[The Saucepan Man]

It's a point that has been touched on before, but it's relevant here, and so I raise it for discussion. It seems to me that there is one aspect of "traditional" Faerie that is conspicuously absent from Tolkien's works - moral ambiguity/amorality.

There are shades of grey in Tolkien's world - characters who, when we meet them are neither wholly on the side of good nor wholly on the side of evil. Gollum would be a prime example, as would Saruman, Denethor and Boromir (at the point of his corruption). But their "greyness" arises from the fact that they have been corrupted, or otherwise tainted by evil.

There are no characters who are, by their very nature, morally ambiguous or amoral. Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are perhaps the closest we get although, despite references to Tom's ambivalence about the Ring, they are still firmly portrayed as being on the side of good. They are very different characters to one such as as, for example, the thistle-haired gentleman in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. He is certainly not a sympathetic character, but can he be regarded as evil in the same way as, say, Sauron? Are there equivalents within Tolkien's works? The Barrow-Wight or Old Man Willow, perhaps? Again, I suspect not, as they are again characters arising from, or tainted by, evil.

I suppose that the main difference is that, in Tolkien's world, good and evil are very real concepts. And all of his creatures are touched by one or the other - or (more likely) both. Can the same be said of traditional Faerie?