Feanor's oath: I just don't get it ...

[Jon S.]

Assuming abandoning an oath to God (Illuvatar) is indeed a bad thing ("sin"), is it worse than serial murder?!

I just reread the Simarillion (as I do every year or two) and have to admit, I'm more perplexed at the behavior of Feanor and his sons than ever over their simarils oath.

At the end of the voyage of Earendil, Maglor finally actually comes close to at least postponing, if not abandoning the oath, claiming more or less, (1) Let's submit to the Valar, maybe afterwards they'll simply return the jewels to us and we'll come into our own in peace, and (2) If Manwe and Varda personally disown an oath we made naming them as witnesses, isn't it then void?

Only to have Maedrhos (I really don't like him!) reply, "But how shall our voices reach to Illuvatar beyond the Circles of the World? And to Illuvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness upon us, if we kept not our word."

Maglor then replies with a variant of my opening observation: "If none can release us, then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking."

But then he submits to Maedrhos will and does the greater evil anyway, knowingly!

Tokien, of course, was a serious Catholic. I don't know much about how Catholics deal with this type of issue but in my own tradition, the problem - theologically and practically - of oaths to God that cannot or should not be kept was easily addressed hundreds if not thousands of years ago by empowering a religious court to grant the people's petition to forego their ill-advised oaths via a prayer called Kol Nidre. This prayer, which applies only to oaths between an individual and God (not to another person - look it up in Wikipedia if more info. on it would be helpful), was designed specifically to address the same basic problem as faced by Feanor and his sons as a result of their own rash, ill-advised oath.

This outcome seems so simple and practical that it leads me to ask: why no Middle Earth equivalent? The Valar are essentially Illuvatar's representatives on Earth, aren't they. In another thread of mine on this forum, I comment on how Manwe reported looking inward to learn the will of Illuvatar which he then shared and acted on.

Feanor's oath was so darn stupid and evil. Why couldn't Manwe have checked in with Illuvatar on that one, too?