I have had a thought that would be a fairly significant change, so I want to run it by everyone before altering the document.
We have said that there would be some Maiar who are not on board with Manwë's idea to found Almaren, a place where they all work together to shape Middle Earth. Some even outright leave and do not join in on this 'project'. We have a reluctant Ulmo, but we've had few candidates to actually reject the plan. Melkor is not there yet, nor are his key followers (the proto-balrogs).
Ungoliant is the obvious non-joiner....but based on our storyline for her, she should never come to Almaren at all. Those gathering up the Maiar to say, 'come, meet in the center!' don't find her, so she never goes at all (the Avari of the Valar, if you will
). So, she can't walk out of the meeting.
Tom Bombadil would be a perfect loner who does his own thing; this may be an opportunity to have a cameo for him. He could be met with surprise by Eonwë and Ilmaren (who are doing the gathering), and there would be a confused, 'Who are you?' moment [since they don't know each other]. That would alleviate the 'Tom is a Maia' conclusion for those who don't like that, leaving his origin as mysterious as Tolkien left it [since we only meet him in Arda, not before.] He could go along to the meeting, decide it's not really his thing, and then just walk off (blue jacket, swan-wing feather in his cap, and yellow boots, of course).
But this isn't really a loss - having random nameless characters who we will never see again say, 'eh, not really my thing' doesn't leave Manwë all that disappointed. So...who is left?
Lorien, Estë, Námo and Vairë
We have decided not to introduce them until episode 7, when the Valar go to Valinor. What if...they are the ones who say, 'being here isn't our task' and they go to prepare their places in Valinor instead? This would be a rather significant split, and would give the Valar a reason to decide to move to Valinor after the destruction of Almaren.
The reason why I am not considering this a brilliant decision that must be implemented immediately is because....having Mandos disagree with Manwë is a Big Deal, and we could never let it happen again. Or, rather, Manwë would never again ignore the advice of Mandos. Also, we were counting on 'meeting' the last four Valar in that episode, and don't really have room to introduce them here. If we meet them then, Mandos can confirm Manwë as High King, which vindicates the results of the Manwë vs Melkor showdown after the Lamps.
So, anyway, what do people think? Who should be the dissenting voices to the founding of Almaren if Arda is not really 'marred' yet - is it followers of Melkor from the Music?