"That is among the things that we will consider."

"Please, do not wait for the entire plan to be considered in depth before you act to the benefit of your charges. Sending trusted Maiar to Endorë would not disturb your deliberations, would pose minimal risk while guaranteeing help towards those at Melkor's mercy, and would keep you appraised of what Melkor is capable of so that you might respond to him accordingly."

"And also pose disadvantages that you are not aware of and that, in the spirit of the urgency you seem to prefer, it would be absurd for us to attempt to summarize."

It is really, really hard to actually talk to these people with their constant infuriating condescension.

"I do not know all of the disadvantages of the action I would counsel you to take," she agrees, "nor do I need to know. But I believe, and forgive me for my bluntness and my arrogance, my lord, but I would see that we not waste time with dignity while in such a crisis, that you have something to gain from an incarnate perspective on urgency as well. Can we not take part in your consideration, respond to Melkor's evil with cooperation of very different beings rather than dissent and condescension between them?"

"You can indeed take part in our deliberations, but this would slow them considerably and should not be framed as a concern of urgency."

Rrrrrrrgh so sick of the condescension.

"So are the Eldar to simply do nothing for fear of getting in your way? We have more to offer than obedience and silence! Would you have expected my uncle to create the Silmarils?"

"There are parts of this project in which your assistance will be invaluable, but for the time being shouting the first suggestions that come to your mind is not the way you can best aid in repairing these evils."

Do not start shouting, do not start shouting. Do not. You are currently representing a family that is bad at anger management, do not do so by proceeding to be bad at anger management.

"Then what is?"

"We are deliberating on this. Give yourselves time to mourn and time to calm down."

"I cannot mourn while people are still dying. Can we not be aided in helping our kin?"

"People are not dying. It is precisely when you are in this state that you are of least help to anyone."

Twitch.

"People in Valinor are not dying. But it is not just for those in Valinor that I care for," unlike some people, "and my lord, I think your own grief causes you to overestimate how grief affects my mind. I am mourning, it is true. But I am not lost to it. I am angry, scared, and grieving, but I am not incapable of making rational decisions."

"People outside Valinor are also not dying; Melkor has not attacked them. I hope this information enables you to better absorb our counsel: wait, and permit us to learn as much as we can and decide a course of action."

This is so hard, is Manwë just thinking of the absolute most condescending thing to say and then going with that? Because that is definitely what it feels like.

She has to take a few seconds to avoid snapping. "... I would like to stress the value of communication along with deliberation. Is there some way that you might share what you learn with us, so that we might better help defeat this threat?"

"Of course we will do so."

"Because you haven't been," she snaps. Damn it, she'd been doing so well, too. She takes a breath and starts again. "I respect and support the necessity for foresight and careful consideration before action, but you have been utterly silent to all in Valinor. Even if," she somehow manages to avoid stressing that syllable, she deserves the highest of praise for this monumental achievement in patience and diplomacy, "you have a perfect handle on the situation, we cannot know that if you are silent, and we will seek to try to combat him without you, and both you and we will be the lesser for it. The only one who would win is Melkor."

"Now you are informed: we are considering how best to repair the damage Melkor has done and protect the world from him. Your impatience indeed serves your enemy, and we believe that he sought to provoke you to it."

Oh, so instead of trying to ameliorate that at all, you just sat around talking about it among yourselves like -

She stops that train of thought. She's trying to be a diplomat. She will not be any better at what she's doing right now by adding shouting to the mix. Even if the Valar are so blatantly, terribly awful at their jobs that it makes her want to scream at the top of her lungs.

"Might I ask," she says, in a tone that aims for gracious and overshoots right into sarcastically saccharine, "what other things you believe he is attempting to provoke us to do?"

"To reject the peace and safety of Valinor, to turn from Eru..."

"In what ways do you expect that the former can be used against us? Draw us out where he can hurt us?"

"Yes, and rob Aman of its bliss and potential."

There are so many things wrong with that statement, she doesn't even know where to start. How about she just doesn't. Yes. Excellent. Perfect solution. Best diplomat.

Ugh, fine. She'll ask for clarification and then probably try to explain why that statement is terrible.

"Rob Aman in what - sense? In the sense of what those that would leave could accomplish if they stayed?"

"Did you not recently prefer that we set ourselves at once to the task of choosing a response and acting on it? Because that is incompatible with devoting ourselves now to explaining things to you. The promise of Aman is a safe place free from the strife and horrors of Middle-earth, where those who witnessed them could be confident they would never come again. If such strife and impatience and misbehavior is invited among your people as a consequence of Melkor's actions, the potential for Aman to serve that purpose is forever diminished. By contrast your renewed commitment to the bliss of Aman will demonstrate that it endures the behaviors of the Enemy."

Twitch.

She is getting very sick of being treated like a misbehaving child. Her parents didn't treat her like this, even when she was a misbehaving child.

"I think you do not realize the value of explanations and how providing them is in fact quite compatible with action. For example, failing to talk is not putting action on hold, it is action itself. Because you have been silent to all of your charges, you have inflicted harm to the 'bliss of Aman.' The Eldar's trust in you has been shaken. Even if you are right, which we aren't certain of since you let Melkor out in the first place, your argument as to why we should listen to you is not, 'here is what you should do and here are our reasons why,' it is, 'we are right, you are wrong, you are being unreasonable, we're smarter than you could ever be so sit down and shut up.' Which is not how you get people to listen to what you have to say at all, it's how you get a large portion of your population to leave in disgust because they dislike that the bliss of Aman does not involve being treated by their preferences."

"We will not engage with threats and rudeness. They will be regretted when your hearts have had time to cool."