Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-9026161-20130831131804/@comment-24590102-20140312050427

Manwe wasn't king of any gods in The Silmarillion but, rather, he was chief among the Ainur - powerful non-deities who essentially built and moulded and, ultimately, crafted Middle Earth according to their understanding of Illuvatar's design. As the accomplished craftsman who built Jorrvaskr and laid the foundations of Whiterun; Manwe of Atmora is, in all the most significant aspects of his character, the Atmoran equivalent to most gifted of Illuvatar's crafters, Manwe the Ainur. The names of the people around them are insignificant and bear no relevance to their correspondence in identity because neither the things nor the people around us make us who we are but, rather, we make that choice for ourselves; which choice, ultimately, defines who we are. Thus, all that matters concerning the possible correspondence of both Manwe protagonists, is who they are - which can only be defined in any biographical sense by what they do (as all else is speculation, hearsay and conjectural confabulation AKA "interpretation"). In this context, it remains admissible that both are crafters who built according to a master-plan conceived of by another (e.g. Illuvatar, Jeek of the River, & probably Ysgramor).

Interestingly, Manwe the Atmoran is torn from a home far away and plunged into "some remnant of the god's efforts to render a paradise in Mundus before the shattering of Lorkhan" (Songs of the Return, Vol 7) where, he finds waiting for him, the same totem as Manwe the Ainur in the form of a "monument of a bird, whose eyes and beak were opened in flame". There, Manwe the Atmoran comes to settle in a new home more of his own making - much as Manwe the Ainur came to build and settle in what was later known as Valinor while, yet, it remained joined with Middle Earth.

What is significant about this is not so much any commonality of set thematics but the fact that both protagonists are, due to their nature, exiled from their erstwhile homes by their drive to make a better place of the world in which they live (for both protagonists: in a strictly non-solipsistic sense of "better" which can be easily contrasted with the motives of Melkor). This also offers us an admissible point of commonality which speaks to the common character of both protagonists through the deeds for which they are known.

Based on this, I would conclude that Manwe the Atmoran has definite correspondence with Manwe the Ainur and that it is not much of a stretch, at all, to speculate that this may well be an in-game acknowledgement of Tolkien's legacy.