How the mighty do fall!

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Nimikôi Angarauko

well guys im new to the forums but heres my input i recently, meaning last week, wrote a paper about the good vs evil complexities in lotr and i feel that the Evil Manifest, as i call them, fall due to their desire for something out of their reach and instead of letting it go it drives them with an evil ambition, but this desire never starts out evil just over ambitious case in point Melkor all he wanted to do was create life of his own to basically be a true God but this eventually drove him to his other horrible deeds i.e. the creature of orcs, his want to enslave the earth, and a slew of others. This over ambitious desire is seen time and time again even with Saruman he started out with intention to take the Ring from the Enemy and destroy him even to the end, well to the end but to the fall of orthanc, and use it to destroy the Enemy thats also why he played "puppet" to sauron so he could survive the flood and in the end be triumphet and there are the first signs of his evil. The truely Evil beings are bad their just written that way

I think a hello and welcome is in order and also to Althern who I see has fewer posts.

I have notised a theme that seems to run through a lot of Tolkien's Middle Earth. This is that People who were grate or mighty, are often those who fall into Evil. Take Saurman,


He was great once
Frodo Baggins, Return of the King, book six, The scouring of the Shire
Also, the Witch king of Angmar, was Grate, now evil and dead. Denathor, was a respectable leader, now a dead twisted old fool. Sauron, was a faithful servant of the Valar, now a dead Follower of Morgoth. Even Melkor, once the mightiest of the Valar, now a lonely, footless, evil spirit trapped in the Void.

Is Tolkien trying to say something here?

I guess that the corrupted Maia who followed Melkor in the rebellion just didn't like classical music. Melkor invented a new musical trend with repetitive chords. They were hard to forget.

Why Melkor would (want) to turn Arda into a dust bowl of darkness and ruined things is hard to understand.

The Valar never had a real solution to the question of Evil. They never developed means to understand their own Vanity, and I argue that the Evil of Arda was the mirror of that which the Ainur denied in themselves, (i.e. did not *resolve* in themselves). Evil cannot exist without its shadow being cast by or in or through the minds of the Ainur-Good. As Tolkien said about the Nazgul - mortals' presence "casts a shadow in their minds". That's always remained vivid imagery.

What is the shadow cast in such a mind? And what Ainur ever bothered to repair Sauron's works, or Melkor's without necessity to destroy them.