April 21, 2002

Good and Evil
Kailam

There is one thing in Tolkien's works that, to me, closely mirrors the philosophies taught in Christianity (and possibly other religions). This is the fact that the "good" spirits in the universe are, for some reason, disallowed to interfere directly with the physical world except in the most extreme circumstances while the "evil" ones seem to have free reign to screw up peoples' lives whenever they see fit.

Consider first modern Christianity. Many Christian faiths teach that there are demons all around us, always trying to tempt us and lead us off the path of righteousness. These demons can mess with us whenever they want, creating pain and suffering in our lives to try and make us lose faith in God. We must pray to God and ask for help from Him to fight off temptation and keep demons at bay. For some reason Angels can't just come down to Earth and kick the crap out of all the demons. WE just have to live with it and hope that God hears our prayers and comes to our aid when we need Him.

Similarly, the Valar do not come to the aid of Middle-Earth throughout Melkor's reign of terror until, at some point, for whatever reason, they finally decide to come and capture him, and lock him away for eternity. Why choose that time to do so? Why not sooner? Of course, it's because of some "grand design" that only Iluvatar knows about. Yeah, whatever.

Meanwhile, when the Valar sense a new evil in Middle-Earth that will turn out to be Sauron, they send the Istari (Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast...). Now, these are Maia, the SAME entity that Sauron is, yet for some reason, in order to assist the people of Middle-Earth, they must be stripped of their Godly powers and live out their lives in physical bodies. They can't just gang up and kick Sauron's behind. NO NO NO!! They can use only the "powers of the Earth" to guide and protect the peoples of Middle-Earth and, as such, have no hope of being as powerful as Sauron. Again, some master plan of Iluvatar must be at work here.

Why is this? Why are Men and Elves forced to deal with the evils that transcend the physical world, only to get an occasional bone thrown from the Good forces of the universe? It perplexes me, as I imagine it did Tolkien, enough to model his fantasy world in the same manner, forcing the less powerful entities of the universe (elves, men, and dwarves) to rise in strength to a seemingly impossible level to defeat those much more powerful than themselves. I suppose, in the end, it offers us hope against all odds, and belief in ourselves. But that doesn't make it fair!