View Single Post
Old 01-28-2005, 12:20 PM   #12
The Saucepan Man
Corpus Cacophonous
 
The Saucepan Man's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: A green and pleasant land
Posts: 8,390
The Saucepan Man has been trapped in the Barrow!
Pipe

Quote:
Originally Posted by the phantom
No. In this case it had nothing to do with it being wrong to use a weapon of the enemy. It had to do with the fact that it wouldn't have worked ... If the new bearer wins, he becomes the next Dark Lord and once again evil wins.
Well, it would have defeated Sauron, so it would have realised the original cause, even if it gave rise to another.


Quote:
If the ring had no corrupting powers and could be wielded safely there would be no problem with using its power to overthrow Sauron.
The point is that it couldn't be wielded safely precisely because it was a device of the Enemy. I can think of no better illustration of the proposition that, by using a device of the Enemy, one becomes no better than him. In the case of the Ring, one does in fact replace him.

To my mind, the situations are very similar. Had one of the Wise set about a policy of breeding Orcs to defeat the existing Dark Lord, then they would be setting themselves up to be the next Dark Lord. At least that's how, in my opinion, it works in Tolkien's world.

In real life, things are a bit more complicated.
__________________
Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!
The Saucepan Man is offline   Reply With Quote