The Trickster's Consort

[davem]

But Elrond States that 'nothing was evil in the beginning. Therfore 'evil' is always the result of a moral choice. Hence, if trees are evil they must not only have become evil, but, one supposes, have chosen to do so. So, can trees & animals make such a choice?

Originally Posted by LMP

don't think it holds in Middle Earth. Murdering a hobbit, something Old Man Willow was quite intent upon doing, is just as evil as wanton destruction of trees.

I wouldn't say it is, in that the attempt to kill the hobbits was made by a creature with intelligence (Old Man Willow), a sentient creature who has chosen to do what he did. Of course, its plain that OMW was seeking revenge on those who had harmed his own. Is this evil? If so, aren't the Ents also behaving with evil intent when they attack the orcs? Of course, just because OMW has made a choice doesn't mean that all trees in ME can make such a choice. And how do we account for the fact that the huorns attack the orcs just as eagerly as OMW attacks the hobbits? What I see is trees attacking their attackers - whoever those atackers may be.

This is as vexed a question as SpM's one about orcs. Can we really say that there are creatures in Me which are evil by nature (remaining within Tolkien's parameters for Me)? Any creature which was evil by nature would be beyond redemption, but must have been made evil by Eru - which, as I said, begs more questions than it resolves...

[littlemanpoet]

Don't let the name, Old Man Willow throw you. OMW is just as much tree as the trees you insist are inherently good no matter how black their hearts (or is that a misunderstanding on my part of what you're trying to say vis-a-ve trees and inherent goodness?). The degree of OMW's sentience is not given, nor is it important.

Your quote of Elrond is unclear. You're not saying that Tolkien has him saying that moral choice is a necessity, are you? I don't think you are. If you're not, then you seem to be saying that since Elrond says there wasn't evil in the beginning, there had to be moral choice. This does not follow logically. But nonetheless, there was a moral choice: Morgoth's. He corrupted Arda. Thus evil trees did not choose it but became it by his will. Unjust? Certainly. But it reflects reality.

I don't think the problem is as vexed as you seem to think. LotR is the story of war. The Ents get caught up in war. This moves the discussion in the direction of Just Cause, about which I'm sure there are opinions many and varied. But the Ents are an army whereas OMW is at best vigilante and at worst premeditatedly (at least, as much as a tree can be) harmful.

[davem]

Possibly, but I don't get any sense of the Old Forest being evil - not like the Barrow Downs (the place, not the site... oh, I don't know though...) or Mordor, or even Isengard. Certainly it is perilous, but Faerie, as Tolkien has said, is perilous. Certainly Fangorn is not an 'evil' place. Treebeard is speaking of specific trees as having 'black hearts', not the place itself.

Originally Posted by LMP

If you're not, then you seem to be saying that since Elrond says there wasn't evil in the beginning, there had to be moral choice. This does not follow logically. But nonetheless, there was a moral choice: Morgoth's. He corrupted Arda. Thus evil trees did not choose it but became it by his will. Unjust? Certainly. But it reflects reality.

I think for an individual to become evil must be the result of a moral choice, so it depends on whether the trees are individuals. You can't have individual 'evil' trees if they are evil as a result of Morgoth's choice - why aren't all the trees evil if that's the cause?

OMW is just as much tree as the trees you insist are inherently good no matter how black their hearts (or is that a misunderstanding on my part of what you're trying to say vis-a-ve trees and inherent goodness?). The degree of OMW's sentience is not given, nor is it important.

So, are all the trees of the Old Forest evil, or just some of them? The OF is sentient - & my feeling is that its not just the trees, but the earth & air of the place too. It has moods, emotions even. But it is not Mordor, not by any stretch of the imagination, nor an echo of it. Mordor is a place of death, of unlife, anti-life. The OF is not. In there life, the life of nature, is all powerful. It does not attack the Hobbits in the service of Sauron, but because they are unwanted, uninvited, tresspassers.

Let me try another angle: In the episode of the Old Forest & the Barrow Downs the Hobbits have strayed out of mythic history into a poem - 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil', where OMW is a sentient being, who can think & act. He is a character, & plays his part. A poem has come to life & the Hobbits find themselves as characters in it. This poem-world has its own rules, & its own conditions . Higher morality does not play a part in this world, Good & evil, do not exist in the form they take in the rest of the book. Tom is not affected by the Ring because it does not belong in the world of the poem - what I mean is, what it represents, the threat it poses, has no 'reality' or relevance in that world. Just as Tom himself & Goldberry, & OMW & the Barrow Wight, don't have any 'relevance' outside their poem-reality ('Tom's country ends here, he will not pass the borders. The OF/BD are a self-contained little world, with its own rules, a secondary world, which can be entered & left (if the traveller is lucky), but is in itself self-contained (which is why so many dramatisations leave the whole thing out. Frodo & his companions may gain something from their experiences there, but that world will remain always intact, un affected by events in the 'outer world - just as Middle earth itself remains an equally 'intact' secondary world to us, whatever events occur in 'our' primary' world. M-e may be 'applicable', but it is not 'allegorical'. In the same way, to the Hobbits, the world of the OF/BD may be 'applicable', but it is not 'allegorical' - ie, it has no one-to-one relationship with the rest of M-e. Hence the fruitlessness of attempting to 'prove' Tom & Goldberry are Maiar - or attempting to fit the behaviour & actions of its in habitants in with the 'moral values' of M-e.

