All those "Good" Guys

[Bekah]

You're absolutely right. And it was still killing, something that was still "bad". Maybe a "lesser sin," but a sin nonetheless, and it speaks to the elves being less than perfectly good. (That's really all I was trying to say.)

Oh yes. It was still killing. And the murder of their kinsfolk was a scandal, and a terrible deed. But they did not have the deep bitterness and malice of the orcs.

Orcs, I think, could be redeemed. But because hardly anyone would be willing to actually stay long enough in their company to inform them about goodness, I do not think that they would have much chance. Moreover, even if someone did manage to tell them about Eru and the Valar who were loyal to him, the orc in question would still have to choose that way over their current life, knowing that in mutineering against Melkor and Sauron, they would be tortured to teach them a lesson. After choosing the right thing, Sauron would probably capture the orc(s) and tortue them for the aforesaid reason. They would now be back to square one. Or rather, worse than square one, as they would now distrust Eru and his hosts.

I think I can see how an orc could rebell against Sauron but not against Melkor. For instance, a king gets a noble to swear allegience to him. The noble gets a knight to swear allegience to him. The king, in fear that the noble would forswear himself, gets the knight to swear allegiance directly to him. The knight (or orc) can then rebell against the noble (or Sauron), and yet not rebell against Melkor (or the king).

Does that make sense? Or am I completely off my rocker?

But the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasaunce, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' – and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.

Yes, I can see that. But then, there are some perfectly well-behaving, law-abiding atheists, who also want to have their cake and eat it. Do you want me to elaborate, or shall I just leave this allegory of my own as it is?

The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally' concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others - speedily and according to the benefactor's own plans - is a recurrent motive.

I'm sure we're all familiar with the saying: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I can give plenty of examples in both earth and Middle-earth.

Cheers,

~ Elentari II