How did Sauron do it...

JimboCat <103134.3516.RemoveThis@compuserve.com> wrote:
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:

> But of course there is much to be said on the other side, too. Weapons
> of mass destruction are evil. They have no intentions, desires or
> wishes, but they have no use or purpose except to kill and destroy.

Yes, but the purpose is not their own, but that of the people who
made them.

> I don't buy the "guns don't kill people: people kill people"
> argument:

You can use a hammer to hit a nail, or to smash someone's head. The
hammer is neither good nor evil. It just is. You need people to make
guns, and to use them. In the end, it's the people who are behind the
killing. (Of course, if the people didn't make guns in the first
place, they couldn't use them for killing; but that doesn't make
the guns "evil").

>> but then I am also willing to allow that the Ring did have
>> something which I, for lack of a better word, is willing to call a
>> 'mind'

> Hmm, that's the very idea that is so difficult to accept, literally,
> at least. But many entities beyond the "speaking peoples" [seem to?]
> have minds in Tolkien's world. Old Man Willow, Shelob, perhaps even
> Bill's wallet [...]

Ah, the discussion has come a full circle: We're back where we
started

- Dirk
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Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:09:45 -0700 from JimboCat <103134.3516
@compuserve.com>:
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>
> >We could,
> >supposedly, make a machine that could test for 'orcness' (possibly
> >even at a distance, working with some clever visual recognition
> >algorithms), but not one that could test for evil.
>
> Hmm. Let's try reversing that. Is there any example of a "goodness
> detector" in ME?

Yes, and its name is Sam Gamgee. In the inn at Bree, he detected that
Aragorn felt fair though he seemed foul.

--
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Troels Forchhammer <Troels.TakeThisOut@thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
> It seems to me that [Gollum] is reacting not to the goodness, but to
> the Elvishness.

Good point.

[...]

> The magical evil-detector is trivial, I think -- the Silmarils is the
> obvious example:

> And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no
> mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will
> might touch them, but it was scorched and withered
> [Silm QS,7 'Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor']

Didn't think of that. But that begs of course immediately the question
if the Silmarils are not "animated" in the same way as the Ring (though
maybe to a lesser degree). And Tolkien indeed uses anthropmorphic
terms when describing them:

[...] and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light
and received it and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before.

As, usual, Tolkien phrases it ambigously. It's also remarkable that
the Silmarils and the Ring (and the Arkenstone) have another feature
in common, namely that the "lust" after them corrupts the mind.

[...]
> I wonder also how often people actually do change their position in
> such situations? [...] I can't right now remember examples of others
> changing their preferred interpretation either

I have, in the past. I cannot remember concrete details, but more than
once I found that I did overlook some arguments before, and had to
change my point of view (sometimes even if I wasn't involved in the
discussion.)

After all, that's why we're having those discussions

- Dirk
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Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:30:30 +0200 from Dirk Thierbach
<dthierbach.TakeThisOut@usenet.arcornews.de>:
> if the Silmarils are not "animated" in the same way as the Ring (though
> maybe to a lesser degree). And Tolkien indeed uses anthropmorphic
> terms when describing them:
>
> [...] and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light
> and received it and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before.
>
> As, usual, Tolkien phrases it ambigously.

Hmm, I'm not so sure. That verb form "were" is the subjunctive, used
for conditions contrary to fact. It seems to me he's saying they are
*not* living things but in this way they seemed to act like living
things.

A different sentence about them does seem borderline to me, though.
In the sequence where Beren cuts the Silmaril from the Iron Crown,
Tolkien writes: "As he closed it in his hand, the radiance welled
through his living flesh, and his hand became as a shining lamp; but
the jewel suffered his touch and hurt him not."

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
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"Troels Forchhammer" <Troels.DeleteThis@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote in message

> On the other hand I think the discussion is interesting from another
> perspective as well -- and possibly more so. We each meet the book
> with different backgrounds, applying its contents in different ways.
> This whole debate about the possible mental capabilities of the One
> Ring is an example of a debate that I think is not, in actual fact,
> decided by logical arguments, but by our 'prior', which informed our
> initial reading. The best we can hope for, I think, is to agree on
> the scope of valid possibilities while accepting that logic isn't the
> deciding factor.
>
> But is it possible to find one or a few common factors that seem to
> decide which view one finds preferable? Is it, in other words,
> possible to 'predict' 'applicability', so to speak?
>
> I wonder also how often people actually do change their position in
> such situations? I don't mean on issues that they never thought of
> when first reading the book -- in such cases one is far more likely
> to accept logic, but in cases where one got a more or less clear view
> from the first few readings which isn't actually clearly inconsistent
> with the story. I don't recall myself going beyond an acceptance that
> other positions also would be valid while still preferring my
> original reading, and I can't right now remember examples of others
> changing their preferred interpretation either -- we've even seen
> people go to some length to work their way around something that
> would seem to others a logical refutation of their position (I don't
> recall with certainty, but I do think that I would, if asked after my
> first few readings, have said that 'Uruk-hai' referred specifically
> to Saruman's power-uruks, but I accept that that position is
> logically refuted).

