Evil in Tolkien's world. Was it always starting with a good motive?

[BalrogRingDestroyer]

Other than perhaps Smeagol killing Deagol over the Ring because it was his "birthday present", which seems pretty weak of a reason to be contrived as meaning any good, as I don't think Smeagol know what it did enough to, say, desire it to find out all the secrets he wanted about mountains and beginnings, but rather just because it "looked pretty", it seems that many acts of evil or "questionable good" (like Thorin's "You'll have to fight me to get MY treasure!"), were originally started with good intent.

The quest to get the Simaril sounded good, but it led to the Kinslaying and other problems.

The Elves wanted to preserve the old things and so worked with Sauron to make the Rings, only to put themselves at risk because of their actions.

Sauron must have wanted some good purpose or thing to do that he thought he needed Morgoth's knowledge/help for (Gandalf said that even Sauron was once good when talking about how the Ring could turn what was meant for good into evil.)

Saruman likely did intend to achieve the "greater good" or "greater knowledge" by getting the Ring.

Boromir wanted to protect his people, who were fighting valiantly, and thought the Ring would be the best way to do it, and almost attacking Frodo over it before realizing what he'd done.

Thorin had been hurt first by the dragon Smaug and then by the goblins. Then he got his treasure back but it seemed that he was going to have to give some of it to the Elven king who had earlier kidnapped him, which led to him nearly starting a war with Bard over the incident.

Old Man Willow may have meant to preserve nature, but had fallen to waylaying travelers and even trying to attack the Hobbits of Buckland in his malice and anger.

 

[Starbrow]

When I think about the orcs and trolls, I can't think of anything they did that started with a good motive.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

That would take an entire tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Evil!

 

[Ron Simpson]

I would agree that many good starts ended badly, and Gandalf basically says so: "for nothing is evil in its beginning, even Sauron was not so” . (Even in our world, the road to hell is paved with good intentions)

But, I would go a step further and say that almost every evil, in its turn, was finally transmuted back into good. It's like a circle:

1. Quest for a Silmaril: after all the Noldors' nonsense, one Silmaril ended up in the high airs so everyone in Middle Earth could catch a glimpse of the memory of the light of the Trees. Nice !

2. Elves wanted to preserve things: rings were forged, Sauron pours the best part of his native essence into the one ring and now becomes vulnerable, the ring is ultimately destroyed, so Sauron is utterly destroyed. A troublesome Maia taken off the board (nice outcome !)

3. Saruman: lusted for power, caused trouble, ravaged Rohan, got roughed up by Treebeard, then killed by Grima: another troublesome Maia taken care of (a great good)

4. Thorin: his greed & haughtiness brought the armies of Bard & Thranduil & Dain to the gates of Erebor just in time to be united against the goblin attack. A great victory won, and goblins depleted for a long, long time. Nice outcome..

5. Old Man Willow: um, I got nothing here - butkus !

 

[gentleDrift]

Good question. I think ultimately the answer is yes, Evil always starts with a good motive.

Going back as far as possible we right away have possibly an exception to prove the rule: The Fall of Melkor. He is the first 'evil' being, it can be discussed of course wether he started out 'good' as well and only turned evil later, or wether maybe he was made evil by Eru himself for some reason, but even in the Ainulindale it is clear that he is the seed of Evil and that the other Ainur who turned evil did so because they were seduced or influenced by him.

But then we have the Music of the Ainur and Erus Plan, and I think we must assume everything in the original plan (before the discord of Melkor) to have been wholly 'good' and untainted. This includes all the Children of Iluvatar as well, of course. It follows then that every 'evil' Elf or Man we see in the later stories must have in some sense been 'good' originally and only turned to Evil by some effect of the discord of Melkor - in Arda, Evil is fundamentally always the corruption of something good, in fact I think we could even define 'good' as 'according to Eru's original plan' and 'evil' as 'a deviation of Eru's original plan'.

This is of course a rather vague explanation, and others have already pointed to specific examples of how this actually plays out. I would like to add that in the Silmarillion especially we often see a turn to Evil as part of a 'sub-creative fallacy': Someone creates something and then takes too much pride in it, or claims complete ownership over it, forgetting that he himself was originally created (by Eru) and thus making a kind of logical error. We see this in

• Melkor himself of course.
• The Valar are not completely immune to this either: The making of the Trees and then 'hiding' or 'hoarding' the Light in Valinor kind of falls in this category.
• The Making of the Dwarves by Aule is of course a prime example of this, the entire concept is discussed in much detail there, except he escapes the fallacy by offering the Fathers of the Dwarves up to Eru.
• Very clearly in Feanor who becomes overly proud and jealous of the Silmarilli (We even have a 'double sub-creation' here: He creates the Silmarilli using the Light of the Trees made by the Valar on the one hand, and using the (mental) gifts given to him by Eru on the other hand).
• Thingol kind of makes this error, being overly proud and protective of Luthien.
• Turgon also falls in this trap, trusting too much in the strength of Gondolin and neglecting very direct hints by Ulmo.

