The
presentation of The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings serves as a potent
opportunity to examine Tolkien’s conception of free will, specifically as it relates
to good and evil, both on the cosmic and the individual scales. To do so, first
we must examine the actual metaphysical properties of The Ring itself, where
evil is most clearly vested in The Lord of the Rings and where we can
most clearly see its interactions with other characters, before progressing to
a discussing of this impact on Tolkien’s concept of free will and goodness.
Our first matter of concern is what actually makes The Ring itself evil. For much of Tolkien’s Legendarium, evil is only ascribed by the reader without an explicit value judgement. A prime example of this is how viewing The Silmarillion’s Ainulindalë, without value judgements, and without being primed to think of Melkor as evil and his music as inherently malicious (where the text merely mentions it as discord), leads to ambiguous determination of what exactly makes Melkor bad, or unethical. However, since The Ring is so often and directly described as an evil object, it is worthwhile to thus examine The Ring’s properties with a focus on ‘evil-ness’. Building off of our discussion in class, I would like first to examine The Ring in contrast to other magical items, like the palantirs or the silmarils. Comparing it to the former, the palantirs have much power but are actually simple instruments, looking glasses (that, during The War of The Ring, become overwhelmed by the Dark Lord’s power) for use by their bearers. The ring, however, is not simply an instrument of Sauron’s control, rather, it is a part of Sauron himself. The ring is not only something he created and wielded, it contains part of his essence, so much so that without it, he is unable to take corporeal form. If the power of The Ring is thus the power of Sauron, it is meaningful to ask, what exactly is Sauron? What is the essence of his power that he put into The Ring?
To answer this, we must trace a path backwards from The Lord of the Rings back to The Silmarillion, to the Ainulindalë. Melkor’s own melody was not wrought of evil intent; it did not intend to harm to kill, rather, it simply sought agency, he sought his own path aside that of Eru Iluvatar. As the mythology progresses, this desire for full agency over himself eventually mutates to desire for dominion over others, to eliminate their free will and supplant it with his. That same desire for dominion is at the core of Sauron (who, we even learn, originally started with good intentions) and his conquest of Middle-Earth; this is also what the elf-lords of Lothlorien and Rivendell, Galadriel and Elrond, bring up when offered the ring. Even though they would intend to do good with the ring, it would foster in them a desire for total dominion which would bend them fully to evil. Thus, we can narrow down what exactly pins down the ring as ‘evil’: the desire for and power of dominion over others, at the expense of their free will. This conception of evil as domineering will is also emphasized with the use of Hobbits, Frodo and Bilbo, as the most successful (i.e most unaffected by The Ring) ringbearers; since Hobbits, as Tolkien often tells us, want nothing more than to be left alone, they are the most immune to the temptation of dominion.
A small aside should be brought up, which is that while the temptation of limitless power with the possession of the ring is potent, it doesn’t seem like that power is ever meaningfully actuated. Isildur, upon possession of The Ring, is quickly killed; Smeagol, who desires The Ring endlessly, has all of his agency stripped away, turning into the creature of pure thraldom, Gollum; lastly, Frodo is tempted to slip on The Ring when surrounded, on Weathertop, by the Nazgul, but doing so only alerts them more keenly to his exact location. Thus, while The Ring tempts with the notion of dominion, it actually cannot provide that for any of its bearers. It would, however provide such power for Sauron, given that his selfhood is vested in it.
Next, if the evil of The Ring, which is itself the evil of the Dark Lord, which is itself the evil within the text, is dominion over others and removal of their free will, what is the good? The good, then, is in understanding that people should have control of their own lives, that all should be able to follow their own will and ensure that others can do the same. It is meaningful, then, to note that to be good in Tolkien’s world requires much more uncertainty than to be bad, as to be bad, and to endeavor for dominion over others, implies knowing what is ‘best’ for them, whereas to be good involves having to constantly judge which way to act. This also explains why heroic (and ostensibly good) characters like Aragorn often fret about their decisions, deliberating on what is best for both them and their fellows. To be bad is to be sure in your knowledge of not only how both you and the rest of the world should function. It is this which The Ring stokes in the hearts of its bearers, the great desire for dominion.
