Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: handling evil persons (was Re: Eonwe and Sauron) Date: 27 Feb 2000 23:52:26 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 133 Message-ID: <6uitzatg0l.fsf_-_@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 951691946 679 10.0.3.2 (27 Feb 2000 22:52:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2000 22:52:26 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:14947 sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes: > Quoth brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown): > > I think the Valar were naive in some ways. Remember that they > [snip] > > I think the key line is "Manwë was free from evil and could not > > comprehend it", and I think all the Valar and Maiar shared that Most likely. One usually only understands anything new in its full consequence after seeing it happen for the first time. Seeing is simply far more persuasive than immagination/speculation. > How otherwise would you have it? Should Manwe and the Valar meet > secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more > lies? What about: meet secrecy with open declaration of what one will do, treachery with a clean standpoint that one adheres to, lies with the true reporing of what one intends to do and why so. > If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny his? > ...Melkor had the right to exist, and the right to act and use his > powers. So did all his past, and _far_more_important_ future victims have their right to exist, which was/will be denied to them. Any decent judge knows that it is his job to select the _lesser_evil_ of stopping the criminal (at the price of harming him (one) even though he may be truly reformed) or of letting the criminal go free (at the price of potentially harming (many?) future victims). > Manwe had the authority to rule and to order the world, so > far as he could, for the well-being of the Eruhini; Yes, including the well-being of all the potential future victims of Melkor (such as all them killed Elves (not just the Noldor who Manwe did not expect to leave but also Sindar he knew to be over in ME) and all the Men (Edain and Easterlings)). And Manwe was capable of imagining that Melkor would harm at least the inhabitants of ME. After all why else did the Valar go and arrest Melkor to save the Elves? And they had seen Utumno by now. > but if Melkor > would repent and return to the allegiance of Eru, he must be given > his freedom again... And if not, if he just lied to get out, the future victims lose their lives, not just their freedom. Balancing such predicted consequences is the job of a judge. > Therefore not until the last, and not then > except by the express command of Eru and by his power, was Melkor > thrown utterly down and deprived for ever of all power to do or to > undo... The proper time to strip Melkor of his power was in exactly that moment, in which the judge (be this Manwe or Eru) came to the conclusion, that Melko will produce more future victims than one (i.e. the equvalent of killing him). One can fault Manwe of not taking the threat that Melkor was for serious enough. His only defense can be, that he at the time of Melkors first trial he simply did not understand evil. Later this defense stopped being credible, latest with the killing of Finwe. > Who can say with assurance that if Melkor had been held in > bond less evil would have followed? Bondage of Melkor was actually the big mistake of Manwe. Either he should have taken Melkor at his word and pardonned him immediately, or he should have not believed him and stripped him of his powers immediately. Bondage could only ever have had a bad effect: deepening hate in the case of an lieing Melkor and reversing repentance ("I did good and I get this") in the case of an truly repentant Melkor. I will add that it was exactly the fear of this repeating that drove Sauron away. The entire "prove repentance by 'accepting' bondage" was actually nonsense. Repentance can only be trusted when the person repenting delivers proof (stopping being recklessly egoist) from their own _free_ will, without aiming for gain (=egoisn) from this action, i.e. without the possible motive of escaping punishment. Once such an evil one is captured, this possibility is gone, and one can not trust their word any more. Destroying them is then the only sane reaction. In a sense this is the ultimate tragedy: repenting, but too late. Yet annother reason to avoid evil as a strategy in life, or at least to give it up in a timely fashion. Or in the memorisable words of Gorbatchov: those that come too late are punnished by life. In a sense Melkor even got Manwe to react in an evil way here (so it was not just Feanor who fell, Manwe did it way long before him, with all the bad consequences). > And so on. It's a wonderful discussion, and I think it applies to > Eonwe and Sauron as well. Just because Sauron and Morgoth had not > been trustworthy was no excuse to treat them as unworthy of trust when > they asked it, at least the first time. For Melkor/Morgoth after the wars of Beleriand it was of course the second time, with the proper consequence. As for Sauron escaping and remaining evil: one would assume that the lesson of not trusting claims of repentance by those that have shown themselves totally evil had been learned by Manwe. As for Eonwe: he as herold and deputy of Manwe should be expected to have also learned this lesson. Even if not, Manwe should have recognized the situation and sent out a search party. I think we can squarely put the blame of negligence on Manwe in the case of Sauron getting away (and also for Saurons reason for wanting to get away). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Wizzard, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, Mystic Computer: a toy, speeds work so that you have more time to play