[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

However, I talked about ideas and feelings. That makes the separation between primary world and inner world irrelevant - and your argument becomes self-contradicting.

Imagination/fairy tale/fantasy is part of a person's universe of ideas - but you seem to deny this, even if, for me at least, it is an evident truth. If for the whole there is a norm: "certain ideas/feelings/propensities are immoral", then this rule exists also for the parts of it.

No, because you're assuming that what one reader considers good (& evil) is the same as what another reader does. I don't accept that fantasising about 'x' is equal to actually doing 'x' - particularly not when we're dealing with Orcs, Elves, Dragons & Ringwraiths. This is a fantasy world & cheering when a Goblin kills an Elf for his magic sword is not the same as cheering when a mugger stabs a commuter for his cellphone.

Take a scene from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:

The camp was a dreary, silent place. A thick snow was falling and the strange soldiers lay, wrapped in their black cloaks, upon the snowy ground. At first the young women thought the soldiers must be dead - an impression which was strengthened by the great multitude of ravens and other black birds which had settled over the camp, and indeed upon the prostrate forms of the soldiers themselves - yet the soldiers were not dead; from time to time one would stir himself and go attend to his horse, or brush a bird away if it tried to peck at his face.
At the approach of the young women a soldier got to his feet. One of the women shook off her fears and went up to him and kissed him on the mouth.
His skin was very pale (it shone like moonlight) and entirely without blemish. His hair was long and straight like a fall of dark brown water. The bones of his face were unnaturally fine and strong. The expression of the face was solemn. His blue eyes were long and slanting and his brows were as fine and dark as pen strokes with a curious flourish at the end. None of this worried the girl in the least. For all she knew every Dane, Scot and Frenchman ever born is eerily beautiful.
He took well enough to the kiss and allowed her to kiss him again. Then he paid her back in kind. Another soldier rose from the ground and opened his mouth. Out of it came a sad, wailing sort ofrnusic. The first soldier- the one the girl had kissed - began to coax her to dance with him, pushing her this way and that with his long white fingers until she was dancing in a fashion to suit him.
This went on for some time until she became heated with the dance and paused for a moment to take off her cloak. Then her companions saw that drops of blood, like beads of sweat, were forming on her arms, face and legs, and falling on to the snow. This sight terrified them and so they ran away. The strange army never entered Allendale. It rode on in the night towards Carlisle. The next day the townspeople went cautiously up to the fields where the army had camped. There they found the girl, her body entirely white and drained of blood while the snow around her was stained bright red.
By these signs they recognised the Daoine Sidhe - the Fairy Host.

Here we have a more 'traditional' account of Fairies than Tolkien gives us. How many of us do not feel a thrill of excitement when we read about the fate of the young woman at the hands of the Fairy Host. How many of us are fascinated by these mysterious creatures & want to know more about them? And do any of us, on reading that passage think 'Oh, what evil creatures! Anyone who is excited by them must be sick'? No, we are attracted by these dark mysterious beings with such mysterious powers.

And now, hands up anybody who feels the kind of excitement & attraction I'm talking about who actually wants to go out & force a young woman to dance until she bleeds to death?

If an idea/feeling/propensity is defined as immoral in itself, then any instance of it, regardless the condition, is immoral. One cannot say one considers the idea of derriving pleasure from tales of rape as immoral, and then delight from the idea hinted in Myths Transformed that Men were forced to mate with beasts - and then one still claims moral integrity.

That depends on whether you judge people on what they do or on what they think. I think your position would lead us to the kind of situation we see in Minority Report - where people are incarcerated for crimes they intend to commit - or worse - for fantasising about shooting the guy who cuts them up on the freeway, or punching the boss out for balling them out. This kind of fantasy is a release. By indulging in such fantasises we deal with them without acting them out - that's the function of fantasy - we fantasise about doing 'x' so that we don't actually do 'x'. In fact, if we didn't fantasise about doing bad things every so often there would be a whole lot more bad things happening.

One can't say one considers derriving pleasure from tales of tortures, killings and unncessary destructions as evil in itself, and then delight when Gondolin is destroyed or when people are tortured in Numenor - and still consider oneself as moral.

So, 'deriving pleasure' from such tales is no different from committing such acts? There's no difference between fantasising about punching the idiot who walks out in front of your car, forcing you to slam on the brakes & actually getting out of your car & actually punching him? Well, I'd say there's a world of difference as far as he's concerned - cos in the first instance he crosses the road & carries on with his day & in the second he spends most of the day in casualty with a broken nose.

And you're still avoiding the central point - some readers may think Gondolin was filled with annoying self satisfied idiots & deserved what it got - you're attempting to impose your moral value system on other readers & condemning them for not living up to your standards.