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Old 06-30-2004, 09:37 AM   #30
Aiwendil
Late Istar
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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Davem wrote:
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Hope, in the sense of 'estel - faith - as opposed to amdir - or simple optimism - requires that evil cannot ultimately win - that by its very nature it will bring about its own defeat.
I have to disagree. In the Athrabeth "estel" seems to be hope without assurance, as opposed to "amdir", optimism based on rational evaluation of evidence. What you say suggests that estel is, rather, hope based on ultimate, complete assurance of final victory, which would seem to be rather the opposite.

Mark12_30 wrote:
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Seems reasonable that Tolkien preferred Beowulf-form over more modern ideas.
Very true! Thanks for those parallels; I'd never noticed them before.

The Saucepan Man wrote:
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Sorry, davem, but I really don't see any 'dark' side to Frodo in this chapters. Of course, he is (like us) not without flaws, but his reactions here are no more than I would expect in light of what Gandalf is revealing to him. As Orofaniel says, he is scared, and quite justifiably so in my opinion. And, while his comments concerning his fellow inhabitants of the Shire do reflect a frustration with their narrow-mindedness (again, understandable given his broader outlook on life), I detect that he nevertheless has great affection for them. Certainly, to my mind, he is being far from literal when he talks of earthquakes and Dragons. As I see it, he is simply saying that they could do with a good shake-up on occasion. And, going by the attitude displayed by Ted Sandyman in The Green Dragon, and the parochial picture painted in the preceding chapter, I see no reason to disagree with him on this.
I have to say that I agree. Frodo is certainly no epic hero in the early chapters, but I don't see any darkness - if by darkness we mean some minor form of evil. The only possible point at which I can see any such evil inclination at all is when he wishes that Bilbo had killed Gollum. But this wish is certainly very natural, and it seems to me that Frodo is saying it primarily in response to Gandalf's news of the mischief Gollum has done recently - revealing the names "Shire" and "Baggins" to Sauron. I don't think that the Ring has anything to do with it at all - particularly because much later on, when the Ring has far more control over Frodo, he changes his mind on this point and pities Gollum, and does not slay him.

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Conventional wisdom be confounded! Personally, I don't hold with the view that there is any "correct" way to structure a story. The trick is in the skill of the story-teller.
Well, I agree and disagree. There certainly are poor ways of telling a story, for there are poor novels. There is a real danger in starting with too much exposition. But I think that often the conventional wisdom is short sighted or incomplete. That's why I find it so interesting to take cases like LotR, where the conventional wisdom is violated with good results, and to try to determine what causes their success.

HerenIstarion wrote:
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Now, the Ring is somehow an union of those two concepts of Evil.
This is certainly my view. It is also the one that Tom Shippey argues for in Author of the Century.

I think, incidentally, that "Manichean" is not the best name for the one sort of evil, for "Manichean" suggests not only the external existence of that evil but also a kind of dualism, in which good and evil are cosmologically equal.

There is no question that, in Tolkien's universe, good is cosmologically dominant over evil. I think the more relevant question with regard to the Ring is simply whether the evil of the Ring is external - in the Ring itself - or internal - in the owner or desirer of the Ring. And I think that there is sufficient evidence in favor or each of these apparently contradictory claims that we must conclude that somehow both are simultaneously true.

I don't think that broad cosmological/theological arguments have all that much point with regard to this ambiguity, either. For regardless of the ultimate nature of evil, it cannot be denied that Sauron is an external power. And there is no theological reason that he cannot have placed a part of that power in the Ring (as is indeed said), so that there is in fact an external evil will within the Ring.

To try to simplify the picture and force all the evidence to fit either a Boethian or a Manichean view, or to force the smaller scale situation to match exactly with the cosmological, is to miss much of the subtlety of Tolkien's world.
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