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I understand that the discussion of good and evil is of considerable interest and many may feel personally involved. However, I have to agree with davem and wish to stress that we are dealing with a fictional world, which is created by the author's voice alone and which is not neccessarily compatible with contemporary ideas of good and evil.
I see that there is some discussion over the term absolute as well. Rikae interprets the quoted article in the same way I did: it seems Pennington is looking for some divine entity. However - and please forgive me Morthoron, for again mentioning Harry Potter: I have no wish to cause psychological trauma - his insistence that Voldemort (who is human and surely not Satan himself) represents the darkest evil would lead me to believe that there is leeway for imperfection here.
My own thoughts were definitely Manwë, if the Silmarillion was included and Gandalf (the White and Improved Version) in Lord of the Rings. It seems sensible to say that Gandalf and Sauron, being equal in the hierarchy of beings, are pitted against each other in this battle. However, I am not too eager to simplify Lord of the Rings and it is difficult to see it as a stand-alone novel, because there are clearly so many other powers at work (the Balrog, Bombadil, Galadriel) to ignore them and focus on Sauron and Gandalf as the two extremes.
I will certainly include a link to this thread in my footnotes. There is a tendency to over-simplify fantasy in discussions on the genre in general. Thanks to all contributors so far.
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