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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mon, 7:40pm
Post #51 of 57
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Very good point. I can be swayed back and forth on my views of Feanor: was he a passionate, sensitive artist so wounded by the theft of of his one-of-a-kind Silmarils plus the murder of his loving father that his pain drove him forward in madness??? Some days I can be persuaded.
But that lucid moment of his just before dying, seeing that it was all a big mistake, and NOT confiding that to his sons but instead urging them on to a life doomed to ruin--that's Evil.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mon, 7:57pm
Post #52 of 57
(294 views)
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Introspection: Pippin vs Frodo
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Pippin is maybe more relatable in his divided opinion, especially as the youngest hobbit, the closest to the adolescent years when you do stupid things--"this is stupid! don't do it!"--in spite of your inner voice because of an attractive menu of expected benefits: "it will be fun/thrilling, or it will anger my parents and/or teachers, or it will impress my friends, or it will make that girl like me more."
Frodo faced a more epic confrontation of good vs evil on Amon Hen, and I think they weren't his voices at all, unlike Pippin's "wise voice" vs his "I want a thrill" voice, and the choice was different, but it's still worth comparing moments of introspective conflict. I think it relates back to the topic of evil and choice, and I point out the "perfectly balanced" part where Frodo, who was first confused, is allowed free will to choose between the choice a pre-Nazgul would make of surrender and servitude to evil, or doing what is right for the world and fighting tyranny, as Sauron/The Ring's voice strove with Gandalf's. I think the fact that he remains lucid afterward even though weary reflects how exercising free will in accordance with your personal values can strengthen a mind.
He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring!
The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again, Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his finger. ...
Frodo rose to his feet. A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter.
It's not hard to guess which choice Feanor would have made on Amon Hen, thinking he could out-smart Sauron and take the Ring for himself and be the new Wise Ruler of the World Who Sometimes Got a Little Rough.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mon, 8:06pm
Post #53 of 57
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Always glad to see your contributions and insights!
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And thanks for schooling us on the finer points of Tolkien and evil via HOME, Felagund. It is worth splitting hairs that there is a sort of "evil blob" lurking unseen in the corner that tempts people to do evil things, because that evil taints the world and is just baked into everything. But there are also decisions made via free will amid passion, pride, past decision history, good and bad advice, and all the other things that influence is from the inside and outside, and some of those decisions can be evil even if the person isn't enrolled in Being Evil 24/7.
It is interesting that as far as we know, Eol is the only Elf easily classified as evil, whereas others could be excused for one reason or another and claim to be in a gray area. And Eol had nothing to do with Feanor or the Noldor and the revolt against the Valar (and by extension, against Eru). But since you bring up the Houseless as Elves who rebel and refuse the summons to Mandos, it's clear that Eol wasn't a single outlier on the bell curve of good/evil Elves.
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Tue, 2:45am
Post #54 of 57
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Yes, I agree. But inner or outer, both had the chance to make a choice. And not to criticize Pippin--partly because of his youth, but also because he didn't have Gandalf's voice in real time telling him not be a fool--but it was Frodo who found, in the sudden space given to him to choose, that he was willing to choose the right thing in that moment.
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Tue, 3:00am)
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Felagund
Nargothrond
12:27am
Post #55 of 57
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the metaphysics of evil, as pertaining to Elves and Men and Fëanor (and slightly losing my mind by the end)
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No HoMe-schooling intended but I had a memory of Morgoth's Ring having some goodies stashed away on the nature of 'evil'!
I was browsing NoMe, as any good Noldo should, on the topic after I posted and there's some interesting material there too on the subject of evil, in the context of the differences between Elves and Men. In the essay 'Concerning the Quendi' (NoMe 1.XII), we have this (emphases: JRRT):
The Quendi never "fell" as a race - not in the sense in which they and Men themselves believed that the Second Children had "fallen". Being "tainted" with the Marring (which affected all the "flesh of Arda") from which their hröar were derived and were nourished), and having come under the Shadow of Melkor before their Finding and rescue, they could individually do wrong. But they never (not even the wrong-doers) rejected Eru, nor worshipped either Melkor or Sauron as a god - neither individually or as a whole people. Their lives, therefore, came under no general curse or diminishment; and their primeval and natural life-span, as a race, by "doom" co-extensive with the remainder of the Life of Arda remained unchanged in all their varieties.
