LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 02 - The Council of Elrond

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

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.

I don't think that it is at all hard to reconcile these positions. In fact, one of the things to emerge quite clearly during the Council is how good a ruler Aragorn will be. He makes his opinions clear, listens to other people, doesn't just boss people around, and helps the group arrive at a good decision. This will later (sorry to get ahead a bit Esty) be seen again at the council that Aragorn calls to decide what the lords of the West should do after their success at the Pelennor Fields. He could have just ordered people, but he doesn't do this.

Shakespeare's model of good kingship is, I think, appropriate here. In all of his plays, the 'good' king is the one who listens to the people, allows debate, encourages opinions and then makes a decision that takes all of these into account. His decision is final, but it is not one that he arrives at all on his own. It's Shakespeare's tyrants who simply decide what's best based on their own desires and impose that decision on others.

I think that Aragorn proves himself to be a great king at the Council. The odds are pretty good that he knows before they start talking what needs to be done with the Ring -- what his ancestor failed to do. At the same time, his decision to do this ("I will go with you") is NOT what he would personally want for himself (to head to Minas Tirith with Boromir to defend his kingdom and perhaps win Arwen).

[davem]

Perhaps its not so much 'male' vs 'female', as it is 'eros' vs 'logos'. Its interesting that Saruman at first attempts to use logic to win over Gandalf - the end justifies the means, 'we may regret what we have to do to win victory, but when we win we can rule the world properly', etc, & only when that fails do his emotions take over in a massive outburst of affect, he loses control & threatens & imprisons him. We see the same thing with all the enemies: they use cold hard logic to win over their foes, & when that doesn't work they lash out, as if they are not in control of their repressed emotions.

Just occurs, maybe Shelob could be seen as Sauron's repressed anima, his eros side, eating, consuming, drawing all things into itself.

Again, at the end we see what happens when Saruman has lost all chance of using logic (his 'voice') to win over his opponents - he simply lashes out with a knife to stab Frodo, which is a pathetic, sickening sight when we consider what he had been, a Maiar who sang in the Ainulindale as part of the choir of Ainur.

Ulmo is interesting, as he is always alone, which implies his logs & eros 'sides' were perfectly balanced.

All the heroes seem to be in touch with their 'feminine' sides, & its the ones who fail who choose logos over eros. Does this explain Frodo's failure? The heroes are in touch with their emotions, whether its Aragorn, Sam, Faramir, Galadriel, Eowyn (eventually), & the 'villains' are not - Boromir, Frodo, Sauron, Saruman, Grima.

I think what Gandalf is trying to warn Saruman against is this very repression of his feminine side, this approach of breaking rather than uniting, of manufacturing rather than creating. The opposition seems to be between building up & breaking down, creating & destroying, anabolism & catabolism. And it begins with Light & Language.

Every 'fall' is initiated in the choice of & manifests in the action of destruction, of breaking a thing - whatever the ('logical) reason & motivation (the desire) behind it.

Generally speaking logos dominates over eros in males & eros over logos in females, but that is certainly to over generalise. Perhaps its more correct to stress that males are more susceptible to uncontrolled logos values, & females perhaps to uncontrolled eros values, because we see the extreme of eros in Shelob & in what galadriel could become if she took the Ring - 'all shall love me & despair' - so she would be more powerful & more dangerous than Sauron, because Sauron's servants serve him out of fear only, while Galadriel's servants would serve her to the same extent or greater, but out of love (thanks again to Chausse).

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

Perhaps its not so much 'male' vs 'female', as it is 'eros' vs 'logos'.

This is a good way of putting it. I think that perhaps this distinction is a little like that between yin and yang - it is a profound distinction, but a vague one. Logos, artifice, male vs. eros, nature, female.

Just occurs, maybe Shelob could be seen as Sauron's repressed anima, his eros side, eating, consuming, drawing all things into itself.

An excellent point. I suppose Ungoliant and Melkor can be contrasted in the same way. And again the feminine/eros side is the natural (in this case bestial) one; the masculine/logos side is the one interested in artifice. There seem to be countless such pairs when one starts thinking about it. It occurs to me that we may even see something of the distinction in Bilbo vs. Frodo. Bilbo goes looking for adventure (something typically considered masculine) and demonstrates artifice in creating his own poetry; Frodo much more passively accepts the role that is assigned to him and rarely writes his own stuff.

Ulmo is interesting, as he is always alone, which implies his logs & eros 'sides' were perfectly balanced.

I see the appeal of looking at it that way. But I'm much more inclined to view Ulmo as being on the eros/nature side. He is frequently contrasted with Aule, for one thing. Also his water-affinity associates him with the Teleri as opposed to the Noldor, and it is his counsel that the Quendi be left in Middle-earth rather than summoned to Valinor - i.e. left to their nature rather than civilized.

Generally speaking logos dominates over eros in males & eros over logos in females, but that is certainly to over generalise.

