Talk:Valinor

"Valinor as explained was the home of the Valar, Tolkien's term for the gods of Middle-earth."

As I understand it, Tolkien did not consider the Valar gods: only Illuvatar was a god. The Valar were more like Archangels, with the Maiar a category of lesser angels. I'm not sure how I would rephrase the quoted statement, though. --Ted C 14:22, 30 October 2006 (EST)

Correct. Tolkien remarked on numerous occasions that Men mistakenly thought of them as gods. While they are similar to the Norse gods, they are in truth more like archangels with a larger role. Rephrase the statement to: "Valinor is explained as the home of the Valar, those spirits placed by Eru to govern Arda (often mistakenly called gods)." --Narfil Palùrfalas 16:42, 30 October 2006 (EST)

After some thought, I removed the line entirely; it was redundant because Valinor is described as the home of the Valar in the opening paragraph. I replaced "god" with "Vala" where it occurs in other places in the article. The whole thing could probably use a thorough review, since the geography is hard to follow and the tense isn't consistent. --Ted C 16:55, 30 October 2006 (EST)

While I agree that Tolkien regarded the Valar as angels rather than gods, he often refers to them as such, e.g. in Letters # 131, 151, 153, though, to be correct often in the form 'gods'. --Earendilyon 17:15, 30 October 2006 (EST)

Valinor/Aman

Do we really need two content articles for Aman and Valinor (the articles look already the same)? While this article says "Aman refers to the whole continent, while Valinor properly refers to the inhabited lands by Valar and the Elves" (unreferenced), Tolkien himself writes "Valinor, which was synonymous with Aman" (PE17, p. 107). Is there some passage in the Silm which clearly makes a distinction between Valinor and Aman? Otherwise I suggest a merge, and possibly a short article for either of them.--Morgan 18:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)