The Emblems of Religion don't belong ... or do they?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Thinking about it, doesn't LotR start to become more & more loaded with 'symbolism' from this point on?

And from this point on, Tolkien's writing style changes, becoming more heavy and ponderous, or biblical, as it has been termed. He is here beginning to move on from the struggles of the journey to the struggles of the great deeds, battles and sieges. More symbolism could well be a natural result of trying to write in such a high flown style; there is more use of hyperbole and ever grander descriptions are needed as the days get darker and the battles harder. It is a way of emphasising the importance of what all the characters are engaged in. Tolkien had to show that the battle with Shelob was worse than the battle with the Balrog, that the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was worse than the battle of Helms Deep. He was building up the momentum by making the language more dense and noble.

Originally Posted by Bethberry

Yet the predominant words are darkness and evil. Evil is repeated several times, to the point that even the road is called evil. Clearly the imagery is building towards the culmination of Minas Morgul as hell.

Thinking again about whether a place can be inherently evil, a 'Hell', I thought of Auschwitz, if its right to use this as a comparison I do not know, so I apologise if that does offend anybody. The place remains of course as a memorial and reminder, but when operative, was it the place that was evil or what the place was used for? What was done there was more evil than anything we might imagine, and even now, the symbols of the train tracks which go nowhere else and the chimneys are incredibly powerful symbols of evil. But is it the place itself that is evil, or what was done there that is evil? What I am saying is that a deed can be an evil deed, or an intention can be an evil intention, but can a place be evil? Even if we say that by being in such a place it might inspire a person to commit evil acts, is that the fault of the place or something within the person?

I'm not sure I know the answer to that one, but if I did then I could definitely agree or disagree that Minas Morgul was Hell. As it is, it may or may not appear so to us as readers; and the fact that we can each interpret that vision ourselves actually makes it effective writing. Remembering that it is the Tower of the Moon, it ought also to have shifting characteristics, and it seems to have these if we can all read it differently.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

All this, if it is ever proved has great repercussions - morally and legally can people be punished for things which are not their fault? But the wider community has to be protected and if someone is biologically destined to kill do you let them walk the streets until they do?

Scientists are always trying to explain evil deeds, and the nature/nurture debate always rears its head. Someone may have certain hormonal or mental disabilities which statistically may make them more likely to commit crimes, but statistics are also often misleading and contradictory. The hormonal imbalances which are seen in x percentage of criminals may seem to be the cause of their crimes, but it may instead be lack of proper medical and social care which leads people to be disaffected and hence commit crimes.

The law does take this into account. If a criminal is found to have acted under diminished responsibility then they are charged and dealt with accordingly. We can't do much more than that, as where does it stop if we start looking at probabilities?

But what is evil anyway? We automatically label a murderer as evil, but what about the greedy chief executive who siphons assets until the company goes bust and all the workforce are sacked and plunged into poverty? Or the company which buys cheap produce from third world countries where the workers are treated badly?

Evil of course is more defined in the moral structure of Arda, but even there it pays to be careful and not too presumptious about a person. Gollum is plainly untrustworthy and unstable, but Gandalf knows that he is also not entirely evil; he shows that inherent evil is not quite so easy to define as we might think.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Scientists are always trying to explain evil deeds, and the nature/nurture debate always rears its head. Someone may have certain hormonal or mental disabilities which statistically may make them more likely to commit crimes, but statistics are also often misleading and contradictory. The hormonal imbalances which are seen in x percentage of criminals may seem to be the cause of their crimes, but it may instead be lack of proper medical and social care which leads people to be disaffected and hence commit crimes.

The law does take this into account. If a criminal is found to have acted under diminished responsibility then they are charged and dealt with accordingly. We can't do much more than that, as where does it stop if we start looking at probabilities?

.

Once again I would point out the caveats in my original posts......

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Once again I would point out the caveats in my original posts......

And I apologise for not recognising that! I just could not help myself but put in the causal link between the disability and the negative consequences, it's an occupational hazard. And I have to confess, disability issues are a bit of a hobby horse.

Another idea - if Hell is symbolised (for some) by certain places in Middle Earth, what is also interesting is that there has already been a Hell, the one created by Morgoth. This one was destroyed yet another one has been created which has to be destroyed. Will this continue throughout the history of Middle Earth? The story The New Shadow in HoME seems to hint at this, and interestingly it would be a Hell created by Men. So each Hell would be created by powers increasingly more 'weak' or earthly. And together with this, the 'Heaven' of Middle Earth becomes increasingly less magical along with the destruction of each Hell. The Middle Earth of the Third Age is a little less magical than Beleriand, and the Fourth Age ME is a little less magical than the Third Age ME, with the departure of the Elves. As time passes by it seems Middle Earth would eventually become like our own world where both Hell and Heaven are somehow diminshed and at times, indistinguishable.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And I apologise for not recognising that! I just could not help myself but put in the causal link between the disability and the negative consequences, it's an occupational hazard. And I have to confess, disability issues are a bit of a hobby horse.

.

I certainly wasn't intending to attack the disabled - I chose Special Needs ed for my dissertation and more recently have worked in Supported Housing and for a Trust for Adults with Learning Disabilities so it was the last thing on my mind.

However I do think scientific research will raise difficult ethical issues - but may also help some groups - for example reduce the stigma still attached to mental illness. Now I am thinking of Samuel Butler's Erewhon .....