I think that's an unfair over-generalization in the real world, but in Middle-earth it certainly has some truth.

A thought that I forgot to come to in my previous post: it seems that often when we are presented with a natural extreme and an artificial extreme we are also given a sort of happy medium. For example, Saruman is artificial, Radagast is natural, and Gandalf is the ideal balance. Others that occur to me:

Aule (artifice), Ulmo (nature), Manwe (balance)

Feanor (artifice), Finarfin (nature), Fingolfin (balance) (in this case we also have Fingon and Finrod, just a shade to the artificial and natural sides, respectively)

Noldor (artifice), Teleri (nature), Vanyar (balance)

This leads to the question of whether one can be too natural, too far to the eros side. Certainly it intuitively seems that such must be possible, but it is always the artificers that go bad. To put in another way: the danger of logos is that the desire for knowledge becomes the desire for control; what is the danger of eros?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The danger of eros is that its inherent passivity can allow evil to dominate. Éowyn says it well ("The Steward and the King", RotK):

It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden. And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies?

The ultimate goal of personal development is not delegating one or the other element to a partner, but learning to integrate both within one's self to achieve balance. The same chapter quoted above shows how Aragorn has accomplished that; the Warden says:

A great lord is that, and a healer; and it is a thing passing strange to me that the healing hand should also wield the sword.

An example of the danger of eros is Radagast; had he alone of the wizards been influential in the War of the Ring, it would have been lost.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Esty

The ultimate goal of personal development is not delegating one or the other element to a partner, but learning to integrate both within one's self to achieve balance.

Yet its interesting to see how various characters abilities & personalities are enhanced by their partners, & how the opposite can also be the case - Manwe is able to see farther from his seat on Taniquetil when Varda is beside him, Beren could not have achieved his Quest without Luthien, Aragorn won through in the end not just because of his own courage, but because Arwen aided & watched over him.

On the other hand, after Galadriel passed into the West Celeborn seemed to fade & lose purpose, the loss of Celebrian seems to have devastated Elrond, & perhaps played some part in his view that life is simply a series of 'defeats & fruitless victories'.

One other thing - Elrond's statement that its often the case that small hands do the great deeds because they must while the great are concerned elsewhere - is this actually the case? It seems from a reading of the Legendarium that its the opposite - its the great who do the great deeds, not the small. So why would Elrond claim otherwise - to encourage Frodo? In fact it seems that the only examples we have of 'small hands doing great deeds' is in the Hobbit & LotR. Is this a case of Tolkien changing his philosophy between the early tales & LotR?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

This discussion of eros and logos, and the need to find balance (either between two or within one) is casting my whole Boromir/Frodo pairing into a new light. They are both of them 'loners' in the sense that at the breaking of the Fellowship they will each decide to go their own way -- in a sense, the breaking is a joint-venture by both of them (Frodo knows that he must go to Mordor alone if he is to save his friends, Boromir knows that he must finally seize the Ring if he is to save his city). Both of their decisions are wildly unbalanced ones, but both are corrected (Frodo's by Sam, and Boromir's by Aragorn).

But this is getting ahead of ourselves again -- to return to the Council. . .

It strikes me that we can see the entire debate as a search for a balance, or integration, of logos and eros. One the one hand is the logical recognition that the Ring has got to go in the fire, and on the other are the fears and passions of the people who are forced to realise this. I find it interesting that in the end, Frodo's 'decision' to take the burden is not a reasoned one at all -- in fact, he is hard pressed to know the reasons for taking the Ring. He is motivated only by a "feeling". Sam, Pippin and Merry also go with him for the sake of their love and for no other reason.

So in the Council we see a kind of integration in which eros (love, in the sense of love for others at the expense of self, which is more properly claritas) is swayed by the recognition of logos, but in the end, eros/claritas is more necessary or dependable. As Gandalf says, Pippin and Merry are better companions for Frodo than someone like Glorfindel -- that makes no sense, but it feels right.

And once again, I will point out that this balance is achieved by a group of men, without any women, so this is why I resist the notion of locating the logos-eros relation on a gender pairing. In fact, I resist locating them in a pairing of any kind insofar as there are many people at the Council not just two (or even two groups or kinds of people). I think that the relation between logos/reason and eros/emotion is more properly located in the relation between the group and the individual; the many and the one. It's as a group that they decide what must be done, but in the end it is for the love of his homeland and friends that a single hobbit accepts the burden of that decision.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Fordim

In fact, I resist locating them in a pairing of any kind insofar as there are many people at the Council not just two (or even two groups or kinds of people).

The terminology we use can be misleading, certainly. We could use mind/heart instead of logos/eros or logic/compassion, etc, because all are equally useful & equally misleading. We could even talk about Apollonian/Dionysian or Yin-Yang as Aiwendil suggested. In fact, I wonder whether it might be interesting to classify all the characters in that way? We might actually find out that the heroes have both sides in balance if we compare their acts & the decisions they make, the 'villains' all lean towards one extreme or the other.