Thoughts About Dark Versus Light

[Shadowfax Clawson]

I recently partook in a chat with two other honorable Tolkien enthusiasts. We started out discussion the popular topic of tragic characters as portrayed in LotR, but the conversation took a turn towards another discussion I took part in; see Gollum and Poetic Justice for details. I found this particular discussion to be quite interesting if not entertaining. It went something like this:

Shadowfax’s original topic: What characters in LotR could be distinguished as “tragic?”

<Thalionvasa> Frodo should have stayed with Sam though...
<Shadowfax> He didn't have a "dark side." He could no longer remain in
Middle-Earth
<_Arwen_-email> he stayed
<_Arwen_-email> what do u mean?
<Shadowfax> Gollum was Frodo's antithesis.
<Thalionvasa> Poor Sam…his heart being torn in peaces.
<Shadowfax> they balanced each other out, good and evil
<Shadowfax> Gollum was Frodo's evil. Without the counter-balance, nothing
separated mortal from immortal
<Shadowfax> that sounds prophetic (:
<Thalionvasa> that make sense.
<Shadowfax> which is why I think Gollum was evil from the beginning, and the One Ring just accentuated it
<Thalionvasa> Saruman is Gandalf's darker side I think...
<Shadowfax> good thought, Thalion
<Shadowfax> Going back to my original question, Boromir could be considered
"tragic"
<Shadowfax> you grow to love him, then his blindfool lust for the Ring tears
him away
<Thalionvasa> So Saruman get to be Gandalf's darker side.
<Shadowfax> I agree with that
<Shadowfax> Galdalf doesn't destroy Saruman in the Two Towers, just reduces
him to nothing
<Shadowfax> this is perhaps why Gandalf didn't destroy Saruman; he
understood the counter-balance necessary.
<Shadowfax> remember, Gandalf too had to leave Middle-Earth after Wormtongue
killed Saruman
<Thalionvasa> But some have only themselves as an dark side, like Bilbo...
<Shadowfax> how do you mean?
<_Arwen_-email> ?
<None_of_all> dark side is not someone else?
<Thalionvasa> There is no other person to counter-balance to Bilbo, only
himself!
<Thalionvasa> But Galadriel’s dark side must be Sauron..
<None_of_all> or Feanor
< Thalionvasa> yes
<Shadowfax> but Bilbo departs from Middle-Earth too. How was the dark side
of him destroyed?
<Thalionvasa> When the Ring was destroyed Bilbo lost the dark side of himself
<Shadowfax> that makes sense...
<Shadowfax> ok
<Thalionvasa> couse the ring made a Dark side in Bilbo..
<None_of_all> why you think that to depart they need to have the dark side destroyed?

<None_of_all> that's strange?
<Shadowfax> It would make sense to me
<Thalionvasa> it makes sense
<Shadowfax> as I said earlier, possesion of a dark side separates the mortal
from the immortal
<Thalionvasa> uh-hu
<Shadowfax> they're only human (or elf or dwarf or hobbit, what have you)
<None_of_all> Galadriel lost her dark side?
<Shadowfax> yes...
<None_of_all> and dark side is not something you can throw away
<None_of_all> even in Mount Doom
<Shadowfax> and we're debating who Galadriel’s dark side might be
<None_of_all> that makes no sense to me
<Shadowfax> There's many examples of antitheses in the book
<Shadowfax> can one differentiate night from day without night?
<Thalionvasa> yes. she too went to grey heavens
<None_of_all> yes but you make them connected with the inner self of the day
<None_of_all> day is day and night stands on the other side
<Shadowfax> how do you mean?
<None_of_all> that you cannot have your night killed because its in you and
it lives while you live
<Thalionvasa> sauron died when the ring was destroyed, so if sauron was
Galadriel dark side, she lost it..
<Shadowfax> when Gollum died, Frodo's night was torn away
<None_of_all> Sauron is not Galadriel's dark side
<Shadowfax> and when Saruman was murdered, Gandalf’s night was extricated, too
<Shadowfax> do you have any thoughts on who was Galadriel's dark side, then?
<Shadowfax> (you're coming up with a brilliant rebuttal, I can tell)
<Thalionvasa> When Frodo was in Mordor there were no day, because sauron
has no god side, and because of that, he is nothing but an eye, an spirit,
cause he need his light side.

Even though our conclusion was similar to another chat I took part in (Gollum and poetic justice…), it was cast in a different light, since in this chat we examined the existence of a “dark side” of Tolkien’s characters and distinguished some of who they may be. Thank you to Thalionvasa and None_of_all for valuable input on this sometimes enigmatic discussion!

