[alatar]

Thanks for the posts.

Reading more, in The Scouring of the Shire, what jumps out is the purposefulness by which the hobbits' souls, for lack of a better word, are being polluted. Saruman's and/or Lotho's mills don't grind corn, but grind out pollution into both the air and the water, and to me, more importantly, the psyche. The new homes and Shirriff houses aren't just un-Hobbitlike - being above ground and made of bricks - but also are poorly built. To me this is due more to design than in poor or hasty workmanship.

The table in the Shirriff's house in which the Four Companions stay is in need of a good scrubbing. Was cleaning the table against the rules? I think not; yet no hobbit felt the need to clean it. Isn't this like the grimy world of 1984? It's not because the people in each book are poor or are experiencing a hard year, but that the conditions in which they live are set up to break down the spirit. The table could have been cleaned, but no one was motivated to do it, and eventually the dirty dingy table (amongst other things) would be accepted as the norm.

And it's not only the environment that is affected, but the hobbits as well. Surely the Chief's Big Men make one fear to say too much, as one doesn't know who may be a spy, but it seems that even old friends who should know better still maintain an emotional distance. Like in Winston Smith's world, where he is cautious as anyone and everyone would turn him in for heretical thoughts, the hobbits in the Shire at that time are afraid to do anything that might arouse interest, and worse, a trip to the lockholes and/or a beating.

After Saruman is cast out of the Shire (and subsequently murdered), the hobbits get back the life that was once inside them. They return to their industrious selves, cleaning up the mess that had begun to convert the Shire into Mordor/Orthanc. Same persons, different spirits perhaps.

Makes me believe that this is how the elves were made into orcs, and though it might take many generations, how the orcs may be turned back to something a bit more benign.