"We are as a culture used to it."

Nod. I wonder if that contributes to all the fighting.

"I guess it could? It seems like it'd be hard to tell, there not being any ageless humans around to provide an example."

And young Elves don't commit killings but maybe if they were running all of society it would go terribly. I don't know.

"It could just be a species difference. Closely related primates kill each other plenty but you're not related, you're just lookalikes."

We have primates though they aren't related to us. I wonder if they kill each other. I don't think so but maybe no one would have published it.

"Are they not studied or do you think someone might have seen them doing it and decided not to say?"

They are studied but there are lots and they might not all have been studied and someone might have decided not to say, or asked a Vala who thought they shouldn't say.

"Why would they think they shouldn't say?"

If the Valar said that it'd probably be because they are against disrupting the bliss of Valinor? If they decided on their own it might just be because they don't want to ruin peoples' enjoyment of an animal or go through a big national argument about what to do.

"How confident are you that there aren't a ton of things that would disrupt the bliss of Valinor and are therefore censored so you don't know about them?"

...I mean, there can't be so many that our brother Tyelcormo would have run across one.

"Hm?"

He might not mention on his own but if anyone said he shouldn't for the bliss of Valinor he would never shut up about it.

"Ah."

Anyway I can imagine things like a tribe of monkeys that - kills monkeys - but not a person who killed another person. They don't keep it a secret what Melkor did.

"Yeah, that's reasonable precedent on that."

Yes. It's good that they did that, actually, they could have easily - not done that.

"The various people he did it to wouldn't talk?"

Not if the King and the Valar said it would harm the bliss of Valinor.

"Wow."

They don't talk about it much anyway and the bliss of Valinor is really important to people and the Valar - well, they know a lot more than us and are bad at explaining it, so often if you disagree with them it turns out they were entirely right and just not good at communicating, so it's usually a good idea to do what they say even if you can't figure out why.

"Can you give examples of that?"

...sure, like, they'll say 'don't hunt very many of these animals' and we'll say 'why?' and they'll talk about balance in the universe for a very long time and eventually it turns out that they meant that if you kill predators then there get to be too many of the animals they eat and they kill all the plants and now you have to replant the area by hand and get Yavanna to help with soil desalination if you want it the way it was. 

"...okay. Are any of the examples about politics?"