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Evil is ever-present in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional realm of Middle-earth. Tolkien is ambiguous on the philosophical question of whether evil is the absence of good, the Boethian position, or whether it is a force seemingly as powerful as good, and forever opposed to it, the Manichaean view. The major evil characters have varied origins.
The Elf Ecthelion slays the Orc champion Orcobal in Gondolin. 2007 illustration by Tom Loback. J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, [T 1] created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak.
The Wizard Saruman turns to evil and is wholly corrupted, lured by pride and power, but never gets the Ring. Tolkien uses the Ring to illuminate the moral choices made by each character. Sméagol kills his friend Déagol to gain the Ring, and is corrupted by it, becoming wholly miserable as the creature Gollum.
Tolkien was similarly equivocal about the nature of evil, as seen through the One Ring, created by the Dark Lord Sauron to dominate the whole of Middle-earth; it behaves both as an inanimate object, and as a thing with constantly evil intent, seeking to enslave whoever bears it. Shippey admired Tolkien's ability to balance between pagan and ...
Tolkien, while denying that absolute evil could exist, stated that Sauron came as near to a wholly evil will as was possible. Commentators have compared Sauron to the title character of Bram Stoker 's 1897 novel Dracula , and to Balor of the Evil Eye in Irish mythology .
In the Years of the Trees, Arda was lit by the Two Trees of Valinor. Melkor damaged the trees, and Ungoliant drained them of their sap [T 2]. Tolkien's original writings say that Ungoliant was a primeval spirit of night, named Móru, [T 3] who aided Melkor in his attack upon the Two Trees of Valinor, draining them of their sap after Melkor had injured them.
Tolkien's Roman Catholicism gave him a clear sense of good and evil, and a ready symbolism to hand: light symbolises good, and darkness evil, as it does in the Bible. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] In The Fellowship of the Ring , the first evil being that the Hobbits encounter after leaving the Shire on the quest to destroy the One Ring is Old Man Willow , a ...
Tolkien stated that the styles of the Bayeux Tapestry fitted the Rohirrim "well enough". [T 20] Body armour in Tolkien's fiction is mainly in the form of mail or scale shirts, in keeping with Ancient and Early Medieval periods of history. [2] In contrast, the Lord of the Rings film trilogy features later medieval plate armour suits. [15]