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Old 07-08-2016, 11:48 AM   #60
Marwhini
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Join Date: Jun 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen View Post
Also-

I don't understand this. You're saying that a place cannot be a republic if the ancestors of some of its inhabitants lived in a kingdom?
No, I am saying that to Tolkien, the place represented a corruption of the Natural Order, where the population was cursed because they rejected the Natural Authority of the King of that Realm.

If you go up to the post I made where I linked to two YouTube videos, the second of which is just an audio-interview of Tolkien, and listen to the second one....

In it, Tolkien is asked directly about his Political Views, Monarchy, and Feudalism.

He is VERY CLEAR in that he considers Democracy to be a bad way to run a country, or government, and that Kings present the rightful means of "doing business" (with government).

This is an aspect of Tolkien that most people today have a hard time accepting, as it is a Reactionary Conservative view that is totally at odds with Modernity (as was Tolkien - He rejects the Enlightenment as well).

I even struggle with accepting that view. But in as far as I love Middle-earth, I wish to understand its creator (or, as Tolkien would say "Subcreator" - look more deeply into what he means by that, and you might find some pretty disturbing things out about Tolkien), and thus I need to understand both what he believes and why, as they are manifested in his works.

I even need to find those things I disagree with (although currently I am beginning to suspect he may be correct about Democracy, as much as it pains me to think that).

That the world is Feudal is not negated by the existence within it of a Democratic City-State. All this means is that there exists an exception to The Rule, and one that was fairly short-lived, and immediately corrected upon the destruction of Smaug, when Bard again took up the Crown of Dale, and his rightful place in Society.


Quote:
But you just said it was "essentially Feudal"...
Again. it being Feudal isn't contradicted by the existence of a small, isolated realm that was momentarily (and disastrously) flirting with Democracy.

This is akin to saying that a person isn't "Essentially biological" if they happen to wear False-Teeth, or have a Prosthetic Limb.

Especially in a case where that same person re-grows their teeth or missing limb (Dale again becoming a Monarchy that ruled even the re-established Lake-Town).

That is misunderstanding how Falsification or Counter-Examples work.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Zigûr View Post
Personally, I think that in Letter 175 the reference to "the Devil" is a figure of speech; Sauron is, after all, "a reincarnation of evil". Hence, for all intents and purposes, at the time of The Lord of the Rings he, not Morgoth, is "the Devil" - but specifically in that context.

I would say that, most literally, "the Devil" is Melkor, specifically Melkor - not Morgoth (although Morgoth is still "the Devil", as he is referred to in Letter 294 for instance, but bear with me); Melkor is the originator of evil. Morgoth is only part of Melkor - Melkor after he has spent much of his power trying to dominate Arda. Morgoth is Melkor's mind and personality, but with much of the potency and substance of his fëa split, separated from himself and attached to other things, like Orcs, Balrogs, dragons and the "matter" of Arda in general. Morgoth thinks of himself as Melkor; we know from his conversation with Húrin that he still referred to himself by that name, but as Húrin says, "you have spent your strength upon yourself and wasted it in your own emptiness. No more are you now than an escaped thrall of the Valar." There is continuity between his experience as Melkor and as Morgoth, but he is not really Melkor anymore.

Thus both Morgoth and Sauron are "incarnations of evil"; thus they are "the Devil" in the sense that they are "incarnations" of evil (ie of the malevolence of Melkor at work in the world).

Morgoth is still more directly "the Devil" than Sauron is, naturally. He is some of Melkor, while Sauron is a different being. But Sauron in the Second and Third Ages is the "incarnation of evil", evil as a physically present demonic tyrant trying to take over the world. After the defeat and explusion of Morgoth and the final defeat of Sauron (the destruction of the Ring), "the Devil" now exists solely in the more Biblical or Christian sense - not an incarnate presence, but an insidious, invisible permeation of the world drawing and tempting people towards evil (ie, the spirit of Melkor infused throughout all Matter, which cannot be eradicated without the destruction of Arda itself).

That might be a bit figurative for some but that's one way in which I think it might be interpreted, possibly.
Isn't this kind of equivocating on the meaning of the word "The Devil?"





MB
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