[Lord of Angmar]

This is a topic I have thought of often, and it has been debated in many ways, shapes, and forms throughout this website.

In Tolkien's books, there seems to me to be several different entities that are constantly at work, 'driving Arda', if you will. While certainly Tolkien believed in free will, one's own will is not the only thing that drives him or her forward within Tolkien's world. Countless times, characters in Tolkien's works have acted with seeming free will and yet have ended up bound in the fate that was prophecied or foreseen for them. The Noldor are a good example. Feanor thought they were using their free will, yet in the end they were condemned for the actions they took because of their doom. Ask yourself this: would they have acted differently if the Noldor were unaware of the doom laid upon them?

Turin is perhaps the best example. For all of his life he ran from the curse that Morgoth had laid upon him, thinking that he was exerting his own free will to prevent his ultimate destiny. And yet it was because of each and every one of his actions that his doom became full-wrought.

Did Tolkien believe in free will? I am almost certain he did. Yet perhaps he had a different vision of free will. Since he said that Eru knew all that could happen and would happen, then essentially he was saying that no man can walk a path which he is not expected to take. And yet walking that path he is still exerting his will as a being, making the choices that he wishes to make.

I believe Tolkien's world is a complex mix of free will, hope, chance and fate, all enmeshed in a complex web that I doubt even Tolkien fully understood.

[ August 04, 2003: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]