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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Apr 9 2017, 8:25am
Post #1 of 14
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The treatment of evil characters in Lotr
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One thing which is interesting and curious about Lotr is the way in which the bad guys are treated. We scarcely hear or see them directly in book time as it where and then it is only the minor ones, like foot soldier Orcs when they are in desperate trouble the Uruk-hai, or Saruman once he is beaten but not when he is at the zenith of his power. Sauron, never. Never once do we read him saying something like, 'My plans for ME domination are going well.
Now, I wonder why this is. It certainly seems unique, in tales like these anyway. I can't think of any others where the bad guys simply do not get a word in. And after all the talk of how powerful they are as well. I wonder if this was a deliberate ploy by Tolkien or was it simply edited that way?
Even in his other works some of the bad guys get some book time. In the Hobbit, Smaug at least speaks, although the Orc generals do not. It is only in the Silm that we hear Sauron say something.
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squire
Half-elven
Apr 9 2017, 1:22pm
Post #2 of 14
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Do all the other "tales like these" really have the lead villain saying 'My plans for ME domination are going well'?
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If so, I'm glad my taste for high fantasy seems to have stopped with Tolkien.
I would suggest that the more an author presents a "Dark Lord" as a kind of satanically Evil being but also as a realistic character who thinks and speaks like a human, the more he comes up against our perception that in everyday life evil is actually a relative quality, and sin can always be repented and forgiven.
Tolkien structures his story in an unreal way, in that Sauron and his minions do represent a kind of absolute evil that must be combated and resisted, not understood and explained and compromised with. To sustain our belief in this moral aspect of what otherwise seems like a completely real and believable fantasy world, he keeps his evil lords off stage as much as possible.
And it's well that he does. We do meet Sauron, via Pippin's encounter in the palantir, and the guy practically gnashes his teeth and twirls his mustache, finishing with a bout of actual gloating. And Smaug (in The Hobbit) is almost hilarious with his mocking manners and gentlemanly professions; not to mention the 'orc general' who speaks in a similar tone, the Great Goblin - but then, The Hobbit is a comedy. I think the orcs in LotR are far more successfully presented as really bad guys, and we don't just see them when they're in trouble; in Rohan and in Cirith Ungol we do meet them before their plans have stopped "going well". But there - even in so short a time we begin to feel some sympathy and understanding for the orcs (see the hobbits half rooting for them to outrace the Rohirrim to safety), which has tempted some readers to question their wholesale slaughter by the forces of good in the various battle scenes! Can't we all just get along? Tolkien needs us to say, no - we can't.
I don't think, by the way, that Tolkien's books were ever "edited" against his own "deliberate" intentions. Everything we read in his published works are what he wanted us to read. I would like to hear more, though, about your assumption that preventing the bad guys from "getting a word in" is contrary to the genre of fantasy. In which books do the bad guys (so to speak) get equal time or "book time" in order to prove "how powerful they are"? And does it help or hurt the authors' larger moral equations, and are those moral structures directly comparable to Tolkien's?
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
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sevilodorf
Tol Eressea
Apr 10 2017, 12:02am
Post #3 of 14
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Agreeing quite a bit with Squire... though the Evil Overlord's monologuing is....
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a time honored tradition
Tolkien wanted a story about facing Evil with a capital E. The Devil. He wanted (in my opinion) to present a story about the ways people face and react to Evil and to evil --
Fourth Age Adventures at the Inn of the Burping Troll http://burpingtroll.com
Home of TheOneRing.net Best FanFic stories of 2005 and 2006 "The Last Grey Ship" and "Ashes, East Wind, Hope That Rises" by Erin Rua
(Found in Mathoms, LOTR Tales Untold)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Apr 10 2017, 9:04am
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I think its worth asking what a Sauron's Soliloquy Scene would add
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The purposes I can think of are:
1) We need to understand the villain's plans, and having them explain it to us is the way the writer has found to do this. (If the writer wants to go for the full Chainmail Thong award for cliche, then the villain describes their entire plan to the captured hero before trying to kill them in some absurdly over-elaborate manner from which of course they escape).
