>Im evil because...im evil
Bravo, Tolkien
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>Im evil because...im evil
>Im evil because...im evil
Bravo, Tolkien
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>misses every single reason as to why he is evil
>Decides not to read.
Bravo moron.
>you need to read the book to understand the character's motivations
yikes
Not even reading the books will give you Saurons motivations.
Nowhere in the entire Legendarium is Sauron actually treated as anything more than a one dimensional cartoon villain and metaphor for evil.
The shitty Amazon show did unironically more to explore Saurons character than 5 million pages of Tolkien writing.
Or actually reading them does, since you know, some of us read them.
>Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and co-ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.) Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be likely to think and do, even without the aid of palantíri or of spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his 'plans', the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.
Sauron wanted to bring order to the world, to do that he needed to dominate the world, and that required power, when then created a never ending craving for more and more power to do what he wants, leading to a series of moral compromises since it led to what he ultimately wanted, then turned into wanting power and dominance for the sake of power and dominance
how the frick do you get an appreciation and understand for a narrative then? Man you is one of them fricktards who can't wait to jump into the pods and eat zeh boogs
> you need to perceive something in order to perceive and understand it
Yes, homosexual.
>yikes
redditgay
Why isn’t your antagonist projecting his reasons why do I need to read an archaeologist and linguist’s body of work to get it
Are you asking why do you need to read the book to know the book?
Wow. Zoomers DO be moronic
Sorry but i dont know if you are referring to me, admitting something or do something else.
Why Sauron is evil is pretty obvious
point was that people read wiki at most
Oh, ok. Thanks for clarifying.
This is stupid tho. Why read wikis about something you dont have the slightest clue about? Are vidya and YouTube to blame?
mostly youtube imo
games usually have in game notes explaining stuff or you find out by talking to npcs
people are lazy to read and than they just watch youtube video X story explained or 40 hour essay
What shiw was this again?
taimanin spies
Wikis are full of autism and at least as wordy as the original works at this point.
LOTR shit seems to be one of the worst ones with wikis overblowing shit and making it seem ten times more important too.
Some event or thing will have just one line in HoME somewhere, and the wiki will have three paragraphs on it, that is 99% speculation but the wiki readers think they have some huge part of the deep lore here when the wiki autists added in a shitload more than the single sentence Tolkien gave us. Almost all the first age stuff and before the ages of the sun stuff is like this.
>guns germs and steel
HA! That's how I read half the books I don't care enough about to actually read!
Frick off I'm not reading Catcher in the rye!
>the antagonists motivation is buried 7,000,000,000 words in
Thanks I’ll get right on that
>Why do I need to watch the movie to understand the movie?
Zoomers can't understand anything over 30 seconds
What was his tax policy?
Didn't have one. Mordor was a tributary state that got money and slaves from subjugated nations.
>Didn't have one.
that's some lazy writing
No it’s just not autistic writing.
Because no neurotypical person gives a flying frick about a fictional land’s tax policy.
>Because no neurotypical person gives a flying frick about a fictional land’s tax policy.
Unless it directly impacts on the story/setting. Even then I'd have it as something in the background. Thinking along the levels of "The colonies are getting pissy about how much we're taxing them and are revolting over it", rather than going into any actual detail on the tax policies.
Admit it Americans, Tax Policy can have far reaching consequences. The difference is no-one cares about the minutia of that tax policy when they're just trying to roll some dice.
We know for sure that a portion of salvaged materiel belongs to the ruler. His directly managed lands are run as a fully command economy, so there's nothing to tax directly; vassal realms have varying taxation and economic models, as one would expect of such a wide range of cultures and states.
Centralized planned economy. I don't know if his hordes even had currency
Does that make Mordor communist? I'm no economy expert, but the only instance of centralized planned economy with no currency I can think of would be the envisioned ideal society that Soviet Union was striving for (and never quite reached).
Or is it more of planned macro economy imposed on culture so primitive it never developed currency in the first place / never went past barter trade on local level.
The latter although it has less to do with the primitiveness of a culture and more to do with Sauron’s overwhelming magic and technological power that renders real world economic analogies somewhat inapplicable
I don't know, the glimpse we get of Mordor society almost hints at a corporate like structure. Specifically the orcs are given individual identification numbers, suggesting that everything is much more organized and sorted in a mundane way than just calling it magic.
I think Mordor did have a proper economy, supported by extensive slave work down in Nurn and tributes from the foreign lands it conquered or turned to worship. You can argue that "tribute" and "taxes" are more or less the same, and even orcs need basic necessities to survive, so there was at least a controlled flow of resources.
Its hard to say if a currency would have been used, though. It existed in other parts of the world, but when your population is made up of thralls or slaves, its feasible that Mordor could manage without the need to use a currency system, though its tributaries would likely have their own.
100% tax policy. he takes everything
they say it right in the 3rd movie. i dont know how so many people miss it or think it never gets mentioned like this is some kind of gotcha
?si=0OBtRHCGVCYKSKM1&t=36
>1488
Neat, but still the movies are not canon.
the OP pic is the movie version of sauron. we are talking about the movies and their spinoff games. not the books.
He is Caliph and Emperor of a tributary empire that exists to funnel raw material, non-bulk foodstuff and luxuries to the central capital and industrial zones and slaves to the fertile lands where Mordor grows its bulk foodstuff.
This in turn allows Sauron to arm and feed the core of his state, a conscript ethnic population of workers and soldiers bound to him by fear, millennia of service enforced by periodic reconquest after his absents and metaphysical authority which to humans is conveyed as his religious position as the representative of Melkor on Arda. Orcs understand what wealth is and possess basic economic systems dominated by tribal exploitation and tributes. But the Centralised Industrial state on trades in resources, including being able to regulate the Orcish breeding cycle to swell the population prior to mass conscription.
Orcish numbers tend to be low in periods where Sauron is inactive, so it is by his will the tribes breed and yet Sauron had to force the powerful Orc chiefs to the east to submit as related in the letters.
Sauron conscripts the majority of the Orc population for his wars, fielding two armies of 75,000 (including human tributaries) and with another 100,000-150,000 mixed forces in reserve in Mordor. Assuming he only took males and that he left a reserve population plus the border guards and work gangs in the industrial areas, that does put Orc numbers (the only reliable core for his Empire at a max of 500,000 individuals).
Sauron’s Mordor is basically the Achaemenid Empire if it had a God-Emperor, corrupted Alexander the Great into an undying wraith after he returned from India and lasted long enough fight the Charlemagne and Eastern Roman Empire.
>Orcish numbers tend to be low in periods where Sauron is inactive, so it is by his will the tribes breed
Does he force them to breed or does he mostly just stop their infighting?
They didn't trouble the lands of Gondor when Sauron was in hiding and even the Goblin Wars with the Dwarves didnthappen until after he set up in Southern Greenwood. But the Orcs remeber a time when they could do what they wanteds without "Bosses" odrering them around, suggesting that they simply lack the will to do anything but skulk about and breed when they feel like it, which might not be very often since they live 100-150 years.
