Seems Like Someone's Rooting for the Wrong Side

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by SpM

As far as I can see, no one arguing that delighting in evil is immoral has sought to suggest that any member of the Barrow Downs is immoral. Nor, as I see it, have they sought to imply as much by suggesting that having a light-hearted “crush” on Wormtongue or building a replica of Angband, or any other such weird and wonderful things that a Downer might do, is immoral. Their case, as I understand it, is that those who take a delight in the deeds of Tolkien’s evil characters, who genuinely find their intent and purpose, as depicted by Tolkien, laudable, is an approach lacking in morality. That, it seems to me, is a proposition which may be discussed without anyone taking offence, save for those falling within that category. And I seriously doubt that anyone who would wish to spend any significant amount of time on the Downs would fall within that category.

I agree with all your points.

Originally Posted by SpM

Their case, as I understand it, is that academic, literary or merely light-hearted interest in the evil characters does not denote sociopathy or immorality.

With the exception of "light-hearted interest" (which seems a bit too vague in the context of our discussion - I always requested qualifications), I have stated a similar idea

Originally Posted by post #51

Simply liking "amusement, excitement and intellectual stimulation" in itself is not morally wrong; it is deligthing in evil (as I pointed out several times) that I consider it raises questions about morality.

Originally Posted by davem

So, I can definitely see the attraction the evil characters hold for some readers - without them there would be no stories - or would anyone care to speculate on what kind of tales we'd have if there was no Melkorian rebellion, no Glaurung, no Sauron, no Ring, no Lord of the Nazgul for Eowyn to confront.

There is nothing wrong with recognising that evil characters pose greater challenges in stories, and greater challenges in stories make them more interesting. However, such a recognition is not in itself an equivalent for justification of deligthing in evil. Moral integrity requires that one's actions, ideas and feelings are consistently compatible with what one considers morality. Any such inconsistency, on whatever level, is, by definition, immoral. One has the free will to do whatever, and one may tolerate one's natural propensities, but that doesn't make every action and every propensity moral, just because they are enacted or tolerated.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

There is nothing wrong with recognising that evil characters pose greater challenges in stories, and greater challenges in stories make them more interesting. However, such a recognition is not in itself an equivalent for justification of deligthing in evil. Moral integrity requires that one's actions, ideas and feelings are consistently compatible with what one considers morality. Any such inconsistency, on whatever level, is, by definition, immoral. One has the free will to do whatever, and one may tolerate one's natural propensities, but that doesn't make every action and every propensity moral, just because they are enacted or tolerated.

But in the end a story is entertainment, & as I stated we are dealing with fantastical characters in a fantastical setting. Of course, applicability comes in - to the extent taht the reader wishes - but my own feeling is that one cannot make judgements about a reader's morality based on which characters they prefer or support. One may enjoy seeing Elves hacked apart by Orcs simply because one finds Elves annoyingly smug & think they deserve all they get (which I don't actually, but I accept some readers may).

One cannot simply project Middle-earth onto our world & apply the standards of good & evil in that world to our own - who are the Elves & who the Orcs in our world? How can one relate the secondary world to the primary so precisely as to be able to make such judgements as 'If you like the Orcs you must also like rapists & murderers' or 'If you side with Melkor you must be a neo-Nazi'. It simply doesn't work. Primary & Secondary worlds are too different, character's motivations & desires in the Secondary world cannot be simply projected onto human beings in the Primary. Taking LotR as a guide for moral behaviour in the 21st Century is bound to be a failure, because the Primary world is a whole lot more complicated than the Secondary one.

Tolkien never accounts for the existence of evil in M-e - in the sense that we are never told why Melkor chooses to rebel. Tolkien simply tells us that he 'rebelled'. In fact, one gets the feeling that he couldn't explain it at all - he needed an 'evil enemy' & stuck one in & told the reader - 'He's evil'. We have no real sense of why Melkor does the nasty stuff - which allows the reader to invent all kinds of justifications, even to the extent of thinking he may just possibly have had a good reason - or at least that he rebelled because he didn't want to be a servant, & wanted to do his own thing - why did Eru give him free will if he wasn't to be allowed to use it? If I gave you a million dollars & then commanded you only to use it as I dictated you might well be tempted to see my 'gift' as worthless & throw it back in my face.

In other words, I can see the argument that Eru is the power mad dictator & Melkor saw the whole thing as a laboratory for Eru's 'experimentations' (or his 'Art') & decided he would have none of it, & sought to wreck the whole silly thing. Its an argument. Hence, if a reader takes that approach I would not declare them 'immoral'. They are judging characters in a story & their attitude to 'evil' acts in the Primary world may be entirely different.

