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Old 09-23-2004, 12:41 PM   #20
davem
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Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Perhaps its not so much 'male' vs 'female', as it is 'eros' vs 'logos'. Its interesting that Saruman at first attempts to use logic to win over Gandalf - the end justifies the means, 'we may regret what we have to do to win victory, but when we win we can rule the world properly', etc, & only when that fails do his emotions take over in a massive outburst of affect, he loses control & threatens & imprisons him. We see the same thing with all the enemies: they use cold hard logic to win over their foes, & when that doesn't work they lash out, as if they are not in control of their repressed emotions.

Just occurs, maybe Shelob could be seen as Sauron's repressed anima, his eros side, eating, consuming, drawing all things into itself.

Again, at the end we see what happens when Saruman has lost all chance of using logic (his 'voice') to win over his opponents - he simply lashes out with a knife to stab Frodo, which is a pathetic, sickening sight when we consider what he had been, a Maiar who sang in the Ainulindale as part of the choir of Ainur.

Ulmo is interesting, as he is always alone, which implies his logs & eros 'sides' were perfectly balanced.

All the heroes seem to be in touch with their 'feminine' sides, & its the ones who fail who choose logos over eros. Does this explain Frodo's failure? The heroes are in touch with their emotions, whether its Aragorn, Sam, Faramir, Galadriel, Eowyn (eventually), & the 'villains' are not - Boromir, Frodo, Sauron, Saruman, Grima.

I think what Gandalf is trying to warn Saruman against is this very repression of his feminine side, this approach of breaking rather than uniting, of manufacturing rather than creating. The opposition seems to be between building up & breaking down, creating & destroying, anabolism & catabolism. And it begins with Light & Language.

Every 'fall' is initiated in the choice of & manifests in the action of destruction, of breaking a thing - whatever the ('logical) reason & motivation (the desire) behind it.

Generally speaking logos dominates over eros in males & eros over logos in females, but that is certainly to over generalise. Perhaps its more correct to stress that males are more susceptible to uncontrolled logos values, & females perhaps to uncontrolled eros values, because we see the extreme of eros in Shelob & in what galadriel could become if she took the Ring - 'all shall love me & despair' - so she would be more powerful & more dangerous than Sauron, because Sauron's servants serve him out of fear only, while Galadriel's servants would serve her to the same extent or greater, but out of love (thanks again to Chausse).
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