Were Dragons inherently "evil"?

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

There is a letter on the subject in Letters of JRRT. I do not have that volume with me. I have referred to the letter in other posts before. I'll run a search.

In Morgoth's Ring, p. 409, one of Tolkien's later writings (discussing the nature and origin of Orcs) states that only Eru can "make creatures with independent wills, and with reasoning powers."

Ta Muchly. I just reviewed Letters and I missed it. I have not yet bought or read Morgoth's Ring, though I see a lot of citations here referring to it. It looks like a really interesting Tome.

I've got those five really (hard) volumes at hand as well, (The Lays of Beleriand, etc) where it's 'Gnomes', Thu, and MaeDRos, The Quenta and some other really odd phonetics in variations of names. I always baulked at Noldoli being -- gnomes -- and I'm glad Chris (or whoever it was) fixed it .

Cheers