"I've always figured their true essence is sort of amorphously
blob-like. Kind of like an amoeba. Isn't that how spirits are
shaped? Given their power, though, they can make themselve appear
beautiful and majestic, but underneath it all, they're still rather
amoebic."
Later on, in the chapter "Of the Sun and Moon", we will meet Arien the Maia who
is chosen to steer the sun. Tolkien writes:
"Too bright were the eyes of Arien for even the Eldar to look on, and leaving
Valinor she forsook the form and raiment which like the Valar she had worn
there, and she was as a naked flame, terrible in the fullness of her
splendour."
Now Arien isn't a Vala, but she is an Ainu as they and this specifically says
that she was wearing the same type of "raiment" as the Valar. However, when she
removes this "form and raiment" she is "as a naked flame".
Surely this doesn't mean she literally appeared as a tongue of flame, but it
suggests a specific appearance even without the "raiment".
And yet the Valar were said to be invisible when they doffed their raiments.
Can they choose to make their true forms visible without clothing themselves in
physicality? Is Arien just so darn fiery that even her 'invisible' form shines
through into the visible
realm?
“She is a pretty flower, but she badly needs watering, she does!”Sam, on Galadriel
John Boorman's "Lord of the Rings" script
Read my Tinúviel script
`Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern men, and other names beside.`
