Boromir, Gollum and Eowyn

[Lalwendë]

First of all I want to pick up on Fordim's comment below:

Boromir owes his allegiance to Aragorn, and has no excuse after the Council of Elrond to deny that

We would think that, as observers looking 'in' on Middle Earth, but if we look at it through Boromir's eyes, it becomes a little different. He has been brought up as an heir to the Stewardship and would necessarily have the idea instilled within him that to protect and carry on the Stewardship was all important. He is in Rivendell on the orders of his father, and might find it very difficult to submit to the will of a king who is not-yet-a-king, in effect to supplant his loyalty to his father and to his 'office'.

Boromir88's comments about the things which 'evil' characters desire made me think:

Look at the some of the classified evil characters from LOTR, Saruman and Sauron. Both, desire abstract ideas, they want power, world domination, money, greedy.

Now, these evil characters seek out power and status, and they also strive to consolidate their power. We would say that to do such things is necessarily exploitative, and that these are not good things to desire. But what about when such things are thrust upon us? I am speaking of Aragorn.

This might seem to be a controversial view at first, but does he actively seek out power and status by taking a leadership role in the War of the Ring? If we looked at him through the eyes of the 'enemy' then we might well think just that. The clever thing which Tolkien does is have Aragorn display real doubt over his 'destiny'; he in effect humbles him. I think then that the difference between Sauron and Aragorn is that the former seeks power and is proud of it, the latter accepts power and is humbled by it.

And so to evil:

In other words, no-one in Middle earth is 'evil' per se - ie, evil in their essential nature, because Nothing is evil in its beginning. There is simply an option to remain in the 'light' or move away from it, into the 'darkness' which is not a thing in itself, but an absence of that Light.

Davem's idea of unlight complements the concept of the Light of Eru. In Middle Earth terms, 'good' seems to be represented by Light and evil by Darkness - rather than in the terms we are more familiar with. Unlight is a useful way of looking at 'evil' in Middle Earth, as it suggests not an external force coming from the ether but some kind of partial, even entire, absence of Light within certain characters. This would perfectly fit with such characters as The Nazgul, who are in effect 'void' of life and hence Light; they are Unlight.

Where someone like Saruman would fit in is even more interesting. He clearly does wrong in the terms of Arda and his brief, but he isn't anything to do with Unlight, rather he makes en entirely new kind of Light; he is in effect something of a heretic in Arda.

Even in the case of the Valar and Maiar, they were created as essentially good, were bestowed with the Light of Eru, but then this Light diminished within certain of them - I'm thinking of Melkor and Sauron. Even these two figures began as Light, and became Unlight - but was that darkness absolute?

As an aside, Unlight also sounds rather like Ungoliant, a nice linguistic link that has pleased me now I've spotted it.