From my perspective it's kinda hard to answer that. After having not read
The Hobbit and LOTR for quite some time, I gave it a re-read after an
marathon viewing of the Jackson film (extended version) edited into one 12
hour movie. Then I read the Silmarillion again... followed by what's now
*three* readings in a row of LOTR since August. Somwhere during the three
readings I appeared here.

Arguments (or facts) presented here have absolutely persuaded me of a few
things. But - I have the mind of a "troubleshooter" which is "hard-wired" to
a couple basic premises. A) The most likely explaination for a situation is
*probably* the correct answer, unless other facts come into play to refute
it outright. B) When you eliminate *all* other possible explainations for a
situation, the remainder (however unlikely), becomes your answer.

I would say that most of what I read here is run through those 2 filters.
What reading here *has* done for me is to change a few "I don't know's" into
"Ahhhh I see now".

-W
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In message <news:MPG.218c810976f19df98b141@news.individual.net>
Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.RemoveThis@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
>
> Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:09:45 -0700 from JimboCat <103134.3516
> @compuserve.com>:
>>
>> Hmm. Let's try reversing that. Is there any example of a
>> "goodness detector" in ME?
>
> Yes, and its name is Sam Gamgee. In the inn at Bree, he detected
> that Aragorn felt fair though he seemed foul.

Frodo, actually (not that it matters). What he actually said,
however, implied, IMO, a belief that he would have been able to
'detect' on of Sauron's agents (i.e. an example of an 'evil
detector'):

I think one of his spies would -- well, seem fairer and
feel fouler, if you understand.
[LotR I,10 'Strider']

The first point is, of course, that Frodo is expressing a belief, not
actual knowledge (the only agents of Sauron that he has knowingly met
are the Ringwraiths, who definitely 'feel fouler', but that is due
explicitly to this aura of fear and terror that they 'radiate').

But even if we accept that Frodo can generally somehow detect agents
of evil because they 'feel fouler', this is not necessarily an
example of detection of the automatable kind that we've been
discussing here -- Frodo's 'feel fouler' could very well be an
example of something that is only possible with the extremely fine-
tuned input-processing powers of the human mind (and of other,
similar, minds capable of moral judgement).

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was
standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Sir Isaac Newton
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fIn message
<news:20071027133030.12E2.1.NOFFLE@dthierbach.news.arcor.de>
Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach.TakeThisOut@usenet.arcornews.de> spoke these staves:
>
> Troels Forchhammer <Troels.TakeThisOut@thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
>>

<snip>

>> The magical evil-detector is trivial, I think -- the Silmarils is
>> the obvious example:
>
>> And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no
>> mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will
>> might touch them, but it was scorched and withered
>> [Silm QS,7 'Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor']
>
> Didn't think of that. But that begs of course immediately the
> question if the Silmarils are not "animated" in the same way as
> the Ring (though maybe to a lesser degree). And Tolkien indeed
> uses anthropmorphic terms when describing them:
>
> [...] and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced
> in light and received it and gave it back in hues more
> marvellous than before.

The wording of course leaves no doubt that the Silmarils were not
'living things', but that is hardly the issue. The key question is
related to the ability for 'rejoicing' or, as it is described in 'Of
Beren and Lúthien' when Beren took up the Silmaril: 'the jewel suffered
his touch and hurt him not.'[1]

> As, usual, Tolkien phrases it ambigously.

Actually I don't think it was particularly ambiguous as such -- the
ambiguity comes from our reluctance to accept what he actually wrote.

As he wrote it, the Silmarils were /not/ 'living things' -- no surprise
there, nor any argument from anyone, I assume?

As Tolkien wrote it, the Silmarils were able to 'rejoice' in things,
and able to control their own reactions, 'suffering' the touch of
Beren, deciding not to hurt him.

The problem, with the Silmarils as with the One Ring, is that these
latter are, in all our experience, exclusively the domain of living
things, and such we arrive at a contradiction between our Tolkien's
words and our experiences. The question is, /possibly/, the extent to
which our primary world experiences can be applied to Tolkien's Middle-
earth? That obviously applies both ways, because Tolkien had to phrase
his thoughts in words that would be understandable to readers with
experiences in the primary world, and thus may have used the
antropomorphisms as a 'closest match' even if they don't actually mean
the same as they do in our experience.

