Evil in Middle-Earth

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Yes, but people were talking about calling a person evil. I think we can judge whether a particular act is evil or not, but can a person be called evil if they do some evil and some good? I was trying to describe how/when I would call a person evil.[/b]

Tolkien had something to say on the subject:

From Letter 131:

The Second Age ends with the Last Alliance (of Elves and Men), and the great siege of Mordor. It ends with the overthrow of Sauron and destruction of the second visible incarnation of evil. But at a cost, and with one disastrous mistake. Gilgalad and Elendil are slain in the act of slaying Sauron. Isildur, Elendil's son, cuts the ring from Sauron's hand, and his power departs, and his spirit flees into the shadows. But the evil begins to work....

He singles out Sauron (and Melkor before him) as visible incarnations of evil, but they are not evil personified. Sauron and Melkor chose to incarnate themselves in forms which were visibly evil. They were the classic Dark Lords of bad (and good) fantasy literature.

Sauron and Melkor are both free to move throughout Middle-earth, and they deceive anyone who will listen to their lies. But their actions are only their own -- the evil acts committed by others are not transferred to or fully blamed upon Melkor and Sauron. That is, evil is not defeated by defeating either Melkor or Sauron. Evil continues to abide in Ea, and in Middle-earth. Gandalf made that point clear in "The Last Debate":

'Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary....'

[Attalus]

'Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary....'

That quote puzzles me. When I first read the books, I thought it was referring to Morgoth, but we know now that Morgoth was cast into the void. Who do you think it is referring to?

[inked]

Attalus,

Perhaps I was simplistic but I understood this to refer to the parasitic nature of evil (as Boethius and numerous philosophers pre- and post- Christian eras) defined it. So I took it to mean that the possibility of Evil would again and again be actualized in ME as it is in our experience. As long as the good exists and freee will is possible, another Dark Lord could arise among any of the created orders. Does this make sense to you? Though we take the "whom do you serve" in absolutist sense in regard to the text, I think it a much more general question myself. At any time any personality could exalt itself against the ONE and pursue what Morgoth, Sauron, Gollum, etc have sought in their varying degrees. Thus, inherent in a created world with true free will the exaltation of self above all, to the place of God, results in the recurrent rise of evil and all its attendant destructions of persons and places.
(Until, as Christians believe, and Tolkein hoped, the final battle is FINAL and all enemies are put beneath HIS footstool and death itself cast into the place prepared for it. For it shall not be as CS Lewis observed in THE GREAT DIVORCE that the good shall ever be at the mercy of the wicked! )

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by Attalus

That quote puzzles me. When I first read the books, I thought it was referring to Morgoth, but we know now that Morgoth was cast into the void. Who do you think it is referring to?

It WAS referring to Morgoth (who was NOT cast into the Void -- Tolkien waffled on what happened to Morgoth as the Middle-earth mythology moved farther away from the earlier mythologies).

[Attalus]

Ah, well that explains it. Makes perfect sense, that way.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Michael Martinez

It WAS referring to Morgoth (who was NOT cast into the Void -- Tolkien waffled on what happened to Morgoth as the Middle-earth mythology moved farther away from the earlier mythologies).

Morgoth was not cast into the void? What hapenned to him then? (Why do I think he was... )

[Wayfarer]

Hey! Welcome back Michael!

Originally Posted by inked

Wayfarer, is the absence of evil perfection? Are there degrees of perfection?

Somehow I seem to have missed this. Yes. I believe that the absence of Evil is Perfection.

Actually, I can go farther than that and qualify it - Perfection is a state characterized by a complete absence of Evil, while still retaining the potential for evil. Perfection is that point at which there is no longer the possibility of things becoming more good or less evil.

