Tolkien and the Monsters

[Mithalwen]

Oh well I did say it was an instant instinctive answer.... I hadn't really established in my own mind a hierachy of evil........ I think evil is meant to be a consequence of the marring of Arda so the root cause would be Morgoth......and enough seeds of evil were sown to mean evil would continue even when Morgoth and Sauron were vanquished ..... largely in the hearts of men who saw the gift of men as a curse .... To answer other issues raises the issue of evil in the wider world - Nazi Germany and many more recent and current tyrannies....... does "the only following orders" defence have any validity ........ and evil as a religious concept ..... Gollum is so hard....... and part of the problem I have with him is part of the problem I have with Christianity - there is teh impression that Gollum is redeemable but in the end he "fails" but by his failure the world is saved...... similarly without Judas' failure the expiating sacrifice of Christ doesn't happen... sorry rambling now.....