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Originally Posted by davem
Yes, in Middle-earth there is no question about what is Good & what is Evil. This was the core of Tolkien's philosophy - Good & Evil are absolutes: our task is to find the strength to do what's right, not to agonise over what good & Evil actually are.
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I daresay that this is too simplistic. A key theme of Tolkien's is of a desire to do good which ends in evil, great or small. You have the characters who are obviously deluding themselves, like Saruman, but then you also have Sam snapping at Gollum at a critical moment -- to help Frodo, but perhaps with the ultimate effect of tilting Gollum away from redemption forever. Good and evil are not so clear in Tolkien as Pullman would like to think they are.