I was asked to act as a judge on this debate topic by Ithrynluin. I am honored to be included in this way; it took so long, however, that it will be a long time before I can do it again!
I did not read the topic beforehand. I kept notes as I read the debate, and I have posted those notes here for anyone who is interested. (You'd have to be pretty bored or incredibly interested to pore through them!)
Here is my final breakdown on what I think the outcome should be:
| Statement | Point | Comment |
| And it may be that Eru has set a greater fire in me than thou knowest. | Noldorin | The Valarin team never quite got hold of this argument; YayGollum had it from the start. |
| Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it. | Valarin | The Noldorin team allowed the argument to be drawn narrowly at a critical point at the end of the debate. |
| Yea, in the end they shall follow me. | Valarin | Neither side showed well on this. The Valarin team had a slight edge. |
Arvedui was by far the strongest debate participant, in my opinion. His posts were insightful and unusually potent. I read the notes on the organization of the debate by accident before I actually read the debate; Arvedui actually changed from one side with which he had greater affinity to the other in order to make the sides more even (at the time, they were 5 against 3; Arvedui's switch made it 4:4; another TTFer joined after that.)
I was dismayed by frequent attempts to debate the ethics and morals of Fëanor. Fëanor showed crummy character in the Flight of the Noldor and the Battle under the Stars. That was never in contention, nor was it ever properly part of the debate. Fëanor's actions were reprehensible; he spends the rest of existence imprisoned in the Halls of Mandos as a result; but it simply was not part of the debate to be adjudicated.
At the very end of the debate, the Noldorin team allowed the Valarin team to narrowly draw the question of whether or not Fëanor was responsible for setting into motion the actions of the Noldor in Middle-earth, and especially in Beleriand. Had they maintained a broad interpretation of this line, or even an ambiguous one, they would have carried the debate handily.
I was curious about how far apart the posts were, mainly because I wanted to know how long the debate took, how frequently postings were made (the flipside of how far apart they are), and what kind of time is required for the debate teams. Here is a graphic of the posts:
