[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Elfhelm recognizes, at the time of LotR, that they are crafty with wood - but they also are "wild and wary as the beasts" [and wielding poisoned arrows, and he is happy that "they are not hunting us" - doesn't that raise the question of retaliation in the past too?

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So retaliating when you're attacked justifies the the attacker's behaviour?

this is all too possible in a world where the lies and deceits of Melkor "bear dark fruits unto the latest days".

Ah, the old 'Melkor made me do it' argument....

We have no information of what led to the attacks of the Rohirrim, when they started, how they lasted, how many were involved, or how many casulaties were on each side. Seeing that the drugs are "relentless enemies", whose "red wrath was slow to cool", and that, however, they voluntarily offered to help the rohirrim, I can only see this as emphasising the whole tragedy as in a distant past. The attacks were not meant to be against sentient beings; if the Eldar can be exonerated from moral blame, then so should the rohirrim. After all, it is intention that defines the morality of an action.

I don't read the passage in that way. To me the Woses offered to help the Rohirrim for one reason only - they were on the verge of being extirminated & saw little hope whichever side won, but slightly more if they could win the Rohirrim over.

'But if you live after the Darkness, then leave Wild Men alone in the woods and do not hunt them like beasts any more. Ghan-buri-Ghan will not lead you into trap. He will go himself with father of Horse-men, and if he leads you wrong, you will kill him.'

This hardly implies that the hunting is in the distant past - Ghan is asking that his people are not hunted anymore. And his last line is certainly ambiguous - it may, of course, be read simply as a deal Ghan is making - 'I'll go with you & help & if I lead you wrong, you can kill me.' (ie 'We're equals & these are the terms of our agreement'), but it may just as easily be read as ' I'll go with you & help & I know that if I lead you wrong you'll kill me.' (ie 'I'll help you because you're the lesser of two evils as far as my people are concerned, but I'm well aware you guys are a bunch of spear happy yahoos who think killing people like me is perfectly fine, so I'm under no illusion that if I don't do as you want I'm warg meat').

Of course, we can't tar the whole of the Rohirrim with the same brush - Gamling is evidence that some of them at least recognised that the other peoples were human beings.