So, Tom is neither a maiar, nor the Trickster. Goldberry is neither maiar nor Trickster's consort. He is - Tom Bombadil. And equally, so is she. And so is OMW & the BW.

And if I've contradicted any earlier statements here I take refuge in my sig

[drigel]

I cant add any more to you guys rep points. I got to say bravo. Keep it up

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I've always seen the Ents and the Eagles (which were products of Yavanna and Manwë's music) as the conscience of the flora and fauna in ME.

So any place these two did not reach would probably not know the rightness of wrongness of their actions. And those without guidance would probably be inclined more to evil, seeing . . . well . . . Morgoth.

[littlemanpoet]

davem, do you suppose that a "black heart" is meant, by Tolkien, to mean something other than evil? If so, what? Consider his style in all other places; is it in keeping with LotR to attribute an alternate meaning to it in the case of trees?

evil as a result of Morgoth's choice - why aren't all the trees evil if that's the cause?

Because the Valar kept him from achieving complete domination of Arda. Fangorn and the Old Forest may not be evil places, but if Morgoth's taint is on everything, even if he did not dominate everything, why would it turn out that some places in Fangorn must not be evil? In our world, there is, by way of example, such a thing as genetic predisposition.

I think for an individual to become evil must be the result of a moral choice...

Of course, you're entitled to your own theology. Tolkien's theology, however, he being a Roman Catholic, was that of original sin, which means that we are all born tainted with sin; we start out that way. I know this is offensive to some people, but that is Christian theology, and it's what Tolkien believed. Is it to be found in LotR? If Morgoth's taint is not Tolkien's depiction of original sin in Middle Earth, I don't know what it is. Yes, that's my opinion, and it may be debated. It does seem to be more in keeping with Tolkien's ouvre. Thus, moral choice is only one half of the question of evil.

So, are all the trees of the Old Forest evil, or just some of them?

Some of them. Certainly one of them.

The OF is sentient...

I think it would be more helpful to say that the trees of the Old Forest are aware. It is one of the three definitions of sentient in my dictionary, but more in keeping with LotR - at least, to my thinking.

Just as Tom himself & Goldberry, & OMW & the Barrow Wight, don't have any 'relevance' outside their poem-reality ('Tom's country ends here, he will not pass the borders...)

The barrows and the wights that reside there are definitely a part of Arda/Middle Earth, having to do with the old Kingdom of Arnor and old battles fought there, and long-dead warriors' ghosts ... not at all unlike the Dead Marshes. The fact that Tom has power over him gives evidence to his "relevance" outside his own - er - "poem-reality".

I've noticed here at BD that as soon as someone begins to speculate about Tolkien's Middle Earth based on their own personal likes, dislikes, beliefs, and values, the topics seem to, as it were, float up from the groundedness Tolkien has given all of Middle Earth, to become disembodied effluvia that just don't ring true, for me, to Tolkien's Middle Earth. Maybe that's another way of saying which side of the "canonicity" debate I'm on.

That said, I think there is great virtue in what you say about the indefinability of Tom and Goldberry. Nevertheless, I will still point out traits I see, such as the Trickster, when they occur to me, as you are, of course, also entitled to do.

[davem]

Ok, the 'poem-reality' is connected to the 'real' landscape of that part of Middle-earth, but the 'feel' is different. As Sam might have put it, when I read those chapters I feel as if I were 'inside a song'. Another thought occurs. Frodo's dream in the house of Bombadil. Its as if he is both dreaming himself back into his own reality but at the same time dreaming himself into paradise. As if he has passed from the secondary 'poem-reallity' into another, deeper kind of reality. Worlds within worlds

Tolkien's theology, however, he being a Roman Catholic, was that of original sin, which means that we are all born tainted with sin; we start out that way.

But is this the theology of M-e? Certainly M-e has nothing like the Christian concept of original sin, in that there is no single, all encompassng Fall, just lots of falls - the Noldor, Men (possibly- some speculation in Athrabeth) & Morgoth's. But this is difficult. Tolkien states that Morgoth 'suffused' his evil, his power, into the stuff of Arda, so that matter itself becomes tainted. But this then becomes a given, & all things inherit it. All matter is corrupted, but is it 'fallen' in the Christian sense? I don't know enough of Christianity to say, but it seems different, in that no-one has chosen to be corrupted in that way. It is simply a kind of 'poison' which all things carry around inside them. So there is no personal moral failing involved, & freedom of choice remains. Perhaps this must be so, there being no 'saviour' who can enter in & redeem the inhabitants of Arda (though in Athrabeth Finrod speculates on this possibility).

Perhaps, as fallen beings ourselves, our vision is tainted, & we can only see Middle-earth from that perspective...

Sorry, I'll have to stop there, because I don't know where I'm going with that....