Because Tolkien made him that way.
Pass the cranberries, please.
So if they can’t make them again, isn’t that being diminished?
Well, they were unique creative acts. Da Vinci said he could never replicate the “Mona Lisa” yet he went on to other, and equal if not greater works. Was he diminished?
I thought there were a bunch of copies of Mona Lisa by Da Vinci.
Good points, I stand corrected.
Would a person, knowing Sauron’s true motives (dominion over all so that order may reign), consider Him to be evil after watching the movie Hero?
WRS
You bumped a two year old thread to ask that? And, I’d also object to your question as introducing facts not in evidence; specifically, that Sauron’s motivation is to bring order to Middle Earth. Where did you get that from?
Why is Sauron evil? His minions ressurect zombie threads, that’s why.
Consider this. The Lord of the Rings was written from the perspective of hobbits, men, and Maiar such as Gandalf. It is their perspective that is shown. But every side its own perspective. I am trying to ascertain what Sauron’s perspective might be. It is only fair, considering that the title refers to Sauron, whose view is excluded by the propaganda of his enemies.
Hero, to me, is relevant because it discusses a theme or an issue that relates to this issue. Someone may seem to be evil and vile while he or she may be doing something that is actually, in the long run, good.
The King of Qin wanted to united the warring kingdoms so that peace and stability may reign. The one person who could have assassinated him realized this and spared him, so that the King’s dream of a united, stable China could come true. The most skilled and second assassin realizes this too (or, more accurately, is convinced of the first assassin’s view) and spares the King. He even sacrifices his life, basically, for the King as he knew that failing to kill the King would surely mean his own execution.
Sauron is the servant of Melkor. Melkor disagreed with the Valar’s granting of free will to the living beings: he wanted to rule, and with his iron-fisted rule make sure that everything dances to a harmony he considered to be stable and regular. From Melkor’s point of view, one may say that the melody ensuing from the Valar’s original plans would be so full of conflict and cacaphony and it would justify keeping under strict control under Melkor, who considered to know better than the lesser beings. Now, let us grant him the benefit of the doubt that he was truly motivated by an interest in harmony (even if by force). The Valar, of course, turn on him, glorfying and using their own force to put into play the plan they thought was right. How can they say that they are more right than he is, the mightest of them all? The first act of pride was committed by the Valar, if one looks at it from Melkor’s perspective.
Now, of course Sauron, in the service of Melkor, would come to absorb and believe in the attitudes and goals of Melkor. So one can say that he, too, would be interested in enforcing a peace and stability that keeps everything under control. Of course it would have to be under Sauron’s control, since he knows what’s best. However, every time he tries to do this, the proud and vain enemies to his dream of order and stability rise and ruthlessly attack him, his peoples, his armies, and his lands, all so they can preserve their own realms of rule and dominance. They are not interested in goodness, freedom, or all that: they don’t want to loose what little power they have. Of course Sauron has nothing but malice towards those who stand in his way: they are blocking his dream of enforcing order. Their continual opposition to his goals have embittered him, especially what with their tendency to attack and belittle him at any opportunity. They are weaky, puny mortals (the Men at least) - how dare they believe they know better than Sauron, the mightiest of the Maiar, servant of the mightiest of the Valar?
So:
How would Sauron’s malice be any different from the malice of the King of Qin?
I know this is a looooooooooong stretch of the imagination, but try imagining it from the other side: would it not make sense? Would this not mean that Sauron is not evil, simply misunderstood?
(As an aside: I thought I’d discuss this question in this thread because it deals with the same question. I thought I read somewhere that it is bad form to start a new thread when there’s one already in existence: so rather than start a new one, why not continue an old one? If I did something wrong or in bad form, please let me know so I will know better for future reference.)
WRS
Look, WeRSauron, we really do frown on resurrecting old threads. Many of the people who posted here are no longer around the boards, and so have no chance to respond to what you’re talking about.
The better approach is to start a new thread on the topic and then provide a link to the old thread, OK?
I’m going to leave this open, but please don’t get in the habit of doing this.
I had to add this information: please go to this old thread. Read post 39, then post 41 (in response to 39). (Sorry, I don’t know how to create links that go to a specific post in a thread!) My attitude is somewhat like Pantone Swatchbook’s; furthermore, as much I love Qadgop the Mercotan and his wisdom and erudition, the answer (post 41) does not satisfy me. Surely the issue does not have to be so black and white.
(And I did not resurrect that thread because it’s core issue was different from this one’s.)
WRS
Thank you for the guidance, Czarcasm. Won’t happen again.
WRS - may the moderators be given blessings and abundant patience for dealing with idiots like me.
Within the context of Tolkien’s ouevre, Sauron is evil by definition – he is the senior surviving rebel against the One deity, Eru Iluvatar, who created all things and established a moral code for them, and set Manwe in charge. And yet, the Ainulindale shows that even within that setup, Eru is in charge, and is shaping good out of the evil wrought by Morgoth and Sauron (the Tolkien characters).
