This is basically an exercise to try and assign 'Dungeons &
Dragons' alignments to
evil characters in the legendarium.
Morgoth is probably clearly chaotic evil, though may also exhibit lawful evil tendencies (for example he commands
armies), while
Sauron may be described as Lawful evil. Their various minions might be either chaotic or lawful depending on certain factors.
Orcs are chaotic evil (their being uniformly evil is a whole issue by itself) when not serving the Dark Lords or not. The
Nazgûl are lawful evil whether or not they're serving Sauron, I would say.
Then there are the characters who are clearly neutral evil, namely
Smaug,
Ungoliant and
Shelob. Actually, it might be argued or at least wondered whether these two should logically be considered evil at all. Ungoliant feeds on light and thus helps kill the Two
Trees. But, as a living being, albeit with an unusual diet, is she not merely doing this out of self-preservation? Is it her fault she is the way she is? I don't think it was ever determined where she comes from; in any case, wouldn't the fault ultimately lie with
Eru? Shelob's evil is even more questionable. The text says she is evil but what does she do that qualifies her as such? Killing and eating things? This applies to any carnivorous animal in the wild. There isn't really any difference, though the text may use words such as 'lust' (e.g., 'she
lusted for sweeter meat'). Put another way, what threat does she pose to anyone or anything outside of the pass of
Cirith Ungol. It's my feeling that she is evil because the plot requires it, i.e. if she weren't evil the
Phial of Galadriel would logically not affect her.
Anyway, just musing out loud.
The Dungeons & Dragons alignments were created on the mistaken assumption that
The Lord of the Rings, and connected works, were attached to the same Genre as the
Sword & Sorcery epics of Howard, Dunsany, Lieber, Stafford, Moorcock, etc.
There is no “Law” and “Chaos” in Eä, which contains
Arda, which contains
Middle-earth.
Law and Chaos are pre/post-Abrahamic Theologican and Cosmological
Concepts that just don’t exist
AS Law or
AS Chaos within
Tolkien’s Mythology and
Cosmology.
While Judaism preserves them in a small fashion, as the small-l, small-c, ‘law’ and ‘chaos,’ these distinctions are erased in the Catholic Theology of Tolkien and the Catholic Church pre-dating that.
In Catholicism,
there can be no chaos that is connected to God, Good, and thus ‘Law.” The Christian Catholic God
IS LAW(Logos — The Word of God is Law — OR, more accurately, “The word of God IS.” Maybe with a “…
Period.” Added for emphasis).
And Evil is Chaos, inseparable and unified, because of the falseness and bad-faith of everything connected to the Satanic Aspects of Evil. Lord of Lies, the Deciever, etc. Those are also synonyms for the Chaos surrounding “Evil” in Catholic and Christian Theology due to the uncertainty, unpredictable nature of Evil.
Howard, Dunsany, etc. in basing their worlds upon a Pre-Christian, Pagan world were rejecting the Christian Theology and Cosmology as applying to their worlds.
Thus, Good and Evil were beside the point. The Existential Issue of these Universes
WAS AND IS EXISTENCE. Upon which Law and Chaos is
vastly more relevant than “good” or “evil.”
Law and Chaos
MUST REMAIN IN BALANCE FOR EXISTENCE TO CONTINUE.
For either to prevail means
NOTHING IS POSSIBLE.
If “Law” Prevails Wholly: The Universe becomes Uniform, Unchanging forever, any one spot in it at any point in time is indistinguishable forever (The end of Entropy — Matter and Energy are fully diffuse everywhere. Nothing moves as a result, nothing changes. The Universe is at its Highest Entropy, Lowest Energy State).
If “Chaos” Prevails Wholly: The Universe also becomes
effectively Uniform. Everywhere in the Universe is in a constant state of change from the smallest instant to the next. Time even if unhinged, with no point in the Universe existing at the same point in time, even. This means nothing can change in the universe, because nothing ever stays consistent enough for known,
necessary relationships to form to cause ”Intentional and Intensional Events” (Things caused for a reason, by someone for a given goal). But this implies any “Intent or Intension” CAN EXIST here. Because Chaos Prevails wholly, no intent can exist, because conscious minds are not possible.