Overall Tolkien's language and story-telling makes much use of a the
romanticist -- or primitive animist -- idea of endowing nature with
spirits (or one all-encompassing spirit). There're the obvious examples
of walking trees and speaking animals, but also Legolas hearing the
stones of Eregion lamenting the Noldo elves: 'deep they delved us, fair
they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone'. The use of
antropomorphisms is a strong part of this; Legolas explicitly
attributes to the stones the capacity to /lament/ the Noldor, but
nothing anywhere implies that these stones are in any way different
from the stones of our primary world. How, then, can they have complex,
and abstract, emotions such as lamenting the absence of the Elves that
gave them purpose and beauty?

I am deeply unsure to what extent this romanticist view should be taken
seriously -- i.e. to what extent it truly applies to the underlying
'physics' of Middle-earth. The Danish scientist, Hans Christian Ørsted,
who discovered electromagnetism, wrote, partly under the influence of
this discovery, a book called /The Spirit in Nature/ (/Aanden i
Naturen/), which obviously favours this view, and even though this view
was largely abandoned about a hundred years prior to /The Lord of the
Rings/, Tolkien does seem to me to be very much under the influence /
impression of it (though not necessarily of all aspects of the
romanticist world-view) -- his view of 'nationality', 'language' and
'volk' also seems to me to derive a lot from the romanticist
nationalism of the turn of the eigteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Personally I am inclined to take Tolkien's use of this 'spirit of
Nature' idea (as opposed to the animist idea of nature spirits) sort of
half-seriously (which it can, of course, easily be argued is worse both
than taking it entirely seriously or dismissing it completely): I don't
think the stones themselves were endowed with an independent spirit,
but on the other hand I think that nature itself is endowed with a
'spirit' (not necessarily in the same sense as an Ainur or the /Feä/ of
the incarnates, though I wouldn't like to explain the difference),
which either takes on different expressions in different regions, or
there are separate spirits for different regions.

This unfortunately doesn't help us with respect to individual artefacts
such as the Silmarils or the Master Ring. The first thing to be said is
that these are supernatural even within Arda (i.e. they are against the
normal natural order and achievable only by arteficers that originate
from outside Eä -- it is the hallowing by Arda and the power from
Sauron that makes these items so special in this respect). That means
that the normal way of things in Middle-earth simply doesn't apply --
these items are exceptions to the normal rules. My own inclination is
to allow some middle-way solution (at least for the One Ring) where
such items go part of the way, but not that they really house a spirit
or a soul.

I'm afraid that none of these musings really help us understand or
agree upon the nature of the 'mind' (I still don't have any other word,
so please allow 'mind' to cover all suggestions) of the One Ring or
even the Silmarils.

> It's also remarkable that the Silmarils and the Ring (and the
> Arkenstone) have another feature in common, namely that the "lust"
> after them corrupts the mind.

Yes, though the Arkenstone seems to have been slightly different: it
only really worked on Thorin's mind (yes, Bilbo was attracted to it,
but he was never possessed by it), because, I presume, its symbolic
value was valuable only to him.

<snip>

[1] Incidentally this seems to be the only relevant incident for the
insertion of 'no mortal flesh' in the hallowing by Varda -- later
on, when the jewel is touched by the Dwarves who set it in the
Nauglamir, by Lúthien who wore the Nauglamir or by Díor, her son,
there is no mentioning of any exceptioning -- but can we imagine
that none of these ever actually touched the Silmaril?
If it had been an issue, then it would not have been enough to
touch it with a tool or bear gloves -- the jewel would have
reacted to that as well, but since it didn't, I suppose that it
had become irrelevant, story-wise. So, all that the protection
against mortal flesh did was to allow the Silmaril to suppress it
when Beren came along.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the
world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
- Aragorn, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:40:46 +0100 from Troels Forchhammer
<Troels.RemoveThis@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> In message <news:MPG.218c810976f19df98b141@news.individual.net>
> Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.RemoveThis@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
> >
> > Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:09:45 -0700 from JimboCat <103134.3516
> > @compuserve.com>:
> >>
> >> Hmm. Let's try reversing that. Is there any example of a
> >> "goodness detector" in ME?
> >
> > Yes, and its name is Sam Gamgee. In the inn at Bree, he detected
> > that Aragorn felt fair though he seemed foul.
>
> Frodo, actually (not that it matters).

