Tolkien and the Monsters

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

As usual, I have done a good search of the forum for similar topics, but not found one. If one exists, my apologies in advance and I await reprimand.

This thread is an ougrowth of a post I just put up in the Chapter by Chapter discussion (please, everyone who might come acros this post/thread, join the CbC discussion ) At any event. . .

There's been a lot of discussion in the forum about the different kinds or types of heroism and heroic virtue that are developed in The Lord of the Rings, but I'm wondering if there isn't a similar conversation possible about the monsters of LotR and the nature of evil. I've seen the threads asking "are orcs evil" or "is Gollum evil" and even "is Sauron evil". The commonality amongst all these threads is the idea of evil -- that is, the only question seems to be, "which characters fall into category E" (E being evil).

But what is evil in LotR? Again, there are a number of threads devoted to discussions like this, but they are all focussed (quite understandably) on the Ring, on Sauron, on Gollum and on Saruman. But what about the monsters that define the structure of the book? The journeys of the heroes are marked by a cyclical movement from danger to safety, so that there are along the course of all their journeys a number of safe havens (Farmer Maggot's, Tom Bombadil, Rivendell, Lorien, Ithilien), but in between these are the other part of the pattern -- the monsters:

The Black Riders
Old Man Willow
The Barrow Wights
The Black Riders (again at Weathertop)
The Watcher in the Water
Moria orcs
The Balrog
Gollum
lots and lots of orcs (and Uruks)
The Fell Beasts
Shelob
The ghosts of the unfaithful
The Mouth of Sauron
Sauron
(others I've missed?)

So I suppose there are a number of questions I want to ask about these monsters:

How are they alike? In what ways are they all similar?

How are they different?

Are they all 'evil' in the same way, or is the book presenting different kinds or forms of 'evil'?

What kind of pattern is being developed here (if there is a pattern)?

Different heroes are used to defeat different monsters: does this mean that there are different kinds or modes of goodness that are appropriate for different kinds or modes of evil? Or is this series of monsters simply a repeated pattern of Good defeating Evil?

For What It's Worth: My instinctive reaction is that there is a pattern here, and one that moves from relatively 'simple' forms of monstrosity (that is, things that are unnatural/perversions of nature: beasts) toward moral corruption (perversions of unnatural will or spirit). The Black Riders are the best demonstration of this -- they begin the book appearing as eerie Men who are frightening, but they end it as terrifying manifestations of the Ring's power and Sauron's domination: they 'grow' and become Nazgul.

The other pattern I see is one charted by the Barrow Wights, the Balrog and the Mouth of Sauron. Each of them is doing Sauron's work, but as we move through the novel each one is successively more and more aware of how he/it is doing Sauron's work. That is, the 'evil' of the Barrow Wights is unconscious and confined (they are just being Wights); the Balrog is working sort of with and for Sauron, although not as part of his conscious plan (its not 'there' to destroy Gandalf or hinder the Fellowship; I'm not even sure that it's a servant of Sauron); the Mouth of Sauron is so aware of his place in Sauron's works that he doesn't even know who he is anymore, beyond the fact that he's a cog in the machine.

What this pattern means about evil I'm not sure yet (hence this new thread), but it does seem to me that there is a pattern, and that it is doing something about the nature of evil as expressed by the monsters. . .

[Mithalwen]

My instinctive reaction is that choice is a significant factor....... most of the evil things you list are things that have been corrupted or have chosen a course through weakness ... orcs are corrupted elves in origin, Sauron and the Balrog corrupted Maia..... I know Tolkien had a bit of a problem with orcs ... because of the issue of creation and redemption .....

But The Nazgul, Gollum, Saruman etc were not born evil but fell from grace through greed for power or possession ....... they did not pass the test as Galadriel did......

[Imladris]

The Black Riders
Gollum
The Mouth of Sauron
Sauron

These evil characters in my opinion are all part of the Same Evil Clique because they all fell by greed. Sauron in the greed for power. Gollum the greed for the Ring. And the Black Riders (the Nine Kings of Men) the greed for power as well. Not sure how the Mouth of Sauron plays into this but I'm sure he does somehow just for the mere fact that he is a man and he seemed a wee bit anxious to take the place of Saruman.

Old Man Willow
The Barrow Wights
The Watcher in the Water

I find these characters not to be evil. Just...unpleasant in general and creatures that cause delays (often deadly delays). The reason that the Fellowship was put in danger was because it cossed their paths. I believe that the Watcher in the Water could be compared to your local shark. Whether it was driven by the power of the Ring to attack Frodo I don't know. It could have been an unfortunately coincidence.

