[Osse]

Exactly! Shelob (and Ungoliant's) evil, centres around pure, complete and utter consumption. Especially Ungoliant, who craved power and nourishment so much that she devoured the Trees, as well as everything else in her path. It's a self preservatory evil perhaps, but still a great evil nonetheless. The spiders unlike the Dark Lords, didn't want to control others, they just wanted to consume others - a very different, yet equally malicious evil.

I always half-pitied the orcs - a revolting form of life spurred on by evil masters to do their bidding. Though repulsive, and rather nasty themselves, they always seemed to me to be the small-time-crims of Arda. As we can see in a few conversations, namely the one Sam overhears on the pass of Cirith Ungol, the orcs would rather get away from war, and make a 'quiet' life for themselves somewhere far from the whips and orders. Of course, this life would probably still consist of a fair amount of murder, pillaging and robbery, like we witness in the case of the Goblin colonies of the north, but that is largely due to the hateful nature of the creatures. I do not believe that they are altogether evil, but are built to live off killing and raiding - largely due to no fault of their own. Still they are of course somewhat evil, it's just a rather mild evil. (as far as murdering, burning and robbing is compared to say, taking over the whole of arda or killing the Trees...)

Balrogs, are rather hard to understand, as is the Watcher. One can assume one of two things - they are completely and magniliantly evil and are forever burning with hate and the desire to destroy life. OR that they are benignly evil and were just protecting a patch of their long-held territory, though of course stirred by the great evil of the East. One would be safe assuming either.


Evil itself (as this discussion is meant to outline) is very hard to define in itself. Evil or 'bad' takes many manifestations and personas, that can be percieved differently from person to person... one man's evil is another's... um?