Of course the Quendi could be terrorised and daunted. In the remote past before the Finding, or in the Dark Years of the Avari after the departure of the Eldar, or in the histories of the Silmarillion, they could be deceived; and they could be captured and tormented and enslaved. Then under force and fear they might do the will of Melkor or Sauron, and even commit grave wrongs. But they did so as slaves who nonetheless in heart knew and never rejected the truth. (There is no record of any Elf ever doing more than carrying our Melkor's orders under fear or compulsion. None ever called him Master, or Lord, or do any evil act uncommanded to obtain his favour.) Thus, though the carrying out of evil commands, quite apart from the sufferings of slavery or torment, clearly exhausted the "youth" and life-vigour of those unfortunate Elves who came under the power of the Shadow, this evil and diminishment was not heritable.
This was written around 1959, which is approximate to the drafting of the text I leaned heavily on in my previous post, ‘Laws and Customs amongst the Eldar’ - dating to the late 1950s, by the estimate of CJRT. The 'fallen race' angle to evil also features in 'Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth', dated by CJRT to 1959. So, we're dealing with texts and concepts devised in close proximity, at a time when (as remarked by Carl F. Hostetter in his Introduction to Part 2 of NoMe), Tolkien is very much investing in the metaphysics of the denizens of his secondary world. Which is not to say it isn't possible to find contradictions or, at the very least, nuanced differences!
What we get in this mini-treatise from 'Concerning the Quendi' is an excursus on the fundamentals of evil and where Elves and Men fit into this schema. While both peoples are 'tainted' by Arda Marred, in this typology Men have brought upon themselves 'heritable' evil, through having fallen to the worship of Melkor at some point in their early history. Elves, on the other hand, have never 'fallen' in that sense and, therefore, while individual Elves were capable of committing bad deeds ("do wrong", "commit grave wrongs"), they were still fundamentally on the right side of 'the truth', ie. that there was only one true Authority, Eru. This even goes for when an Elf has been forced to carry out an evil command.
Does this contradict what Tolkien also wrote about the evil wrought by the 'Houseless' Elves (as per 'Laws and Customs amongst the Eldar’)? In my reading, not fundamentally. The 'Houseless' were disembodied Elves who, by and large, had succumbed to the Shadow. Evil flowed from this. Rejecting Authority is mentioned as crossing the line in both texts (=evil). But where there's potential divergence is that 'Concerning the Quendi' is very definitive on Elves never having rejected Eru; whereas in 'Laws and Customs of the Eldar', we have "Those who give evil counsel, or speak against the Rulers (or if they dare, against the One), are evil", in the context of the 'Houseless'.
Reconciling anyone's metaphysical musings, even derived from a compressed period of writing, has always struck me as somewhere between academic nirvana and a niche form of sado-masochism - and Tolkien's text is no exception! What I do draw from all this is that the Elves appear to be in a unique position vis à vis evil. The Ainur can fall into evil (Morgoth, Sauron et al.), the Second Children can fall into evil and indeed, are carrying that round with them effectively forever. The Elves can commit evil acts (euphemism: 'do wrong') but even when compelled to do evil they cannot be evil, due to the herency of their adherence to 'the truth'. The 'Houseless' potentially muddy the waters a bit here, I reckon. And, moreover, in the last year of his life, Tolkien was still writing passages such as the following ('Manwë's Ban', NoMe 3.VIII):
... and even before they [the Noldor] had finally left the West Lands and reached Middle-earth, they did hideous deeds of robbery and bloodshed and treachery. Then a large number of the Noldor, who had taken no part in this, went back to Valinor, and sought pardon and were granted it. Those that did not do so, even if not personally slayers, must share in the blood guilt, if they accepted the freedom gained by it.
