I think Tolkien had many views about death, or at least his view on death was very complex. I think that it safe to say events in Tolkien's llife influenced him, especially WWI. Now I belive that one main point about death was this, as you said
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no-one has the right to decide whether somone should live or not
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I actually believe in that myself. I belive no one is truly evil and no one deserves to die. Maybe Tolkien wanted to show the many aspects of killing and death. And through two ways. The first being killing from a much wider point of view, through war. It's is not whether someone deserves to die or not, its just kill or be killed. You have orders to fight the enemy, and those orders do not care about your feelings. For soldiers (the experienced ones, not the green soldiers who haven't seen war or death like they will), it is just killing. You don't think about how the other person feels. You are just carrying out orders and staying alive.
The second aspect I think is that killing on a smaller scale. I think that killing on a smaller scale is a lot tougher. Like gollum and Frodo. Frodo had to look at gollum face to face and think about killing him before he actually did. Now when Frodo did this, he couldn't kill him. He has time to look into the eyes of the person he'll kill. And he saw pity. Have you ever seen the movie The Dirty Dozen? In one part, a soldier is ordered to kill the kitchen crew, cooks, maids, butlers, and other like that. The soldier has to look them in the face and shoot them. He just couldn't do it. It's just so much harder like that and they are two different scenarios so you will get two different reactions. Now there are a lot more reactions than those, but I find them to be the most common.
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Killing isn't wrong, when the thing you kill is compleately evil, is it?
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I have to say no on that, especially because I believe nothing is purely evil. Tolkien made it good vs. evil/bad. And of course the orcs are portrayed as evil. But that doesn't mean they are. They have feelings too. Who knows, they might even have an orc family back in Mordor and his orc son might be asking the orc mommy where daddy is. They might not be defending their country, but they are forced to fight, whether they want to or not. It relly is sad if you think about it. It almost makes me want to cry. In war you try not to think about the killing aspect of it. It doesn't really matter if your side is good or not. You don't think about that either. If you are drafted and have to fight, then you fight. All you try to think about it survival.
I think Tolkien wanted to show how creul and cold really can be. There are a lot of aspects about killing. I think that if Tolkien wanted to really show how creul it was, in one of his works, he could have had two friends fight for separate sides and end up facing each other in war, on opposing sides. That was one thing that often happened in the American civil war, and I'm sure in other civil wars as well.
I can sum up a lot of what I said (but not all) into this one sentence: Killing is wrong and no one deserves to die, however in war, all that matters is survival. I think that Tolkien wanted to show that killing is wrong and war is horrible. I strongly disagree with the death penalty. I think it's very hypocritical. You say it's wrong to kill, then you kill that person for killing. But didn't you just say killing is wrong? I just hate it so much. I think that killing is wrong but sometimes it's necessary for survival and in war, it doesn't matter if it's wrong or right.
Well that's how I feel about it and that's what I think Tolkien felt. Good thread Nenya.
[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie ]