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Old 09-23-2004, 09:20 AM   #18
Aiwendil
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Join Date: Mar 2001
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Davem wrote:
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I suppose its a question of intent - why does Saruman want to know what the light is made of, & what makes him think that once he's broken it he can do anything with it?

Is he, & Morgoth really driven by a desire to create or simply a desire to manipulate, to 're-make the world in his own image'?
Surely Saruman did not begin with the intent to dominate. We are told that he was once great and noble. His original purpose in studying Ring-lore was surely that he and the others would know to deal with their enemy's weapons. By the time he broke the white light and became Saruman of Many Colours he had changed, and I'm sure that by that point his desire to know had been transmuted into a desire to control. Those desires are really quite connected. I'm not sure that I can draw a distinction, for example, between my desire to understand how computers work and my desire to better control my own computer. And conversely, the best way to learn about computers is sometimes to sit down and spend some time trying to control one. I also think it's natural to think that breaking something will help one to learn about it. If I wanted to learn how a clock works, one thing I could do is to take apart a clock - and I can be reasonably sure that after doing that I will know a lot more about clocks than I do now. The trouble is, I won't know what time it is.

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Its quite interesting that the Lamps were made by Aule, & are constructions, in a sense, machines, that the Trees are brought to life by Yavanna, & are living , growing things, & the Silmarils, & the Rings, are 'machines', as are the Palantiri, so we have a 'male' approach, manufacture of 'things', & a 'female' approach' of bringing into being living things.
I don't think I would call this distinction male vs. female, at least not fundamentally. Certainly your examples have force. But I think they are reflective of a deeper distinction, that between artifice and nature. I think I pontificated about this a bit in one of the earlier chapter discussions (maybe in relation to Tom Bombadil). On the "artifice" side we have Aule, Saruman, Sauron, Feanor, the Noldor. On the "nature" side we have Ulmo, Radagast, Finarfin, the Sindar. The nature side is more traditionally feminine, and indeed we see a lot of women in that category and a lot of men in the other. But there are some males, Ulmo for example, that do not at all have the same artificial associations as Aule and the rest - in fact, the personalities of Aule and Ulmo are consistently contrasted. It's harder to think of women on the artifice side; Galadriel tends toward it a bit (and her mother name is Nerwen, "man maiden"). Also, I don't see Yavanna's creation of the Trees as entirely natural. She sings them into being, and song is the original artifice - but it may also be the least artificial artifice, as it is most closely in accord with Iluvatar (and indeed Ulmo is associated with music). Nevertheless, Yavanna's creation of the trees is in one place compared with Feanor's creation of the Silmarils:

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Even for those who are mightiest under Iluvatar there is some work that they may accomplish once, and once only. The light of the Trees I brought into being, and within Ea I can do so never again (Yavanna).
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For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest (Feanor).
Edit: Cross-posting with Fordim, who makes some excellent observations. I wonder though how to reconcile Tolkien's presentation of debate and concensus as critical virtues with his apparent preference for monarchy.

Last edited by Aiwendil; 05-17-2005 at 03:50 PM.
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