abstract
| - The Thrall-Noldorin are those Elves of the Noldor who have become slaves of Morgoth. In the earlier conceptions of what would become The Silmarillion, all Elven realms of Beleriand were destroyed much earlier than in the final work, and virtually all the Noldor were enslaved by Morgoth as his thralls, working in the mines of Angband doing Morgoth's work. The only free Noldor were escaped thralls or lucky refugees, who were mistrusted by the Sindar. Morgoth's power in these early works is perceived as great: he is able to dominate the minds of the Elves wherever they go, by instilling his fear in them. Even the escaped thralls are thus not truly free. It is not inconceivable that in this early conception Thrall-Noldorin were used to breed the orcs. In the later material the published Silmarillion was based on, there are relatively few references to Morgoth's thralls. There are no clear mentions of what happens to the Elves Morgoth captures, except for Gwindor, an elf-lord escapee who travelled with Túrin (exactly where Finduilas and the other women of Nargothrond were intended to be taken to is never said), but the idea is still present in the end of the Quenta Silmarillion, which mentions that the Valar freed Morgoth's slaves.
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