Fantasy Morality

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by tumhalad2

When Tolkien is at his best, as he is in Children of Húrin and in parts of The Silmarillion, the fate of men (or elves, or dwarves) remains external from them, but this certainly isn’t the case in The Lord of the Rings, where moral agency shifts onto the individual, making him responsible when measuring himself against an external moral system, in this case Tolkien’s often maligned good and evil. Perhaps the genesis of that problem can be seen in Children of Húrin, in which a reader with some experience with philology wonders why such a cruel fate, usually the whim of fickle gods, can befall Túrin Turambar when Eru Ilúvatar is a benevolent creator.

I think this fellow needs to read Verlyn Fleiger's study of Tolkien, The Splintered Light. The fates of men, elves and dwarves differ. Sorry if you've already covered her work elsewhere, tumhalad2, but this fellow hasn't.