"Genuine fairy-story" ?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

SpM brings up the important point that there needs to be amorality in Fairy tales, as Faerie is itself amoral. That's not to say immoral, as that's quite a different thing.

Does there really need to be amorality in Fairy tales? I rather think Tolkien makes a good point by saying that human fairy tales are about humans in Fairy, not about Fairies; Fairies wouldn't write stories about Fairy since they live it. Humans are inescapably moral beings, thus their Fairy Stories must be moral stories, regardless of whether Fairy is itself amoral.

However, Tolkien's Middle Earth, with all of its Fairies (Elves) is not in the least amoral. It seems to me that a rather important question, along with those that have been raised already, is NOT "Was Tolkien wrong?", but "Why did Tolkien make his Fairy Realm moral?"

Originally Posted by Lal

The last one is there as inside, you will find a fair bit of evidence and argument to suggest that there is actaully one very odd and ambiguous character in Tolkien's world and that's Ungoliant.

But not morally ambiguous.