In The Silmarillion, J.R.R Tolkien’s collection of elven myths, the Valar (the spirits who create and rule the world), elves, and men are each brought into being as a like-minded, united group that becomes divided over time. The elves naturally break into smaller groups based on where they want to live and what leader they want to follow. Similarly, the men slowly separate as they leave the place of their awakening to wander Middle-earth. However, Melkor, a rebellious Vala, intentionally creates division within and between the races to sow discord, weaken them, and seize power over the world. During the Music of the Ainur, the great song that plans for the creation of the world, Melkor attempts to take control from his creator Ilúvatar, dividing the Ainur between them and throwing the song into chaos. Later, in the Years of the Trees, Melkor spreads lies and corrupts the Noldor elves, turning them against both the Valar and their fellow elves, the Teleri. Once divided, they’re nearly impossible to reunite, even to oppose Melkor together. In this way, the struggle between unity and division in Arda (the earth) parallels the cosmic struggle between good and evil. After Melkor’s imprisonment, Sauron takes up his master’s role, spreading lies and estranging the Númenoreans (a race of men) from the other races and their own people. Their division leads to the downfall of Númenor and the sundering of the entire world, when Ilúvatar permanently removes Valinor (the realm of the Valar) from the reach of Middle-earth. While separation is natural in a world with free will and diversity, The Silmarillion reveals how division and estrangement can lead to suspicion, weakness, violence, and chaos.
Even before the beginning of time and the creation of the world, Melkor foments division and estrangement. He divides the Ainur (a group made of the Valar and lesser spirits called the Maiar) during the Great Music by changing his part of the song and leading other Ainur to harmonize with him rather than with Ilúvatar. Because Melkor separates the Ainur and creates discordance in the song that plans the world, evil exists in the world that is manifested from that song. This first act of division is the root of all immorality and alienation in Arda. Once the physical creation of the world begins, Melkor continues separating the Ainur by seducing many Maiar into following him and supporting his domination of Arda, forming the ranks in the battle between good and evil.
Though the elves separate naturally as they grow and migrate around Middle-earth, Melkor intentionally alienates and isolates them to make them easier to manipulate and conquer. In the early years of their existence, he kidnaps many elves, corrupting them into the orcs that he uses as his army and fundamentally dividing the race. Others he divides more subtly, with lies and rumors, making them suspicious of each other and of the Valar. The age of peace in Valinor is ruined when Melkor influences the elf Fëanor to perceive the Valar as tyrants. Fëanor, in turn, convinces his people to mistrust the Valar and depart for Middle-earth, leading to the first killing of elves (the Teleri) by other elves (the Noldor). This estrangement between the Noldor and the other elves isn’t overcome until Melkor is finally defeated by the Valar and Fëanor’s closest followers are already dead.
In his final bid for dominion over Middle-earth, Melkor attempts to divide the houses of men, alienating them from each other and the elves, since their combined power is a threat to him. During the fifth battle of the Wars of Beleriand, the elf Maedhros unites a large portion of the people of western Middle-earth, though there are elves who still refuse to ally with the Noldor, even to fight Melkor. Orodreth and Thingol’s refusal to aid them contributes to the crushing defeat of Maedhros’s allies, as does Melkor’s corruption of some of the men of Maedhros’s army who hinder and betray him. After the battle, Melkor’s forces advance into Beleriand, isolating the communities of elves and men and making it nearly impossible for them to unite and rise against him. Divided, they don’t pose a military threat to his rule. Only Eärendil, a representative of both elves and men, is able to convince the Valar to reunite Middle-earth and restrain Melkor who divides them.
Sauron, Melkor’s lieutenant, uses the same tools—lies and alienation—to weaken the remaining elves and burgeoning kingdoms of men in Middle-earth. He worsens the Númenoreans’ estrangement from the elves and the Valar and turns them against their own people, the Elf-friends. He even alienates them from Ilúvatar by convincing them to worship Melkor as the true god. This manipulation, as well as the estrangement that culminates in Númenor attempting to conquer Valinor, leads to the greatest division in Arda’s history, enacted by Ilúvatar himself: the sundering of the world, when Valinor (along with the Valar and most of the elves) are removed from the physical world. In this way, for the sake of peace, Ilúvatar embodies and makes physical a deep and preexisting estrangement.
Eventual separation from a whole is a fact of Arda and part of the natural progression of the world. Elves follow the rulers and lifestyles that align with their specific priorities. Brothers split apart and rule different kingdoms. The very land is remade, breaking apart and being reshaped. Men, born in the east, spread into the west. Free will, individuality, diversity, and growing populations demand it. While it can be natural and benign, division is also a powerful tool for evil. It creates weakness and instability that the antagonists of The Silmarillion are quick to take advantage of. As Melkor created discord in the Music of the Ainur, so too does division and alienation create discord in the world of Arda, allowing evil the opportunity to take root.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Unity vs. Division ThemeTracker
Unity vs. Division Quotes in The Silmarillion
Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
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.
Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.
[…]
It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful.
Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise.
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.
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.
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.
All these were caught in the net of the Doom of the Noldor; and they did great deeds which the Eldar remember still among the histories of the Kings of old. And in those days the strength of Men was added to the power of the Noldor, and their hope was high; and Morgoth was straitly enclosed.
Farewell sweet earth and northern sky
for ever blest, since here did lie
and here with lissome limbs did run
beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,
Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien for a time should be.
This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world. So it was that alone of the Eldalië she has died indeed, and left the world long ago. Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, though all the world is changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost.
Thus was the treachery of Uldor redressed; and of all the deeds of war that the fathers of Men wrought in behalf of the Eldar, the last stand of the Men of Dor-lómin is most renowned.
[…]
Last of all Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Húrin cried: ‘Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!’
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.
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.
Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.
But when all these things were done, and the Heir of Isildur had taken up the lordship of Men, and the dominion of the West had passed to him, then it was made plain that the power of the Three Rings also was ended, and to the Firstborn the world grew old and grey. In that time the last of the Noldor set sail from the Havens and left Middle-earth for ever […] and an end was come for the Eldar of story and song.