As mentioned, these are effectively Uniform because both allow perfect Prediction of any point in the universe, and the consequences:
Nothing happens anywhere in either Universe.
The “Good” and “Evil” of the D&D System was tacked on by Gygax and Arneson because it matters to people living in the world what you intend to do in support of either “Law” or “Chaos.”
And in those systems, Law tended to become more associated with “Good” than did Chaos simply because the latter does not bode well for INTENTION OR INTENSION.
I.e. Things people do for a reason to cause some specific result.
Chaos doesn’t lend itself to forming stable Intent nor Intension, because the Chaotic Good’s Intent might change wholly, and become totally incompatible with a later act and desired goal or meaning.
Neutrality in this sense was kind of lost on most of the Sword & Sorcery Genre prior to Moorock and Lieber, where Dunsany understood it, but refused to interact much with others, such as Howard and Lovecraft who disagreed fiercely over “Neutrality.”
Neutrality is SUPPOSED to be about maintaining the Law/Chaos Balance; Maintaining Existence.
Not about the kind of False Neutrality seen today where people assume such stances demand no opinions on things. Protecting Existence demands an opinion about all manner of things, and favoring Law or Chaos (Good or Evil are really irrelevant to it).
But in publications in the late-70s and Early-1980s, in the Gaming Industry Associated with Role Playing Games, such as
The Dragon,
The Space Gamer (If anyone wishes, I can get Steve to get me some of the articles on this subject that were never published because of his partner at Metagaming), or GW/Citadel’s
The White Dwarf we saw this finally explained after people like Greg Stafford (who was the authority on this sort of thing, having built Glorantha specifically to demonstrate that Good and Evil
MUST TAKE A SIDE in the Law/Chaos conflict, because of their respective intents.
“Good
MUST PREFERENCE EXISTENCE. Meaning that it will slightly favor Law, which favors a rules-based-system to maintain existence.”
“Evil
MUST PREFERENCE CHAOS. Because of the desire to Dominate is easier when others cannot predict your actions and near-term Goals”
Notice the difference in the preference of the two? Good Preferences the State of the Universe. Evil Preferences both that State
and controlling it..
Nothing in Middle-earth has a “Law” or “Chaos” alignment akin to D&D.
And by Church Theology it would likely be blasphemy to suggest it, given Dei Logos === The Law (the
symbol “===“, or others like it: “≡” or “≣”, means “Is the exact same thing, without difference or other” i.e… “This Car === The VW Sirocco I owned in 1982” That means “It isn’t a random VW Sirocco from 1982 that is the same color with the same features.” But THE VW Sirocco I owned in 1982).
Suggesting God has any amount of change or “chaos” is damnable, Horribly so. Without absolution for most of Church History… You say that and you’ve just guaranteed a spot in one of Satan’s mouth’s alongside Judas and the others he’s sucking on (or maybe frozen closest to the most unpleasant spot at the other end of Satan, past which all Penitents must pass to reach Purgatory). Although I suspect you’d get a chance for absolution by submitting to one of the
Auto de Fe on offer, must like tests for Witchcraft guaranteed to kill you in the process.
Exploring the idea is one we did back prior to people like Stafford, Moorock, and others smacking us kids up the side of the head (or in Moorcock’s case, punching me in the face — I earned it, and he was right). They weren’t the only ones, even if they were the only ones who really were interested in exploring what Tolkien actually believed and how it affected
The Nature of Middle-earth (hmmm… You think there might be a reason for that work being titlesd that).
But ultimately that exploration must arrive at the same conclusion that people like Darwin did when exploring things like Spontaneous Production:
Reject it.
MB
And for the inevitable passive aggressive whiners. I am sorry you are upset (only at the desire to find offense, really), but maybe instead of your indignant “How dare you!” You maybe look into some of the above and offer an actual substantive response to it, rather than being offended at being offended.