This act of being good, of trusting in others to live their lives best, is essentially an act of faith. This faith is, in a certain sense, and almost certainly to Tolkien, vested in the divine; it lays in the belief that others are part of the same richness and divinity that he was a part of as a member of the world. This faith can also be viewed in a secular manner, being reduced to faith in the competence of other people to make their own decisions. Is anything lost in this secularization? Melkor’s act of agency, creating his own music, was not destructive in that it was inherently disharmonious, rather in that it went against the music of Eru Iluvatar themself. It seems that in trying to negotiate this relation between goodness and faith without a God, we lose the harmonic, neutral state that comes from a world with a creator, and thus establishes a baseline condition of ones place in the world. One possible resolution of this, that sits between secularism and Tolkien’s Catholicism, is with Martin Buber’s concept of the I-Thou relation, the primal and divine experience of the world of relation being evinced through interactions with each other. This philosophical concept of the I-Thou relation also recalls Tolkien’s concept of relationality as integral to language and invention, and in how adjectivally constructing new relations lies as the first act of imagination. The social aspect of the I-Thou relation, that we can all experience divinity purely through recognizing unity in our interactions with each other, also speaks to how Tolkien’s ethics can function in a less explicitly religious sense.
To revisit a question from class: How do we not become Sauron? Simple! We have faith in each other. We have faith in other beings to be able to make determinations as to what is best for them on their own, and to together, share in the enterprise of living.
[MK]
Our first matter of concern is what actually makes The Ring itself evil. For much of Tolkien’s Legendarium, evil is only ascribed by the reader without an explicit value judgement. A prime example of this is how viewing The Silmarillion’s Ainulindalë, without value judgements, and without being primed to think of Melkor as evil and his music as inherently malicious (where the text merely mentions it as discord), leads to ambiguous determination of what exactly makes Melkor bad, or unethical. However, since The Ring is so often and directly described as an evil object, it is worthwhile to thus examine The Ring’s properties with a focus on ‘evil-ness’. Building off of our discussion in class, I would like first to examine The Ring in contrast to other magical items, like the palantirs or the silmarils. Comparing it to the former, the palantirs have much power but are actually simple instruments, looking glasses (that, during The War of The Ring, become overwhelmed by the Dark Lord’s power) for use by their bearers. The ring, however, is not simply an instrument of Sauron’s control, rather, it is a part of Sauron himself. The ring is not only something he created and wielded, it contains part of his essence, so much so that without it, he is unable to take corporeal form. If the power of The Ring is thus the power of Sauron, it is meaningful to ask, what exactly is Sauron? What is the essence of his power that he put into The Ring?
To answer this, we must trace a path backwards from The Lord of the Rings back to The Silmarillion, to the Ainulindalë. Melkor’s own melody was not wrought of evil intent; it did not intend to harm to kill, rather, it simply sought agency, he sought his own path aside that of Eru Iluvatar. As the mythology progresses, this desire for full agency over himself eventually mutates to desire for dominion over others, to eliminate their free will and supplant it with his. That same desire for dominion is at the core of Sauron (who, we even learn, originally started with good intentions) and his conquest of Middle-Earth; this is also what the elf-lords of Lothlorien and Rivendell, Galadriel and Elrond, bring up when offered the ring. Even though they would intend to do good with the ring, it would foster in them a desire for total dominion which would bend them fully to evil. Thus, we can narrow down what exactly pins down the ring as ‘evil’: the desire for and power of dominion over others, at the expense of their free will. This conception of evil as domineering will is also emphasized with the use of Hobbits, Frodo and Bilbo, as the most successful (i.e most unaffected by The Ring) ringbearers; since Hobbits, as Tolkien often tells us, want nothing more than to be left alone, they are the most immune to the temptation of dominion.
