Melkor and Sauron's goal

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

So in Middle Earth, there is a choice, or in some cases a compulsion, to evil. What fuels such choices or compulsions?

Tom Shippey argued in The Road to Middle-earth that evil in Professor Tolkien's work was a result of "some combination of external prompting and internal weakness"; I would interpret this metaphysically as the "Morgoth-element" - evil is within or without all things.

That being said, it seems to me that Professor Tolkien did to an extent characterise how such choices were motivated. Morgoth's is quite straightforward - pride leading to a desire for lordship and mastery.

Regarding lesser evils, I wonder if it is related to Sauron's apparent self-delusion that Eru had "simply abandoned" Arda and didn't really care about it.

Returning perhaps to the Morgoth-element, I would suggest that evil tends to be the expression of varying degrees of the "nihilistic madness" I often mention: a desire to control and, when control fails, to destroy.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I quite like the distinction that Formendacil makes between the demonic and the humanoid races of evil. One made an active choice; the others were born into it. I often find the un nuanced all bad villains boring, and have wondered why this never bothered me in LotR.

For me it is probably down to two passages in the books. The conflict between Ugluk and Grishnakh and the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag.

The first quite clearly show us that these are not just mindless beasts, but that orcs have agendas of their own, and are in fact very much like humans.

Secondly, we have the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag. In some way, it is one of the most important part of the books for me, as it portrays the orcs as having personal agendas and individual characteristics (that are not pure evil). Where Ugluk and to some extend Grishnakh seemed loyal to their demonic overlords, Shagrat and Gorbag seem to have much more of their own agenda. They question demonic authority and indicate desire to live in “peace” somewhere (with loot of course). That they end up slaughtering each other; probably show that they are beyond redemption, lest the reader start getting to much sympathy for them.

[Mithadan]

Wow. In a single post, Rune has raised two hotly debated subjects. First, are Orcs irredeemably evil? Second, are Orcs able to act freely or are they to some extent controlled by the will of Sauron or Morgoth. Combine that with Formendacil's mention of the origins of Orcs and you have hit the trifecta.

I do not intend to delve into any of these issues (and I can direct you to where they have been discussed in the past if you like). I'd like to hone in on what motivated the greater and lesser evil personages in Middle Earth to become evil.

Morgoth is, perhaps, the most simple case. Even before the Music, he secretly sought for the Imperishable Flame in the Void, so that he could bring others into being. Why he wanted this is not explained, but one can suspect he wanted control over others. This was his earliest act of rebellion. His disruption of the Music was his next act of rebellion and reflects upon what he had become and would become, a champion of chaos. His disruption caused other lesser Ainur to attune their Music to his rather than give voice to their own thoughts. More on this in a moment.

When the Music is stopped and the Vision of Arda is displayed, Melkor was ashamed, giving rise to anger. He feigns the desire to aid others in in controlling the disruption he caused. But ultimately, after the Valar and Maiar enter the world, he claims Arda as his own kingdom. When his peers do not simply capitulate, he resumes his campaign of chaos, attempting to harm everything done by others. In a sense, he acts as a child. "If I can't have it, no one will." The initial poster in this thread asks about goals. I question whether Morgoth had any clear goals, other than doing violence to Arda.

Sauron's motives appear to differ. He wanted order and to obtain order, he wanted control. He joined Morgoth as a way of obtaining control so that he could order things as he desired.

The Balrogs and other Maiar that may have been attracted to Morgoth would have included some of those who attuned their Music to his. They may have become like him, creators of violence and chaos. Others might have simply aligned themselves with him because he was a power and they themselves could be more important acting with him than staying with the Valar. In this, their motives do not differ greatly from those who follow evil in the modern world.

Dragons? I am going to speculate here. Their origins are obscure. They were clearly bred by Morgoth, so far as their bodies are concerned. But Morgoth could not create souls or minds. So I believe their bodies were inhabited by lesser Maiar. By becoming dragons, perhaps they could become greater and more powerful than they were.

Orcs and Trolls, regardless of their "origins," were coerced and corrupted by Morgoth. Perhaps they were "born into it" after generations of manipulation. I do not want to open the Pandora's box of whether they were redeemable. Suffice it to say that they were bred to be and coerced into being followers of evil. Again not too different from the modern world.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I've always seen evil in Middle-Earth not as a presence (the Manichean heresy) but as absence (nicely orthodox of me and fitting for our very religiously conservative professor): in particular, as an absence of self-control over one's own appetites.

Appetite strikes me as the central 'flaw' or 'impetus' of all the evil folk, with the extent of the appetite being directly related to the extent of the evil. If you have an appetite for a bit of destruction and violence, you're an orc; if you have an appetite for the whole world you're either Sauron or Shelob -- cause there's different 'flavours' of appetites: you can want to eat for different purposes. Sauron wants to eat the world in the sense of sating himself on it, taking it all and containing it within himself. He likes the taste of the world. Shelob wants to consume it, to see it all gone, to eat not from hunger for it, but for a mindless desire to feed. Sauron's connoisseur to Shelob's glutton.

The absence here is the absence of self control: all creatures have appetite, all individuals do but know or learn that unrestrained appetite is dangerous to oneself and others, but in some this sense is turned off or gone; the lack of self-control over one's appetites leads to evil.

My tuppence.

Nice old thread, nice revival.