Yeah, that's the quote. Basically a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of line. I wonder if Tolkien just forgot to say what this meant. When
Melkor first recruits Ungoliant it is she who wraps them both in darkness. Nothing I could find that says he gives her any power.
“Power” doesn’t mean what people keep using it to mean.
Karl Hostetter goes into that a bit. Tolkien in other
places in Letters.
It means “Authority” and little else. But in Catholic Theology (See Aquinas’ Metaphysics) having “Authority/Power” is a freaking big deal, even if that “Power/Authority” is usurped wrongfully, stolen, etc.
Having the “Authority” to do something means it is harder for others to
rightfully stop you.
And for people whom having the “Right” to do something is central to their being… That makes is rather powerful, before a person who is using a Usurped Authority/Power even brings to bear things Tolkien refers to as “Might” (Physical, and Spiritual Strength, or Armies and others they have “Authority/Power” over).
BTW… The “Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type of line.”
Pretty much every sentence of Letters, and HoM-e is one of those.
Which is why Hostetter opens and repeats so often the phrase from p. x of
The Preface of
The History of Middle-earth, Vol X: Morgoth’s Ring:
Meditating long on the world that he had brought into being and was now in part unveiled, he had become absorbed in analytic speculation concerning its underlying postulates. Before he could prepare a new and final Silmarillion he must satisfy the requirements of a coherent theological and metaphysical system, rendered now more complex in its presentation by the supposition of obscure and conflicting elements in its roots and its tradition.
Literally the opening words of the Forward of
The Nature of Middle-earth.
He opens with this because it means “Tolkien was pursuing something here which he told us already was a “Fundamentally Catholic/Christian” work, where he also tells us he is pursuing “Theology” and “Metaphysics” (That means Catholic Theology and Metaphysics, which in Tolkien’s day meant having t9 get permission from your priest to pursue those subjects, beginning with the Aquinas Tolkien was already familiar with due to it being required in several of his Grade School and University Coursework. But it also means going back to Augustine, Boethius, Origen, Procopius, and the others of the 2nd to 4th Centuries, before going through everything that gave rise to Aquinas’ Unification of Plato and Aristotle — which technically failed, but that is an issue for Philosophy and Modern Sciences, where Theology will always be playing catch-up).
And the “Blink-and-you-miss-it” parts are so numerous because of the loaded religious terms that modern readers are not aware of the early-20th Century Significance. A good example is the word “Kinds” when discussing people,
animals, or
plants — Life.
Go watch
Inheret the Wind about the Snopes Monkey Trials, in which William J Bryant will use this word exactly as Tolkien does a few times. It is relevant to Pre-Vatican II Catholicism, where Catholicism accepted Biological Evolution as a method of Creation (Tolkien was revolted at this), as a means of Signalling “Created Life” — such as the Miröanwi of Middle-earth — and of the means of creation, and of what is and isn’t possible within the Universe for that Life, with the signal that it is another
Dei Logos (Word of God), and thus Law of the Universe.
Any Theology is painfully specific and carrying loaded language like that, as are the Sciences, even if the latter have a Generalizability lacking in the former.
MB
Well, maybe
fault is the wrong word. Maybe
credit would be more apt:
Whether she is "one of those that he corrupted to [Melkor's] service" or not, she has to be considered something that was meant as an alteration to the music but that ultimately lends itself to the "devising of things more wonderful". And this proves true because her feeding on the Two Trees ultimately leads to the creation of the Sun and Moon.
On a smaller scale, her daughter Shelob, even though she is merely a predator given evil trappings, actually, in a way, contributes to the success of the Quest.
Ungoliant, and
Bombadil both are a product of the Music.
They are
spirits akin to those of the
Rivers,
Mountains, and other “Parts” of Arda for which a Consciousness arose to “know itself.” (Temet Nosce).
Ungoliant is a part of the Discord, Melkor seeking to force the Creation to spawn things he can use. Bombadil simply Arda asking “Who am I?”
Both are included to show that Eru pulls all strings, controls all outcomes, and accounted for it already.
MB
