[Faramir Jones]

Shadowfax, I'm glad that you enjoyed my article, and agree completely that the topic is 'extremely fascinating'.

In terms of what you said about anachronisms here:

Originally Posted by shadowfax

The anachronism aspect is interesting. Tolkien was
writing about an imaginary world in a long gone era, but doing so through he
eyes of a modern man living in an age defined by totally different values and
attitudes. I was aware of the Shire anachronisms, ranging from Bilbo's manner
of dressing to umbrellas and even touching on the post renaissance instruments
of the dwarves (which are strangely not re-mentioned once outside the Shire and
can so be considered part of the Shire anachronism as much as they are part of
the dwarves' identity). But besides artefacts, I hadn't considered that there
might also be anachronisms in terms of attitudes and values. This is definitely
a topic deserving further study.

When I began to seriously study history, I realised (like so many others) that to attempt to understand what went on in a particular period, I needed to look beyond the fact that people looked and talked differently, and to look at, as you said, their 'attitudes and values'.

Originally Posted by shadowfax

Much of Middle-earth was a feudal society. Men were not free in the manner that we consider freedom today but served their masters, to the point of following them into war and dying on the battlefield - without questioning the necessity of their sacrifice. The Shire may have been a little freer but basically anywhere else we so no evidence of any common man having had any choice in the matter. They were thus fighting for their lord and master before they were fighting for Gondor or for the West. In my opinion it was the beakdown of the feudal system that led to some vacuum and caused nationalism. People no longer had a compelling reason to obey their masters and nationalism with all its symbols and flags and music was a necessity to fill in this gap and continue to
make war possible in a society that was otherwise elightened and free.

But is it a feudal system as we understand it when people, such as the Gondorians, have been fighting a foe like Sauron for thousands of years? It appears that there is an element of 'nationalism' in terms of a recognition by Gondorians that the kingdom is a seperate entity from any king; so Gondor has survived for centuries as a state even with a vacant throne. When Pippin swears allegiance, he first and significantly swears allegience to Gondor, and only second to Denethor II as Steward.

Originally Posted by shadowfax

Concerning the enemy being Satan in person, I don't know how any state of this world would react to that situation. But presumably it would lead to totally different attitudes. However, that is a question of theology. If you're fighting somebody, you're first of all fighting an enemy, and that this enemy is Satan is only a second argument after that. If somebody is out to kill you, you fight for your life, no matter whether that enemy is Satan himself or a mouse on steroids or a bearded guy in a cave in Afghanistan. Besides which, propganda machines always try to paint the enemy as Satan incarnate. Look at what the media made of Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein to cite just some recent examples. So where this argument is leading me is the question, does it make a
difference if for once the propganda machine is right and the enemy really is Satan. Does the common man or the collective psyche see through the propaganda and still make the difference? An interesting question.

An interesting question, indeed. I disagree that fighting Sauron would be merely a 'question of theology'. Sauron is an enemy, of course; but unlike the people you mentioned he is both immortal and of divine origin. Not only can he live forever; it appears that he cannot be 'killed' in any conventional sense. This makes him thousands of times more formidable than any other tyrant; because those you've mentioned were and are mortal Men, doomed to die. This did make a difference, such as when the Mongols looked as if they would overrun Western Europe, they were stopped by the death of the Great Khan Ögedei in 1241. In Sauron's case, not only do you have the same person around; that person can afford to wait a long time for things to turn in his favour. He waited for centuries in the Third Age until Gondor began to decline and the watch it kept on Mordor ended. The Gondorians, Rohirrim and other enemies can't wait, as they would for a mortal foe, for him to either die, or to grow old and want to spend time with the grandchildren.

There's also the problem of what to do with Sauron if, by a remote chance, he was defeated. Keeping him as a POW would be too risky, considering what he did in Númenor in the Second Age. All he needs to do is to wait a couple of generations for those who knew him as an enemy to die off, and let people grow up who might feel sorry for him. We can also look back and see the havoc his former master, Morgoth, wreaked in Valinor after he was released. The only way to keep him harmless when he was overcome again at the end of the First Age was to imprison him outside of Arda, casting him out beyond the Walls of Night.

Even if Sauron is not imprisoned, but a decision made to execute him instead, is such a thing possible? Can a Maia (or former Maia) be killed?

There are two disadvantages to being an immortal tyrant. First, you have accumulated a huge number of atrocities to your name over thousands of years. (I'm sure that Sauron would have made Mao and Stalin look pathetic by comparison.) You're therefore easy to hate. For example, I'm sure that the Gondorians haven't forgotten the betrayal of their last king.

Second, because you've been around so long, your enemies will have amassed a large amount of information about you. Know your enemy is an basic maxim of warfare. I believe that Aragorn II learnt a lot about Sauron, from written and oral sources, as well as from his own travels, and was thus able to use that knowledge to confront him using the Stone of Orthanc, and persuade him that he might have the Ring, encouraging him to make a premature attack on Gondor.