The atrocity of the Akallabêth

[Tar-Telperien]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Throughout Tolkien's work killing another person (undeservedly) is an evil act.

Are you sure that that's not just humans' opinions? From the Athrabeth, it is made plain that Men, even the Edain, had fallen into a belief that Death was an "abominable" punishment brought on for evil deeds Men committed in their early history. There was almost no way they could find the strength of mind to look at it neutrally. It always carried an aura of punishment or "Doom" for them. So naturally this worked into their justice systems, which are human constructions.

Remember, Eru does not give anyone a moral or justice system to follow, nor does he announce any rules he has for his own conduct. All such systems are devices of his creatures, for dealing with life in Arda and in their societies. This hardly means they are "worthless"; they are extremely important in their context. But demanding that Eru be subject to one of these devised justice systems is taking it completely out of context.

The only promise, warning, or Doom Eru ever pronounces is that anyone who tries to rebel against him will not succeed, and that ultimately, rebellion itself is an illusion, since Eru's Will (Indómë, as I prefer to call it) is still being done through them. The evil of this "rebellion" is not that it works against Eru, but that it constitutes lying to oneself about successfully working against his Will.

(As an aside, these idea strongly hint to me that this mythology is not about a dualistic war of Good against Evil, with Good being the winner... someday. It's about learning. It's about moving from a state of ignorance to a state of enlightenment. It's about tearing down those comfortable illusions and self-deceptions and accepting the hard facts of Indómë. In the "Tale of Adanel", Eru tells Men that "eah of you in a little while shall come to me, to learn who is your Lord: the one ye worship, or I who made him" (my emphasis). People tend to forget that when the Children are deceived by Melkor, and when Melkor deceives himself, it is because they want that. Lies are so much easier to deal with than truth.)