The orcs of the misty mountains still had a colossal kingdom under Azog somehow, with deep trade relations with men and dwarves. So orcs when left to their own devices aren't necessarily savages whom cannot accomplish much.
I believe their is a line in the Sim that could be interpreted that some orcs fought against Morgoth. It was something about how everyone but the elves had people fighting on both sides. Tolkien probably just wasn't thinking of the orcs at the time, but it is an interesting thought.
Yeah, all living things found a side either for or against Sauron. Which implies there's ents that sided with Sauron, noble Trolls that stood for freedom, and dwarves marching under the eye. That last one is just stated, "few fought on either side, but of Durin's folk all opposed the dark lord".
>Sauron has returned once more, here is your state mandated Uruk Hai GF.
>Get to Breedin' or else we'll get Shi'nzo Abzog in here to motivate you
>Sauron’s Mordor is basically the Achaemenid Empire if it had a God-Emperor, corrupted Alexander the Great into an undying wraith after he returned from India and lasted long enough fight the Charlemagne and Eastern Roman Empire.
I will now play your setting.
Sassanid Empire was not that different, it's mostly a natural continuation of the Achaemenid Empire.
Reminder that Orcs, by Tolkien's own words, are non-sapient animals without free will, their speech is just a more advanced version of a parrot repeating noises it has heard without actual understanding.
>In summary: I think it must be assumed that 'talking' is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fea.(7) The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted I converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their 'talking' was really reeling off 'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words - he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much independence as have, say, dogs or horses of their human masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots). In The Lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for them.(8)The same sort of thing may be said of Huan and the Eagles: they were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level - but they still had no fear.
Meanwhile in the letters Tolkien mentions that the orcs just had their wills dominated a while lot. They were still independent creatures.
>"It is true, of course, that Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them become ere Angband fell that, if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye’ wherever they might be; and when Morgoth was at last removed from Arda, the Orcs that survived in the West were scattered, leaderless and almost witless, and were for a long time without control or purpose. This servitude to a central will that reduced the Orcs almost to an ant-like life was seen even more plainly in the Second and third ages under the tyranny of Sauron, Morgoth’s chief lieutenant."
>"Those Orks who dwelt long under the immediate attention of his will –( as garrisons of his strongholds or element of armies trained for special purposes in his war-designs – would act like herds, obeying instantly, as if with one will, his commands even ordered to sacrifice their lives in his service. And as was seen when Morgoth was at last overthrown and cast out, those orks that had been so absorbed scattered helplessly, without purpose either to flee or to fight, and soon died or slew themselves. Other originally independent creatures, and Men among them (but neither Elves nor Dwarves), could also be reduced to a like condition. But 'puppets', with no independent life or will, would simply cease to move or do anything at all when the will of their maker was brought to nothing. In any case the number of orks that were thus 'absorbed' was always only a small part of their total. To hold them in absolute servitude required a great expense of will. Morgoth though in origin possessed of vast power was finite; and it was this expenditure upon the orks, and still more upon the other far more formidable creatures in his service, that in the event so dissipated his powers of mind that Morgoth's overthrow became possible. Thus the greater part of the orks, though under his orders and the dark shadow of their fear of him, were only intermittently objects of his immediate thought and concern, and while that was removed they relapsed into independence and became conscious of their hatred of him and his tyranny."
You might say he was ontologically evil
I'm not giving (you) any (you)s.
READ homie READ
> Im evil because I like order
Sauron was already Sauron's Lieutenant before the Quendi left Middle Earth, its not like the Silmarillion has any deep insights to his fall.
Yes and the book tells you that Morgoth convinced Sauron of his right to rule. He was seduced by Satan. You don't need some woobie uwu sadboy novel about how Sauron was doing good and it's not his fault or something.
Sauron allied with the most powerful valar who dabbed on all the others for thousands of years straight, he did nothing wrong.
>did nothing wrong
>Lost to the best boy, ever
>Lost his ability to take fair form because he got sunk with Numenor
>Got wrecked by Isildur
>Was soo convinced in his manipulative abilities that he couldn't even fathom that men would try to destroy the ring
He does everything wrong.
>Got wrecked by Isildur
That's movie bullshit, he was wrecked by Gil-Galad and Elendil, his physical shell was already dead when Isildur took the ring from it.
>>Was soo convinced in his manipulative abilities that he couldn't even fathom that men would try to destroy the ring
And he was right.
Any mildly intelligence schemer would plan with the assumption that it could be and maintain a standing garrison at Mount Doom for the sole purpose of fricking up anything that looks out of place around there. Given the numbers of troops he was throwing around it would have been literally nothing and there was no possible reason to act otherwise besides being an idiot.
The only reason he would have to post guards at a volcano in the middle of an ashen desert at the heart of his own domain is if someone intended to use it to destroy his ring. Since Sauron himself wasn't even immune to the seductive powers of his ring, even if he had the ability to imagine destroying it willfully, he wouldn't ever believe that some lesser could manage what Frodo did.
But EVEN THEN, its possible that he did normally keep a guard at Mt. Doom, but was currently diverting his forces to the gates because he thought the actual ring bearer was making a premature assault on him, and everything was going his way despite his failures of his first wave of assaults on Middle Earth.
200 orcs or men removed from one army would not make any difference. 200 guards around Mount Doom could make all the difference in the world. Literally no reason at all not to go for it.
>Was soo convinced in his manipulative abilities that he couldn't even fathom that men would try to destroy the ring
He wasn't wrong. The ring only got destroyed because two guys were fighting over it inside the volcano and the one who got it accidentally fell in.
Sauron still didn't see it coming.
>The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare.
By the time Frodo put on the Ring, of course, it was too late to do anything. Sauron could have stationed guards to the Chambers of Fire, he could have sealed shut the doors, but he didn't, because he was blind to the possibility that someone would try to get there.
I think it is more Sauron never ever thought for a second that there would be a plan to destroy the thing at all. Anyone who got their hands on it would crave it and the power it has too much and try to use it to make themselves into the emperor of Middle Earth.
He had never even considered that someone would want to destroy what he loved.
Such a good little bookend, the hobbits begin the story learning that what they love will be destroyed.
It's great that his final panicked moments echo the initial panicked moments of the gang.
The clown shoe is on the other foot now witch-king.
>the most powerful valar
Watch out, I'm pretty sure I saw the Gigachad Tulkas in the other room just now.
Why waste time reading when the movie works just as well?
>sell cards?
Why is that a creature and not an enchantment?
Enchantments can't attack.
stop bumping shitty bait thread morons
OH NO A GOYSLOP THREAD WILL DIE NOW TEEGEE IS RUINED!!!
lurk more
I bet you feel real embarrassed that your attempt to derail this thread failed haha.
No.
The guy wanted to craft cool israeliteelry instead of doing nothing but commission for God.
Some big shot came around and told him to join his hippy club where they just ignored God and could do whatever the frick they want.
He joined.
Then both group started throwing shit at each other.
It escalated until everyone was dead bar him (as the last hippy-club survivor) and a handful of non-hippies that were way too pissed off at this point to ever forgive him.