[littlemanpoet]

I never thought of Galadriel having a dark side until I read this thread. I can see how you might come to that idea after seeing the movie. What do you mean by dark side? If I understand what you mean by it, everybody has a dark side, but is it realistic to speak of any of the characters having LOST it? Wouldn't it be more in keeping with Tolkien to say that this or that character OVERCAME it?

[Lomelinde]

Wow. You are to be commended for such excellent and intelligent insights into the more subtle works at play in Tolkien's world. Something brought to my mind as I read that exchange was the literary idea of each "good" protaganist having a foil, or another "bad" antagonist balancing him out. Of course, that's rather cut and dried, and Tolkien was such a skilled writer that he caused the classic ideologies of good and evil to be merely relativistic and showed that everyone, regardless of which side he was on, had a dark side. In another words, he showed that there is no such thing as "pure evil" or "pure good". Great observations on the darker characters balncing out the "heroes", for lack of a better term.Very interesting.

[Lyliac]

so you do think that there were 'good' and 'bad' creatures, each whom balanced another counterpart out? interesting...i had thought that tolkien was working from 'common sense', and assuming that we knew what good was, and to use that idea to compare the characters to determine their goodness or badness. of course, i don't suppose thats giving him enought credit over what he wrote. i do have a question though, why do you/your chat members think that the characters had to lose their bad side in order to depart from middle earth?

[Birdland]

Tolkien was such a skilled writer that he caused the classic ideologies of good and evil to be merely relativistic and showed that everyone, regardless of which side he was on, had a dark side.

"tragic flaw--the one problem of temperament that brings to ruin an otherwise noble character."

Tolkien wasn't the first to come up with this idea. The idea of the tragic hero goes clear back to the Greeks. In fact, it is widely held that no character can be truely considered tragic unless he has a dark flaw that must be overcome.

In the case of Boromir, his tragic flaw was not the lust for the ring, but his Pride. His feeling that his own line should have long ago been made Kings of Gondor, rather than "merely" Stewards, and his belief that the Race of Men, particularly the Men of Gondor, were the epoch of all the Races of Middle Earth, left him an easy mark for the Ring's power to corrupt and use. In the end he fell, and only regained the status of hero through the ulimate sacrifice, death.

I'm still up in the air whether Frodo could have been considered to have a "tragic flaw", unless it was as Sam thought; that he was "good to the point of blindness". Did Frodo become more Noble only because the Ring darkened his soul? Yet it was the very innocence of Hobbits that made them the perfect candidate to carry the Ring to its distruction. Hobbits had no "dark side" that the Ring could bring to light and use. Or if they did, it was buried so deep that it took standing in the very heart of Sauron's realm to bring it to light.

(this is Firncristwen by the way...the login thing was screwed up and I had to register again. So now I'm a StarCupcake!)

Very interesting discussion. What I like best about Tolkien is that the characters are so blatantly human, even the most ethereal elf. No one is perfect. There is plenty of mischief, cowardice and greed mixed in with all those great personalities and minds to make reading about Middle-earth's 'good' people really satisfying and entertaining. Because we can relate to them.

[Shadowfax Clawson]

What do you mean by dark side? If I understand what you mean by it, everybody has a dark side, but is it realistic to speak of any of the characters having LOST it?

In response to Littlemanpoet, I think the idea of any definite "dark" or "light" side came into play when we discussed Sméagol/Gollum's relationship with Frodo. We noted that Frodo possessed a kind, caring, and alltogether good nature. Sméagol, on the other hand, was the absolute polar opposite of Frodo, the antithesis, if you will. In a cut and dried sense, they bear likeness to night and day. We made the conjecture that these characters, absolute foils of each other, balanced each other out, only Tolkien interwove the relationship with trust, treachery, and sudden turns in a much grander sense than the blatently obvious observations we made.

So, to answer the question at hand, I suppose that by "dark side" or "light side," we meant the character traits being portrayed in each character as being their distinguishing qualities that mark them as "good" or "bad."