When I think about the orcs and trolls, I can't think of anything they did that started with a good motive.

Tolkien himself spent quite some time working this out as well, and afaik did not come to a satisfactory answer. In a certain sense, both Trolls and Orcs may have started out 'good' as Ents or Elves and became corrupted by Melkor. This creates problems however: Clearly, new Orcs come from somewhere, presumably produced the normal way by other Orcs. Are they born evil already? With Men for example, the assumption quite clearly is that they are born 'good' and are only corrupted or seduced by other preexisting 'sources' of Evil around them (this includes subtle things: even concepts like extreme heat and cold were created by the discord of Melkor). But Orcs generally seem to be intrinsically evil, beyond salvation. If this is the case, it is quite an alteration of the view of Good and Evil presented so far, but if not, then all the mindless slaughter of Orcs becomes morally questionable.

I thought of another exception to the rule by the way: Ungoliant seems to have been wholly Evil from the Beginning as well, and at least somewhat independently so from Melkor, unlike other lesser Ainur like Sauron, the Balrogs, Saruman, etc.

But, as Ron Simpson says, all Evil ultimately leads to Good in Tolkien's creation, quoting the Ainulindale:

And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
​

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Tolkien laid a heavy emphasis on the importance of internal consistency in the creation of Fantasy, as is seen in "On Fairy Stories": it's all very well to say "a green sun", but then you must construct your secondary world in such a way that a green sun could plausibly exist. So the laws of a fantasy world, physical, magical, or moral, must be coherent.

One early critic who examined this was Randel Helms, in his 1974 book "Tolkien's World". I thought it might be useful to reproduce his take on the "internal laws" of Middle Earth here (I include them all in the interest of completeness):

(1) The cosmos is providentially controlled.

(2) Intent structures results. That is, Middle Earth's moral structure works according to a kind of "truth table": + × + = + ; - × - = + (a good action with a good intent will have a good result; an evil action with an evil intent will also have an ultimately good result).

(3) Moral and magical law have the force of physical law.

(4) Will and states of mind, both good and evil, can have objective reality and physical energy.

(5) All experience is the realization of proverbial truth.

As he says, there is some overlap among them, but it's obviously the second that is most germane here. It suggests that the important thing is not the intent of an action, but the ultimate result, which will always be good. Of course, this was written before the publication of the Silmarillion; Helms might have reconsidered, had he written later. But it does seem to hold for LOTR.

Tolkien said in a letter that his intention in writing LOTR was in part to produce a theodicy. Each reader will have to judge to what extent they feel he was successful in doing so. I would say only that his instincts as a great storyteller outweighed his abilities as a theologian, to the benefit of literature.

 

[Ron Simpson]

Well: that post surely puts it to rest.
SeS: By the (suspect) powers invested in me, I gift you the title of "Squint-Eyed-Scholar" (with all the privileges and benefits attendant thereto....)

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Gee, thanks -- does that include unlimited free beer?

I would point out, however, that although Helms's Second Law does set out, in a diagramatic way, the ideas you brought out in your discussion above, it addresses only the way in which evil functions in Middle Earth, emphasizing the ultimate result; it doesn't explain the points raised by gentleDrift concerning its origin, nor does it answer Balrog's original question about motive.

Those are more difficult, and in terms of the theodicy I mentioned above, I don't think Tolkien was able, finally, to resolve them; but that is a problem inherent to any theodicy. And I'd say it follows that, if Tolkien couldn't do it, who are we mere mortals to try? Not that it isn't entertaining to make the attempt!

I'll add a word about Ungoliant: I gave my views on her in another thread, in fact one of Balrog's, I believe, about Tom Bombadil. Can't seem to find it now, but in brief, I see her as representing the spirit of pure nihilism, the polar opposite of the creative force represented by Eru. There's more to it than that, of course, and if I can manage to locate the thread, I'll post the link here.

EDIT: Found it!

http://thetolkien.forum/index.php?threads/are-ungoliant-and-bombadil-opposites-of-each-other.23482/

Oh, BTW, RS, perhaps it would relieve your mind about Old Man Willow to consider that it was his entrapment of the hobbits that led directly, if "by chance", to their meeting with Tom Bombadil. Think of what might have happened if they'd missed him, and managed to make their way out of the Old Forest by themselves: they might still be entombed in the barrow, with all the awful results that would bring. Another example of - × - = +. What an original + might have been for him, I can't say, though Balrog's idea seems valid enough: a Good Tree turned bad.

 

[BalrogRingDestroyer]

Good question. I think ultimately the answer is yes, Evil always starts with a good motive.

Going back as far as possible we right away have possibly an exception to prove the rule: The Fall of Melkor. He is the first 'evil' being, it can be discussed of course wether he started out 'good' as well and only turned evil later, or wether maybe he was made evil by Eru himself for some reason, but even in the Ainulindale it is clear that he is the seed of Evil and that the other Ainur who turned evil did so because they were seduced or influenced by him.

