Schvenn, I think your collation of evil with cold is apt. The image Tolkien often prefered was shadow and light (compare Mordor, the land of shadow, with the light of Lorien). Like the relationship with warmth and cold, shadow is nothing more than an abscence of light. It's not how I'd personaly view the relationship but it seems a good perspective in terms of the lord of the rings. So where does that leave the hobbits? Incapable of evil if merely left to their own devices? I strongly doubt it. Aren't hobbits distantly related to men. If so there must be great potential for evil. The Sackville Bagginses are inarguably greedy people before the arrival of Sharky and his ruffians. Greed is an evil and acted as a handy pre-existing foundation for Saruman to work from. Which he did by invoking fear.
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"Come away, O human child!/ To the waters and the wild/With a faery hand in hand,/ For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."
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