Quote:
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Originally Posted by Formendacil
Certainly, there is danger to the Old Forest. It is not a "nice" place, or a "safe" place, and it works actively against those it does not welcome. But does this make it evil, or is it more representative of the 'wildness' of nature?
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Formendacil has got me thinking...Landscape in Middle Earth is very much
alive, it is certainly painted in vivid colours, and it could be argued that it is a character in itself. In this, Tolkien has much in common with Thomas Hardy who also makes the landscape come alive, who makes it seem to have its own
will, Egdon Heath in
Return of the Native being a prime example of this.
Thinking about the characteristics of Tricksters, it is as though the landscape itself is the Trickster, wild, unpredictable and capricious. It can be benevolent, or it can be malicious. There are examples of where 'humans' have attempted to tame the landscape, such as the Hobbits lighting the fire in the Old Forest, and many examples of where 'humans' have waged war on the landscape, such as Saruman at Isengard. But nature, the landscape, always seems to fight back in unexpected ways. Despite what anyone does to it, it is still more than capable of biting back, as shown in The Old Forest.
Like the original ideas of Tricksters, who are not evil or good, who just
are, the landscape in Middle Earth simply exists for its own sake, changes according to its own whims, and does just what it wants. Thinking about Ents, maybe this is why the Elves taught them to talk, that they saw just how unpredictable these creatures could be and wished to tame them in some way, or even to
civilise them? So too, Tolkien seems to have tamed his Tricksters, but maybe he left one untouched, the land itself.