And this thread is asking about some readers support of the 'evil' characters in M-e, not their support of evil people in this world.

[Raynor]

Davem, if I understand your argument correctly, you say that there are no ideas/feelings/propensities which are evil/immoral/wrong in and of themselves, regardless whether they are put to action or not. Please confirm.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Davem, if I understand your argument correctly, you say that there are no ideas/feelings/propensities which are evil/immoral/wrong in and of themselves, regardless whether they are put to action or not. Please confirm.

Then it seems you haven't understood my argument at all.

Of course there are

ideas/feelings/propensities which are evil/immoral/wrong in and of themselves, regardless whether they are put to action or not.

when those ideas/feelings/propensities relate to the primary world. In the case of a fictional creation though one has much greater imaginative freedom. As I have repeated, one may side with Melkor as a rebel against Eru if one finds Eru a narrow minded, totalitarian megalomaniac. One may also side with the Orcs if one finds the Elves boring, self satisfied & smug. One may also decide to think oneself into the mindset of an Orc or Nazgul just out of curiosity. One may just like Dragons. Tolkien's creation is not the be all & end all. One is not required to 'choose a side' as if one's immortal soul depended on the choice. One may (if one is a Christian) may have to choose the side of God & His angels in this world if one is to save one's immortal soul from hell, but choosing to side with Melkor over Eru will have no effect on one's soul & at most provide a new & interesting angle from which to approach the story.

In short, this thread is dealing with a question of psychology rather than morality. Why would a reader choose to side with the 'bad guys'? Why not? The idea that someone who thinks Morgoth is a cool dude & wishes he had stomped the Elves into the mud is placing their immortal soul at risk is so far fetched as to be unworthy of being taken seriously. Players of Middle-earth strategy & role playing games regularly adopt the role of the Witch-king or Sauron himself (in many cases because the game is a two hander & someone has to be the bad guy, in some cases just because they want to rule the world - of Arda!), but the idea that that person, in throwing him or herself fully into the game is risking becoming a psychopath & running amok with a scimitar in the street is absolultely laughable.

[Thenamir]

I think "fascination with" is a far cry from "agreement with", but that's just me.

[Durelin]

I think a part of a person can almost "agree with" some things about some really bad dudes, because we all know there's a part to us that just wants to kick some butt. In both good guys and bad guys, we like the tough guys. We like the guy that can slaughter his enemies, whether they are "good" or "bad," because he's a mean, tough-a, killing machine...and a lot of people find that pretty *cool*. We can very much understand a selfish desire to live, we can empathize with even very nasty and bloody revenge, we can agree to living by one's "own rules" without adhering to rules like "slaughter all Hobbits, because they smell" or better yet, "because it's fun."

So, I think in a sense a person can agree with a bad guy, even when you apply their ideas or their behaviors (quirks, ways of carrying themselves - that sort of thing, I suppose) to the "real world." When it comes to their actual deeds, though? Not so much.

I do agree that the line between interest, fascination, etc., and the sort of "agreeing with" you're probably talking about, Thenamir, has been blurred beyond recognition. The blurring has been done on both sides, though, so I definitely don't think you can single anyone out for "not listening."

Sorry for the quotes abuse...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

I think "fascination with" is a far cry from "agreement with", but that's just me.

How far a cry? And to risk repeating myself, why does it actually matter if a reader is 'in agreement with' a fictional character or not? It tells us precisely nothing about the reader's morality, psychology, ethics, political stance or inside leg measurement. You can discuss, agonise about & lose sleep over the question of why some readers prefer Melkor to Eru & even if you come up with an answer it'll be worth absolutely zilch. It will tell you nothing about the reader, the book or how long a piece of string actually is.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

And to risk repeating myself, why does it actually matter if a reader is 'in agreement with' a fictional character or not? It tells us precisely nothing about the reader's morality, psychology, ethics, political stance or inside leg measurement.

I thoroughly disagree. I would submit that a reader's genuine reaction to a work of fiction can, depending upon the nature of the work, tell us much concerning their morality, psychology, ethics and, perhaps, their political stance. Most probably not their inside leg meansurement, though.

Of course, we would be judging that by reference to our own conceptions of morals, psychology, ethics and politics, but that is inevitable. And I think, at least within a single society at a fixed period of time, one can establish an approximation of consensus in these areas (right/wrong, sane/insane, left-wing/right-wing etc), even if there is disagreement on some of the grey areas. But we are not really talking about grey areas here. We are talking about good an evil.

