July 26, 2002

Stir the Hornets Nest!
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David H, it was fate that laid out the path to the rings destruction?! What is fate but the preordained unalterable future. If such is the case no living thing in the world has free will, and so by default all the worlds woes are the responsibility of the maker(who set that unalterable future). So in the case of Middle-earth all the evils that have beset its peoples are not Morgoth's or Sauron's fault but Eru's. Free will and fate never can mix they are complete opposites. So back to Middle-earth, the ring, free will etc. There are only two options in regards to the rings destruction, (1) Gandalf was extremely lucky or (2) Eru took a direct hand and tripped poor Gollum (In which case Sauron was defeated by an overwhelmingly more powerful foe, so no shame there!). Danny, Sauron made one mistake as to his enemies plans, but even without knowing them his forethought to make the ring extremely desirable caused the plan to failed and it took a God - Eru, to save their bacon (or maybe it was plain luck, you choose!). Gandalf the "wise"! Yes master Gandalf always hatched plots at a distance, risky plots at that, and why not! What did he have to lose? Nothing! If I, I mean if Sauron had won all he had to do was return to Valinor to live happily ever after. Gandalf had no vested interest in Middle-earth or its peoples, which is why he gambled so much on such a long shot ("He cared!" I hope no one said that, if he had cared, he would have taken the ring, risks and all, and tried to destroy it himself, instead of using a poor Hobbit). I will leave you with a disturbing though, if Eru did intervene and cause the rings destruction, that means Eru caused the death of Gollum, Eru murdered Gollum(Manslaughter maybe if a guilty plea is entered), Eru is evil, Eru is Saurons enemy, which makes Sauron good! See you later ;)