Failure and Punishment

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Lal

Note that his characters are usually at some point shown to have failings . . . Gandalf is sarcastic . . .

So sarcasm is a fault? I'd rather see it as a nautral thing, just one type of humour. (Disclaimer: That was not sarcasm... and this is not either... nor this...nor that... and so on... )

I previously thought the word "sin" should not be applied to ME, since it's so strongly tied with Christianity and the Christian God. But, yesterday, while reading, I came across this (and I swear it was pure chance): Sam says: "It's a sin to wake you, Mr Frodo." (The Great River, FotR) Now, there's the tiny chance I'm mistaken since my copy was in Finnish and I forgot to check from the English one, but I don't see why any other word than "sin" should have been translated as "synti" (the Finnish word), since "synti" is as biblical as "sin".

Now, if the characters in the LotR use the word "sin", is there any reason for us not to use it when describing them and their actions? Yet, I interpret Sam's words not as "it's against God/Eru to wake you" but as "it's a horrible deed to wake you" where the word "sin" is used as a synonym of "horrible deed" rather than as a biblical term.

So, what was my point? I'm not sure anymore.

[Raynor]

My english version reads "it's a shame to wake you"; but even if it were sin, I don't think it would have been relevant to our discussion in this context, as you have pointed out.