I would certainly feel that I was able to draw conclusions about a person if they genuinely sympathised with Big Brother and though that Winston Smith had it coming to him or, to use an example cited earlier by Lal, if they thought that Hannibal Lector's dietary preferences were quite normal.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

when those ideas/feelings/propensities relate to the primary world.

However, I talked about ideas and feelings. That makes the separation between primary world and inner world irrelevant - and your argument becomes self-contradicting.

Imagination/fairy tale/fantasy is part of a person's universe of ideas - but you seem to deny this, even if, for me at least, it is an evident truth. If for the whole there is a norm: "certain ideas/feelings/propensities are immoral", then this rule exists also for the parts of it.

If an idea/feeling/propensity is defined as immoral in itself, then any instance of it, regardless the condition, is immoral. One cannot say one considers the idea of derriving pleasure from tales of rape as immoral, and then delight from the idea hinted in Myths Transformed that Men were forced to mate with beasts - and then one still claims moral integrity.
One can't say one considers derriving pleasure from tales of tortures, killings and unncessary destructions as evil in itself, and then delight when Gondolin is destroyed or when people are tortured in Numenor - and still consider oneself as moral.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

However, I talked about ideas and feelings. That makes the separation between primary world and inner world irrelevant - and your argument becomes self-contradicting.

Imagination/fairy tale/fantasy is part of a person's universe of ideas - but you seem to deny this, even if, for me at least, it is an evident truth. If for the whole there is a norm: "certain ideas/feelings/propensities are immoral", then this rule exists also for the parts of it.

No, because you're assuming that what one reader considers good (& evil) is the same as what another reader does. I don't accept that fantasising about 'x' is equal to actually doing 'x' - particularly not when we're dealing with Orcs, Elves, Dragons & Ringwraiths. This is a fantasy world & cheering when a Goblin kills an Elf for his magic sword is not the same as cheering when a mugger stabs a commuter for his cellphone.

Take a scene from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:

The camp was a dreary, silent place. A thick snow was falling and the strange soldiers lay, wrapped in their black cloaks, upon the snowy ground. At first the young women thought the soldiers must be dead - an impression which was strengthened by the great multitude of ravens and other black birds which had settled over the camp, and indeed upon the prostrate forms of the soldiers themselves - yet the soldiers were not dead; from time to time one would stir himself and go attend to his horse, or brush a bird away if it tried to peck at his face.
At the approach of the young women a soldier got to his feet. One of the women shook off her fears and went up to him and kissed him on the mouth.
His skin was very pale (it shone like moonlight) and entirely without blemish. His hair was long and straight like a fall of dark brown water. The bones of his face were unnaturally fine and strong. The expression of the face was solemn. His blue eyes were long and slanting and his brows were as fine and dark as pen strokes with a curious flourish at the end. None of this worried the girl in the least. For all she knew every Dane, Scot and Frenchman ever born is eerily beautiful.
He took well enough to the kiss and allowed her to kiss him again. Then he paid her back in kind. Another soldier rose from the ground and opened his mouth. Out of it came a sad, wailing sort ofrnusic. The first soldier- the one the girl had kissed - began to coax her to dance with him, pushing her this way and that with his long white fingers until she was dancing in a fashion to suit him.
This went on for some time until she became heated with the dance and paused for a moment to take off her cloak. Then her companions saw that drops of blood, like beads of sweat, were forming on her arms, face and legs, and falling on to the snow. This sight terrified them and so they ran away. The strange army never entered Allendale. It rode on in the night towards Carlisle. The next day the townspeople went cautiously up to the fields where the army had camped. There they found the girl, her body entirely white and drained of blood while the snow around her was stained bright red.
By these signs they recognised the Daoine Sidhe - the Fairy Host.

Here we have a more 'traditional' account of Fairies than Tolkien gives us. How many of us do not feel a thrill of excitement when we read about the fate of the young woman at the hands of the Fairy Host. How many of us are fascinated by these mysterious creatures & want to know more about them? And do any of us, on reading that passage think 'Oh, what evil creatures! Anyone who is excited by them must be sick'? No, we are attracted by these dark mysterious beings with such mysterious powers.

And now, hands up anybody who feels the kind of excitement & attraction I'm talking about who actually wants to go out & force a young woman to dance until she bleeds to death?

If an idea/feeling/propensity is defined as immoral in itself, then any instance of it, regardless the condition, is immoral. One cannot say one considers the idea of derriving pleasure from tales of rape as immoral, and then delight from the idea hinted in Myths Transformed that Men were forced to mate with beasts - and then one still claims moral integrity.

