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Originally Posted by davem
Tolkien wouldn't have created such a personification of evil, because he had seen real evil on the Somme, & knew that it's really cowardly, self obsessed & cruel.
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By the Somme I assume you mean the Western Front in World War I. I question your portrayal of the war as 'evil'. Who exactly was evil? The Central Powers, for seeking domination? The Allied Powers, for opposing them and causing bloodshed? I also question the extent to which Tolkien saw real evil on the front lines. Soldiers do what they are told- this was before the Nuremberg trials. The evil to be found would have been in the high command, not the men-at-war. That doesn't mean that the war was
right- I just think that evil has to be deliberate. For example, Morgoth was evil because he was trying to be evil, but Feanor was not evil.