Playing by the rules of the metaphysics of evil in this secondary world might make it difficult to definitively or substantively call an Elf 'evil', but that didn't prevent Tolkien from making it clear that atrocity is still atrocity. And yet, it's still possible to infer from the metaphysics in question that because Fëanor doesn't reject Eru (he even included Eru in his crazy oath), by definition he can't fundamentally be evil. And coupled with the 'fallen' / 'non-fallen race' distinction between Elves and Men, this can make for challenging, even uncomfortable reading. Would a hypothetical human perpetrator of the Kinslaying assault on Alqualondë etc just be labelled as downright evil, using this framework? It strikes me as a lot less complicated to conclude this to be the case, following the rules, so to speak.
In a total lack of imagination, I'm just going to revert to the Aelfwine bookend to my previous post: "Yet the answer is not in truth difficult. Evil is not one thing among Elves and another among Men."
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
(This post was edited by Inferno on 12:34pm)
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CuriousG
Gondolin
4:11am
Post #56 of 57
(42 views)
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Thanks for the further research! Oh, what a muddied world it is when anyone contemplates evil, and religion, and collective vs. individual guilt, and thus philosophy. I think people who are truly honest don't always have a definitive answer because, if they're honest, they'll admit that the emotions of a day or situation can sway them, and evil is something you feel as much as rationally define. So, everyone's mileage may vary.
I personally can't buy into "DNA-guilt," as in the sort of reasoning that a whole people "fell," and thus are "destined" to do evil because of something that happened generations ago. And I know some people do believe this, so we'll just have to disagree. It's interesting to see Tolkien wrestle with defining it. I always get the sense that no matter how flawed the Elves are, he still wants them to be morally superior to Men, and that explanation you gave that they never fell as a race and even Feanor wasn't evil since he didn't reject Eru, that seems to reinforce my gut feeling on how he viewed them.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
35 mins ago
Post #57 of 57
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To do with being unable (unlike Men) 'to shape their life... beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else'
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This is reminding me of "Fate and Free Will in Middle-earth" is the title of an excellent essay by Verlyn Flieger, which is published in the book "Green Suns And Faerie" (Kent State University press, 2012)
Flieger starts from:
Therefore he [Iluvatar] devised that Men should have a free virtue whereby within the limits of the powers and substances and chances of the world they might fashion and design their life beyond even the original Music...
[Lost Tales I, 59m, the earliest draft of this passage as quoted by in Prof Flieger's essay...
...which becomes, in the Silmarillion...]
they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed...
Silmarillion, 41-42 as quoted by Prof Flieger
and notes that it would follow that elves (not being Men, but being 'all things else') can't shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur.
It would sorta make sense to me that if you are an elf who is fated to do a bad thing, and doesn't really have any choice not to do so, that your eveil act might not make you evil (still has the same practical effect, though maybe different in moral culpability).
I raised this Flieger esay before (fresh from having read it) and here's what I said about Feanor then:
[I think that] Prof Flieger thinks the idea is that, had Feanor agreed to surrender the Silamarils for the common good, that would remove the anger and resentment that drives his next actions (which are to drive the Noldor into a frenzy, swear that terrible oath, massacre those who won't assist the Noldor to leave...)
Prof Flieger sees Feanor, an elf, as being bound by his fate within "The Music" in a way that Men are not. But this wouldn't make his yes/no choice [to surrender the silmarils or not] completely futile either, she argues: the circumstances matter. Prof Flieger gives a parallel of killing someone in self-defence as opposed to killing in revenge: the practical outcome is the same, but the acts are judged differently.
I had thought that Flieger gave the following what-if for Feanor (but I can't find that now, so maybe it was me trying t think this through). Let's suppose Feanor's better feelings triumph and he agrees to give up the Silmarils to rekindle the trees. Maybe his fate is to go to Middle-earth and die trying to recover them anyway, but that would have a different meaning if he fell in battle as part of an official, Valar-sponsored invasion force. (Or, doubtless, other scenarios could be concocted...)
an earler post (2015)
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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