So now he is stuck as the last remaining trace of the bad guys, and since no one with good intention would ever join his side the only thing he can do to protect himself is to recruit whatever piece of shit he can.
It was actually implied that Sauron would have been forgiven, and same chance was probably given for all the other maiar who survived the War of Wrath. Sauron just could not bear the idea of going to Valinor in repentance and having to make up for his evil through servitude.
Tolkien gives pretty much all evil characters chances of redemption, likely due to his Catholic faith. He was also considering doing orc retcons because he was conflicted by the idea of always evil race, but didn't figure out anything to reasonably fix them.
Simple, they end up in the halls of waiting and get counsel and healing from Nienna and her maia, and they get to share a waiting room with Feanor and the boys if they’re shits about it
>Having to spend eternity trapped in a room with Feanor and his boys as they sing the Elvish equivalent of Football Hooligan songs about how women from the next town over have a predilection for fricking dogs.
Forget Jesus, this is my kind of afterlife.
More boring than that, they get to look at tapestries all day. It's basically being locked inside a museum filled with really weird awkward loner types who hate talking to anyone.
I'm pretty sure that even in death Feanor wouldn't ever fricking shut up.
The obvious answer is elves never ran into any good orcs because their society is designed to actively purge any sign of weakness, along with a general inclination towards cruelty and the disregard of what others consider beautiful that can be overcome, but they're never in an environment that even makes that an option.
Found the alt rightie who self identifies with the bad guy because some church leader bad touched him when he was young
>alt-right
>siding with the guys who lead orcs and goblins to destroy men, elves and dwarfs civilizations
All that projecting is messing with your brain Anon.
Wanna talk about that priest pal of yours?
>alt-right
>siding with the guys who lead orcs and goblins to destroy men, elves and dwarfs civilizations
But the alt right supports Putin
Same reason they "support" Palestine: in both case the other side is israeli.
I dunno what the equivalent would be in Tolkien's work... encouraging Orcs to destroy a civilization even more crooked and pernicious than the Orcs themselves.
>Russia
>Not israeli
I think the "support" decision is more about which side is the *least* israeli, as tenuous as the differential might be.
Same reason they support le being orange man or any other controlled opposition: it's globohomo, but a bit less in your face, thus easier for them to stomach. It's exactly like Melkor and his gang still being agents of Eru's will, except in reverse - while they still ultimately serve Good while appearing to be evil, the irl guys are the same puppets of evil despite an outward good/trad/"redpilled" appearance. In both cases it's caused by a lack of broader perspective.
these people arn't the evil you've painted them as, they are simply people dissatisfied with the current world order supporting it's enemies. the way they're portrayed as extreme is simple manipulation done because they're seen as the only true threat to their authority. Delite your social media, alkl of it, dont come here, dont even read the news.untill you do that you will continue to act as a frightened animal attacking anything you're told to.
Not like people read the news anyway, they read a headline or a paragraph of the article and not the whole rest of the article that disproves the above.
>these people arn't the evil you've painted them as, they are simply people dissatisfied with the current world order supporting it's enemies.
So just like the Haradrim and other followers of Sauron.
The Haradrim are explicitly not evil men, but bold and grim. Allied to Sauron against their historic enemy and former conqueror Gondor that's been fricking with them since it was still Numenor.
Kinda how the Dunlendings allied to Sauron and later Saruman because the Numenoreans were despoiling their lands and they treated them like shit(they thought they were descendants of the easterlings which were their enemies in Beleriand so in their minds the Numenoreans were justified driving away these men of shadow which even if they were it's a psychotic way of looking at things) and later gave their lands to an invading group to increase their sphere of influence in an area they didn't really control. Conflict was inevitable.
Yes. Point being alt right are more like followers of Sauron than the left is. Evil or not they support evil men largely to spite a system they feel has wronged them.
>if you dont support the afghanistan war, you love al qayda!
>if you dont support iraq war, you love saddam!
>if you dont support the syrian war, you love assad!
>if you dont support the ukraine war, you love putin
So tiresome. What's scary is that back then, we still had some modicum of resistance to this stuff. Now its like, literally 1 or 2 reps voting against. Sad
it's a fricking fantasy book about a magical realm you moron, you can read it without inserting modern day politics into it
>the far-right can never be the bad guys!!
How delusional are you?
>Im good because... im good
Tolkien isn't even trying at this point
Gandalf is not really all that great and good natured of a guy. He's kind of a pompous, short tempered butthole half the time.
Tolkien wasn't interested in the whole "redemption" thing, mostly. At best redemption equals death in his works (Thorin, Boromir...). If there is no redemption, there is no reason to dwell on the causes of villain being villanous. Sauron fell and will never get up, that's just a fact everyone has to live with now.
Catholicism is very brainwormy in that regard, especially when combined with the Victorian British moralism.
>Tolkien wasn't interested in the whole "redemption" thing
Catholicism is based and the only thing with brainworms around here is you.
Catholicism is major-league gay.
He was very much interested in redemption, and mulled on it extensively in relation to orcs in his letters.
Too bad he forgot to put this theological concept that is incredibly important to Catholicism in any of his books.
There are two letters that cover this exact topic and how it is almost specifically about redemption.
Smeagol was going to voluntarily an hero with the ring if Gollum didn't win out. Had Sam been kinder and pitied him it was possible, and likely one of the contingencies.
Clown midget fight where the ring finger is chewed off and the victor plummets was a long shot.
I'm pretty sure smeagollum was only on the verge of reformation in the jackson movies. My interpretation of his character in the books was that he was just a slimy backstabbing bastard who had learned GREAT patience in his many many years of solitary skulking and no matter what, when the chance arose, even if there was no chance, he would have went for it. I got the sense he was just too far gone and corrupted to escape what the ring made him.
Did tolkien ever specify otherwise in the letters? I'm interested.
He nearly repented on the stairs up to Shelob's lair, when he comes across Frodo and Sam napping and cuddling and looking super cute. It brought back all those memories of being a pleasant little Hobbit himself living by the river with his buddy Deagol. But then Sam woke up and saw him creepin' and snapped at him, and all that venom seeped back into his mind.
What sucks about him falling into the volcano, which Tolkien decided to point out in a letter, is that it was actually a moment of divine intervention by Eru to give him a little nudge. I never liked that explanation, when it could have just been evil's own machinations leading to its destruction.
>What sucks about him falling into the volcano, which Tolkien decided to point out in a letter, is that it was actually a moment of divine intervention by Eru to give him a little nudge. I never liked that explanation, when it could have just been evil's own machinations leading to its destruction.
It can still be both those things. They were only able to get that far because of Sauron's flaws causing him to overlook the possibility of someone deciding to destroy the ring, and the destruction of the ring is itself an example of evils own machinations causing its downfall since the ring was Sauron's creation in the first place. Sauron sowed the seeds of his own defeat, the Fellowship couldn't have done it without him.
