#ah i love dubiously ethical valar

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

Ethics of Creating/Adopting/Influencing Sentient Life, as Ignored by the Valar

It's been a steady headcanon of mine that most Valar have their own form of sentient life that they had a metaphysical hand in shaping. Is this because I feel like everyone gets jilted bc of the big three? Yes. Is this how I explain all of the weird one-off things in the Hobbit? Also yes. No particular order here, just vibes.

Manwe: Giant Eagles, obvious, he asked his Parent's permission first.

Aule: Dwarves, also obvious, did not ask permission from his Parent but they ended up splitting custody so a pretty good deal all around. (Also maybe made sure that the possibility for AI was in the Song. Is very excitedly awaiting his robot children.)

Yavanna: Ents, again obvious, asked her Parent's permission, got it, dunked on her husband. Ents are strange because they aren't so much plant-like sentients as decidedly sentient plants. Most everyone but her (and Vana) are kinda weirded out by this.

Vana: Hobbits. With some input from Yavanna and Nessa. I know the prevailing hc in the Hobbit fandom is that it was Yavanna for those sweet Aule/Yavanna Dwarves/Hobbits parallels, but I feel like Vana's Domains fit them better. She didn't (technically) Create them, she was just wanting to make her own People without getting in trouble, and Yavanna offered sisterly advice in the form of "Evolution was already Sung, so if you just guide that evolution a little and happen to get a new People out of it... well, whoopsies, who'd've guessed ;)". Nessa, of course, heard about this and insisted on helping her girlfriend out. No one knows how Hobbits came from Humans, because it makes very little logical sense. This is why. Also she coopted mushrooms from Melkor and those things are if not sentient at least getting there.

Orome: The Beornings. Vana was like "LOOK WHAT I'M DOING :D!" re. evolution (and Magic/Song shhhh) and Orome went "SICK! I WANNA DO THAT!!" but didn't want to put quite as much effort in (he's busy) so he took a group of humans and was like "Ok you can have awesome disney princess bear powers for the low low cost of not technically being human anymore" and they all went "well, best not to reject gifts from gods, also that sounds cool, so sure I guess?" Some adaption/evolution was also involved, which Nessa helped with.

Nessa: See Vana & Orome above. She's the reason Hobbits have the crazy high stealth bonus, and the reason for the whole bear-dancing thing the Beornings do. Also I'm pretty sure she came up with an idea for talking animals really early on, carefully and subtly implemented by her, Orome, and Yavanna.

Tulkas: Giants. Orome and Vana and Nessa were all like "DUDE LOOK WHAT WE'RE DOING ISN'T IT COOL!" and Tulkas was like "YEAH THAT'S SICK BABES! GREAT JOB!" and they were like "don't you want to try? OwO? give us more niblings to dote on?" and he figured "hey, might as well, that sounds dope". He got Aule's help (bc experience w/ sentientifying rocks) and managed to accidentally find a bunch of new loop holes in the "Thou Shalt Not Casually Create Sentience What Are You Guys Frankenstein Or Something" doctrine. Manwe was like "...why" and Tulkas was like "Look, there's not even triple digits of them, their sentience is debatable at best, and it makes Arda cooler. Surely you want Arda to be cool? Also they throw rocks around!" And Manwe had bigger problems to deal with at this point and gave up. This is why giants are fighty.

Namo: Did NOT create sentience are you kidding? It's bad enough that SOME moron Sung the possibility for Necromancy into Arda (interesting as it is he desperately wants to slap the Maia who came up with that idea. it's So Much Work, and ever since Humans first woke up he has been So Busy. this is what he gets for wanting to micromanage the Death system), he's not creating MORE work for himself. He has technically adopted sentient life in the form of Spirits. He staunchly ignores anyone who tries to point this out.

Nienna: Did not create sentience but has adopted the Orcs. The ones that were corrupted elves can heal with a lot (a LOT) of time and therapy in Mandos, but orcs do end up as a separate People. A People who is Nienna's now. They're her babies. (Yes, this is a Threat.)

Irmo: As creator of dreams he occupies a very weird place re. creating sentience, since he's technically actively influencing it at all times regardless. Has not made a People but did very quietly figure out how to make not-quite-Maiar. He didn't make many, but there are a few Wishing Spirits in unexpected places.

Vaire: Similar to her husband, she's too busy to create sentience, and doesn't want that responsibility anyway. Perfectly content with being a mentor-friend to her Weavers, no desire to be a mom.

Este: Has not created sentience but did help Aule work on robot bodies once she learned about his little project. Is not a mechanical engineer, but can pass pretty well as a bio-engineer. Plus she needs to learn how to heal all the Peoples, not just organic ones. (They keep the project quiet.)

Ulmo: He was to busy trying to help the Original And Intended Children to make anything of his own. Did several of his Maiar figure out Fully Incarnate Bodies? Yes. Did they also figure out how to have kids? SOMEHOW, yes. Did these kids become their own People? Yes. Is this Ulmo's problem now? Yes. Anyway that's how mermaids happened.

Varda: She is competent and respectable. Are her constellations sentient? That's between them, her, and her Maiar. She's worked out the logistics on her own, thank you very much. No need for worrying about afterlives or whatnots, she's got it covered. (She just wanted some kids, ok? And it's so much easier if she isn't the only one watching over the skies of Arda.)