...it's people's games you've got to dodge.
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Originally Posted by wispeight
I think that the seemingly unshakeable belief of the gods that Baldr was the epitome of perfection, must have in reality been an accord based on coercion. Loki would not have been able to trick a higher god into killing Baldr if this accord among all the gods was sincere. Even Loki realized that perfection is a state requiring no further experiencing and evolution toward continued upward progress.
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Hmmm...but Loki tricked blind Hödr into killing Baldr to circumvent the accord. It does not mean the compact between the gods was insincere; rather, the fact that there was imperfection (as a god without eyesight clearly indicates) even among the Aesir. It is likely that Hödr would not wilfully kill his brother; therefore, it was not the accord but the singular god who was imperfect (physically due to blindness, not morally), and thus Hödr became the dupe by which Loki assassinated Baldr. Also, Hödr and Baldr were reconciled in the end (at least, according to the Prose Edda), and so it would seem that Baldr did not recriminate Hödr for involuntarily breaching the accord.
In any case, the very fact that Baldr had an Achilles' heel (if I may mix pantheonic metaphors) indicates a limit to perfection (which Loki obviously discerned in his malice). And I'm not altogether sure that Loki had some philosophical ideal that mandated an action be taken against the falsity of a perfect state; rather, he was simply malicious. He was the primeval sociopath.
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Originally Posted by wispeight
I came to this site because I love the "Lord of the Rings" movies, and watch them everytime they come on tv. I haven't yet seen anyone mention their interpretation of 'Middle Earth' other than the hollow space in this planet. Please, I don't want to hear about the earth being hollow. Perhaps I should start a thread concerning that very question, but then I'd have to oversee it, and don't know if my other activities would allow it. I realize I'm likely being ignorant as it probably already popped-up here and I should have looked.
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I realize you stated you weren't trying to be obscurant, but no one here has interpreted Middle-earth to be the hollow space inside this planet; on the contrary, I would think that most folk here (I can't account for any eccentrics) would reply in opposition to such a concept in Tolkien's cosmology. Can you elucidate without the superfluity, please?