That depends on whether you judge people on what they do or on what they think. I think your position would lead us to the kind of situation we see in Minority Report - where people are incarcerated for crimes they intend to commit - or worse - for fantasising about shooting the guy who cuts them up on the freeway, or punching the boss out for balling them out. This kind of fantasy is a release. By indulging in such fantasises we deal with them without acting them out - that's the function of fantasy - we fantasise about doing 'x' so that we don't actually do 'x'. In fact, if we didn't fantasise about doing bad things every so often there would be a whole lot more bad things happening.

One can't say one considers derriving pleasure from tales of tortures, killings and unncessary destructions as evil in itself, and then delight when Gondolin is destroyed or when people are tortured in Numenor - and still consider oneself as moral.

So, 'deriving pleasure' from such tales is no different from committing such acts? There's no difference between fantasising about punching the idiot who walks out in front of your car, forcing you to slam on the brakes & actually getting out of your car & actually punching him? Well, I'd say there's a world of difference as far as he's concerned - cos in the first instance he crosses the road & carries on with his day & in the second he spends most of the day in casualty with a broken nose.

And you're still avoiding the central point - some readers may think Gondolin was filled with annoying self satisfied idiots & deserved what it got - you're attempting to impose your moral value system on other readers & condemning them for not living up to your standards.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

No, because you're assuming that what one reader considers good (& evil) is the same as what another reader does.

You are misrepresenting my argument - I am not talking about my ideas. In the very paragraph you quoted, I said (emphasis added):

If for the whole there is a norm: "certain ideas/feelings/propensities are immoral", then this rule exists also for the parts of it.

This assumes that the person in question has the above mentioned moral norm. If he has that norm, then yeah, any instance of it crossing it is immoral, regardless the circumstance. If somehow this was unclear, I apologise.

Originally Posted by davem

How many of us do not feel a thrill of excitement when we read about the fate of the young woman at the hands of the Fairy Host

I'll be frank, I consider fascination with vampires and the likes as wrong.

Originally Posted by davem

So, 'deriving pleasure' from such tales is no different from committing such acts?

How could you possibly derrive that from my statement? Anyway, my answer is that there is a whole world of a difference between the two.

In fact, if we didn't fantasise about doing bad things every so often there would be a whole lot more bad things happening.

You seem quite sure of this idea. How can you back it? How can you prove that thinking about an evil thing necessarily drives us away from doing it?

Originally Posted by davem

some readers may think Gondolin was filled with annoying self satisfied idiots & deserved what it got

Do these readers believe that slaughter of civilians, plunder & co are justified?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

This assumes that the person in question has the above mentioned moral norm. If he has that norm, then yeah, any instance of it crossing it is immoral, regardless the circumstance. If somehow this was unclear, I apologise.

And this idea of a 'norm' isn't perjorative? You are taking your moral value system & attempting to present it as the norm, thereby implying that anyone who doesn't share it is immoral.

I'll be frank, I consider fascination with vampires and the likes as wrong.

Okay...... in the sense of incorrect or immoral? So, Dracula, Anne Rice, Buffy, Angel, all immoral works? Because all of them are based on this 'fascination with Vampires'. Personally, being that Vampires are no more real than Tolkien's Elves, Orcs or Balrogs (or his Vampires come to that) in what sense is this fascination with none existent creatures 'wrong'? The idea that fascination with 'good' non existent creatures is 'right' & that fascination with 'bad' non existent creatures is 'wrong' is not one I can get my head around TBH.

You seem quite sure of this idea. How can you back it? How can you prove that thinking about an evil thing necessarily drives us away from doing it?

I didn't say it necessarily does, only that, based on a study of Freud & Jung it is fairly apparent.

Do these readers believe that slaughter of civilians, plunder & co are justified?

They may just realise that these 'civilians' never actually existed. Gondolin never actually existed. The Orcs who destroyed it never actually existed. I can't see where condemning such readers for their 'immorality' is justified?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Raynor

There is nothing wrong with recognising that evil characters pose greater challenges in stories, and greater challenges in stories make them more interesting. However, such a recognition is not in itself an equivalent for justification of delighting in evil.

I think one has to make a distinction between liking, being amused by or being intrigued by an evil character and delighting in evil. Personally, I have observed that it is often the evil characters in stories that have the most interesting past, the writer has to decide what made them evil and why. In Tolkien's work one does grow curious about why characters fell into evil, like Saruman, for example, if he just became evil and no explanation was given, wouldn't you want to know what the reason was? Is this curiosity to know the reasons a delight in evil? I do not think so.

Also, more often than not, many amusing quotable quotes come from the evil characters.
One of my favorite scenes is the confrontation between Gandalf, Theoden and the rest with Saruman. Mainly because a lot of the things Saruman says make me laugh, especially since it sometimes seems that he over-reacts. "LATER? LATER? Yes, when you have the keys of Barad-Dur itself..."
Granted, many of the good characters have good quotes to, so there is a good balance.