And evil is such and emotive term but what is the alternative? I don't know if II can completely separate the behaviour from the person a la Lord Soper.. but I do think someone who chooses "an evil path" is vastly more culpable than someone whose path has been forced by their genetic make up.

It isn't easy and I can understand why Tolkien had such trouble with the orcs....

I would expand, but I know that my own examples of evil are likely to offend at least one contributor so I think I will leave it there....

[littlemanpoet]

I wasn't clear before.

In the book lembas has two functions. It is a 'machine' or device for making credible the long marches with little provision, in a world which as I have said 'miles are miles'. But that is realtively unimportant. It also has a much larger significance, of what one might hesitatingly call a 'religious' kind. This becomes later apparent, especially in the chapter 'Mount Doom' (III 213 and subsequently) ... The lembas had a virtue without which they would long ago have lain down to die ...... It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind.

Religion is (usually formal) human activity in response to the perceived supernatural.

Tolkien hesitates to call it religious, but does not stop from doing so. The Elves seem gifted to make everyday created stuff supernaturally potent, be it food, rope, clothing, boats that don't sink, swords that reveal the presence of enemies; even in the Third Age.

But why does Tolkien call this "religious"?

Is it because it's supernatural? Or is it because it's consciously Catholic in the revision? Which reminds me of another thread I haven't found in a while, "Consciously So in the Revision".

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

The Elves seem gifted to make everyday created stuff supernaturally potent, be it food, rope, clothing, boats that don't sink, swords that reveal the presence of enemies; even in the Third Age.

Would disagree. What exactly did the Elves of the Third Age create that would surpass (in greatness units? ) something created in the Second or First? The swords, Rings, lembas etc are created earlier. One may bake a new batch of lembas, but the recipe is still the same as it ever was.

Was Aragorn's sheath for Anduril created? Was Anduril created anew or simply just Narsil 2.0?

Even Arwen, the Evenstar, did not rival Tinúviel.

My take on the elves regarding rope, boats and other 'well-made' items is just that - after sitting around pondering and experimenting with rope weaving/design/use for 3-4 thousand years one tends to end up with a well-made product. That and we would have to include a little extra- or super- natural input into the same as we are considering elves.

And if you're tutored in the same by some Elf who's seen Aman...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Alatar

Would disagree. What exactly did the Elves of the Third Age create that would surpass (in greatness units? ) something created in the Second or First? The swords, Rings, lembas etc are created earlier. One may bake a new batch of lembas, but the recipe is still the same as it ever was.

Well, I suppose this just reflects Elvish psychology. The past was 'perfect' for them. 'Change' of any kind would be seen as change for the worse. This is what's behind their desire to 'embalm' the world, to prevent it changing. It also accounts for their pessimism. Men seek to improve things, make things better, whereas Elves struggle to prevent them getting worse. So, Men are (psychologically) evolutionists, in that they struggle to improve upon the past (putting aside those with a strong 'Numenorean' strain as personified by Faramir), while Elves think in terms of 'devolution' from an ideal.

So, Elves could not make 'better' swords than those made in the past as any alteration in sword design would be a change away from perfection, hence it would go against their whole way of thinking, against their nature, to alter what they had recieved. The Elves of the Third Age have effectively stopped, & are attempting to hold back the tides of change. They cannot make better swords, Rings, Lembas, rope, or anything else, they can only make 'worse' ones. The 'Long Defeat' they fight against is, ultimately, the wearing of Time itself. Time is the enemy, because Time moves them away from the perfection that once was - even if that 'perfection' never really was, & only existed as a 'dream' in the minds of later Elves looking back. Yet that's what they did. Even Feanor's appeal to the Noldor in Aman was to Cuivienen. He offered to take them back to Middle-earth. But when they got there they almost instantly began looking back to Aman.

In short, I don't think we can expectanything else from the Firstborn than that they would refuse to change anything they had inherited. It wasn't so much that they had experimented over the millenia & come up with the best they could possibly make of Swords, Rings, Waybread Boats & Rope, etc, so that there was no point in trying to improve it, it was that what they had was what they had inherited from the past, so it couldn't be improved, only made worse by being made 'different'. They simply weren't going to surrender to their true Enemy - Time itself.

Which brings us, perhaps, to the 'Elvish' strain in Tolkien, because for all he condemns the Elves for their backward-looking he seems to be of the elvish party himself.

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

Time is the enemy, because Time moves them away from the perfection that once was - even if that 'perfection' never really was, & only existed as a 'dream' in the minds of later Elves looking back.

This may be applicable to nostalgia in the real world, but I think that for the Elves the perfection, or at least something very close to perfection, really did exist. Aman before the unchaining of Melkor and Beleriand before the return of Melkor were, in different ways, genuinely idyllic. In the real world, the Utopian past may be a myth, but in Arda (a mythical world) it was real.

Which brings us, perhaps, to the 'Elvish' strain in Tolkien, because for all he condemns the Elves for their backward-looking he seems to be of the elvish party himself.

I suspect this is not uncommon; I certainly have more of the Elvish pessimism than the Mannish optimism about the future.

[bilbo_baggins]

As has been stated by davem, Tolkien seemed slightly Elvish in that he believed that things were good once and he preferred to look back upon what once was . Perhaps thats why he wanted so desperately to write a history book.

But, true, Tolkien did show the alternate method of Man's progress forward. Does this mean that we might have found a somewhat objective author? Heaven forbid! And he died before I could meet him.

And, if Heaven and Hell are both depicted and are both capable of destruction, is the conclusion that we can't be inbetween? And that they are destructible?

b_b