"Well, he only destroyed parts of Valinor, but yes. It worked. The angry Noldo became extremely angry. He took a reckless oath to retrieve the Silmarils at any cost from whoever might withhold them, and his seven children took it with him, and then he incited many of the other Noldor to follow him to Beleriand immediately in order to try as hard as they could to defeat or at minimum inconvenience Melkor, which is also a motivation I can respect. Meanwhile, Melkor reclaimed Angband and created me."

"And so that's why the newcomers showed. They swore an oath to retrieve their jewelry at any cost? That's incredibly stupid."

"The powerful magical artifacts which were the angry Noldo's life's work and the only means for the Noldor to survive outside Valinor in the long term, yes, that jewelry. It's still stupid but more understandable given the full context. Also it's likely that they didn't realistically expect anyone to be able to get them away from Melkor. I wouldn't have taken them away from Melkor under the circumstances except that Melkor found them useful to have around, and it is my hope that without them he will be in disarray for long enough that the unknown force can come back and damage him some more."

"Why'd he find them useful, what do they do?"

"Preserve things. Amplify things. Very generally and powerfully."

"So the angry Noldo's gonna want them back."

"His family will. The angry Noldo himself is dead and, as far as I understand the situation, indefinitely forbidden to return to life."

"It takes a lot to provoke the Valar to that much anger."

"I am sure they were not in the best of moods when he did whatever he did that brought that sentence upon him. I am not well acquainted with the details of the case. Here are the facts of which I am certain: Three groups of Noldor intended to depart Valinor in hasty pursuit of Melkor, associated respectively with Finwë's three sons. The angry Noldo's host arrived first, very quickly, on the swan-ships of the Teleri, which they then burned. They killed an immense number of orcs, and then the angry Noldo tried to duel multiple Balrogs and died. Melkor captured the angry Noldo's eldest son using a false offer of parley and he became Sauron's favourite prisoner. What remained of their host settled by Lake Mithrim. Much more recently, Nolofinwë Arakáno's host arrived, on foot, over the land bridge called the Ice-Fangs, many of them dead or dying of cold and starvation, barely on speaking terms with the first group. The third seems to have stayed behind entirely. Both groups of Noldor in Beleriand are generally understood to be operating under a curse of fate imposed by the Valar, and from what I've heard the terms of the curse may include failing in their campaign against Melkor, in which case it's very interesting that someone apparently aligned with Noldorin interests succeeded in leveling Angband."

"Huh. 

Well, easy to guess why the second group wasn't on good terms with the first group, if the first group lit the ships on fire."

"If the Valar really did curse the Noldor to fail against Melkor, then whatever the Noldor did to incur their wrath, I am deeply unimpressed with their priorities. But very intrigued by the apparent success of the Noldor so far."

"I don't think the Valar'd do that. Maybe to fail unless they repented, or something."

"I don't know the exact terms of the curse. If I meet a Noldo and have the opportunity, I will ask."

"And the next thing that happened after that was levelling Angband?"

"Approximately, yes. I know a few more things about the unknown force. A new light shone in the sky very briefly. Melkor sent some orcs and a Balrog to investigate the site of its apparent landing, near the lake where the Noldor are staying. None of them came back. Then a few days later, a flying metal thing approached Angband at astonishing speed, tore the fortress apart in minutes using mysterious powers the likes of which I've never seen, resisted all Melkor's attempts to shake it out of the air, killed several Balrogs and gravely injured many more, stole Sauron's favourite prisoner from the cliffside where he was hanging, and left as quickly as it had arrived. I was delighted beyond measure."

"I can imagine! That's amazing! The Noldor can't have done it - so what possibly -"

"I do not know. It was entirely unprecedented."

"How'd the Enemy react?"

"He was very upset. And he gave me his crown to repair. After that I imagine he was even more upset but I did not linger to find out."

"Why'd he give you his crown?"

"He trusted me, and had very few people left who could repair it for him, and was too busy having a tantrum to do it himself."

"So aside from being evil he's kind of awful?"

"I'm not sure what you mean by that exactly."

"Like, there are evil people who are good to those in their command, or strategic about being evil. He doesn't sound like either of those things."

"He certainly has a strategy and it is often a successful one, but evil is definitely his goal as well as his method of achieving it. He is not good to those in his command and not infallible."