All the same Frodo still failed at the final moment, but even getting to that point at all was a monumental achievement and no one thinks less of him for succumbing to temptation at the last second. Frodo is the reason the ring and Gollum were even at Mount Doom in the first place for Eru's little push to work. It's his and everyone else's efforts that paved the way for the fate of the world to be decided by the slip of a foot, and in my eyes their victory is no less earned because of it, nor Sauron's destruction less deserved.
I read Eru's divine intervention as less punishing the wicked and more of an act of grace. No one is perfect, but you don't have to be, you aren't expected to be. Frodo held out as long as he could and even though his strength eventually failed him, in the end what he did was enough. Just because you collapsed inches from the end doesn't mean you didn't still run the marathon, if you get my meaning. Eru just picked him up and helped him across the finish line so to speak.
>It can still be both those things
It truly can't. Eru has effectively unlimited knowledge and power, and in his knowledge and power he chose to make the goodguys weak, as a contrivance, so that they could have the privilege of struggling against evil for generation after generation. So why make the goodguys go through all that shit if you're just going to intervene anyway? It's stupid. You can say that they almost got there without him, but that's not true either, they almost got there by the gifts that he gave them and in accordance with his plan, and then he still had to intervene because his plan didn't work.
>Frodo is the reason the ring and Gollum were even at Mount Doom in the first place for Eru's little push to work.
This is completely nonsensical, there is no such thing as a "little push" from a being with unlimited power and knowledge, if he's going to intervene at all then he might as well break Numenor again.
It's been a while but IIRC Sam identified his two modes/personalities as "slinker" and "stinker", In the movies, "Slinker" (not that bad but cowardly) became Smeagol and "stinker" became Gollum.
Don't feel bad, dumb christians bounce off this stuff all the time. From your point of view a thinking christian might as well be an athiest.
>muh le brainworms
Have you ever thought that maybe the concept of spending your entire life sucking off people who hate and abuse you "so they can change" is repulsive to non-homosexuals?
Catholicism's greatest weakness is, actually, its INSISTENCE that you can just "wash away" any and all sins with confession and keep sinning as much as you feel like, you illiterate subhuman.
>Catholicism's greatest weakness is, actually, its INSISTENCE that you can just "wash away" any and all sins with confession and keep sinning as much as you feel like, you illiterate subhuman.
You're actually meant to try and stop sinning after confession, it's just plenty of Catholics don't actually put any effort into studying their own religion and just sort of half pay attention in church once a week.
>Catholicism's greatest weakness is, actually, its INSISTENCE that you can just "wash away" any and all sins with confession and keep sinning as much as you feel like, you illiterate subhuman.
Actually, that's pr*ddys, except instead of confession it's """forgiveness""". Catholics believe in the primacy of both works and beliefs, as a believer who does not do works is no believer at all. Protestants can have as many come-to-Jesus moments as they like, and as long as they still """truly believe""", they get to keep on being monstrous pieces of shit.
And what protestants are these you are talking about, exactly? Or is this another Catholic moment of 'anyone who disagrees with me is a filthy prot the same as the rest'?
Faith without works is dead, but Salvation is a free gift of grace not earned by works so NONE MAY BOAST. Both are said in the bible. Both are true. God has stated, via his scripture, both are true. Cope, seethe, mald all you like. Yes, someone who simply throws themselves on the feet of God and his mercy is likely closer to God. Luke 18: 9-14. If you don't understand, pray to Jesus to show you why all these things are not mutually exclusive. And I mean to Jesus directly.
One thing Catholics are consistently guilty of leaving out in all this. They believe in half works salvation. First time you are saved is free, but every time you sin after you are on the hook for. Worse, you are expected to 'pay back' your salvation in the first place. They dress it up cutely in this idea of a reservoir of faith and works the Church has (gathered when people exceed what is needed to pay for their salvation), but in the end God made it clear salvation is IMPOSSIBLE for us to pay for. There is no span of time where you could manage it.
All I'll say is this to wrap up. There is a very clear difference in someone knowing their ability to stop sinning is feeble versus someone who gluts on everything gleefully while saying they are forgiven anyway. If anyone is going to claim the later, I'd demand specific proof and not, "I saw it in a dream!" style claims.
>One thing Catholics are consistently guilty of leaving out in all this. They believe in half works salvation. First time you are saved is free, but every time you sin after you are on the hook for. Worse, you are expected to 'pay back' your salvation in the first place.
If you’re talking about the relationship between grace and merit then that is a fundamental difference between Catholics and many Protestants (synergism vs monergism), but either way the grace is freely given and we can do nothing to cause God to owe us this grace. Catholics would say that meritorious works (always caused by grace) can be fittingly (but not by necessity) rewarded with further grace, while most Protestants (especially Lutherans and Reformed Christians) would say that our works can never really be meritorious in the first place.
>They dress it up cutely in this idea of a reservoir of faith and works the Church has (gathered when people exceed what is needed to pay for their salvation), but in the end God made it clear salvation is IMPOSSIBLE for us to pay for. There is no span of time where you could manage it.
Are you talking about indulgences? That has nothing to do with justification
>Are you talking about indulgences? That has nothing to do with justification
It kind of does when Catholicism teaches you can lose your salvation in the first place if you sin enough or big enough. Thus first time free. Next time paid for by yourself. Which flies in the face of Christ saying he will not lose even one of the little sheep given to him by his Father. And Christ saying nothing can take us out of his Father's hand. And the parable of the debtor who got thrown in to prison anyway after being forgiven his debt by the king (for not forgiving another a measly sum). Or talk about our filthy rags versus being clothed by God. I know this is one of the more difficult nuances to grasp in the bible, but it's important to get right. Yes, salvation is impossible to pay for, and if you believe you can some how lose it to sinning (the thing God DIED TO PAY FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE), how do you plan on gaining it again? Christ was already crucified. Can't do that again. Can't pay for it. Guess you're fricked, kiddo.
Worries about people who use it as an excuse to be villains are nonsense. There's a clear difference between struggling with sin (which you are PROMISED you will do till you either die or Christ comes again) and using salvation as an excuse to be an even bigger villain than ever. Denying this is a view devoid of mercy, or at least I can't see how it is any other way than devoid of mercy.
>would say that our works can never really be meritorious in the first place.
Our deeds no. If they come from God, and God says they have merit, they do. Though, unless I am mistaken, all merit goes back to God in the first place. Do you really NEED merit beyond the merit God has? Praise God even for the deeds he provides you for. It's all better as God's glory anyway. What worth is our own?
Look forward to living in God's house with him instead.
It begs the question to me how much faith implies willingness to do deeds. For example, if someone is in trouble, somebody with high faith would feel obligated to help and that not wanting to help is a sign of low faith or laziness.
>Catholicism's greatest weakness is, actually, its INSISTENCE that you can just "wash away" any and all sins with confession and keep sinning as much as you feel like, you illiterate subhuman.
A good confession involves a resolution to sin no more, if someone in confession doesn’t actually intend to stop sinning then it isn’t a valid confession at all. It also doesn’t absolve us of the temporal punishment due for sins, with that there has to be penance in either this life or the next.
