessive pride is the origin of evil in Arda, it’s also a weakness that begets its own end.
Melkor’s pride is the driving force in his desire to rule Arda, but it ultimately brings about his downfall. His pride motivates him to rebel against Ilúvatar and attempt to usurp him, aggrandizing his own portion of the Great Music. Pride convinces Melkor that he deserves absolute dominion, not only over the Great Music, but also over Arda, the world born from it. With the certainty that he will one day rule the world and enslave all its inhabitants, Melkor spends thousands of years fighting the Valar and killing and corrupting elves and humans. Still, his pride and self-regard lead him to his two worst defeats in Middle-earth. When Lúthien enters Angband, he underestimates her, planning her torture rather than recognizing her as a formidable opponent and allowing her and Beren to steal one of the Silmarils from his crown. Later, after his victory in the fifth battle of the Wars of Beleriand and the fall of Gondolin, Melkor thinks that he’s finally beaten the Noldor and permanently claimed Beleriand. Believing no one can—or would dare—oppose him, he fails to anticipate an attack from the west and falls to the Valar. His pride and his belief in his own power are weaknesses that lead directly to his imprisonment and the end of his presence in Arda.
Many of the tragedies of the elves during the Quenta Silmarillion (the large third part of The Silmarillion that refers to the history of the Silmarils) originate in the pride of the Noldor elves and specifically in the pride of Fëanor, “eminent in self-will and arrogance.” Fëanor’s unwillingness to be ruled by the Valar compels him to lead the Noldor from Valinor immediately and violently. When the Teleri elves refuse to offer the Noldor their ships, the Noldor take the ships by force, killing many of the Teleri and incurring the wrath of the Valar. Fëanor and his sons swear an oath to take revenge on Melkor, an oath that emerges primarily from Fëanor’s wounded pride. Melkor has wronged Fëanor by murdering his father, but, more importantly to the oath, he has insulted Fëanor by stealing the Silmarils, which Fëanor believes are rightfully his alone. Consumed by his pride, Fëanor has no reason or moderation; he’s killed while approaching Angband alone to attack Melkor and reclaim the Silmarils. After Fëanor’s death, his oath drives his sons to commit two more Kinslayings, where five of the seven brothers are killed. The other two live to recognize the futility of their prideful oath and the excessiveness of their search for the Silmarils, though Maedhros takes his own life soon after. Ultimately, Fëanor’s pride achieves nothing but the death and destruction of himself, his sons, and most of his people.
Though the Númenoreans are a righteous and enlightened people at the founding of their kingdom, as the generations pass they grow more prideful and less willing to obey the Valar. The ultimate expression of Númenor’s pride, the king Ar-Pharazôn’s attempt to overthrow the Valar and become immortal, results in direct divine interference from Ilúvatar, who stops the invasion and sinks Númenor beneath a massive wave. As a city drowned by its own excessive pride, Númenor exemplifies the consequences of arrogance in The Silmarillion. Pride doesn’t just come before a fall, as the proverb says—it creates the fall. Humility is the mark of the righteous in Arda. In contrast, excessive pride both reveals evil and ensures its own end.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Pride and Arrogance ThemeTracker
Pride and Arrogance Quotes in The Silmarillion
But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.
Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord rose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first.
And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
Thus ere the Valar were aware, the peace of Valinor was poisoned. The Noldor began to murmur against them, and many became filled with pride, forgetting how much of what they had and knew came to them in gift from the Valar. Fiercest burned the new flame of desire for freedom and wider realms in the eager heart of Fëanor; and Melkor laughed in his secrecy, for to that mark his lies had been addressed, hating Fëanor above all, and lusting ever for the Silmarils. But these he was not suffered to approach […] for Fëanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save to his father and his seven sons; he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own.
Then perforce Morgoth surrendered to her the gems that he bore with him, one by one and grudgingly; and she devoured them, and their beauty perished from the world. Huger and darker yet grew Ungoliant, but her lust was unsated. ‘With one hand thou givest,’ she said; ‘with the left only. Open thy right hand.’
In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to burn him, and his hand was clenched in pain; but he would not open it. ‘Nay!’ he said. ‘Thou has had thy due. For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished. I need thee no more. These things thou shalt not have, nor see. I name them unto myself for ever.’
Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.
Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. For though Eru appointed you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain he shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos.
But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: ‘So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.’
But Mandos said: ‘And yet remain evil. To me shall Fëanor come soon.’
Then Fingon the valiant, son of Fingolfin, resolved to heal the feud that divided the Noldor […] Long before, in the bliss of Valinor, before Melkor was unchained, or lies came between them, Fingon had been close in friendship with Maedhros; and though he knew not yet that Maedhros had not forgotten him at the burning of the ships, the thought of their ancient friendship stung his heart. Therefore he dared a deed which is justly renowned among the feats of the princes of the Noldor: alone, and without the counsel of any, he set forth in search of Maedhros; and aided by the very darkness that Morgoth had made he came unseen into the fastness of his foes.
Then Morgoth looking upon her beauty conceived in his thought an evil lust, and a design more dark than any that had yet come into his heart since he fled from Valinor. Thus he was beguiled by his own malice, for he watched her, leaving her free for a while, and taking secret pleasure in his thought. Then suddenly she eluded his sight, and out of the shadows began a song of such surpassing loveliness, and of such blinding power, that he listened perforce; and a blindness came upon him, as his eyes roamed to and fro, seeking her.
‘Farewell, O twice beloved! A Túrin Turambar turun ambartanen: master of doom by doom mastered! O happy to be dead!’
But Thingol perceived their hearts, and saw well that desiring the Silmaril they sought but a pretext and fair cloak of their true intent; and in his wrath and pride he gave no heed to his peril but spoke to them in scorn, saying: ‘How do ye of uncouth race dare to demand aught of me, Elu Thingol, Lord of Beleriand, whole life began by the waters of Cuiviénen years uncounted ere the fathers of the stunted people awoke?’
Then the lust of the Dwarves was kindled to rage by the words of the King; and they rose up about him, and laid hands on him, and slew him as he stood.
Then Turgon pondered long the counsel of Ulmo, and there came into his mind the words that were spoken to him in Vinyamar: ‘Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West, and cometh from the Sea.’ But Turgon was become proud, and Gondolin as beautiful as a memory of Elven Tirion, and he trusted still in his secret and impregnable strength, though even a Vala should gainsay it; and after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad the people of that city desired never again to mingle in the woes of Elves and Men without, nor to return through dread and danger into the West.
‘If it be truly the Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea that rises again by the power of the Valar, then let us be glad; for its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil.’ Then the Elves looked up, and despaired no longer; but Morgoth was filled with doubt.
Yet it is said that Morgoth looked not for the assault that came upon him from the West; for so great was his pride become that he deemed that none would ever again come with open war against him. Moreover he thought that he had for ever estranged the Noldor from the Lords of the West, and that content in their blissful realm the Valar would heed no more his kingdom in the world without; for to him that is pitiless the deeds of pity are ever strange and beyond reckoning.
But the jewel burned the hand of Maedhros in pain unbearable; and he perceived that it was as Eönwë had said, and that his right thereto had become void, and that the oath was vain. And being in anguish and despair he cast himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire, and so ended; and the Silmaril that he bore was taken into the bosom of the Earth.
Yet the lies that Melkor […] sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