[ March 30, 2002: Message edited by: Shadowfax Clawson ]

[Narya]

Very interesting thoughts...
A good example for a good and a evil person that balance each other are Manwe and Melkor.
They were both mighty and Melkor wasn´t evil from the beginning, but he got evil when his greed corruptet him. So he is the antithesis of Manwe.
Sauron´s ring was also something with his own evil power. Made by Sauron it was full of hate against the world. Maybe it destroyed the balance by corrupting for example Frodo, so he could´nt throw it into the fire. But because it also corrupted Gollum the balance could´nt be destroyed.
Maybe if you say Galadriel was the 'good side' of Sauron, the artifacts she owns (her ring (and of course the other elvenrings too) and her phiole) balanced the evil power of the ring.
(There were 10 rings of evil power and also 10 for the good side)
I think you are right that when someone´s 'dark side' is killed he needs to leave Middleearth to go to the immortal. Frodo needed to leave because he was empty and could´nt live in the Shire anymore. And Gandalf for example went away because his quest was over, he didn´t have enemys in Middleearth anymore.

[littlemanpoet]

I guess for the sake of discussion it's interesting to talk about how alter-egos balanced each other out and how when one character was gone the other had to leave, but I would caution against making any kind of hard and fast rule out of it. Tolkien's own words are probably the best guide here. The books say that Frodo went over the seas to be healed, not because his alter-ego Gollum had died. Sorry if this irritates or alienates anybody, but it seems like your notions are derived from a dualistic philosophy of good being equal to evil. Tolkien was at odds with that. His approach was organic, coming out of who the characters were. Disagree if you like.

[Shadowfax Clawson]

I of course respect your views, littlemanpoet; you've done nothing aside from express your very valid opinion in a passive, objective manner. I wish I could say so much of others on this very site! I agree fervently that we musn't read too much between the lines even on fine works of literature such as Tolkien's, as the opinion of the author counts more than any other. After all, who can deem an opinion of a fictional world valid or invalid better so than the author? This talk of alter-egos makes for fascinating discussion material, yes, but shouldn't be sacrificed for the words of the author. Thanks for your valuable input!

[Amarinth]

i'm sorry i just saw this thread, it's interesting what's posted here. funny, though, i too did intuit some light-and-dark pairs in lotr, but not in the way you and the others did, shadowfax.

one was boromir and faramir-a heartbreaking contrast of pride and wisdom, self-destruction and selflessness. faramir was such a far cry from boromir that he almost comes across as a mitigating or redeeming member of the house of stewards.

smeagol and gollum was all-in-one for me, and a point in tolkien's superb genius for vividly illustrating the internal battle of good vs. evil, of good ultimately coming out of evil that had seemingly won.

gandalf and saruman are spoken for. and so on...

agree that frodo and the hobbits are pure, unlike the stained seed of greater men, and this pureness is the source of their native strength. there is no native evil in frodo, but he was "marred", just like galadriel was after falling under the doom of mandos by following feanor. both made wrong choices at one time, but these were not necessarily evil or "dark" choices nor did these necessarily mean the existence of a "dark side". i think they just meant the possibility for wrong choices for both the weak and the great.

having said all, i do but acknowledge that there may have been no conscious effort on tolkien's part to pair off one character of light with another of dark. maybe he was just trying to show that all are fallible, but that it is the entirety of our being and not any singular choice that we've made that defines our soul.

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every man's life is a path to the truth -- hesse

[Shadowfax Clawson]

That's an interesting take you have on Gollum/Sméagol, Amarinth. I had always thought of his multiple personalities somewhat like Sam did, "Slinker and Stinker," as being both bad. However, you comment reminded me that as Sméagol, he displayed less (if any) treachery towards Frodo, but the real "stinker" was Gollum, luring Frodo and Sam into traps such as Shelob's tunnels. Such a legacy Tolkien left for us to uncover; 'tis a pity he can't be here to discuss his views now!

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Pairing characters as dark – light, good – evil is interesting; however, except perhaps for Manwe and Melkor, I see very little in Tolkien that would support the notion. It seems rather that each person carries both aspects in her/himself. For example, I would not consider Galadriel an antithesis to Sauron; she is, after all, only an elf, he is a Maia. She does not have his capabilities or strength, neither does her ring have power anything like the power of the One Ring.
We are shown Galadriel as wise and good in the LotR, but her past is not lily-white – she has her dark side, shown in the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. She was one of the leaders of the Noldorin rebellion against the Valar and is described as “proud, strong and self-willed” (UT), filled with the desire to rule a land of her own.
Her alter-ego would be Feanor, her uncle; the two are called “the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor”. (UT) “In him she perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldar, and upon her own.” (UT)
Pride and anger moved her to rebel against the Valar, to fight Feanor and to refuse the pardon of the Valar. It took her two ages to gain the wisdom she needed to reject the One Ring! And even then she is aware of the dark side in herself, yet she is no longer under its control.

