#I've never cared much for the fanon's interpretation of Melkor

[aureentuluva70]

Something I find fascinating about Melkor's character as a villain and how he fits as the satan-figure of the Tolkienverse is that he's ridiculously powerful and strong, he's brought kingdoms to their knees and marred the earth and yet...he's totally pathetic.

This guy is second in power only to God Himself and yet he's a complete coward and a loser. It's almost laughable, the sheer levels of pure lameness Melkor is able to reach. This is the dude who once went to the ocean just to scream curses at it in one draft; who was practically peeing his pants at the thought of having to fight Fingolfin; who put the largest bounties on the heads of thieves despite Melkor being a thief himself, with the evidence of it burned into his very flesh. He wanted to rule the world but then the moment he realized it could never be his and only his in its entirety, instead of admitting defeat he decided that throwing an eternally long temper tantrum about it all the while destroying everything and everyone around him was a much better idea.

And its so, so different compared to other fictional depictions of demonic/satan-esque characters I often see in the media, where they make him into this cool, attractive noble suave guy. It's honestly kind of refreshing, finding a fictional depiction of a Satanic figure who is none of those things whatsoever.

Can I see Melkor as an attractive, charming guy at the beginning? Sure. But at the end of the war of wrath, when he has wasted so much of his power and fallen so incredibly low? When he's in constant pain all the time? When he's just so incredibly awful that even his most devoted servant comes to hate his guts? No way.

Especially when Evil in the Tolkienverse is often associated with physical and mental deterioration(think Gollum), Melkor was bound to be a complete and utter wreck, a sad pitiful shell of the once great ainu he used to be, by the end of it all. Because that's what evil does to a person. It destroys them from the inside out until there's practically nothing left.