Apologies for the long post!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaf
You are right, one can already find this motif in the earliest stages of Tolkien's works. You can trace this particular motif back right to the beginning, the Ainulindalė
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Yes, what I wanted to emphasise was the idea that, from the point of view of the narrative (as admittedly "Ainulindalė" was not the first thing Professor Tolkien wrote, and he revised it several times) the earliest forms of "Rebellion", and thus the beginnings of evil, manifest in two ways:
Firstly, as pride: Melkor desired to change the music "to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself."
Melkor also sought the Flame Imperishable in the Void, desiring "to bring into Being things of his own" - not necessarily Evil, but certainly trying to assume some of Eru's role.
His second evil seems to be power-hunger: Melkor desired to rule over others, "to have subjects and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills." (as I stated before)
Some time ago I made a few notes on what I considered might best summarise evil in Professor Tolkien's work, and I essentially focused on two related concepts.
One was tyranny, the desire for power for the sake of one's own importance and for the sake of the fulfilment of one's own wishes at the expense of others. This should be compared and contrasted to the burden and responsibility of leadership and legitimate authority, and the comparison is essentially encapsulated, I would argue, in Morgoth's claim to be the "Elder King", a title reserved exclusively for the specific role and position of Manwė in Arda.
The other was Professor Tolkien's particular concept of "nihilism" as mused upon in the essays published in
Morgoth's Ring. Professor Tolkien seems to see this as a later "stage" of evil, a kind of insanity which manifests as a "lust for destruction": an irrational desire to destroy what one cannot control, and at its heart, set in a kind of hollow emptiness, a desire to simply destroy
everything for "daring" to have independent existence to oneself. This is perhaps the endpoint of tyranny, as one is never
really in control, so one
must destroy. What makes this truly irrational is that one can never
truly destroy, either - things can be broken down or unmade, but not annihilated. Professor Tolkien linked this "nihilism" to a "hatred of God".
I would argue that it is possible to see the Ring as an example of these concepts in action. The fundamental crime or sin of the Ring's nature and existence is that it existed to control the minds of other beings and to deny them their free will - it is an appalling instrument of tyranny the very nature of which completely denies the worth and value of the individuality and agency of others. It is thus also a prideful object, because its existence is founded in the notion that Sauron's will was more important than, and his plans were more valid than, literally anything else in Middle-earth.
But the Ring possessed that same lust for destruction that waited at the end of the road of tyranny. Gollum was enslaved to it, yet in many respects it could not control him: his own enslavement to it repeatedly interfered with its innate "program" or instinct to return to the hand of Sauron. Gollum kept it uselessly in a cave for five hundred years, and when Frodo was bearing it to the one place where its power could not be gainsaid he interfered and made a nuisance of himself. So what does it do? It (in cooperation, I would argue, with Frodo - I think that perhaps the Ring in a sense achieves or simulates a "will" through its interaction with the actual wills of the living beings who are possessed by it) does not just threaten to destroy Gollum, but outright decrees it. In doing so, it guarantees its own destruction, because of its very nature:
1. Its controlling nature ensures that Gollum will relentlessly seek it.
2. Its destructive nature ensures that when Gollum inevitably comes into contact with it again (which is a consequence of its own controlling nature) he will be destroyed, and by this point of the narrative this can now only happen at the one place it can also be destroyed, and almost certainly in the same way - it was Gollum's, and therefore in many respects the Ring's, fault that both Frodo and Sam were more or less out of action at this point and thus the only way Gollum could be destroyed was in the Fire.
(This is one of the areas where the other complexities of the situation come in - of course if Gollum had regained the Ring anywhere else because of different circumstances things would be different, but I would argue that by
this point it is in many respects the Ring's own fault [or at least Sauron's fault when he designed it] that it is too late because if it was not the way it was, Gollum would not have been so doggedly obsessed with regaining it.)
It's of course noteworthy that the one place where the Ring was at its most independently powerful (ie when not on the hand of Sauron himself) was also the single place where it was vulnerable, and catastrophically so.
Thus, in keeping with the concept of "Arda Healed", evil produces good - the evil of the Ring is the very thing which causes the destruction of the Ring, which causes that special "Arda Healed" kind of good - goodness mingled with sadness as much passes away.