I thought he was evil because he was an industrious, autistic, inventor of machines and loved technological progress, and perfectly fine tuned order...and could not figure out why the supreme being in all of reality created a world that consisted of shit like trees, mud, garden slugs, prickly vines, humidity, most of the inhabitants are brainless things that eat each other, the others are naked dumb apes, a third of it is frozen wasteland, another third of it is pointlessly underwater, undrinkable water, when he would have started the universe with computers, stainless steel, and cloud storage.
>he would have started the universe with computers, stainless steel, and cloud storage
Cloud storage? Evil indeed!
What the frick does any of this have to do with fricking anything? Are you having a stroke?
>he doesn't know about the tanks in the lost tales
Anon...
bump
Imagine shitting your pants over this then deciding you're doing everyone a favor by fricking it all up.
To be fair, Rivendell was an oasis in an otherwise fading land, and was kept so nice with the help of a magical ring of Sauron's own design.
Actually that is exactly what Morgoth made.
The world when it was first created was a perfectly flat, perfectly circular island, surrounded by ocean, with a perfect circle lake in the center. Morgoth had a godly temper tantrum that trashed almost every single inch of the world to totally ruin it. And all he made was lakes, rivers, valleys, mountains, hills, and general landscape detail
It was a part of the whole
>Every time he tries to do evil he only makes the world more beautiful
thing Eru talked about.
This, Arda was a Minecraft Flat World before Morgoth tried to break it.
>god made Morgoth evil on purpose to do his bidding, then punished him for doing what he made him do
Not only that, but the Valar are very self aware that they're all a part of a pre-determined fate and just following the script that Eru set out for them at the dawn of creation, but he still made Melkor capable of resenting it.
Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht,
It gets way worse than that. He barely silly slapped Morgoth for all the bad shit and pretty much just let him do whatever the frick he wanted for hundreds of thousands of years, and overpunished the shit out of any mortal races that decided to follow the all powerful god that ruled the world.
>Morgoth destroyed the source of light in the world, destroyed the original home of the Valar, and got away with it. They ran off to another continent and hid.
>Morgoth spreads his essence into all parts of the world and curses every part of the planet and invents shit like old age, disease, corruption, and rot, god doesn;t do shit
>Elves were created, Morgoth captured newborn elves and torture fricked them into orcs. God didn't do shit. The Valar went to war with him, God rebuked the Valar for not going to war with him sooner.
>Valar let him out of prison, he destroys the source of light in the world again
>Valar decide to not bother doing shit and let him rule Middle Earth
>Humans wake up....in a continent ruled by a dark lord with balrogs and dragons.
>Morgoth makes them worship him, god gets pissed and curses all of humanity, never does shit to Morgoth
>Morgoth fricks the elves some more, god again doesn't do shit
>Later Sauron decides to conquer the world, god doesn't do shit, the valar don't do shit
>He corrupts the numenorians and convinces them to go invade Valinor, God does something...he annihilates the entire island of Numenor, kills everyone, and doesn't do shit about Sauron
>Sauron gets to rule Middle Earth for another 200 years.
Middle Earth god will NEVER do a fricking thing about his own divine servants fricking shit up, but will always curse and kill any human that is enslaved and forced to worship his out of control divine servants.
The god of middle earth is the Christian god.
Kinda how Aslan is literally Jesus through another lens, and the emperor beyond the sea is god through a Narnian perspective.
Except Middle-Earth is supposed to be our past.
So that kinda tracts with how God does anything.
Wrong.
Tolkien admits being Catholic very likely colors some of his choices in his works, but Eru is NOT God. He denies any such thing, and frankly any Christian who actually reads their bible will tell you Eru is an infinite distance from anything like God. LOTR is a very pagan mythology and inspired by such, and ultimately never supposed to be anything but for fun.
Aslan, however, is very directly an allegory on purpose. The story there is supposed to help people understand Christ's own sacrifice.
The thing is though, that the Valar and Maiar all came forth from the mind of Illuvatar. But they are not just his creations. The sum of all of them is who Illuvatar is. Its like this giant cosmic mind that divides itself into pieces, which become the dark lords and divine servants.
It is impossible for god to not love himself. Especially if you consider that Melkor & Manwë are the chief parts. They are like the largest chunk of Illuvatar's own mind.
God is not a good guy.
Why does God permit evil to exist? For the same reason that we write conflict into stories.
>The thing is though, that the Valar and Maiar all came forth from the mind of Illuvatar. But they are not just his creations. The sum of all of them is who Illuvatar is. Its like this giant cosmic mind that divides itself into pieces, which become the dark lords and divine servants.
No. That's completely untrue and theologically in error. Only God is God.
We have no reason to think that Eru is equal to the sum of the parts of the Valar, he seems to be greater than that, but the sum of the parts of the Valar are certainly one side of Eru. As part of the creation, the only parts of Eru that we perceive are the parts that were embodied in the Valar. And everything that is in Melkor is also part of Eru
He does sort of tell us all that it will be worth it in the end, in keeping with this notion that mortal suffering enriches the immortal soul. This isn't an entirely Christian notion, but it makes sense when mashed up with Christian elements, sort of like "Death is a misunderstood blessing" and "the human fea and body are out of balance".
I don't think this is what Tolkien envisioned at all, but to me it just seems like Eru is upholding the law of the jungle, Morgoth is allowed to get away with shit that humans aren't because Morgoth is bigger and more important. You can interpret it (canonically) as an untrustworthy narrator, where it was really the Valar that crushed Numenor but there were no surviving witnesses, and the breaking of the world was so dramatic that the elves just assumed it was Eru. But I don't think that's the best way to read Tolkien.
The Valar partake in the beatific vision, they are not part of Eru. Melkor is an obvious allusion to Lucifer.
None of the Valar can have any thought or notion which does not already exist within Eru, this is what Eru says to Melkor after the song.
>Melkor is an obvious allusion to Lucifer.
Yes, Tolkien used his fiction to work through some of the intractable flaws that exist in Christianity. Because Christianity isn't a lovingly sculpted supernarrative, Christianity is an optimized collection of memes, and the people who conceived of Lucifer died thousands of years before Jesus invented hell.
Oh look, a Dawkinsisian moron.
Whatever makes you feel better.
>No. That's completely untrue and theologically in error. Only God is God.
Also this is the point where we have to remind you that Eru isn't God. Eru is a story written by a Christian, and his basic nature reflects certain metaphysical truths which that Christian believed in, but he isn't meant to be a a metaphor for God and he isn't meant to be a vehicle for Christianity. Describing any part of Tolkien's mythos as "theologically in error" is completely moronic.
All ideas exist within the mind of Eru. In any cosmology with an omniscient god, any created being is incapable of any thought or notion that does not exist in the mind of god.
Except spiders.
Spiders are outside Eru.
lol
People can interpret Ungoliant as a bad maiar who was hanging out in space, because space is still part of the creation, it's not outside the song our outside the will of Eru. But the way she's described makes her sounds like something truly alien invading Eru's realm.