But then we have the Music of the Ainur and Erus Plan, and I think we must assume everything in the original plan (before the discord of Melkor) to have been wholly 'good' and untainted. This includes all the Children of Iluvatar as well, of course. It follows then that every 'evil' Elf or Man we see in the later stories must have in some sense been 'good' originally and only turned to Evil by some effect of the discord of Melkor - in Arda, Evil is fundamentally always the corruption of something good, in fact I think we could even define 'good' as 'according to Eru's original plan' and 'evil' as 'a deviation of Eru's original plan'.

This is of course a rather vague explanation, and others have already pointed to specific examples of how this actually plays out. I would like to add that in the Silmarillion especially we often see a turn to Evil as part of a 'sub-creative fallacy': Someone creates something and then takes too much pride in it, or claims complete ownership over it, forgetting that he himself was originally created (by Eru) and thus making a kind of logical error. We see this in

• Melkor himself of course.
• The Valar are not completely immune to this either: The making of the Trees and then 'hiding' or 'hoarding' the Light in Valinor kind of falls in this category.
• The Making of the Dwarves by Aule is of course a prime example of this, the entire concept is discussed in much detail there, except he escapes the fallacy by offering the Fathers of the Dwarves up to Eru.
• Very clearly in Feanor who becomes overly proud and jealous of the Silmarilli (We even have a 'double sub-creation' here: He creates the Silmarilli using the Light of the Trees made by the Valar on the one hand, and using the (mental) gifts given to him by Eru on the other hand).
• Thingol kind of makes this error, being overly proud and protective of Luthien.
• Turgon also falls in this trap, trusting too much in the strength of Gondolin and neglecting very direct hints by Ulmo.

Tolkien himself spent quite some time working this out as well, and afaik did not come to a satisfactory answer. In a certain sense, both Trolls and Orcs may have started out 'good' as Ents or Elves and became corrupted by Melkor. This creates problems however: Clearly, new Orcs come from somewhere, presumably produced the normal way by other Orcs. Are they born evil already? With Men for example, the assumption quite clearly is that they are born 'good' and are only corrupted or seduced by other preexisting 'sources' of Evil around them (this includes subtle things: even concepts like extreme heat and cold were created by the discord of Melkor). But Orcs generally seem to be intrinsically evil, beyond salvation. If this is the case, it is quite an alteration of the view of Good and Evil presented so far, but if not, then all the mindless slaughter of Orcs becomes morally questionable.

I thought of another exception to the rule by the way: Ungoliant seems to have been wholly Evil from the Beginning as well, and at least somewhat independently so from Melkor, unlike other lesser Ainur like Sauron, the Balrogs, Saruman, etc.

But, as Ron Simpson says, all Evil ultimately leads to Good in Tolkien's creation, quoting the Ainulindale:

And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
​

I think Ungoliant may have been created directly by the Discord of Melkor. If Aule can make dwarves, surely Melkor can create things too. Though I do think the songs of the others ended up, via Eru's overriding power, creating Tom Bombadil to balance Ungoliant out. However, Bombadil seems eventually to have his power limited to the spot where he resides in The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps it was in some way limited after Ungoliant died sometime in the First Age.

Ungoliant destroyed herself, which is actually another theme that seems to come up a lot: often evil will evil mar.

Indeed, as I posted in another thread, it's possible Frodo used the power of the Ring to doom Gollum to fall into the Cracks of Doom if he tried to harm him again. Likely, he did this out of annoyance but was seduced by the deception of the Ring. He was already close to being brought under the Ring's power and the Ring probably assumed that Sam would kill Gollum or something. Plus, by using the power of the Ring, Frodo would be too seduced to destroy it, and would then fall to the lure of the power and claim it, which would alert Sauron to where they were, which was what Sauron and the Ring wanted.

However, when Gollum got the Ring, the Ring's own power ended up causing Gollum to fall into the Cracks of Doom, taking the Ring with it to its destruction.

Also, Saruman's interference to try and take the Ring stopped Merry and Pippin from being taken to the Dark Tower. The Isengard orcs luckily proved the stronger, as the Mordor orcs could easily have gotten a Nazgul to take Merry and Pippin across the River and back to Mordor. As brave as they are, I don't think they'd last very long being tortured by Sauron, and he'd have wrung the plan out of them and set a trap to capture Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. But, in addition to being attacked by Rohan, the Isengard and Mordor orcs also took each other out, and the mess with their infighting and Rohan coming ensured that no tale of what happened came back to Mordor or Isengard. Later, when Pippin messed with that Plantir, would COULD have been a disaster had Sauron decided to probe him further, Sauron went to pester Saruman instead, and Aragorn used the Plantir to contact Sauron, falsely leading Sauron to believe that Aragorn had the Ring, leading him AWAY from Frodo and Sam long enough for them to reach the Crack of Doom.


Also, Balin's death did serve a useful purpose too. Had he not died, they would NOT have stopped in the tomb room, but would have continued down the passage, only to be blocked by the fire of Balrog In this scenario, I think Gandalf would have lost and the Balrog could well have gotten the Ring.