Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55
The way I understand your post, Puddleglum, is that there are actually 3 different loyalties - to Eru, to a master/authority, and to one's heart. I'd say that very often two of these are against one.
Gaima has an interesting case. He says something like "when in doubt, wisdom tells us to follow our hearts" when Gandalf refuses to give his staff to him. The 2 loyalties in conflict are to master and to heart; you don't see much of Eru here, though. You could say that since Gaima followed his heart and that caused good things to happen (ie Gandalf "woke" Theoden) and ultimately do what Eru wants, the Eru loyalty was the same as the heart one. You could prove otherwise too, though.
Huan, on the other hand, has a clear case. His heart loyalty and Eru loyalty tell him to betray Celegorm, but his master loyalty says the opposite. It's 2 to one.
Maglor had a 2 to 1 choice too, though, and he chose the one, when he listened to Maedhros and stole one of the Silmarils, killing other people in the process (a bit of the Silmarillion, like Ibrin said).
Interesting thing, loyalty...can cause so much trouble...
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I
assume that "Gaima" means Gríma Wormtongue... not that this really needs to be clarified, for what I have to say.
As far as Middle-earth goes (like
Puddleglum I will avoid straying into "the real world"), I am strongly leery of saying anything like "one should have a loyalty to one's heart." This is not to say that the heart does not play a role in loyalty, but I do not think it really deserves a "third loyalty."
Rather, the promptings of the heart (which sounds terribly melodramatic, by the way), are more in the nature of the conscience, which helps one distinguish between sworn loyalty and morality (loyalty to Eru, one might say) when the two seem to conflict. This does not, however, mean that you do the right thing by "staying loyal to your heart," introducing a third morality; rather, a properly formed conscience will prioritize loyalty to Eru, and prompt one to act according.
If one has an undue loyalty to the heart that causes one to deviate from proper loyalty to Eru (ie. to what is "right"), whether that is in order to be loyal to a sworn loyalty or some third party action, that is IMmoral, and to attempt to make it moral on the basis of "loyalty to the heart" is not really given much--or any--support in Tolkien's writings.