Good grief! How could I have got that wrong? Thanks for correcting
that.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
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Dirk Thierbach wrote:

>JimboCat <103134.3516 RemoveThis @compuserve.com> wrote:

>> '"People should only believe things that are testable" is a religious-
>> analog belief -- that happens to be untestable.' -- Dr Dave
>
>Semi-witty, but misses the point

In other words: a PERFECT .sig <ggg>

Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"A metaphor is when you say one thing and mean something else, but
you're not lying." -- Gutenberg! The Musical!
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Troels Forchhammer wrote:

>In message
<news:1193425785.864608.309250@v3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> JimboCat
><103134.3516 DeleteThis @compuserve.com> spoke these staves:
>> Hmm. Let's try reversing that. Is there any example of a "goodness
>> detector" in ME?
>
>Yes, I believe it does. I'll indulge myself in an attempt such an
>analysis (feel free to skip -- I had already started arguing
>mentally before I reached your following paragraph, and didn't wish
>to 'waste' all my nice arguments <GG>).

Oh, indulge away! I'm pretty sure the various Morambar/FAQ-hater/
Menelvegor factions will provide substantial discounts on indulgences
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgences> in return for pledges of
support. <g>

>Gollum works as a fine example of an Elvishness-detector -- or, IMO
>very likely, as a detector for Elvish magic (let us, like Galadriel,
>accept the word for now).

Yes: rather like the converse of Sting, the Orc-detector.

>> But we do see many physical effects of good and of evil in ME.

>I don't know if it makes much of a difference, except to my own
>sensibilities but I would prefer to denote these as 'indicators'
>of good and evil -- indicators which more or less strongly imply the
>presence of good or evil respectively, but which don't provide
>positive proof or absolute certainty.

Oh, I don't think there is *ever* "absolute certainty" about good vs.
evil in Middle Earth - no more so than there is in the "real" world.

>The magical evil-detector is trivial, I think -- the Silmarils is the
>obvious example

Aha! Good catch.

>So, definitely possible, though I don't think I'd put artefacts
>hallowed by Varda within the 'natural order' of Middle-earth

No? Then wouldn't you have to remove such things as the stars, the
sun, and the moon from the natural order? Not to mention the Ents
(Yavanna) and the Dwarves (Aule) and perhaps even the oceans and
rivers (Ulmo). Nope: I just can't accept that. I must insist that
magic is part of the natural order of Middle Earth, though its "proper
place" is in the past, and whatever might be left of it in these
latter days of the post-fourth age is faded and diminished to a mere
feeling in the hearts of fallible mortals such as we.

>We each meet the book
>with different backgrounds, applying its contents in different ways.
>This whole debate about the possible mental capabilities of the One
>Ring is an example of a debate that I think is not, in actual fact,
>decided by logical arguments, but by our 'prior', which informed our
>initial reading.

Have to agree. (note .sig)

Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"We must believe in free will. We have no choice." -Isaac B. Singer
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"JimboCat" <103134.3516 RemoveThis @compuserve.com> wrote in message

> No? Then wouldn't you have to remove such things as the stars, the
> sun, and the moon from the natural order? Not to mention the Ents
> (Yavanna) and the Dwarves (Aule) and perhaps even the oceans and
> rivers (Ulmo). Nope: I just can't accept that. I must insist that
> magic is part of the natural order of Middle Earth, though its "proper
> place" is in the past, and whatever might be left of it in these
> latter days of the post-fourth age is faded and diminished to a mere
> feeling in the hearts of fallible mortals such as we.


I'm wrestling with many views of this...
I *want* to define "magic" in much the same way the Elves tend not to like
the word. ie I don't see Elvish made stuff as "magical", I see it as
"perfect" - the way things ought to be. A perfection that's now passed
from the world.
Sure there's stuff that we silly mortals consider magic... but I'm not so
sure......

-W
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"Troels Forchhammer" <Troels DeleteThis @ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote

<snip>

> As he wrote it, the Silmarils were /not/ 'living things' -- no surprise
> there, nor any argument from anyone, I assume?

The material from which Feanor made the Silmarils, no, but what about the
light contained within? Not living, but still holy and somehow related to
the essence of life. Consider the Flame Imperishable for something different
but similar. There is also a book by Verlyn Flieger about the symbolism of
Light in Tolkien's works ('Splintered Light'), though it is also about more
than just that.

Christopher
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On Oct 29, 9:16 pm, "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamg....TakeThisOut@blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:
> "Troels Forchhammer" <Tro....TakeThisOut@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote
>
> <snip>
>
> > As he wrote it, the Silmarils were /not/ 'living things' -- no surprise
> > there, nor any argument from anyone, I assume?
>
> The material from which Feanor made the Silmarils, no, but what about the
> light contained within? Not living, but still holy and somehow related to
> the essence of life. Consider the Flame Imperishable for something different
> but similar. There is also a book by Verlyn Flieger about the symbolism of
> Light in Tolkien's works ('Splintered Light'), though it is also about more
> than just that.

my memory's a bit vague, but i seem to recall flieger's thesis having
to do with an analogy between the various sources of light in middle-
earth and the decline from myth to legend to "mere history."
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