I think Tolkien was undecided on exactly how to spin her (lol), and that was his prerogative, this is the kind of question that people ask about actual mythological figures, but if you'd put him on the spot he probably would have said that she was a powerful maia. But then he would need to retell the story of the song to flesh out her part in it, because she's influenced by Melkor and she falls under his influence but she also breaks free of that influence (based on her own inborn hunger) and attacks him, this makes her unique within the mythos.
I liked one idea I saw someone propose for her origin where she was born from the silence between the notes of the song that created everything.
I think that's a very cool idea which doesn't fit in at all here. It would fit into a different world with a different tone and a different creation-song. But maybe I just haven't thought it through yet.
Hate the Almighty all you want, but the Bible is the Lord's truth. There is no flaw that you have not imagined on your own or simply been lied to about by someone else.
Oh, I'm sorry, where did you get your phd? In what field?
No.
I think what makes it bizarre is that the evil beings that continue corrupting and enslaving men will continue to corrupt and enslave more men is left alone. Punishing the men for being corrupted is far too heavy handed and does not do a single thing about the original problem about them consistently being corrupted and enslaved.
It's not quite the same as Christian theology when Melkor and Sauron are very physical beings going around attacking and burning shit down on their own. When left alone they build up massive armies of orcs, trolls and dragons and conquer everything. This is where it becomes a questionable situation of god allowing a supremely powerful being to conquer and enslave, but overpunishes men for falling astray. Where was the Numenorian divine retribution when Sauron basically took over the world in the late second age? Or Morgoth in the first? God annihilates all Numenorian children, but never does shit about the orcs in Mordor or Angband.
It goes deeper than that, Sauron actually took control of the minds of the Numenorians against their will using the ring. They were forced to follow him so drowning Numrnor was just Eru being a complete butthole, and still letting Sauron go off to continue being a dick to Middle Earth for another 3K years.
>"Though reduced to 'a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind', I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended." "Ar-Pharazôn, as is told in the 'Downfall' or Akallabêth, conquered a terrified Sauron's subjects, not Sauron. Sauron's personal 'surrender' was voluntary and cunning: he got free transport to Numenor! He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans. (I do not think Ar-Pharazôn knew anything about the One Ring. The Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret, as long as they could. In any case Ar-Pharazôn was not in communication with them." Letter 211
>It's not quite the same as Christian theology when Melkor and Sauron are very physical beings going around attacking and burning shit down on their own. When left alone they build up massive armies of orcs, trolls and dragons and conquer everything. This is where it becomes a questionable situation of god allowing a supremely powerful being to conquer and enslave, but overpunishes men for falling astray. Where was the Numenorian divine retribution when Sauron basically took over the world in the late second age? Or Morgoth in the first? God annihilates all Numenorian children, but never does shit about the orcs in Mordor or Angband.
This is sort of where the Catholic allegory and all the allusions people keep on making falls flat. In Catholic belief, Satan is a tempter who lures people into doing bad things but ultimately the choices to sin are all their own. Meanwhile in Middle Earth the Satan allegory is an actual real physical threat that builds up armies of orcs and dragons, makes torture chambers, conquers nations and annihilates whole populations all his own, and there is really no one else in the world outside the Valar who can do a damn thing to stop him. Melkor and Balrogs do not lure people into following them, stealing, killing, or turning their backs on Eru. He shows up as a 15 foot tall armored monster with an army of bigger monsters who burn everything down, kill half the population, enslave the rest, and then orders the survivors to start killing in his name or they are next to die!
That's if he does not horribly mutate them into monstrosities himself, pluck their soul out and stick it in a warg body, or mutilate and torture them into being a buck broken thrall and told to go attack some elves.
Eru for some reason allows this to continue. He did not act when elves were taken and tortured into orcs, this is not a standard Catholic free will situation. He did nothing when Morgoth invented disease, the Valar did not either.
>god made Morgoth evil on purpose
*tips fedora*
Can't make an omelette without breaking a few elves.
TL;DR: Tolkien was Germanophobic.
can't really blame the man, he has seen somme shit in WW1
very powerful post
Most of the shit you're having him complain about is literally solely Sauron's daddy Morgoth's fault.
Eru did not create the world, he only really created the 'shell' of the world. Every part of the physical world was constructed by the Valar and they initially built a paradise. The world only sucks because Morgoth wouldn't stop kicking over their sand-castles.
it was only a dream a way.
Some stories are about what good people have to do in challenging times, the values of bravery and fellowship, and the effect that devastating conflicts have on those who go through them. They are about the deeds of those who rise to face adversities, and the source of those adversities is just a remote antagonistic force, not a tragic character meant to steal the show with his tragic backstory or zany personality.
But I guess that's a bit beyond the grasp of someone whose narrative standards are superheroes and shonen, right?
>got tolkien again!
Who is that?
It's the incarnation of absolute evil as it was Melkor before it, what's there to understand?
you could say the same thing about the devil
It’s not the villain’s story and sometimes in stories you just need monster; no need to make it more complicated than it needs to be.
And how many stories use the devil as the main villain and it worked.
He is evil because he wants to conquer the middle earth and live forever using dark magic which is a way cooler motivation than "my antagonist isn't actually evil because i'm beyond good and evil everything is gray morality bro lmao"
He already gets to live forever, he's a fallen angel. He wanted to make Middle-Earth a paradise, but the corruption of Morgoth left him unable to pursue that goal for long without seeking total control over everything. In his mind, he couldn't make Middle-Earth better unless he was its sole and indisputable ruler.
Boring.
On th contrary, it's very interesting
Your brain has been rotted from the inside out by post-modernist garbage.
go finish your book, J.R.R. Martin, you fat lazy slob.
Sauron originally wasn’t evil, as NOTHING starts evil in the Tolkien universe. Sauron first got swayed over by Melkor simply because he admired the masterful way Melkor planned and executed his will. He thought he was cool and wanted to follow him. Melkor spent a LONG time interacting with others which we never get to read about, all that gets skipped over. If you were to see Melkor or Sauron back in the Age of the Trees you’d never consider them to be evil; in fact they’d be some of the biggest chads everyone liked and trusted (Melkor specifically seemed to have been reformed during this period) and only Tulkas stayed suspicious. Lots of things could have happened during those years.
Mairon probably never saw himself as evil. He was giving order to such a cruel and chaotic world.
A perfect order. His order.
Actually thought of something. I’ve always called Melkor by his given name — because that’s the name he got from Eru himself and no one has the authority to change that. The Elves have a right to hate and mock him, but as a disinterested reader I choose to stick with his actual name. But for some reason no one does that for Marion.
Sauron just sounds cooler.
He was never introduced as Mairon. You have to do a deep fricking dive to even find that name.
In one of the drafts Sauron is referred to as Thü like when he slaps Turen’s father across the face for talking back to Morgoth.
Melkor went bad well before the Trees, and Sauron was already his number 2 by that point as well. Melkor did have a lot of the Maiar swayed to his cause though, we just don't really hear much about them except for the Balrogs.
Most Maiar never really bodied up and interacted with others, even the Elves in Aman. Sauron was his Elvish name, so that's likely the only name most people in Middle-Earth knew him by. Most wouldn't have even really known what he was at all. Same thing why nobody refers to Gandalf as Olorin even though he drops his own true name himself to Aragorn and the boys.
