Okay, but you remember the plan having you dead in four hundred fifty two years. Do you have spooky time-travel effects on the plan when you do things or something?

I don't think so. If I were the kind of person to kill myself to fuck the plan, my plan would have been killing myself to fuck the plan. Since I'm not, my plan is to keep hanging out here doing what I do and then at the right moment Sauron will call in a favor and the circumstances will be such that I don't refuse, or I do refuse and that's what triggers it - we don't have all the details about our own choices -

But if the plan is that somebody kills themselves to fuck the plan, then them killing themselves does not in fact fuck the plan!

Why do you think Melkor flipped out and decided to literally torture everything? Because there's no way to fuck the plan! That's what he wanted and he tried all sorts of shit and then more of the plan would be revealed to us and that was in it, and he went farther and farther batshit and the plan rolled out and there it was, and eventually he settled for just being as awful as he conceivably could.

I mean, that does sound really frustrating, but at some point didn't you guys have advance notice on the Men, if not me?

It takes a lot to drag a fate as great as Melkor's off the tracks. Sauron might have stood a chance, and he threw everything he had at it.

I'm really not sure why this isn't as simple as hiring a Man to make the occasional decision for you and then doing whatever the Man says. It doesn't seem like it ought to require turning them into werewolves or anything fucked up like that.

There isn't really a set of small decisions that could change the way Arda's history is fated to go. And Eru can and occasionally does intervene directly. It'd take - it'd take someone thinking big enough, and someone powerful enough. The Men might eventually grow into the sort of things that can change the story. But asking one of them "do we attack the Elves with Balrogs or not" wouldn't do it.

But free will seems like such a - a miscible ingredient - maybe I shouldn't speculate on this any more, you are after all fated to owe Thauron a favor.

You can't get out of it by making decisions with coin flips either. It's not like that. I don't have a great explanation. And I'm fated to owe him a favor in four hundred fifty years, weren't you planning to have this war over long before that?

Yes, but for all I know I've already fucked the plan.

The eldest son of Fëanor being rescued was in the plan. Lúthien of Doriath deciding to acquire combat skills was in the plan. If you vanished today I think fate would get itself back on track.

Huh. ...You talk to Lúthien?

No, but you do, and she's the one who's fated to kill me, so I try to stay as apprised of her as one can when she doesn't leave her forest and I'm not allowed in.

...she's fated to...? Okay, but how did you know that in particular?

I don't think you've offered me a job. Or even promised you won't try to kill me as soon as we're done talking.

I actually don't kill people for recreational purposes! Loki says. I don't like it nearly as much as it must look like!

Individual orcs can't really be said to advantage Melkor at all, he barely notices them. You were still killing them. Or are you like the Elves, who regard it as a mercy? Anyway, I think I'll keep my secrets. Lúthien's safe. She'll be safe for another four and a half centuries, when she will fall in love with someone - fate is flexible as to who - and her father will disapprove of him.

I stopped killing them. They turned out to be recyclable.

I probably shouldn't tell you this, because I approve of you not killing unarmed orcs who are barely out of childhood, good lord, but no, they're not. Melkor can collect their souls but he's not Mandos and can't do anything with them.

Oh.

It still barely costs him anything. He has, what, a million by now? He honestly might be sending you ones he's inclined to dispose of anyway. Or he might be trying to turn Mandos against you, Mandos might eventually get unamused with your death toll. Though he cares more about Elves than Orcs. And isn't going to do anything for five centuries anyway.

Five centuries is plenty of time.

You gonna try overthrowing the Valar? If that's what you want, why not make nice with Sauron? He has all the cards but you have all the leverage.

I might have considered it but he's just so darned determinedly evil and the Valar are merely incompetent assholes and therefore a lesser priority.