So I think this trope might come up in stories where the heroes have to do some detective work - assemble the clues to understand and thwart the villain's non-obvious plan. But Sauron's plans are not much of a surprise - the only surprises he springs, that I can recall, are his Corsair fleet (revealed to Aragorn once Aragorn has gained the palantir) and his corruption of Denethor.
2) We need to see the villain's motives - either to understand what they are doing, or because there is an element of tragedy in the story, the villain stirring some sympathy, or demonstrating the very real risk of going down the path to evil. As others have already said, thsi doesn't apply to Sauron, the epitome of evil. But Saruman does get exactly this treatment - Gandalf reports Saruman's speech about allaying with Sauron.
3) The Big Bad Boss needs to come out to fight. But Tolkien tends to avoid 'Boss Battles', so this doesn't arise.
Other storytelling concerns are at work I think. One is the needs of the medium. In a book, it's fine to have Gandalf telling us what Saruman said and did. In a more visual medium I can understand that the artist or Director would want to show the event, rather than Gandalf describing the event.
Then there's timing - the storyteller needs to think carefully about what information they release to the audience and when. The storyteller has to decide - is it better to know more or less about the antagonist's plans? Tolkien decided 'less'. I think that works - I agree with squire: the more we see of a villain, the more known or knowable they become, and mystery is lost as while information is gained
Lastly there's the issue of narration. LOTR is mostly a hobbit-eye view. Cutting to scenes of Barad-Dur or Orthanc would break that up, I think.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 10 2017, 2:10pm
Post #5 of 14
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1) We need to understand the villain's plans, and having them explain it to us is the way the writer has found to do this. (If the writer wants to go for the full Chainmail Thong award for cliche, then the villain describes their entire plan to the captured hero before trying to kill them in some absurdly over-elaborate manner from which of course they escape).
Tolkien's villains don't tend to place the heroes in elaborate deathtraps, but they do fall into the different cliche of keeping them prisoner for extended periods. Sometimes this is for the perfectly reasonable motive of using the captive as a hostage and/or interrogating him; however, Tolkien's baddies have the bad habit of keeping their captives alive for far longer than they have a need for them, largely for the purpose of simply torturing and tormenting them.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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enanito
Rohan
Apr 10 2017, 5:17pm
Post #6 of 14
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How do we square Melkor's literary treatment with that of Sauron? From my recollection, we are given great insight into Melkor's thoughts and purposes, first by Ilúvatar (who we assume can truly see who Melkor really is), then by various Valar (who may see much, but cannot fathom the depths of his heart), and finally by the all-knowing narrator (who we must trust). I don't know that we hear Melkor actually speak until his encounter with Fëanor regarding the Silmarils, which is a bit interesting given how central Melkor is to everything that transpires up to that point.
Melkor is given a fall from grace, the potential for great good and the devolution into complete evil. By contrast with the Sauron we know and love in LoTR, Melkor is quite the transparent character. So why don't we have anything akin to this in LoTR?
Narration makes sense, if we take LoTR as seen from the Hobbit POV.
Purpose as well, since the Silmarillion is an origin tale so all must be told, whereas LoTR is a snapshot of M.E. history.
What thoughts on this?
(This post was edited by enanito on Apr 10 2017, 5:20pm)
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Apr 10 2017, 5:36pm
Post #7 of 14
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The Children of Hurin involves dialog between Hurin and Morgoth / Melkor
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Chapter III The Words of Hurin and Morgoth
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 10 2017, 8:03pm
Post #8 of 14
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We don't have the omniscient narrator in The Lord of the Rings that we seem to have in The SIlmarillion. We are never shown Sauron's point of view, However in The SIl, particularly in "The Downfall of Númenor," we do see occasions where Sauron had opportunities to mend his ways but instead held to the philosophies and goals of Morgoth. Tolkien doesn't give us any insight into why Sauron never reformed (at best, pretending to); we can only assume that he was firmly committed to the viewpoint of his Master.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Apr 11 2017, 10:36pm
Post #9 of 14
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Does Robin Hood count as a fantasy?