Orcs and Fell Beasts

I believe that they are merely corrupted slaves. Rather like the Gwythaints in the Prydain chronicles.

Shelob
Balrog

I believe that these creatures associated themselves with Sauron, though they could be good if they wanted to. Though...I am not sure about the Balrog as I am not that good at the first and second ages of ME.

I think that Tolkien was showing that there is more than just one kind of evil...which is nice since this world is a lot more complicated than merely black and white. There are a few grey creatures here as well.

Cheers,
Imladris

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Imladris:

Shelob
Balrog

I believe that these creatures associated themselves with Sauron, though they could be good if they wanted to.

The interesting thing about Shelob (to me) has always been that she most emphatically did not associate herself with Sauron at all. I am working away from my books *sob* but as I can recall, we hear that Shelob "cared not for towers or rings" and that she did not acknowledge or care about Sauron's claims to sovereignty (which makes her a lot like the good guys, now that I come to think of it).

They are both of them rather "independent" operators in that they don't take orders from Sauron or do his will, unlike the first group you have:

The Black Riders
Gollum
The Mouth of Sauron
Sauron

with, of course, the notable exception of Gollum, who not only doesn't do what Sauron wants, but (like Shelob, with whom he forms an alliance) works to thwart Sauron's plans (again, like the good guys).

So within this framework you're developing we actually have at least two differnt and opposed 'camps' within the monolithic Evil grouping with Sauron and his servants on the one side, and Gollum and Shelob on the other. To pick up on the idea of greed, each group is greedy, but for different things. Sauron for the power to mock and mar Middle-Earth, Gollum and Shelob to 'eat' Middle-Earth; Sauron wants to rule over M-E, Gollum and Shelob wish to consume it (?).

In this respect, Shelob and the Balrog are a lot like the way you describe this group of nasties:

Old Man Willow
The Barrow Wights
The Watcher in the Water

I find these characters not to be evil. Just...unpleasant in general and creatures that cause delays (often deadly delays). The reason that the Fellowship was put in danger was because it cossed their paths. I believe that the Watcher in the Water could be compared to your local shark. Whether it was driven by the power of the Ring to attack Frodo I don't know. It could have been an unfortunately coincidence.

Mithalwen, you make a very interesting point about choice and corruption, but there is a wrinkle there: Gollum was corrupted by the Ring, which is Sauron -- so, what corrupted Saruon? Himself? Some other evil power? (Morgoth?) In which case what corrupted that evil power? Where does this end? If there is a trickle-down kind of evil here, what is the source or well-spring of the corruption you see afflicting those who make bad choices?

The other possibility in your idea is that they are all 'equally' evil in that they all corrupted themselves by making bad choices -- I can go along with this, but then did they all make the same choice? If so, what is this choice and why is that choice evil? Or did they make different choices (and this is what I would think is the case -- see above), in which case are they following different roads to the same Evil, or are there different kinds or versions of Evil? (a bunch of different evils?)

[Gorwingel]

Well in one way all these "monsters" are related because in the books Tolkien does not give a very good discription of any of them. We kind of are left to imagine them for ourselves (this is a connection in response to the method of writing Tolkien used in the books).

In my opinion Shelob wasn't really evil. She was just doing what needed to do to survive, and it seemed like the Balrog was just protecting his territory.

The Black Riders, and Gollum were both corrupted by the ring (or rings). So in my opinion they kind of end up evil by accident. Gollum does what he does because he wants the ring. The Black Riders do what they do because they were attracted by the rings that were given to them, and so thus they were brought under the dominion of Sauron, and are thus controlled by them, making them evil.

I will come back to this later

[Mariska Greenleaf]

The interesting thing about Shelob (to me) has always been that she most emphatically did not associate herself with Sauron at all. I am working away from my books *sob* but as I can recall, we hear that Shelob "cared not for towers or rings" and that she did not acknowledge or care about Sauron's claims to sovereignty (which makes her a lot like the good guys, now that I come to think of it).

In my opinion Shelob wasn't really evil. She was just doing what needed to do to survive, and it seemed like the Balrog was just protecting his territory.

I agree. In my opinion, Shelob stands outside any category of evil monsters, for one, because she didn't feel related to Sauron, and she was not only feared by the good guys, but also by the orcs, which she had for dinner... Just doing what was needed to survive, is very well put.

The other pattern I see is one charted by the Barrow Wights, the Balrog and the Mouth of Sauron. Each of them is doing Sauron's work, but as we move through the novel each one is successively more and more aware of how he/it is doing Sauron's work.

Good point. I believe that it symbolises the distance between the evil creatures and Sauron. The closer they are to Sauron's dwelling, the more they are aware of who they are "working" for.

