The Inherent Incompatability of Morgoth and Sauron

[Nerwen]

Nikkolas, you sound rather as if you think this is some kind of internet mass delusion. . In fact I imagine most are simply going by the character as he appears in the book itself. An author's view of his own work isn't necessarily fixed, anyway.

(Btw, many of us have read Tolkien's letters too.)

[Nikkolas]

I just didn't feel particularly sory for him.He's often cited as the single greatest character screw-up of the movies by book fans but when i got to ROTK a few months ago, I didn't really care for him one way or another. He was just kind of a jerk who made a very problematic situation even more problematic through his jerkiness.

Besides, Gandalf didn't spare a word of sympathy for him either. (in contrast to Saruman)

[Zigûr]

I think that as unsympathetic as some people might find Denethor in the books, he still has a certain dignity to him. In the films he's this grubby, messy slob who's more barking mad than melodramatic in despair. To me in the books Denethor feels like a real person whereas I feel like the film depiction has him as a rather effortless caricature of an incompetent politician.
To digress slightly further for a moment, I think Denethor is actually a very impressive example of Professor Tolkien's skill as a writer. The Steward appears in what, three chapters? Yet in my opinion at least, by the time he is proclaiming the doom of the West from his pyre I feel as if we have known him for years. Critics who are skeptical of Professor Tolkien's ability with complex characterisation should look no further than Denethor.

Anyway, to return to what Inzil said, let us consider again Professor Tolkien's remarks in Letter 183: "Denethor was tainted with mere politics: hence his failure... It had become for him a prime motive to preserve the polity of Gondor, as it was, against another potentate, who had made himself stronger and was to be feared and opposed for that reason rather than because he was ruthless and wicked."
Denethor was conservative and politically minded, concerned with the maintenance of the status quo. Professor Tolkien observes that his motives were the main issue. He opposed Sauron not because it was a moral imperative to do so (and metaphysically speaking it was as Sauron was evil's representative in the Third Age) but because he feared change.
"I would have things as they were in all the days of my life... and in the days of my longfathers before me: to be the Lord of this City in peace, and leave my chair to a son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard's pupil."
Sauron, really, desired the same end. A realm built on the One Ring would last as long as the Ring lasted, in perpetual stasis, stale and stagnant. After Morgoth's defeat, Sauron ultimately could not resist the urge to attempt the same thing on an arguably lesser scale with himself as supreme ruler. Perhaps he could manipulate Denethor so well because they were alike in this way. When Denethor beheld the black sails of Umbar in the Anor-Stone, his chiefest despair was the end of Gondor and, thus, change. After his suicide, Gandalf told his servants: "so pass also the days of Gondor that you have known; for good or evil they are ended."
Like Sauron, Denethor hated change. The Noldor had suffered the same delusion in the Second Age. One of the prevailing virtues in my view of Gandalf is that he understands one of Professor Tolkien's most significant themes: change is inevitable, but it does not have to be bad.

[Nikkolas]

What about Saruman? Is he not said to be merely emulating Sauron, even if it's unconscious, and he is most certainly a representative of change. His initial defining character moment is that speech to tempt Gandalf where goes on at length about how time are changing and the old ways and allies must be abandoned. There's also his representing rampant, unrestrained industrialization.

[Zigûr]

I agree. Saruman is definitely the 'dangerous progressive' to Denethor's 'dangerous conservative.' I think what we must remember about Saruman as an imitator of Sauron is that he had not yet gone as far on the path to corruption. Sauron had, once, been 'progressive' too: he was intent on bringing about drastic changes to the world by eliminating all of its disorder and mutability, which came to mean eliminating its propensity for change, along with free will. But once he had, to some extent, achieved that goal through the creation of the One Ring he now became obsessed with maintaining that order and enforcing it on the entirety of Middle-earth.

Sauron wanted to change the world into a shape he desired, and then keep it that way forever. Denethor just wanted the nation he had inherited to never change. Saruman desired progress to be accelerated to some preferable state, but his collapse into stagnation is itself visible as the tale reaches its conclusion. By the end of the Third Age in his bitterness and corruption all he was capable of doing was imposing the same oppressive regime on the Shire. Saruman's mistake, like Sauron's before him, was trying to bring about change ex nihilo, which ultimately left him spent and mired in stagnation.

[Sarumian]

I believe we have reached a very interesting point. Tolkien's view on technical progress somehow resembles me that of philosopher Martin Heidegger. According to Heidegger, the destiny of the West was sealed when such thinkers as Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle started seeing and describing the way things exist in nature as if they were somehow 'crafted': the nature (physis) of things appeared to them as 'techne'.

The New Age, however, goes even further. Things now appear to our mind as objects within the framework of the 'world-picture'; each thing occupies a place that perception assigns for it. Method, thus, achieves supremacy over Being.

If we observe now the nature of evil in Melkor, Sauron and Saruman, we can see differences but also a kind of succession. Morgoth exercised his power through the nature, making it fight against itself. Sauron wanted to rule with the help of craftsmanship: he aspired to create an ideal "thing" that would keep the world unchanged. Saruman wanted to rule via method that unfolds itself in machinery. Each lust is dangerous. An attempt to suppress change can be as dangerous (and hopeless) as progress in which production is going on for the sake of production itself.

The ambivalent nature of craft, skills and design (from Tolkien's point of view) is probably reflected in the fact that Alue is the most troubled Valla after Melkor.

[Nikkolas]

While we are on the topic of Saruman compared to the Dark Lords though, I was wondering if you guys agreed with my assessment of why Saruman achieved so little. I made this post in defense of Saruman when someone scoffed at me claiming he was a peer of Sauron:

Saruman was a very small and petty man in the end and that is why I sympathize with him more than Sauron or Melkor, who both fell to much greater wickedness than Saruman ever managed. It's kind of a shame he will always be seen as a "Sauron wannabe" when he is a far more fleshed out character than Sauron in terms of depth or development. He's also often made fun of simply because he never achieved much when compared to the Dark Lords he aspired to be. But therein lies the difference between Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. The Sil is all about the mightiest of the mighty and LOTR is about humility and the underdog. Saruman being a failed tyrant is crucial to the story's tone I think.