A small aside should be brought up, which is that while the temptation of limitless power with the possession of the ring is potent, it doesn’t seem like that power is ever meaningfully actuated. Isildur, upon possession of The Ring, is quickly killed; Smeagol, who desires The Ring endlessly, has all of his agency stripped away, turning into the creature of pure thraldom, Gollum; lastly, Frodo is tempted to slip on The Ring when surrounded, on Weathertop, by the Nazgul, but doing so only alerts them more keenly to his exact location. Thus, while The Ring tempts with the notion of dominion, it actually cannot provide that for any of its bearers. It would, however provide such power for Sauron, given that his selfhood is vested in it.
Next, if the evil of The Ring, which is itself the evil of the Dark Lord, which is itself the evil within the text, is dominion over others and removal of their free will, what is the good? The good, then, is in understanding that people should have control of their own lives, that all should be able to follow their own will and ensure that others can do the same. It is meaningful, then, to note that to be good in Tolkien’s world requires much more uncertainty than to be bad, as to be bad, and to endeavor for dominion over others, implies knowing what is ‘best’ for them, whereas to be good involves having to constantly judge which way to act. This also explains why heroic (and ostensibly good) characters like Aragorn often fret about their decisions, deliberating on what is best for both them and their fellows. To be bad is to be sure in your knowledge of not only how both you and the rest of the world should function. It is this which The Ring stokes in the hearts of its bearers, the great desire for dominion.
This act of being good, of trusting in others to live their lives best, is essentially an act of faith. This faith is, in a certain sense, and almost certainly to Tolkien, vested in the divine; it lays in the belief that others are part of the same richness and divinity that he was a part of as a member of the world. This faith can also be viewed in a secular manner, being reduced to faith in the competence of other people to make their own decisions. Is anything lost in this secularization? Melkor’s act of agency, creating his own music, was not destructive in that it was inherently disharmonious, rather in that it went against the music of Eru Iluvatar themself. It seems that in trying to negotiate this relation between goodness and faith without a God, we lose the harmonic, neutral state that comes from a world with a creator, and thus establishes a baseline condition of ones place in the world. One possible resolution of this, that sits between secularism and Tolkien’s Catholicism, is with Martin Buber’s concept of the I-Thou relation, the primal and divine experience of the world of relation being evinced through interactions with each other. This philosophical concept of the I-Thou relation also recalls Tolkien’s concept of relationality as integral to language and invention, and in how adjectivally constructing new relations lies as the first act of imagination. The social aspect of the I-Thou relation, that we can all experience divinity purely through recognizing unity in our interactions with each other, also speaks to how Tolkien’s ethics can function in a less explicitly religious sense.
To revisit a question from class: How do we not become Sauron? Simple! We have faith in each other. We have faith in other beings to be able to make determinations as to what is best for them on their own, and to together, share in the enterprise of living.
[MK]
3 comments:
I am very happy that you brought faith into the equation: it is the thing that Tolkien assumes, but skirts around, in explaining the power of the Ring. But faith in what? I am less persuaded that Tolkien would consider faith in each other as sufficient, but I grant that attempting to answer this question without faith in a Creator leaves us at an impasse. RLFB
Prof. FB,
I too don't really think Tolkien would consider faith in each other as sufficient without a creator; however, I also question how we as individuals can find the same faith, either with or without a creator God, beyond Tolkien. However, I do find Martin Buber's concept of the "I-Thou" relation, useful to this end, in the hope that we can find the image of God in the matter of our connections with each other. In any case, through Buber, Brahma, or the Bible, I'll try not to become Sauron!
MHK
I very much enjoyed your reflection here. It seems convincing to me that it is more complicated to seek to do good than to seek to do evil. But this may have to do not just with respecting the freedom of others, but with the greater richness and plurality of the good. One Dark Lord and one Dark Lord's dominion is very like another, but, in looking for what form a free and beautiful society takes in Middle-Earth, we have examples as different as Mirkwood, Erebor, Rohan, Rivendell, Gondor, and the Shire. I appreciated your invocation of Büber, for surely, merely having faith in others' freedom is insufficient. Should we have had faith in Ar-Pharazon or Denethor?
~LJF
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