Melkor had turned bad at some point during his long wandering in the empty void where he supposedly developed his "own thoughts", ie, different from Eru and the other Valar.
But, one weird thing Tolkien never addressed. Melkor was the mightiest of the Valar and had a part in all of the other Valar’s gifts. Okay, he into crafting, had brilliant light, had dark wisdom, could fight, was big into digging, handling fire, etc. But…what about Weaving, Pity, Growing, Dancing, Stars, etc? He was terrified of the stars, for example, when he should have some level of power over them. Maybe he could bust out with sick dance moves and that’s how wooed so many to his cause — but it’s really hard to imagine him crying in pity over something. Did he simply lose many gifts the further he fell into evil?
Well, he did lose gifts in his fall for sure, and in fact all the Valar could only summon up the power to perform their greater works only once within the confines of Ea, but to your point I just don't think each of those specific things was what he meant by having a part in their gifts. Its wasn't so much that he could dabble in the aspect of wind a bit but not as well as Manwe, since that was just the specific thing that Manwe "turned his thoughts to" while contributing his part to the song. Melkor, however, before they drove him out into space for a while, was able to interfere with and frick up every act of creation the other Valar attempted in that early era of Earth, which I guess was Tolkien explaining why Earth was a messy volcanic hellscape when it first formed. Whereas the other Valar specialized their own gifts further into specific pagan pantheon style themes, Melkor had the range to frick up the perfect designs of each and every one of them.
After they drove him out into space long enough to actually form a planet capable of supporting life, however, he did sneak back in and started working more subtly, slowly twisting everything he could into an evil mockery rather than outright disrupting its formation.
TLDR: His power was in causing discord in all things, not that he could do a little bit of what all the other Valar could.
I'm not exactly a deep lore nerd, but one thing I am aware of about Tolkien's setting.
Only Eru can create without limit. Without Eru's help, any act of true creation takes some permanent part of the user. This goes for beings as powerful as Melkor to as small as hobbits. The greater the work the more of a chunk it takes. As an example, this is why the Silmarils are such a big deal. Even their maker could probably not make more. Now, derivative copies of a thing seem to be free of charge. Like the rings made based off the ONE RING or music based off other music already created. Yes, even a song can be so great that the creator of it is permanently lessened just by making it. Now, this can be a net gain depending on what you do with it. The ONE RING is a straight upgrade so long as Sauron does not lose the stupid thing or let it get destroyed. You can imagine one of your works you sacrifice your permanent strength for getting destroyed would be SUPER BAD for whoever this happens to. That power is just gone. You can't reclaim your works in a direct manner. Regret making that ring? Too bad. Keep it on your finger. Forever.
Melkor vastly diminished in strength over time like this. The more he poured himself in to his evil works, the more he tried to corrupt things and make new evil creatures, the lesser he got. From my understanding, Melkor did this a lot. Too much. This is very likely related to his downfall in a direct manner. Imagine stretching yourself so thin that a particularly uppity elf can cripple you for life. That said, he did pour so much of himself in to things that it's sort of a permanent problem. Melkor's taint is in EVERYTHING. It'll be a problem till the end of time for the setting.
He was also Gorthaur to the elves(the cruel).
Smith man earned all their hate, which is still nothing compared to the malice he has for them.
>inane conspiritard babble
Sauron just has a bad personality.
>Sauron henchmen
>is called Sauronmen
Tolkien is a hack. Anglos can't write
>In addition, those who still see something strange in the view that the guiding idea of "progress" has led to horrendous results, should be puzzled for other reasons. To the ancient Greeks, the loftiest desire was to achieve "kalokagathie," which was that harmonious wedding of man's inner and outer beauty that they saw embodied in the images of the Olympians; to the men of the Middle Ages, it was the "salvation of the soul," which they saw as the soul's ultimate ascension to God; to the man of Goethe's time, it was the poised perfection of style, the masterful acceptance of one's destiny; and no matter how diverse such goals may have been, we can easily comprehend the profound satisfaction that was experienced by those whose good fortune enabled them to achieve them. But the progress-monger of today is mindlessly proud of his successes, for he has somehow managed to convince himself that every increase in mankind's power entails an equivalent increase in mankind's value. We must doubt, however, whether he is able to experience true joy, and not just the hollow satisfaction afforded him by the mere possession of power. By itself, however, power is completely blind to all values, blind to truth as it is blind to justice. Finally, power is undoubtedly blind to all the beauty of the life that has thus far survived the encounter with "progress."
Sounds like cope to me. Progress is bad because I'm not that good and need to shit on people who do achieve things. Suck a dick.
You sound like a faustian israelite.
Nope. Just not a bitter b***h who sits around crying about progress. That'd be a good thing. To improve on what was left to us by our forebears and in turn pass those improvements on to the next generation as they also seek to improve and know more, do better, etc. That's a good thing. Not some homosexual crying that "omg ppl feel liek gud about bein better liek its so hollow bro fuk them".
Nah. Not interested in larpy pseud shit written by some hack just because he threw around a couple big words and wrote a wall of text. Not impressed. He and you can both cope and seethe.
>Nope. Just not a bitter b***h who sits around crying about progress. That'd be a good thing. To improve on what was left to us by our forebears and in turn pass those improvements on to the next generation as they also seek to improve and know more, do better, etc That's a good thing.
You are indeed a stupid Geist worshipping anglo (literal sense) israelite (ontological sense), as I originally suspected. Nothing "good" has come out of this demonic techno-industrial world order you stupid homosexual. It's true that all complex adaptive systems have a bias towards order and greater complexity. It just so happens that great technological complexity causes more mental illness, social atomization, loss of autonomy, physical illnesses, destruction of environment, loss of biodiversity, and a heap of other issues. For every problem "progress" attempts to fix, 10 other novel issues pop up in its wake all of which require an even greater and more comprehensive telos to account for.
>Not some homosexual crying that "omg ppl feel liek gud about bein better liek its so hollow bro fuk them".
You don't even know what he's criticizing or how it's relevant, you stupid israelite.
>Nah. Not interested in larpy pseud shit written by some hack just because he threw around a couple big words and wrote a wall of text. Not impressed. He and you can both cope and seethe.
KYS then logocentrist homosexual, take your whole dumbfrick family with you.
>muh gawd
>muh demons
>throws in random irrelevant shit based on some presupposed idea of what progress is that I clearly don't share
Wow that was impressively ridiculous. But I see you followed my advice to cope and seethe.
in random irrelevant shit based on some presupposed idea of what progress is that I clearly don't share
Disingenuous homosexual.
That's not disingenuous. Ya talked about biodiversity for example. When did I ever say that losing biodiversity was progress or even my idea of progress? I didn't. You made a series of sweeping assumptions and went on a tantrum because someone showed how what you thought was some profound saying was a bunch of moronic shit.
>When did I ever say that losing biodiversity was progress or even my idea of progress?
