"Yep. Only if you agree to it, of course, but he won't bring you back if you're evil. Fëanor once he dies is going to be dead forever, there's a prophecy to that effect."

"Never having met the guy, that sounds a lot like a powerful being forcing people to serve their ends on pain of death. Or at least deadness.

Which you were just telling me is what the Enemy does, except in his case I'm guessing about the threats."

"I mean, 'categorically reincarnate mass murderers' isn't the greatest of approaches either. But yeah. We don't like the Valar. Therefore we left."

"It sounded like you agreed that what Mandos does is fix people.

Leaving is progressively sounding like a better and better idea, agreed, even if it doesn't do anything about the actual problem on this one."

"Mandos does fix people. Is that an appropriate thing to strive for given how much power over them he has? I don't know. But they do come back fixed."

"You mean he changes their morals in addition to fixing them, or as part of it? Because the second one is less a question of whether it's appropriate and more a question of how much of an unspeakable atrocity it is."

"Maybe among Men. No one knows exactly how Mandos works, but 'unspeakable atrocity' is a rather strong wording for 'asks murderers if they'd like to stop being inclined to commit murder'."

"If it's limited to murder that wouldn't be much of one at all. He's got nothing on the Enemy regardless, but that's a stupidly low bar.

Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing too much. I just have a hard time picturing someone who has the power to make everyone agree about what is good and evil, uses it, and stops at murder. They'd almost inevitably go further.
Do the Valar have a stated reason for only doing this while people are dead?"

"Being reembodied is a privilege, not a right. You can't go around making people not evil but you can condition privileges on it."

"A privilege. And being continuingly embodied is a right, presumably."

Irissë, remember how I said I wouldn't know how to make life? I don't know how to reembody existing people either but I bet it's easier.

"You've got it."

That'd be interesting. - if you could reembody Finwë you'd solve the succession dispute.

"Maybe I wasn't anthropomorphizing too much. Being the only one with a scarce resource and getting whatever concessions you want is exactly what a lot of humans would do."

I was thinking more of reembodying people before Mandos gets them. I guess as long as we're talking about things we have no idea how to do, reembodiment at a distance probably isn't strictly impossible.

"You could certainly look at it that way."

"That is the most charitable way I can think of to look at it, unless he actually does restrain himself to rehabilitating murderers and other unambiguous things."

"We don't have enough information. Everyone who died in Valinor and desired to return to life was swiftly so returned; orcs haven't been; part of the Doom is that none of us will be, which I agree is unfair but I don't think is Mandos' general approach."

"He doesn't publicize what he considers evil? That's...among Men it'd be obviously unjust, but maybe here it's incompetence. You don't get people to do what you want by not letting them know what that means."

"I think there's a worry about gaming the system, treating it like a checklist rather than a very personal process."

"That makes sense, depending on their priorities. Are they trying to make everyone into the kind of people who willingly conform or are they trying to reduce the amount of evil that happens?"

"You'd have made yourself popular. I don't know. They don't think like us. They don't - it's not conformity they're going for, exactly, but I don't think they're trying to reduce the amount of evil that happens either."

"Yeah, I'd be watching my words a lot more carefully around them."

She sighs. "People like to blame it all on the Valar. They didn't make Fëanor forge a sword or pick it up, or burn the ships, but they definitely could have and should have stopped him. Instead it's up to us."

"More than enough things that need stopping."

"Yep."

The next few days are short-notice preparation for leaving. Amber helps where she can, meaning less than almost all the Elves, until whenever is the next convenient time to disappear with Irissë. Scouting isn't time-sensitive on a scale of days.

And then, they're off.

Can we fly over my demesne? I like my demesne.