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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Destroying Sauron by proxy was the only thing the West could do, the only chance they had. If Tolkien himself thought the manner of Sauron's death 'unsporting' or dishonourable, there would be some reflection of that in the books. But there isn't. After Sauron's death there is only rejoicing by the West, and no lamentation of the evil that was gone. Aragorn doesn't say 'I wish I could have faced him in person, matching my sword with his'. In fact, if a one-on-one showdown was the 'right' thing to do, why couldn't Aragorn have taken a page from Fingolfin's book, and told the Mouth 'I want to face your master in single combat. The outcome will decide this war'?
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I didn't mean to suggest that the unethicality of killing an unseen foe applied in Sauron's case. When you're up against a demon tyrant who throws his armies in myriads against you, commanded by undead wraiths, while hiding in an impregnable fortress, and all he lacks to overpower you completely is this little piece of jewellery which by sheer luck has come into your hands, some exception to the usual rules for treatment of enemy combatants is OK, I think.
As for Aragorn challenging Sauron to a personal duel, Gil-galad and Elendil tried that approach the last time around, and all it accomplished was to postpone the threat for a few millennia. As long as the Ring remained undestroyed, killing Sauron bodily wouldn't solve the problem.
To get back to the question of ethics: there are, of course, situations where it's justifiable and indeed necessary to ignore sporting fairness, honour and even the rules of normal ethic behaviour in order to protect innocent lives - where the only responsible thing is to get your hands dirty and take a minor guilt upon you, because by avoiding it you would incur an even greater guilt. (As Donaldson's Thomas Covenant would put it: innocence is wonderful, but it's powerless; power leads to guilt, and only those willing to accept guilt can achieve something good.)
But from another angle: considering that the part of Sauron he put into the ring is as much of him as we ever get to see directly, I think it's important that Frodo took it all the way to Mount Doom himself and had to resist its influence at such a terrible cost to himself. This, if you like, is LotR's version of the hero confronting the chief villain, and it's another reason why simply eagle-dropping the Ring into the fire wouldn't have worked. For the victory over evil to have weight and meaning, somebody has to struggle and come to terms with evil personally. (This isn't about ethics anymore, and I don't have a good name for what it
is about; 'spiritual believability' comes closest.)
Thanks for the Atomic bomb quote! That's about what I'd have expected from him.
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Originally Posted by Inzil
In another he says that with the atomic bomb the West had decided to use the Ring for 'most excellent' purposes'.
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Yeah, well. 'All shall love us and despair.' (But I'll be a good boy and not head off on a political tangent there...)