To take this from our perspective, we can look at our own state of existance and tell ourselves 'It could be worse, but it could also be better'. We can imagine our state of existance becoming either more good (and thus less evil), or more evil (and thus less good). If the trend continues long enough in one direction or another, there will come a point where either Good or Evil becomes overwhelmingly dominant (such as in Valinor, or in Mordor), but still containing traces of the other (there was a bit of evil in Valinor, and some small good in Mordor).

The ultimate end if one continues the trend towards Evil is that each good attribute dissapears one by one, until a creature which is almost completely Evil maintains only existance (which is a good quality). Remove that, leaving something wholly Evil - and you have nothing, the void.

On the other hand, continuing the trend in the other direction, towards Good, will see the weakening and loss of those Evil characteristics which a creature possesses. Once the last of those qualities is set right, all that remains is that which is wholly Good - that which is perfect.

In retrospect, perhaps it would be best to say that Evil is Zero and Good is Infinity. Conceptually that fits the bill of what we are talking about. Strictly speaking, though, I feel the mathematical concepts are best applied in reverse. Perhaps it's awfully picky of me, but it's possible to perform mathematical equations on Zero and recieve a different result (0-1=-1), whereas any operation performed upon Infinity (Except dividing it by itself), will always give a result of Infinity (∞-1=∞, ∞*2=∞). What I'm getting to here is that a state of 'perfect' Evil (Null. The complete absence of good things) can never produce a result other than itself, whereas a state of perfect Good contains the potential for (but not the actualization of) Evil.

Meh. Perhaps we should just say that Morality is always Multiplicative, not Additive?

Anyway. By definition there cannot be grades of perfection. In saying that something is 'more perfect' than something else, what we really mean is that it is 'less imperfect'. There is perfection, which is Good, and grades of imperfection all the way down to nonexistance, which is Evil.

Originally Posted by inked

If Melkor had chosen obedience once the thought of disobedience ocurred to him, would Arda have been more perfect?

If Melkor had chosen obidience when the thought of disobedience occured to him, Arda would have remained Perfect (I think). Of course, that would mean retaining the potential for Evil (and Melkor retaining the thought of Disobedience), which means that Evil could have occured later. For all we know, Melkor resisted the temptation to rebel for subjective aeons before finally exalting himself above his creator.

Perhaps, if we want to niggle on that point, we could say that imperfection arose as soon as Melkor realized that he could act against his creator if he wished. I don't really know. That does remind me of the statemen (strangely enough, also from The Great Divorce) that once all is said and done and things have been made perfect again, nobody in Heaven will be thinking about Good, because they will be too busy experiencing it. Perhaps it could also be said that in a state of perfect Good there will be no concept of Evil (which would seem to be true about Manwe, for example).

[inked]

Wayfarer,

I think we agree. If the perfect is defined as the absence of evil and the fullest experience of the Good possible, i.e., the Beatific Vision and Experience of God, then we do. That is how I understood your post, at any rate.

As to the realization of the above, if Arda had remained uncontaminated by evil, there is the sense in which the increasing actualization of the potential inherent in each created entity would have contributed to a further experience of the Good until these were maximized in the equivalent of the Beatific vision. When I posed the question it was this process I was envisioning, thus thinking the original creation was Good but not Perfect in that sense as it would take time for each creation to achieve its full potential and achieve its Beatific Vision. (I also had in mind the end of PERELANDRA where the obedient Adam and Eve of that Unfallen World set about to achieve the ends appointed and possible to them, which, of course Lewis could only suggest to our imaginations. There world was Good by the choice of obedience, but it had not attained the fulness of its possibilites.)

[Wayfarer]

Indeed.

[Attalus]

Funny, I was thinking of Perelandra long before it was mentioned. Perelandra obviously contained the possibility of evil, both disobedience and that scientist-demon, whatshisname. But by obedience, the world remained at the furthest as it could be frome Evil, maintaining a fragile Perfection.

[Wayfarer]

Perhaps you could even say that the world moved farther away from evil.

An interesting thought: Can it be said to be 'more good' to have been tempted and resisted the temptation (or turned back after failing to resist), than it would have been to have been innocent and never have been tempted?

