Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithalwen
I would contest that evil is so black and white in the Silmarillion. Morgoth yes but there are plenty of his adversaries who are not whiter than white.
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I'm not sure what you mean here. What I said in my post was that The Sil had a lot more gray area in terms of morality than LOTR. As you noted, many of the Elves who opposed Morgoth were selfish, vain and some were just plain jerks. In addition there were all kinds of "vllains" ranging from Melkor down to poor Maeglin. By contrast, I think Saruman and maybe Grimm are the only bad guys in LOTR who receive such understanding while their fellows on Team Evil are handled rather simplistically. Sauron by this point just wants power for its own sake and look at what Gandalf said of him and Hobbits; that as worthless as hobbits were to him, Hobbits enslaved and miserable would make him happier than hobbits free and happy.
Saruman meanwhile is more akin to early Second Age Sauron in mentality I think in that he has fallena nd desires power but he at least believes he wants to use that power for good.
And fair enough on the Jesus analogy. I figured it ws a stretch anyway.