[davem]

But Fordim its difficult to think about the nature of evil as personified in the monsters in the book without asking what form the evil they personify takes. I'd say Tolkien is exploring different kinds of evil. Evil doesn't have a specific form, as Evil is not a 'force' coequal with good, it is, as others have pointed out, a corruption of good, & corruption takes different forms. There is not a single source of pure EVIL in Midddle Earth, so we can't analyse it as if there is - all the monsters manifesting some aspect of that source. The Barrow Wight, as I said, is for me a manifestation of a desire towards nothingness.

Shippey quotes from Lewis's Screwtape Letters:

Screwtape makes the transition neatly at the end of Letter 12 when he remarks that Christians describe God as the One 'without whom Nothing is strong'. They speak truer than they know, he declares:

Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what & knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them ... or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish.

I can see the long slow horror of the Barrow Wight's existence, & the nature of its evil spelled out right there. It is similar to the evil manifested by Shelob. The Wraiths manifest a different kind of perversion of good - desire to control the world. They are like beaurocrats, lost in simply 'doing their jobs' - I always imagnine them speaking in a flat monotone, just going through the motions:

'Ah, you are Eowyn, you say. I'll just make a note of that if I may. Right, I must inform you that if you attempt to hinder me I will have to have you removed from here & placed in the Houses of Lamentation where officials will devour your flesh & your mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye. Is that clear to you, or would you like someone to explain it to you? Now please sign here, in triplicate. You may keep a copy of the form.'

In other words, I see an absence of 'malice', of a relishing in cruelty. Its about control & order. And this is what drew them to take the rings in the first place. The most chilling thing (almost enough to inspire pity - almost) for the Lord of the Nazgul, are his words to Gandalf:

'Do you not know death when you see it?'

He's talking about himself! That's all he is. Death. He was once a King, a ruler, making laws, organising his realm, ruling others - perhaps in the beginning for their good. Now he's just this thing, this 'robot' that does as its commanded. He cannot see the world, living things - they just 'cast shadows in his mind'. What can he see, in his world? Others like him - pale, ugly, undead things. Living things can't look on his face, see him as a fellow creature, empathise with him, care about him. And the greatest tragedy is that he can no longer care that they can't. He is simply death, & all he can do is make other things dead - either literally dead or so enslaved & controlled, so without a will of their own that they will be as good as dead.

But that's the end of the road he chose to take. As the end of the road Morgoth chose to take was to become so absorbed in what he desired - Arda - that there was almost nothing of him left when the forces of the Valar came to take him. He became what he desired, & lost himself. Ungoliant, in the end became hunger, as did Shelob, & in the end devoured herself.

So, at the end of the road of the choice evil makes for itself is its own desire, waiting for it. What began as the individual's greatest desire becomes in the end its greatest horror, it becomes what it most desired to be, obtains what it most desired to have, & realises, too late, that it has made the most terrible mistake. But by then perhaps it doesn't really care, & the pain isn't really all that bad - who knows? Both Saruman & Sauron do make a half hearted attempt at repentance, but they're so far gone by then they probably don't much care either way.

Orcs, in the end, are most like us. They drift along, obeying orders, & enjoying the suffering they cause, because they can justify it by blaming the victims. We're all capable of orcish behaviour - & how many of us truly repent of it, even when we have the chance?

As Tadeusz Andrej Olszanski puts it in 'Evil & the Evil one in Tolkien's Theology' (essay in the Tolkien Centenary conference collection):

Evil results from resisting the Creator, from a desire for independence from Him, & especially from laying down one's own laws for ruling the world, & so from conceit. Evil is always the result of a choice or a giving in to temptation, which is also a choice'

[The Saucepan Man]

Why do orcs present a problem with redemption? Tolkien said orcs and anyone else could be redeemed - even Morgoth, though he wouldn't. (Legolas)

But can they repent during their lifetime? There is no example of one ever having done so, as far as I am aware. Even if they could in theory repent, it is unlikely that an Orc born and bred in brutal Orcish society would ever in practice do so. During their lifetime, they are effectively denied any shot at redemption. Perhaps they have the opportunity after death, but why should they not have that opportunity during life?

So, at the end of the road of the choice evil makes for itself is its own desire, waiting for it. What began as the individual's greatest desire becomes in the end its greatest horror, it becomes what it most desired to be, obtains what it most desired to have, & realises, too late, that it has made the most terrible mistake. But by then perhaps it doesn't really care, & the pain isn't really all that bad - who knows? Both Saruman & Sauron do make a half hearted attempt at repentance, but they're so far gone by then they probably don't much care either way. (davem)

But if Sauron and Saruman, having committed the most heinous of deeds, have the opportunity to repent, why should the Ringwraiths (and indeed Orcs) be denied that same opportunity?

