July 16, 2003

Re: Anatar and Wisdom
Danny

No worries about offending me. I rather enjoyed your response. It is good to have a discussion with good ideas (at least good responses to my ideas anyway.) I have been away from the site for a few days and I just barely found your counter arguments.

You have some very good points, but you also twisted a lot of what I said to mean other things. Your idea that Gandalf should have claimed the ring and challenged Valinor to provoke a response is intriguing. I would be hard pressed to call it a noble effort but it also would be running a great risk. The ring's will for self preservation may have been enough to keep it from happening. Plus, who is to say the Valar would have even allowed the challenge to succeed or even paid it any heed? Recall that the straight path to Valinor was not open to all, and there is a good chance that Valinor would have ignored any challenge and left the path closed to a challenger. A very intriguing idea, and one that is not entirely without merit, however I think that the risk to the world was just as great or even greater because then Gandalf would have been a traitor like Saruman and the good would been in even worse shape to resist.

I don't imply that good always wins, nor do I beleive in fate. At the same time, I beleive that Tolkien's writings are full of the idea that in the very end at least, good will triumph. Christianity is full of that hope, and while LOTR and Silmarillion are obviously not Christian in nature, I beleive they reflect a similar idea. That is not to mean that evil will not win some battles, nor that we should not fight to oppose evil with all that we have.

I find it interesting that you would twist the idea that perhaps Illuvitar would cause Gollum to stumble and fall as something murderous. If Illuvitar created all life, then is it too much of a stretch to beleive that he would have the power to end one's life in order to save the lives of millions of others? Again in Biblical terms (used for lack of real knowledge of other religious texts) there are those who by divine power take life. Take David for example. I beleive (while others may disagree) that the Creator of life also has the right to take back the gift given. So no I am not repulsed by the idea that divine intervention caused Gollum to fall.

The Gods in LOTR left Middle Earth largely to its own devices to struggle against the evils they would face. However, they also intervened at key moments in indirect ways. Gandalf was sent back to finish the job. The fact that the Maiar were sent at all shows that Valinor still held interest in fighting evil in Middle earth. I do agree however that in Tolkien's lore the mistakes of the Valar were grevious and they should have taken more responsability to put down what they created. However, to say that the Valar did not intervene at key moments is in my mind short sighted. Their intervention was always as slight and inconsequential as it could be. So it doesn't seem to be too far a stretch in that regards to say that it was the will of good that caused the Ring to be destroyed.

As to the statement of it being a "fools hope" that is a very good argument. However, if I remember correctly, it was also made clear that any hope was a fool's hope and no clear easy path to victory was there. So Gandalf was a wise fool because he was wise enough not to despair. To despair and accept defeat would have been the greater folley. Is it not a sign of great wisdom that Gandalf recognized the only possible plan for success ammidst so many alternate plans? You are very right that Gandalf made things happen, but he also trusted that there were other forces at work in this world besides the will of evil.

So in conclusion of this very long post (sorry for the length) I still hold to my stand that Gandalf showed wisdom and foresight to choose the plan that brought victory. It was clear to him that Frodo would not be able to destroy the Ring. I don't believe that this in neccesarily implies fate. There is a difference between foresight and fate. I still beleive that Olorin who was known for his great wisdom was a fool only for hoping in victory, but was wise to fight for victory and wise to have the foresight to take the great risk and find victory. There was no sure victory, as is almost always the case, and finding the only possible solution ammong so many took wisdom far greater than Sauron exemplified.