Looking at it from a real-world perspective, either you bring to the table moral standards of some sort or you do not. If you do, then either they are theistically based or not. I cannot presume to speak for those who are philosophically amoral or non-theistically moral, but within my own setup, the theistically moral, the idea that Sauron typifies rebellion against God’s purposes within the story makes him evil from a real-world standpoint, just as those in rebellion against God’s purposes (as distinguished from in rebellion against those who think they know God’s purposes) in the real world are evil.
Izzat any help? Or does it just confuse the issue more?
We see your point. Tell Us if We got it right: if taken from the perspective of the world created by Tolkien or one that is theistically based (which the world of Tolkien, in the end, is), it must be conceded that Sauron is evil and, furthermore, the King of Evil (who was, as it were, the Crown Prince of Evil during Melkor’s reign; but now that Melkor is gone, Sauron is, in effect, the King). This because Melkor and His successor Sauron have rebelled against God/Eru Iluvatar and continue (in the storyline) to do so, and rebellion against God/Eru Iluvatar, His purposes, and His agents is evil from that perspective. (In addition, from this perspective, the spread of ruin and desolation is evil, etc., etc.)
Would considering this issue from a non-theistic and/or non-Tolkien perspective change anything? What about comparing Sauron with the King of Qin?
WRS
Precisely. Nice job!
I must respectfully decline to answer – because I have a difficult time reasoning from a non-theistic/non-humanistic perspective on issues of morality. And bluntly, my humanism takes me in the same direction as my theism, probably because Tolkien made the issue so black-and-white.
You might notice, however, that it is not Sauron himself which is ultimate evil, but rather the lust for power, which is now incarnated in the One Ring. Sauron is as much its slave as its master. (Tolkien was no melodramatist when it came to ultimate ethical issues.)
Sauron! You’re back!
Oh… the OP? I always gathered it was Melkor’s doing.
Tolkien wrote at length in either his Letters or HOME about Sauron’s initial motivation being the desire to bring about order in Middle earth (I believe the latter, but I’m ashamed to say that right now I don’t remember exactly where, and I’m feeling too lazy to go look it up). After the fall of Morgoth, Sauron even briefly repented of his earlier crimes, but his change of heart didn’t last long.
Kytheria, Sauron isn’t back, just the thread. Check the date on that post.
If Melkor reasoned that he was the best qualified and therefore ought to control the music, his reasoning was incorrect. While he was certainly “greater” than the other Valar, and perhaps therefore better qualified than them, the other Valar were not producing a music according to their own order, but according to the order of Eru, who Melkor had to know was vastly superior to himself. If, therefore, Melkor’s rebellion against Eru’s score is justifiable by virtue of Melkor being the greatest of those under Eru, then rebellion against Melkor’s rival score would be equally justifiable by the greatest under Melkor. Continue this, and one would end up with every Ainu singing his or her own tune, with no overall harmony at all.
It’s my understanding that the underlying root behind evil, in Tolkien’s writings, is pride. Melkor recognized his own greatness, and grew prideful, believing that because he was so great, it was right for him to rule. Feanor’s pride in his craftmanship led to his unwillingness to unmake the Silmarils, even though the light in them was not his own. Aule’s creation of the Dwarves was an act of pride, and he was only forgiven it because he then humbled himself and his creations. I think that ultimately, every evil act in Tolkien is traceable to pride.
Bokonon had another quote, which may be applicable to this thread: both to the OP subject matter and to those who know The Silmarillion by memory. Not that it is a bad book, but by Eru is that shit complicated.
" Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
(which is my motto in grad school – murderous resentment and all of that).
One other thing, to address the zombie bump (band name). I had a similar thread about 3 years ago about the AIs in The Matrix. Yeah, sure, from the human perspective they are real party-poopers, but if you look at it from their perspective, all the humans ever wanted to do was to destroy them. From blocking out the sun to nuking the surface to rebelling in Zion. Mind you, this was before the second movie, and especially before The Animatrix, which in at least some of the stories provides confirmation of this: the AIs really are not the bad guys. They ain’t the good guys, either, but they concede readily to a workable deal allowing coexistance.
Perhaps what we need is a unilateral separation of Middle Earth from Mordor. Yeah, it smells of appeasement, but we have seen that appeasement sometimes works. After Mordor’s crushing defeat at the End of the Third Age, the rest of Middle Earth needs to ensure that ordinary Mordorians can also live in peace and taste the fruits of a free society. But of course there needs to be a close watch for illegal Sauronist insurgency. Perhaps we can have a multi-national peacekeeping force of elves and Istari patrolling a no-man’s zone, with a security fence preventing illegal suicide-orc crossings over the Ithilien. Middle Earth is allowed to have monitoring stations in the East, in the South along the Harad Road, and at Osgiliath, to monitor for illegal forges of mass destruction related programs at Oroduin. Perhaps with surface-to-air trebuchet installations to deter fell beast incursions. Minas Morgul will be designated as an international city, patrolled by joint patrols of orcs and elves (they are descended from the same source, no?).
…Oh.