[Bêthberry]

Well, I am late to the debate here. And I promise, Saucy, that I shan't engage in a formal lecture on literary definitions.

I think it is very tempting to constantly refer to the entire panoply of Tolkien's works. However, what interests me is a more limited question, the one which Fordim sets out initially: what is evil in LOTR?.

To draw in a literary allusion which I am sure will tickle Sauce no end, I want to throw out a comment from a fellow student back in the day when I was studying John Milton's [i]Paradise Lost[/b]:

Well, really a remembered paraphrase: God's problem is that everything He creates has a flaw. He cannot reproduce His perfection so that what he creates is perfect. He always fails and somehow evil comes into His creation. How can he allow this evil in his creation which is supposed to reflect Himself?

Now, in LOTR, as opposed to The Silm, we aren't given an original creation myth, so we have to rely on what the text actually leads us to understand about evil. In this context, I would suggest that it is intriguing to follow first Gandalf's warning about the Ring to Frodo and then the actual appearance of the Black Riders in The Shire, close on Frodo's heels.

The Black Riders are the best demonstration of this -- they begin the book appearing as eerie Men who are frightening, but they end it as terrifying manifestations of the Ring's power and Sauron's domination: they 'grow' and become Nazgul.

I would suggest that this is not quite what happens. We don't see their growth as Nazgul in LOTR at all. What we have is the growing awareness or recognition of the danger they represent. They are always Nazgul in the book; readers--and Frodo--simply are not initially aware of what that all entails. In fact, we don't know what the process was that brought them under the control of Sauron. Elsewhere, we learn that they succumbed through their desire for power, to control others, but we don't really experience their fall and we don't know what it was that motivated or prompted them to accepting the Rings.

I'd say that what we have in LOTr is Frodo's growing awareness of the influence of this very attractive desire. Except that for Frodo, I am not sure it is depicted as a desire to dominate others. Rather, in Chapter 3 at least, it is suggested that the Ring will provide safety, security for Frodo. This is the second appearance of the Black Riders at least.

A sudden unreasoning fear of discovery laid hold of Frodo, and he thought of the Ring. He hardly dared to breathe, and yet the desire to get it out of his pocket became so strong that he began slowly to move his hand. He felt had he had only to slip it on, and then he would be safe.

Now, Sir, may I be excused while I go answer some other assignments elsewhere? I promise to return before the bell rings.

[Legolas]

But can they repent during their lifetime? There is no example of one ever having done so, as far as I am aware. Even if they could in theory repent, it is unlikely that an Orc born and bred in brutal Orcish society would ever in practice do so. During their lifetime, they are effectively denied any shot at redemption. Perhaps they have the opportunity after death, but why should they not have that opportunity during life?

There's no account of one having done so, but we aren't really given much at all in the way of stories of orcs, especially outside of direct influence on the journey of the Fellowship. The point was just that they could repent, in theory and in practice. Redemption was available to all - no one could be denied his or her part in Eru's design. I posted this quote from Osanwe-kenta in one of your threads (over a year and a half ago, titled 'Is there any hope for redemption ...?').

Melkor had the right to exist, and the right to act and use his powers. Manwe had the authority to rule and to order the world, so far as he could, for the well-being of the Eruhíni; but if Melkor would repent and return to the allegiance of Eru, he must be given his freedom again. He could not be enslaved, or denied his part. The office of the Elder King was to retain all his subjects in the allegiance of Eru, or to bring them back to it, and in that allegiance to leave them free.

[davem]

Do Orcs have free will?

Ainulindale:

There [God] willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to fashion their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else.

(see also Damien Casey's essay, 'The Gift of Illuvatar: Tolkien's Theological Vision'
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/....htm#_ftnref38)

Humanity is uniquely free. If then the Elves are oriented towards immanence, mortal humanity is oriented towards transcendence. The natural limits of humanity are closely related to the very possibility of transcendence and freedom. But they are also the source of our weakness. Men are easily seduced because it is our nature to look and go beyond. The gift of God to Humanity is also the root of our fall, our restlessness, our jealously. The full meaning and significance of that gift however is yet to be realised.

Point being, if orcs were originally Elves, aren't they 'destined' to do what they do? Isn't it set out in the Music that they will become orcs - aren't orcs destined to be orcs? How much freedom do they have to act outside the confines of the Music?If they have no such freedom, they can't be held accountable for their choices, & so have no need to repent.

I'll leave it at that, as H-I have done that particulartopic to death in the Evil Things thread!