[The Mirrorball Man]

Thingol, I think you make very good points about the depiction of evil in Tolkien's books. And I agree with you that he did deal with some mechanism of evil, particularly with temptation and corruption. But in my opinion, he never really dealt with the issue itself, what I called the "nature" of evil, for lack of a better term.

In Shakespeare's plays (I started with him, so why not continue? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] ), evil is depicted as an organic, almost palpable force. It takes something from you and gives something in return. Iago (in Othello) or Gloucester (in Henry VI and Richard III) lose their humanity, but they gain an incredible energy that destroys everyone who dares to approach them. And you can measure the scope of their corruption in those rare instances when they show doubts or have scruples, those scenes where you can see darkness pouring throught the cracks of their personality.

And since we're talking about mythology, the same traits can be observed in characters like Zeus - when his lust transforms him into a jealous, cruel and impulsive villain - or Loki, an outcast among the Aesir.

There is no such thing in Tolkien's books. We know what Sauron has gained by embracing evil, but we don't know what he has lost. He remains a cipher, we learn nothing about his motivations, about the secrets of his heart. Sauron is not the same kind of villain as Gloucester, he's more like Moby **** , a powerful and obscure force of nature that we will never truly understand. If we did, he would be really convincing as an evil character, instead of being just a dangerous character.