"That first one...sounds reasonable and also like if I follow my current plan of 'become magically powerful enough to smite him' I should be exceedingly careful about collateral damage."

"We can evacuate to a hundred miles with an hour's notice and two hundred miles with a day's. You will kill hundreds of thousands of people if you sink, burn, blast or otherwise render uninhabitable land of any greater radius in your fight with the enemy. It might be worth it."

"At which point my main concern is 'does he have a deadman's switch that will do a great deal more damage than that set to go off if he dies'."

"He didn't the last time the Valar warred with him."

"Were there a lot of people in harm's way last time that he could kill out of spite?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Then I don't want to bet that he wouldn't do that this time."

"His continued existence is also a lousy bet. Orcs are, as far as we know, not just produced from tortured Elves but in constant pain."

"Eugh. I don't mean that I'll hold off on killing him, don't worry, I mean that I'll make a mental note to check to see if I can find a deadman's switch and get rid of it if there is one before I do it."

"Sounds good. Am I keeping you from spider-killing? Because it sounds like you have quite the ambitious plans here."

"Not by a lot, and the deadman's switch thing at least was valuable. What exactly are the Valar, that seems relevant if the Enemy is one of them, what properties do they have?"

"They created the world, they can mostly take physical form at will, most of their abilities are very slow-acting - measured in millenia, for the serious ones - they can read minds even if you're not willing, as a much stronger variant on our abilities - the Enemy has some mind-control powers but they seem to be unreliable and demand you've been in his presence. He can breed monsters of various new and interesting varieties. He can induce hallucinations that are so persistent there's no known way to convince someone reality isn't one."

"...What, really? That's awful--"

"Oh, God, did that happen to Maedhros."

"He decided long ago to pretend we all existed, there was probably going to be a war if he didn't. Maybe sometimes nowadays he actually believes it, I'm not sure."

"That explains a really depressing amount of his behavior."

"If you tell him it's obvious he will probably modify the relevant behavior. What are you thinking of?"

"...It wasn't obvious, exactly, it's just that he was really depressing and also mentioned that he had been captured. And--the way he looked when he said some things, like that I should take his regards to his brothers. Like there was something horribly ironic about it."

"He asked his rescuer to shoot him. I would have, but I wasn't there."

"If he prevented a war I think I'm glad his rescuer didn't kill him. I don't know if I'm glad for his sake or not." She pauses. "If he was going to pretend at all he'd have been pretending all the time, right? To be happy."

"He pretends to think we exist. He only pretends to be happy for the benefit of the people who need to believe that, and I guess in his assessment you don't, particularly. If you seem to be significantly more effective if you think he's happy he'll start pretending for you too, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not going to be less effective because he's massively depressing. I'm probably going to be more effective because I will be righteously enraged on his behalf, but please don't tell him that; I don't want to give him incentive to pretend in that direction either. No, it's just--I got him to smile, for a moment. When he got magic to work for the first time."

"When we win the war I think his life will be worth living most of the time."

"I hope so. I hate the idea that someone couldn't ever be happy for more than a minute again."

"You must be from a very nice place."