Saruman's fireball

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Lyta_Underhill

I think the reason I never played D & D had much to do with the fact that it seemed too mathematical and not intuitive enough for my irreverent mind.

Lyta, you played D&D with the wrong people. My buddies weren't so..shall we say...exacting. And math is, well, all math to me, so to speak.

Originally Posted by Lyta_Underhill

P.S. I still haven't figured out the diaphanous contribution to the Balrog flight equation, which is justifiable since I don't believe they have wings anyway!

They have wings, but they're just for show (vestigial?).

Originally Posted by Essex

Just because Saruman was bad or not, if someone is attempting to murder him, then it would be natural for Legolas to try and save him.

Will have to review the scene, but I thought that Saruman was already stabbed, so Legolas wasn't preventing anything but just adding to his total - now if he would have shot Saruman, sending him backwards and saving him from falling...

And didn't Gandalf say something about killing needlessly? I just feel that the Wormtongue 'execution by Elf' wasn't right.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Essex, Legolas was trying to prevent a death count of 1 by intentionally killing Grima and intentionally making the death count 1?

Or am I confusing ethics with logic?

[Essex]

let's think about the 'real' world.

someone has a gun to a person's back, and you (say, as a policeman) can see that they mean to kill the person, no matter what you do. You WOULD fire to stop the person MURDERING the other, yes.

You are both confusing ethics AND logic , because you kill the muderer, hopefully saving the person being attacked.

[Lyta_Underhill]

Lyta, you played D&D with the wrong people. My buddies weren't so..shall we say...exacting. And math is, well, all math to me, so to speak.

Actually, I never played it even once; I just watched it being played and read through a basic manual in 1982, thinking I might like to play it sometime. Interestingly, I didn't read LOTR until 1991!

someone has a gun to a person's back, and you (say, as a policeman) can see that they mean to kill the person, no matter what you do. You WOULD fire to stop the person MURDERING the other, yes.

Certainly; I suppose the real question is "did Legolas shoot for prevention or for retribution?" I haven't had a chance to watch the scene again, but it is a point that alatar made earlier that it might be a nod of sorts to the death of Wormtongue in the Shire, since he was plugged by the archers after he killed Saruman. I guess you could say the Shirelings shot Wormtongue out of retribution for Lotho, but could it be argued that they shot him to prevent him harming Frodo as well? It is a good argument you make, Essex to make me rethink things like this from the book that I didn't consider before.

Cheers!
Lyta

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Essex

You WOULD fire to stop the person MURDERING the other, yes.

To put in in context, though, isn't the proper question: would you shoot a traitor to prevent him murdering one who had instigated mass murder and attempted to perpetrate genocide?

Either way you are allowing or causing the death of one guilty of heinous crimes.

The way that it comes over to me in the films, though, is that Legolas was attempting to prevent Wormtongue killing Saruman because Saruman might have important information. A worthy cause perhaps, if it could assist Frodo's Quest in any way. But, like Aragorn's decapitation of the Mouth of Sauron, it brings up the issue of whether the end justifies the means. I don't believe that Tolkien would have had such a central character on the side of good behave like that. Hence Wormtongue's death is brought about by an anonymous Hobbit.

Or perhaps Legolas was shooting to wound but even his "Elvish eyes" couldn't be entirely accurate at that range/angle.

[Essex]

Either way you are allowing or causing the death of one guilty of heinous crimes.

Yes, but it is not Legolas's job to 'judge' at this point. It is his job at that moment, instinctively, to try and save a life. Surely one doesn't think of things like a person's 'goodness' in that split second.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Essex

Yes, but it is not Legolas's job to judge someone at this point.

But surely that is precisely what he does. He judges Saruman's life to be of greater value than that of Wormtongue, since he kills the latter in an attempt to save the former. And, in the context of the films, he is right to do so because Saruman is more useful to them.