[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

So, we have one Vala gaining understanding of his misdeed and correcting his behavior, and thus is given a "slap on the wrist" by the Judge. The other is seen to be hardcore to the end, and gets what amounts to e life sentence. To me, intentions seem to be the key to redemption.

Well, intentions are a part of the puzzle...definitely an integral part, but not the full puzzle.

One could argue Sauron had positive intentions, intentions he still retained even when he was the revealed, undeniable, Big Bad Evil in the 3rd Age:

He [Sauron] still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and co- ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction.~Home X: Morgoth's Ring, Myth's Transformed (Text VII)

Sauron's intentions can be argued as a positive. His virtue is his love for Order and co-ordination, so the evil isn't in his intentions. And it's not as if the Numenoreans and Gondorians were completely altruistic in their intentions through their history. Not knowing the perspective of men from say Rhun and Khand, they could have seen Sauron as a hero, freeing them from Gondor's expansionist threats., or the Numenorean's quest for supremacy as the dominant race of Men.

Intentions are of course a big part, as Tolkien describes in a letter talking about Gollum and the destructions of the Ring. Gollum's intentions are entirely selfish, and simply because good comes from his evil intentions in the Sammath Naur, does not mean Gollum is "redeemed." However, it's not entirely about intentions either, as above, I think an argument can be made that Sauron's intentions, and love for Order are positive. All intentions show is the "ends," what does Sauron hope to achieve. And his love for Order, combined with his pride lead to a distortion of total subjugation, an enslavement, to Sauron's will.

The other factor with intentions (or to call them "ends" for my purposes) are the actions (or "means.") Since we often hear about "means" and "ends." Sauron's intentions are positive, but the means he chooses to reach those ends morph into a terrible and sinister evil. Saruman provides the best example to what I'm attempting to argue:

Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means."~The Council of Elrond

Now we can certainly whether Saruman's designs at this point are the true mission of the Istari, or not, but Saruman brings up a fascinating point for this thread. In Saruman's distorted mind his intentions may still be good and noble, but he still has clearly fallen off the path, so to say. In Saruman's mind, the means don't matter as much as the ends. Saruman can have the best of intentions, but if he's murdering and subjucating people to his will to achieve those ends, his means are completely messed up. You can say this is an important factor in Gandalf's rejection of the Ring. He knows in his heart his intentions would be positive, but it's his recognition that the power and means thof the Ring would ultimately lead to evil and pain.

Intentions and actions. Ends and means.