I've got two recurring fallen Maiar characters, Angwë and Artíre. Both are fleshed-out minor characters from Lord of the Rings who make brief appearances in canon, but little is said of them.
Angwë
Even Gandalf is afraid of this guy. Angwë has a dreadful temper, you see. He wasn't always like that, but being Sauron's brother can do that to you. Sauron, Morgoth's right-hand Maia, uses Angwë's obsession with Celebdil, a mountain he built, to inveigle him into becoming a Balrog in the service of Morgoth. Angwë agrees in the hope of regaining Celebdil, and getting the squatters Dwarves out.
When I read in the Silmarillion that Morgoth (the devil figure) was Manwë's (the Creator's lieutanant, if you will) brother, I saw no reason why I shouldn't give Sauron a brother. I had to find a way to turn a Maia into a Balrog, and that was one way of doing it. I'm fascinated with the mechanics of thinking, particularly where the downward spiral of self-destruction is concerned.
His name is Sindarin, and means "Iron Lord." A builder and problem-solver by nature, he takes part in a lot of the construction during the Shaping of Arda, which is described in the Silmarillion. In my stories, he made the Lonely Mountain, which features prominently in The Hobbit, and Celebdil, a peak among the Misty Mountains.
Angwë is the perfect cypher for deadly obsessions - his stubborn, irrational desire to regain his mountain - even though he can't really own it and was never meant to, makes him easy prey for his manipulative and selfish brother. By the time he realises the ultimate futility of his endeavours - and finally lets go of Celebdil, it's too late.
Artíre
He's the Watcher in the Water given a backstory and a personality; and above all, a reason for ending up the way he does. A lover of drama and conflict, Artíre prefers to watch than take part, and hates the thought of taking sides.
His origins are unknown, and it is assumed that he is one of those elemental creatures whose existence was left unexplained. Tolkien himself said at one point, "Some things ought to remain a mystery, even to the author." Here you can see him in action: he attacks the Fellowship at the Mines of Moria, then destroys himself.
The wealth of notes and other source material J.R.R. Tolkien has left us has enabled me to conjecture that Artíre is a fallen Maia who sided with Morgoth, the Devil figure, in the Elder days, and became transformed into a monster as a result.
I used Hiswelókë's Sindarin dictionary to think of a name for this character, and found that tíriel means "to watch, gaze, or look at" in Tolkien's invented Sindarin language. I put Ar, which means "lord" in front of that, and masculinised it.
I use Artíre in my stories to explain how peoples' desire for entertainment at the expense of others can bring about their downfall. Put it this way: "Artíre" and "communitarian" aren't on the same page. He's a loner who sees others as potential entertainment - pretty much in the same way as people who watch Big Brother and other reality TV shows, and I use him to explore that kind of attitude.
Maiar: canon and fanon
Maiar are spirit beings and don't need to have bodies. Tolkien speaks of them walking "unclad in flesh, able to put on or drop a bodily form at will."
My idea is that making a body for themselves requires a certain amount of concentration to hold it together. To keep it together requires them to be bound to it. If the body is killed, then, the Maia would lose the portion of his being that was used to bind him to the body. If the process is repeated, the Maia would become diminished and end up being much weaker than before. To regain that strength, he would need to absorb power or energy from someone or something else.
The amount of fun I've had with that idea goes without saying: it permeates all my Artíreverse (and the related Angwëverse) stories, and I've used it to great effect many times.
Morgoth
The Devil figure of the legendarium, his original name was Melkor. During the events of the Silmarillion, an Elf called Fëanor named him Morgoth, which means "Dark Enemy," because he stole the Silmarils and killed Fëanor's father, among other things.
I use the names Melkor and Morgoth interchangeably, though in stories set after the wars with the Elves, I call him Morgoth. The affectation of always speaking in archaic English is what I have given him as a nod to the Silmarillion, in which everyone speaks that way. Personally, I love the air of authenticity it gives the text, but I can't express myself well in that form, so I just have Morgoth speak that way while the rest of the text is written in modern English.
My Morgoth is a brooding, stubborn creature obsessed with his sense of destiny and delusions of grandeur. He's desperately paranoid and intent on maintaining and expanding his power on Middle-earth. If he could just get his servants to work together instead of fighting each other, it would probably work out for him.
Conflict
That paraoia and need to control others rubs off on his servants. I've long believed that a person attracts those most suited to them, and Morgoth attracts devious, paranoid and selfish people because that's what he is. Sauron, Morgoth's lieutenant, kicks off the internal conflict between the main players because he sees the world in terms of those who are for or against himself and his master. The idea that other people might have their own agendas only occurs to Sauron in terms of ways he can use them for manipulation.
Sauron's feud with Artíre comes about because Sauron can't accept that the Watcher only wants to observe. It's the fact that Artíre reports that bothers him. Who is he reporting to, and what is he telling them? He contrives a way to force the Watcher to take sides, and the rest is a very messy history in which Artíre exacts revenge and tries to extricate himself from his imperilled situation.
Angwë is pressed into service when Sauron goads him about the Dwarves' mining operations in Celebdil. Anxious to regain control of the mountain he has made, Angwë is willing to do whatever it takes to get the Dwarves out, even if it means becoming a Balrog. The results are catastrophic for the peoples of Middle-earth, as the Balrog's powers of lateral thinking and problem-solving are used to increase Orc breeding rates and develop bubonic plague, among other things. While he gets on better with Sauron than Artíre does, Angwë stays out of their feud.
Well, that's my Maiar canon and fanon explained - enjoy the stories!
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