One of the things I find most interesting In the development of the Legendarium: Varda and Nienna grow in importance and potency over time, and seem to pass certain aspects of Marian imagery back and forth between each other from version to version. The growth aspect is true of several of the Valier, and my own speculation is that this is connected to Tolkien’s personal, ideological, and religious growth in the Primary World as well as his choice to remove the notion that the Valar had children in the Secondary World—but that’s a long post in and of itself that delves deeply into Tolkien’s perception of women as expressed through writings on the Elves such as “Laws and Customs of the Eldar.”
To focus on Varda for a moment: as Tolkien moves from older, more “pagan” undertones towards something more distinctly Catholic, Varda goes from a secondary goddess who “plays at making constellations” to a powerful creator in her own right. Around the time of the publication of The Lord of the Rings and her strong presence there, Tolkien moves her up in status to “the one who Morgoth feared more than all others” as well as the one who “came to the aid of Manwe against Melkor out of the depths of Eä.” By roughly the time of the late “round world” cosmology, Tolkien even makes her the singular barer of the Light of Illuvatar in Eä.
But something happens simultaneously during this later development period: while the reverence she is held in and her potency increases, she simultaneously becomes relatively passive. This passivity is seen in the alterations to her contribution to The Music in The Timeless Halls, to the Great Works of the Valar in Eä, as well as in the growing association of her power in and outside of Eä with “listening” as opposed to “acting.”
We might even say a similar thing happens to Nienna: an increase in potency and status simultaneously with an increase in passivity. Her earliest iteration may not give her the status and power of an Aratar, but it does provide her the active role of judging—in her case, judging Men as Namo judges the Elves. It’s a relatively rare thing in Tolkien for female characters to judge (in some active and authoritative sense) rather than to advise or to simply exist with such grandeur as to passively inspire reverence, and from it, obedience, and while Nienna’s later characterization makes her my favorite Vala, I do miss seeing a Valie with that kind of active authority. Her power and skills certainly have an increasingly profound effect on the surrounding world—the greatest effect on the events of the War of the Ring—but the effect is indirect and/or reactive. Does this hold true for the Feanturi in general? None of them seem to be makers of material things in the same sense that Aule, Yavanna, Ulmo, Manwe, or Varda are. Neither is their most famous pupil, Olorin:
Nothing he made himself and nothing he possessed, but kindled the hearts of others, and in their delight he was glad.
HoMe X: Morgoth’s Ring
Indirect certainly describes the way Olorin influences the world, particularly when willingly constrained in his mission as the enemy of Sauron, and it might also be applicable to Irmo, depending on how you view his work and domain. But perhaps not so Namo. While his Dooms are statements of future fact rather than statements of his own will, his judgements still seem to give him a kind of authority above that of councilor.
Passivity, Listening, Compassion, and Mary
It might rightly be argued that in Tolkien increasing power comes with increasing passivity (or should come). Both Manwë and Galadriel are described thusly at times: so far above and beyond the circumstances of the world so as to be wary of acting on it, limiting them to providing counsel only. Yet, I can’t help but think this is a maxim—however much Tolkien, his characters, and his themes, tout it as an ethical principle—that is more frequently, in practice, applied by Tolkien to his female characters, be they Men, Elves, Maiar, or Valar.
As far as Varda and Nienna go, it is their association with listening that may be their most passive traits. Which isn’t to say that listening—really listening—isn’t an important and powerful skill, or that it doesn’t require active attention. It absolutely does; but it is also fundamentally receptive (and for better or worse, receptivity is a trait deeply tied to the feminine). It is also a foundational building block of compassion/empathy, making it a natural trait for someone like the Nienna of the 1930s and onwards. In fact, listening is so much associated with Nienna that in the Anals of Aman (1950-1951) she is described thusly:
[I]t is told of her that she ‘took little part’ in the Music, but ‘listened intent to all that she heard. Therefore she was rich in memory, and farsighted, perceiving how the themes should unfold in the Tale of Arda.’ HoMe X: Morgoth’s Ring
And this may be one of my favorite of Nienna’s traits, because of how this long and perceptive view would naturally give her access to extensive stores of both compassion and hope. But by the late 50’s, when the text of the “Valaquenta” is being written, almost exactly the same characterization will instead be applied to Varda. This will be around the same time that she will be described as she is in The Silmarillion: as being able to hear the cries of anyone in the world if she stands on Taniquetil with Manwë by her side.
