Melkor; Evil by Will or Evil by Nature? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Nar · 05-11-2002, 09:13 AM

Lord Gothmog-- Welcome to the Downs! Excellent, excellent gloss on Melkor-- very well balanced and thoughtful. Good work! I think you're too hard on Manwe-- it's a thankless task being a 'good side' fictional character as the possibilities of drama and grand gesture are limited by the obedience angle, but the contrarian in me always wants to defend them.

I think I agree with you that Manwe doesn't have a dark side-- your quote is very compelling. I'm not sure Manwe couldn't go wrong, though-- couldn't he be too narrow, didactic, strict or intolerant? He doesn't seem to have fallen that way, but could he? I'm pretty sure that too much good isn't within Tolkien's spiritual roots-- but there are surely ways of giving in to smaller, more banal temptations within an overarching dedication to obedience and goodness.

Moving beyond the issue of good/bad and varieties of temptation and fall, is it really the case that free will is only indicated by this choice of good or bad? Couldn't there be different aspect of good-- different ways of building, sub-creating, or living, on which a free choice could be excercised? After all, there is more than one 'good' vala (is that the right word?) --each contributing goodness to the world in a different way. Can we go further and say that within their different natures, they can excercise a choice as to how they develop their specialty in the creation?

05-11-2002, 09:13 AM	#11
Nar Wight Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 228	Lord Gothmog-- Welcome to the Downs! Excellent, excellent gloss on Melkor-- very well balanced and thoughtful. Good work! I think you're too hard on Manwe-- it's a thankless task being a 'good side' fictional character as the possibilities of drama and grand gesture are limited by the obedience angle, but the contrarian in me always wants to defend them. I think I agree with you that Manwe doesn't have a dark side-- your quote is very compelling. I'm not sure Manwe couldn't go wrong, though-- couldn't he be too narrow, didactic, strict or intolerant? He doesn't seem to have fallen that way, but could he? I'm pretty sure that too much good isn't within Tolkien's spiritual roots-- but there are surely ways of giving in to smaller, more banal temptations within an overarching dedication to obedience and goodness. Moving beyond the issue of good/bad and varieties of temptation and fall, is it really the case that free will is only indicated by this choice of good or bad? Couldn't there be different aspect of good-- different ways of building, sub-creating, or living, on which a free choice could be excercised? After all, there is more than one 'good' vala (is that the right word?) --each contributing goodness to the world in a different way. Can we go further and say that within their different natures, they can excercise a choice as to how they develop their specialty in the creation?