[The Saucepan Man]

I think that it also worth making the point, I think, that some of the evil characters display qualities which it is possible to admire for their effectiveness, even if one does not approve of the purpose to which they were put. Saruman's powers of persuasion, Sauron's artistry in Ringcraft or the magnificence of Smaug, for example.

[Thenamir]

Thenamir has given us the Human-Elvish perspective on them, but is that the whole story?

I am on admittedly murkier ground here, but I interpreted the quotes of my last post to be those of an "omniscient author" rather than a "Human-Elvish" history. I am curious to know if those who are better informed can expound upon Tolkien's intent here. Thanks!

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The original conception for the Silmarillion material in the Book of Lost Tales was that Eriol heard the tales directly from various Elves. Later this changed so that the legends were written down by Eriol (eventually Ælfwine) at Tavrobel in Tol Eressëa from the Golden Book of Tavrobel, which is a history composed by the Elda Pengoloð. Later conceptions of transmission are unclear, but The Silmarillion as published makes no mention of its fictional authorship and I don't recall anything Tolkien wrote that contradicts the idea that The Silmarillion is a collection of records kept by the Eldar (more specifically the Noldor).

This being the case, anyone with any sort of historical training will be able to postulate a significant amount of bias in favour of the Elves in most of the material on which we base our judgement. LR is the Hobbit perspective, with interpolations from human and Elvish records; the Silmarillion is the Elvish perspective received second-hand through Eriol/Ælfwine (via Old English), or Bilbo Baggins' Translations from the Elvish (via Westron), whichever version you prefer.

However, these aren't historical documents. Tolkien knew both sides of the argument, and in fact he presents Morgoth and Sauron's views at several points in HoME and LR, not to mention those of the Orcs through their reported speech. He demonstrates that the unrepresented side is arrogant, power-hungry, destructive, cruel and greedy. Why, then, do people like them?

As far as I can see, there are several reasons. Firstly and most importantly, the bad guys get to do as they please. Everyone else has to obey the rules, or at least take some account of others when making decisions, but evil characters, being completely egocentric, are allowed to ride roughshod over everyone to get what they want. Those of us who do consider others might well find it therapeutic occasionally to step into the shoes of someone who doesn't.

Added to that there's the obsession with rebellion. If anything, the modern era is one of social disobedience and non-conformism, so that we're practically raised to support anyone who doesn't obey the rules. If the rules are that we all share things and respect one another we want to see someone who lies, cheats and steals. Tolkien would probably have said that this is our fallen nature speaking, attracting us to the selfish, degraded and base; but very few people still think as he did.

Finally there's irony. Above all rhetorical techniques, our age has made irony its own. One of the reasons why LR is so unpopular is that it contains virtually none: it takes itself absolutely seriously, and the current fashion is for detached amusement. The ironic approach to LR and The Silmarillion is to try to write a revisionist history of Arda, or at least to identify with one of the characters presented to us as irredeemably evil. Then again, perhaps Saucepan is right and the admirable quality is that the evil characters are effective. Their methods work in the majority of situations, and a utilitarian mind might think that therefore theirs is the course to take.

Having said that, this is all invented. It's not real. I hope that none of us would choose to follow Morgoth or Sauron if they were real physical presences, that is without being somehow duped or coerced. Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman, Grima and Shelob, and all of the other evil characters of Arda are just figments of Tolkien's imagination, and supporting one of them won't change the world one iota. It won't even change Middle-earth, because that story has already been written and the one person capable of re-writing it is dead. In that sense, then, this argument has no bearing on reality and is inherently pointless. If we were discussing why people choose evil at all, well that would be the sort of relevant philosophical discussion that the last century prompted many more people than us to consider, and Tolkien was not the least of them. It's possible that he would have regarded sympathy with his evil characters as symptomatic of humanity's spiritual weakness, or he may possibly have noted that those who can imagine being the Witch-king or Sauron are probably in less spiritual danger than those who simply dream of making the world a better place for people whether they like it or not. Sauron himself fell because he wanted to order the world and improve it, so he must always have imagined himself to be among the virtuous until he reached a point where good and evil were no longer important concepts for him.

Personally I don't see any harm in dressing up as the Witch-king or imagining oneself to be an Orc, other than a general discomfort with taking fandom that far at all. Provided that we do the right thing when it matters (in real life), we can do whatever we like in our imaginations. Importantly, if it's such a bad thing to identify with Tolkien's villains, then what can we say about the person who wrote them?