I have to wonder why Tolkien felt the need to move this association with listening from Nienna to Varda. If it was simply to square her powers and position with her image in The Lord of the Rings, I feel like he would have done this during the Annals of Aman stage in the early 50’s, when his stated purpose was to adjust the tales of the Eldar Days to be more in line with his soon to be published novel. My suspicion is that by this time, as his metaphysic became more and more involved and more and more Catholic-inspired, he felt the need to condense his Marian imagery as fully into Varda as possible—which unfortunately meant taking some of it away from Nienna.
Nienna is absolutely Our Lady of Sorrows; meanwhile Varda’s title of Queen of the Stars is just a step away from Mary’s title of Queen of Heaven. Varda even becomes uniquely holy by virtue of being the only one of the Valar to carry some of the pure light of Illuvatar into Eä, which might be compared to Mary’s unique purity. But it’s the association with listening that I think is one of the strongest Marian traits in the Legendarium. It was Mary’s association with obedience to God through listening that drove many depictions of the Annunciation, as far back as the early church, to include conceptio per aurem, aka: conception of Christ via the Holy Spirit passing through Mary’s ear (with the added benefit that this ensured her perpetual virginity). As Eve had fallen by listening to the serpent, Mary (“the new Eve”) would counter the act by listening to God (via Gabriel). The downside of all of this, is that it seems to remove one of (what I at least find to be) Nienna’s most fascinating characteristics: how her superlative knowledge of the Music (from her intense listening) might aid her in her ability to maintain and offer hope. While there is nothing to suggest she no longer is associated with hearing (and responding) to the sorrows of the dead, the removal of this special knowledge of the Music seems a loss.
Headcanon Time
Luckily, Tolkien’s numerous textual variations mean we’re given the opportunity to pick and choose to a degree without stepping outside what could be argued as “canon!” I personally prefer seeing them thusly and in parallel: Varda as encapsulating some of the qualities of Queen of Heaven represented in both Mary and in those goddess and feminine archetypes who predate her and who carried a similar title before her, and Nienna in her Silmarillion/Anals of Aman form as a distinctly Marian Lady of Sorrows with all the listening capabilities that entails; Varda as enemy of Melkor, light against his darkness, and Nienna as enemy of Sauron, compassion and hope against his solipsism and despair.
Lastly, as far as Nienna as Our Lady of Sorrows goes: for some time now my own mental image of Nienna has been very strongly influenced by the Virgen de la Esperanza de Macarena de Sevilla (see below). No “grey” hood per se, but considering the way Tolkien uses “grey”, I don’t know that we need to take him literally.
Notes
- How very ezer kenegdo (עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ) of her.
- Kristine Larsen recounts the history of Varda’s evolution across the Legendarium in her paper “(V)arda Marred,” published in Mallorn. https://journals.tolkiensociety.org/mallorn/article/download/103/97/192
- I would love to know when the first mention of Gandalf’s association with Nienna was written (as of AAm he is described only as “counselor of Irmo”) mainly because I wonder to what degree we could say that the world building in The Lord of the Rings drove the changes to Nienna’s character at the same time it was driving changes to Varda’s. We see his association with her it in The Silmarillion in “The Valaquenta,” of course, but it’s unclear to me when that sentence was actually written, as no mention of Olorin’s tutelage under Nienna appears in either UT or HoMe that I am aware of.
- Guanyin is also associated with listening. Not knowing much about Buddhism I’m not very qualified to say much, but one of the first things I ever learned about her was the story from Complete Tale of Guanyin and the Southern Seas where her head splits into eleven pieces as she strains to hear the cries of all those who suffer so that she might help them. Again, there is the association between listening and compassion.
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