Quote:
Originally Posted by Lotrelf
I don't know if I really have fallen into the danger you're talking about, Faramir Jones. I had seen that in the first Hobbit movie and when I read the book, I wondered if I missed something. That made me start the thread. Nothing more than that.  |
You're right there,
Lotrelf, for which I apologise.
You and others may be interested in knowing that Tolkien explicitly made a major character vegetarian: Beren. According to Chapter 19 of
The Silmarillion, for 4 years after his other 11 companions (including his father) had been killed by Sauron, he survived in Dorthonion
but he became the friend of birds and beasts, and they aided him, and did not betray him, and from that time forth he ate no flesh nor slew any living thing that was not in the service of Morgoth. (My emphasis) (
The Silmarillion, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979), p. 196.
It appears that Beren's decision was due to military necessity, rather than any ethical or moral objections to eating the flesh of animals.
Perhaps Sauron had been using, in his campaign against Beren and his companions, the meat eating habits of the latter against them, in order to gain intelligence. An argument by him might have gone something like this:
These Elves and Men go on a lot about me and others being 'evil', and they being 'good'. If that's the case, why do they kill and eat your relatives? (Points at one animal) You know what happened to your uncle last week, reduced to a heap of picked-over bones. (Points to another animal) And what about your cousin? If this is how they behave, why should any of you help them at all? If you help me, I promise that they will not bother you or your families ever again. 
What do people think?