Was Eru a Sadist?

[Bêthberry]

And finally, One could say that Eru represents Tolkien, because he created Arda - and we all know Tolkien loves to write tragically.

I see no necessary logical association between "writing tragically" and "being a sadist."

However, one of the largest quagmires in all reading is the assumption that authors usually write themselves the juiciest parts. Often the great beauty or persuasive power of an attractive character is enough to make us feel this must the author himself or herself. Such a response usually takes aesthetic power for biographical inspiration, wrongly.

Once, two major Victorian novelists met, William Makepeace Thackeray and Charlotte Bronte. She was a naive country Parson's daughter immersed in the sophisticated world of London literati for the first time. He introduced her to his dinner guests as "Jane Eyre." Unused to his games of attitudinising and play of wit, she became livid. Afterwards, a friend overheard them arguing in hi study. Thackeray, well over six feet tall, being lectured to by a small woman under five feet. Thackeray could not understand her objections to being identified with Jane; he asked if she would not associate him with Pendennis, the hero of one of his novels. She retorted no; she would call him---one of the minor characters. He was stung. She had hit home with more perspicuity than he had, with devastating effect.

Okay, what does this have to do with Tolkien? First, that our assumptions about how we go about identifying literary characters with their creators need to be very carefully reasoned. You barely consider the association between Tolkien and Eru except on this flimsiest of notions that both were creators. If you want to seek Tolkien in his work, look as Bronte did for Thackeray at his minor characters. Somewhere here on the Downs there is a thread suggesting Tolkien's close affinity with Faramir, I think it is. And even that is tentative and circumspect. Authors are far more likely to write facets of themselves into several different characters, or imbue a characters with their features amalgamated with features from several other people. They're a shifty lot, but not sadists. There's too much fun in their play.