These are inseparable
No, they're not. You're just coping again. And probably assuming a lot about what "progress" even means.
/tg/ is really pathetically easy to troll. Are you not ashamed of yourself?
>land is destroyed by racist western men
>their land is stolen by northern men and they're kicked out to live in a shithole
>they're the bad guys because they don't just take it lying down
Didnt these guys originaly betray humans, elves and dwarfs and side with Morgoth?
No.
The Numenoreans thought they were descendants of people that did thousands of years earlier though, and they were the super power.
Literally the best type of villain. Frick pseuds.
One thing I legit don't understand is why Sauron worked for Morgoth in particular. while both rebels against the Valar and Eru, the two of them have vastly different philosophies. Morgoth being chaos and destruction, Sauron being totalitarian order. It seems weird for Sauron to work with a guy out to destroy creation when Sauron wanted to rule it instead.
Morgoth didn't want to destroy Arda, he wanted to rule it from the start. The Valar were just more willing to directly intervene with his efforts than they would when it was just Sauron. Their methods weren't different at all, just the scale which they were capable of employing them.
By the end of it, Morgoth had deteriorated mentally to the point where he just wanted to destroy everything.
He may have a first pretended to himself his whole rebellion was simply so he could rule Arda and lord over its peoples but really his base motivation was to literally be as God and create for himself. Once he is made to realise he can never possess the flame imperishable he will never be satisfied with anything else, even if he conquered all of middle earth and ruled over its people it would not be enough he would have tortured its inhabitants and twisted the land into its utter ruination and decay and even then he would not be satisfied eventually he would destroy everything if he could. He is a child having a tantrum smashing down all the toys because he alone cannot get to own all the toys.
It’s literally a:
>”I may not like his methods but damn he gets the job done.”
Kind of mindset.
He lusted after the kind of control and domination Morgoth possessed for his own purposes so sided with him to get a piece of the action.
The song of the Ainur made it so. Melkor's discordant compositions in opposition to the harmony of the other's, and yet interwoven into Eru's very intent for the composition even as Melkor struggled against him. Simple as.
Eru literally told the Ainur that Melkor’s contributions were one of the "tributaries" to the world’s glory. After he also told them that EVERYTHING has its innermost source in him and none could mess with the music in his despite. Yet, when they go down into Arda, they seem to forget that and get into a war with Melkor who goes around trying to rebel against the others, when they should ALL be aware it was pointless drama. Did they simply forget or become distant from Eru after entering Arda? That Eru wanted a mostly Good world but with a seasoning of Evil to give it flavor?
It isn't that evil inevitably leads to good or that Eru created evil on purpose. Tolkein's Catholic beliefs would not stand that. Its about the fact that true evil in the pure sense, that is to say, rebellion against God to the extent one can clearly claim to have set oneself up as a lone creation is impossible. Melkor was rebelling using his mind, his will, his power, his various created bodies, his magic, all of which he was given by God. He used it to try to destroy matter and spirit, both of which were immutable to his power and could not be harmed. What was left then? Melkor would try to truly rebel, and in the end fail to truly harm anyone or anything. That's the Christian view. Not that murder isn't bad, but that murder is *impossible*. You cannot actually destroy other beings. It all comes back to the central motif that what evil consists of truly isn't harm, its the bent will itself, the choosing to do and be things that are not right or good. The consequences, what we men call evil actions or thoughts are almost superfluous, just the flowers of a deep root.
>The consequences, what we men call evil actions or thoughts are almost superfluous, just the flowers of a deep root.
This much is true of what the bible teaches, at least. It is not evil acts or obscenities that taint you but that you are tainted that causes you to commit such obscenities. Christ said so himself. The outside of the cup can be bright and clean, but what's the point when the inside is filthy? Only filth can be poured out of it in turn, but God can just.. speak.. and everything is new at once. It wouldn't even be a problem. The real issue with rebellion and destruction and sin is the hatred of God inherent in it.
While Tolkien is adamant he did not want to make a Christian allegory, he admits his own beliefs probably flavor his work. Why wouldn't they? I can say it's different enough to be decidedly nonChristian, but you can see it poke out here and there. Like how Melkor's attempt at rebellion only improved the ultimate work going on. One very early lesson in the bible? What man intends for evil, God uses for good. As is God's right. Even in your freedom to sin and plot evil, it is God's right to twist it to His end, and God has stated his intent to do so several times.
Ainur can think and feel, they are fallible and are capable of fricking up and getting emotional.
Also they weren't an unanimous group, for example Ulmo opposed inviting elves to Valinor and would have wanted them all to stay in Middle-Earth to mend what Melkor had fricked over. Looking at what the Noldor ultimately did in Valinor and things it put in motion, it could have been for the best too.
The only reason there was a Valinor at all is because they were fricking scared of Melkor and ran away from him and hid behind a huge mountain chain. Leaving the rest of the world to be ruled by him for a few thousand years.
The Valar were content to let the rest of the world go totally to shit and leave the source of all evil and suffering in the world just have it...twice. They really and truly had no plan that second time around and were really just going to leave Middle Earth under his rule forever. Men, Dwarves, and everything else that lives there can go get fricked for all they care.
They are absolutely fricking terrible rulers of creation and their capacity to make judgment calls is fricking abysmal.
It all comes back to why-does-God-tolerate-evil. There is some justification for why the good gods tolerated melkor, but I think the key piece is that Manwe doesn't really like humans, because we remind him of Melkor, so they grieve for the elves who never came to Valinor and for the elves who came and left but they don't really grieve for humans. It's a weird proper-christian-but-mythophile cope, but it's from the heart, and it has a certain power and drama once you accept Manwe's perspective as being just another element of the setting.
Manwe understands the will of Eru best, and Eru expresses this idea that mortal suffering enriches the immortal soul, but Ulmo understands the song best and he's the one with the greatest interest in Middle Earth.
It's a weird situation of God tolerating an evil god that is fricking up the planet and causing mass destruction everywhere he goes. But he WILL NOT tolerate some lowly humans fricking around building a temple to the wrong guy, or picking a fight with god country full of gods that would be squashed in an hour at best with barely ant effort.
You don't need to understand why someone wants to kill you, only to avoid being killed.
Sauron was actually evil because in Tolkien wanting to control others is evil. Sauron started out wanting to benevolently lead, guide, and protect the Children of Eru to keep them safe and happy. This desire is how Morgoth got his hooks into him. Sauron refused the independence of the Children and overtime grew to brutally suppress it and consider any action that secured or increased his own power to be justified, ultimately resulting in a being that only cared for the propagation of his own control rather than the happiness and wellbeing of those he lead.
No one said he was a nuanced writer, it's basic Euro slop
>Im OP because... I'm a homosexual
yes
Lotr takes place on our world. Our current world is one of the later ages. This is a daily reminder that the Old Testament God is actually Morgoth. It's only until later when Eru Himself comes to Earth and Morgoth's chosen people have Him crucified.
You got it backwards, chief. He's not evil for no reason, he's evil because the characters are good. So good, in fact, the only thing worth setting against them is the statistical outlier who isn't relatable because of it.