I'm reminded of the statement I've heard that it's no virtue to be sinless if you have never felt any temptaton.

[Haradrim]

But the gold ofhe ring wasnt evil...... just kidding. SOme of you may get that inside joke and if you dont you dont want to.

One thing I want to say about evil is what is good. To define evil you must first define good. Good is just what the majority of peoples morals are. If everyone on earth believed that you could kill, rape, and pillage anyone you wanted then that is not evil that is just what it is. It becomes good. The only reason evil is evil is because it is a minority. I mean imagine for instance that the Valar are all evil and Melkor/Morgoth is good. (By evil I mean evil in our terms and by good I mean good in our terms) In that situation Melkor is evil and the Valar is good. Evil is just the morals that are the exact opposite and in minority of the "good" morals.

[inked]

Yes. It was more good that temptation was met and overcome. If you compare Malacandra and its peoples to Earth and Perelandra, you get some idea. The peoples of Malacandra had never been tempted and were incapable of understanding evil, as you will recall. I think it is interesting that the general themes are played out up close and personal in Middle Earth while they are played out on much broader canvases in the Space Trilogy. Quite a number of parallels as one would expect from two classicists!

[Wayfarer]

I just feel that I should point out that you're wrong, Haradrim.

[Haradrim]

Hmm how many want to gang up on me. For some reason people like to do that to me.... I like it though. Us poor Haradrim are never understood. (sniff sniff)
Oh and wayfarer...
No Im not...

[Wayfarer]

I'm a 'gang'? Okay.

In any case, you can't just make an assertion and pretend that it's fact. You can say 'evil is whatever is in the minority', without having anything to back it up, fine, your choice. But if I choose to say 'You're wrong', I don't really need to say why, since my statement is just as strong as yours.

[Haradrim]

By gang I wasnt referring to you. Usually whenever i make an assertion and in my opinion fact I am usually in the minority and in that case "evil" also I cant really back up my case cuz there really are no real cases of this in history and no literature that I know of. Its more a philisophical statement that I would like to try and defend. SO I cant really back it up except by disproving your anti-arguments. yeah I know its kinda weak but whatev...

[Attalus]

*Joins Wayfarer to gang up on Haradim* Evil is not just the opinion of the majority, as if everybody once held a meeting and voted on what was good and what was not. Evil is an easily definable (and recognizable) condition: in orthodox Christian theology, it is anything that separates the soul from God; in morality it is what hurts oneself and particularly others. What you are describing is moral relativism, and I do not subscribe to that, at all, at all. I further agree with Wayfarer that unsupported statements are not evidence of the truth or otherwise of anything.

[Haradrim]

Attalus,
I was not saying that people held on egreta meeting and decided. however, In your opinion the majority of people on this planet would agree that murder is wrong. That it is evil. I agree with this and I presume you and everyone else here does as well. However what if you were to go to a planet where evil was perfectly acceptable and the majority of the people did not view murder as a bad thing but in fact that it was good. Then to them murder is good. It may seem evil to us but we are in the minority on that planet. We are evil because we are opposite of their good. good aznd evil are completley relatice. Evil and good truly are in the eyes of the beholder and the majority.

[Wayfarer]

You're still wrong, though. Completely wrong.

Whether or not you call something Evil has no bearing on whether or not it is Evil. It doesn't matter if you consider murder to be wrong - either it is or it isn't, and that doesn't change regardless of what the majority thinks.

I don't want to pick on you or anything (no more than usual, anyway), but no matter how much you repeat something and no matter how many people who agree with you, you're either right or you're wrong and that's it.

It's my experience that people who say the sort of things that you're saying tend to... emote to the decision rather than thinking about it, and are usually confused as to what they're talking about. Not to imply that you are or anything, but again, you admit yourself that you really don't have a leg to stand on as far as supporting that idea...

And which of the Beholder's eyes is it in, anyway?