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As i am pretty sure that I have seen a production where King John says something like that  I must say that to be honest if I am talking about pure fantasy there haven't been that many when the bad guy has upped and said that he is bad! But I have read and seen lots of Sci-fi, horror or adventure where the main protagonast has had some kind of a say. Although to be fair, yes we do read about some other Orcs, though I often get the feeling that they are not dominantly evil just plain nasty. Some might get on well with Bill Ferny or Ted Sandyman for example! And I suppose that we sort of 'see' the Nazgul with Frodo before Rivendell. Now, I don't suppose that there was a conspiracy against Tokien to keep out Sauron, but I was just speculating if he did write a scene with Sauron in but decided to edit it out later.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 12 2017, 1:37am
Post #10 of 14
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Does Robin Hood count as a fantasy?
There was the 1984 Robin of Sherwood series where Loxley was a follower of Herne the Hunter.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Apr 13 2017, 10:16am
Post #11 of 14
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How do we square Melkor's literary treatment with that of Sauron?
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I think the two contrast, because the two villains play different roles, in different stories. Melkor has the prototypical 'fall', in which he rebels against the Grand Plan (and, in what I find a slightly brain-bending idea, that rebellion promptly becomes part of the working of the Grand Plan). That theme is repeated again and again- the Flight of the Noldor, The decision of the Kings of Numenor to demand immortality - even the Rings of Power scheme into which peoples of Middle-earth unwisely enter, and which is finally brought to a safe conclusion in LOTR. 'The fall' (along with 'mortality' and 'the machine') was one of the three themes Tolkien picked out in a description of his Silmarillion 'Stuff' (in Letter 131, a description of his proposed Silmarillion to a possible publisher).
I think we need to have some description of Melkor and what is happening to him, in order for him to fulfil that 'fall' role. But the stories are myths and legends rather than romances or novels - we are told what Melkor did or said, rather than being put into a scene with him as in a novel.
Sauron in LOTR has already fallen. We need him as a source of military threat, but perhaps what he personally thinks and does isn't all that necessary. The question is; will Frodo or one of the other characters we care about fall?
I think one could also argue that Sauron IS present in the book a lot more than it appears, through the medium of the One Ring. I see the One Ring as a brilliant fictional creation - sometimes almost like a character (specifically, we assume, like Sauron's character), and sometimes like an object (what Tom Shippey has called a 'psychic amplifier' able to act of characters to bring out their weaknesses).
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Apr 13 2017, 10:25am
Post #12 of 14
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Yes, that scene comes close to the mustachioed villain squire mentions. But I think the passage is mostly about Hurin's heroism. It sets up the idea that Morgoth might have cursed Hurin's children, so that we readers look for a pattern of bad luck and ruin which it takes Turin some time to notice. But it doesn't (as far as I recall) give Morgoth a long exposition of his ideas and aims.
Whether Turin is actually cursed, or just brought down repeatedly by his own faults is something I remember us debating during the last read-through of that book. It can be argued either way, or it can be argued that both are true.
If we didn't have that Hurin/Morgoth scene, the book wouldn't be so good, I think (no foreshadowing of the curse, no ending where Hurin is finally released, but is *still* not defeated). But most of the book would be unaffected. Morgoth drops away as villain after a while, and the bad guy becomes the dragon, who does get some lines.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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InTheChair
Rohan
Apr 15 2017, 7:43pm
Post #13 of 14
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Who would Sauron be talking to, if he said: My plans for domination are going well, and why would he tell this person that?
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I can possibly see something of the kind if Sauron captured one of the main character and wanted to gloat over him, in the style of Morgoth..
(This post was edited by InTheChair on Apr 15 2017, 7:44pm)
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Apr 19 2017, 8:19am
Post #14 of 14
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Possibly to Denethor in the Palantir?
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Although this scenario would still have us not quite clear as to the physical make-up of Sauron.
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