Fantasy Morality

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

You insist on mitigating the actual history of Middle-earth by narrowing your focus to "Turin's Universe", as if it exists independently of what else was occurring concurrently in Beleriand. There was, in fact, providential forces at work while Turin was alive. Tuor delivers a message to Turgon (who had already heard the call of Ulmo earlier in the 1st Age and did his bidding at that time).

By "Turin's Universe" or more properly "the moral universe of The Children of Hurin" I refer merely to the textual, as opposed to the "historical" moral context of the story.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It was folly that Turgon loved too well the work of his hands, and his refusal to follow Ulmo's call led to a catastrophe that far outweighed what happened to Turin's family. So, your insistence on Turin being singled out by Morgoth is fundamentally incorrect, Morgoth had been searching for Gondolin for centuries. All his will was bent toward finding Gondolin and destroying it.

I don't instist Turin is "singled out" by Morgoth, merely that Tolkien singled out Turin's saga for an extended novel-length treatment. As Christopher Tolkien's commentary makes clear, Tolkien devoted a great deal of his time to the Turin saga after he had finished TLoTR.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Turin, through Hurin, became entangled in the Doom of Mandos, which was a matter of fate, and a prophesy that the Noldor (and the Edain by association) were doomed by their own folly. Maedhros, who was also captured by Morgoth and hung by his wrist on Thangorodrim, can be seen as a precursor of Hurin's plight. In addition, Hurin was not the only captive Morgoth later freed to work his malice on his enemies. Many there were who were set free after torment and torture, only to be mistrusted and outcasts; however, we never get a fully developed story of their misery.

All true.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

"we are never left thinking that he has cut himself off from the world entirely"? Really? Eru does not ever interfere with any of the Valar's decisions. None. He does not chastise them for their myriad mistakes. He does not overrule some of their more daft decisions.

So he is a deistic god?

Originally Posted by Morthoron

He allows untold suffering through an entire Age as the Children of Iluvatar are slaughtered by Morgoth and his minions. If you have any specifics at all regarding Eru interfering at any time during the 1st Age, please produce it now, as I don't believe you will find it.

So he is not omnipotent? Or is he not omnibenevolent? Which is it? Logically, he cannot be both while allowing suffering to flourish.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Eru only returns to Arda at the insistence of the Valar,

So Eru's actions happen within time? Is he not omniscient, or does he only "return" after having been summoned by the Valar?

Originally Posted by Morthoron

who then surrendered their power to him. And what does he do? He kills every man, woman and child on Numenor.

Well, he is definitely not omnibenevolent, in that case.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Eru is not necessarily the "Christian God" in a one-on-one quotient, particularly in his purposeful delegation of power to the Valar in the 1st Age.

No, perhaps you are right. What is the Christian God, anyway? Have you met him? It is my understanding that Tolkien conceived of Eru as equivalent to Christian God, that was my point. Can somebody contradict me? Am I wrong about this? Did I misread Tolkien's letters?

My point was, assuming that Eru is in some sense codeterminate with the Christian God, what is Tolkien doing thinking up a story like CoH, which lacks any sense of omnibenevolence at work through fate.

Neither CoH nor LoTR conceive of "god" or "providence" in satisfactory ways that account for the logical and philosophical problem of Evil. (Arda would be pretty boring if they did, because there could logically be no suffering). But each text does approach the notion of "providence" differently, and I'm not talking about the contextual stories that sit together with Turin's story.

I understand that Tuor talks to Ulmo, or whatever, but I'm talking about how Tolkien actually writes the CoH itself. The story, it seems to me, deliberately evokes a sense of undirected fate. That is a very different proposition to Gandalf's "you were meant to have it...and that is an encouraging thought..."

Getting back to the original essay, it is clear from having had a look through the rest of the site that the author very much dislikes Tolkien generally. He lauds Michael Moorcock and seems to think that liking Tolkien constitues some kind of mental disability. He gives all the usual misunderstandings and makes Tolkien out to be some kind of freak. Having now read wider, I'm less inclined to give credence to his conception of Tolkien's work.

Still, the question of morality in fantasy is a delicate one, and fantasy seems to be a really ripe place to unpack and examine issues of philosophical import, like moral absolutism (or some version thereof) vs. moral relativism (which seems to be all the craze nowadays.

It is intersting to me that most "hip" fantasy today is all about the "grey" areas, or even a denial of the efficacy of moral thinking altogether. For what it's worth, I think most of these writers get Tolkien wrong from the start, and just assume his depiction of morality is binary and lacking in nuance. As Rosebury writes, Tolkien does display significant "moral courage" throughout his work, and he clearly differentiates between detrimental and ethical behaviours, but Tolkien himself noted that he is not "dealing with Absolute Evil."

Do you think the nihilism of much modern fantasy is actually shared by the people who like and read it? I have no problem with fantasy that depicts colliding worldviews (as in George RR Martin) but some fantasy seems to revel in the depiction of violence as though it is sanctioned because it is no longer fashionable (at least among readers of that type of fantasy, apparently) to discourse in terms of ethical standards.