[littlemanpoet]

I appreciate your kind words, Shadowfax. That Tuscan proverb is great. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I agree in general with Amarinth, but to consider hobbits 'pure' overstates the case, I think. Hobbits were by no means pure. Maybe this is just semantics, but maybe what you meant is 'uncorrupted'. The difference, as I see it, is that every human, including hobbits (whom Tolkien did see as human) is a mixed bag. Choices make the difference as to whether someone will become evil are remain free of evil. I just thought of this: Tolkien never calls them the Good Peoples, but the Free Peoples. I think that's significant.

Estelyn Telcontar, you have stated my thinking more clearly than I did.

Might Bombadil and Sauron balance each other out? Bombadil was not drawn to the one ring, and didn't have anything to tie him to it. Sauron created the ring, and his existence relied upon it. Bombadil was content with wat he had, preserving things and the like, when Sauron was always seeking more power, destroying all that is good. Bombadil was a bit of a hermit, older than the old, and Sauron was of the ruling class, there from the beginning.


I would like to say that Sméagol is closer to the anti-Bilbo than the bad side of Frodo. Bilbo wasn't always your ideal character. Before his journey in The Hobbit, he was a rather proud, high-strung individual. Afterwords, as the ring-finder, he became more charitable and open, although not entirely so(consider the Sackville-Bagginses). Sméagol, later known as Gollum, started out as the rest of his race. When he became the ring bearer, he avoided contact and was consumed by greed. When he lost the ring, he searched for it unchecked, where as Bilbo controlled himself. In everything that the both of them were subjected to, they reacted in opposite ways.

Frodo seems, on the same note to be more the other side of Isildur than Gullom.

What is the alter-ego of the ring?

' "Saruman," I said, standing away from him, "only one hand at a time can
wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we! But I
would not give it, nay, I would not give even news of it to you, now that I
learn your mind. You were head of the Council, but you have unmasked yourself
at last. Well, the choices are, it seems, to submit
I will take neither. Have you others to offer? "
--Gandalf, LotR Book II, The Council Of Elrond

[Child of the 7th Age]

I think it's fun to find analogies like these, and it sometimes helps us think of the characters in a different light. However, I think the thing that's even more interesting to do is to look at each of Tolkien's characters, one at a time, and identify the good and the bad that commingle in their soul. Whoever said Tolkien's characters were one-dimensional, either good or evil, just wasn't looking very hard!

Take Frodo for example. First, I agree with Littlemanpoet that Hobbits are not "pure", although their society tends to be uncorrupted. There was another thread that discussed this question, and many posters pointed to the "little sins" of their society like gossip, stealing spoons from relatives, etc. At the same time, their society discouraged them from more serious corruption like killing each other or striving for power.

I think Frodo himself clearly illustrates this duality of good and bad. Tolkien says in his Letters that only a perfect creature could have succeeded in the quest to voluntarily throw away the Ring. Because Frodo, like all of us, is flawed, he was bound to fail in his task. That's why he needed Gollum, his alter ego to whom he had shown pity, to help bring things to a successful conclusion.

However, even though Frodo had flaws, his nature was basically uncorrupted. For this reason, he was able to bond himself to both Sam and Gollum in the last stages of the journey. It's not surpising that he would be able to show love and affection to Sam, but the fact that he could be caring to Gollum in this situation was nothing short of amazing. And it's obvious Gollum sensed this caring. Just look at the scene where Gollum reached out to caress the knee of the sleeping Frodo (and then Sam woke up and that was the end of that!) This bonding was critical since it prevented Frodo from identifying so closely with the Ring and literally, I believe, saved his soul. (I'd hate to think what would have happened if Frodo had gone totally on his own as he initially planned to do.)

Yet, after the quest was over, we can again see the other side of Frodo, that which had been corrupted by the Ring and still needed healing. On one anniversary date, Frodo lamented that the Ring was gone, and therefore all was lost. In his Letters, Tolkien wrote that Frodo felt guilt and regret because he had "failed" on Mount Doom to voluntarily discard the Ring. And this regret,Tolkien said, represented a moral failure in itself. Frodo was not content merely to be an instrument of Eru as he actually was, but parts of him were sad that he had failed to return to the Shire as the successful "hero". This shadow still in his own soul was one of the factors that drove him to sail West for healing. But along side this shadow were the other positive and good traits which also impelled him to reach out for the Blessed Lands: his own longing for the Sea and a distant green land which he spoke of and dreamed about on several occasions, his desire to be near Bilbo, and his love of Elves which had even predated the beginning of the Quest. So the good and bad are mixed up even in a character like this who had so grown and matured. I think you could show the same duality in many of Tolkien's characters. sharon, the 7th age hobbit