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MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Power, Deception, Destruction of Environment, and Rebellion against God as Evil in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2020

Supervisor: Mgr. Jiří Šalamoun, Ph.D. Author: Tomáš Pelc

Bibliographical record

Pelc, Tomáš. Power, Deception, Destruction of Environment, and Rebellion against God as Evil in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2020. 46 pages. The supervisor of the bachelor thesis: Mgr. Jiří Šalamoun, Ph.D.

Bibliografický záznam

Abstract

The bachelor thesis focuses on what John Ronald Reuel Tolkien understood under the term “evil”. The aim of the thesis is to create a comprehensive list of qualities and characteristics typical for evil and evildoers in The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), and The Silmarillion (1977). This is done by analysing antagonists that Tolkien created for his fictional world, and finding connections between them and influences from the real world, those influences being Christianity, Old Norse mythology (also old Finnish mythology), and World War I and World War II. The thesis found reoccurring characteristics in Tolkien’s antagonists, such as their deceptive and shapeshifting abilities, their skill in crafting and inventing, their rebellious attitudes towards higher beings, their tendency to destroy environment, their similar emotional states, and their immense power. These characteristics were then linked to the Christian doctrine, impacts of war on the environment, and the character of Loki from Old Norse Eddas.

Anotace

Tato bakalářská práce se zaměřuje na to co John Ronald Reuel Tolkien chápal pod pojmem “zlo”. Cílem této práce je vytvoření přehledného seznamu kvalit a charakteristik typických pro zlo a jeho tvůrce v Hobitovi (1937), Pánu Prstenů (1954- 55) a Silmarillionu (1977). Tohoto je dosaženo analýzou záporných postav, které Tolkien vytvořil pro svůj fiktivní svět, a jejich propojením s vlivy ze skutečného světa. Těmito vlivy se myslí Křesťanská víra, Severská mytologie (společně s Finskou mytologií), a první a druhá světová válka. Nálezem této práce jsou opakovaně se objevující se vlastnosti u Tolkienových záporných postav, například jejich schopnosti ovlivňování myslí ostatních a změny podob, jejich tvůrčí a řemeslná zručnost, jejich neposlušnost vůči vyšším bytostem, jejich obliba v ničení životního prostředí, jejich podobné emoční stavy a jejich vysokou moc. Tyto vlastnosti byly následně propojeny s křesťanskou doktrínou, vlivem válek na životní prostředí a Lokim, postavou ze Severské Eddy.

Keywords:

J. R. R. Tolkien, evil, environment, Christianity, Norse mythology, power, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Legendarium.

Klíčová slova:

J. R. R. Tolkien, zlo, životní prostředí, křesťanství, severská mytologie, moc, Pán Prstenů, Silmarillion, Legendarium.

Acknowledgment

I want to thank my supervisor for all his help, support and seemingly never ending patience.

Declaration

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this bachelor thesis and that I have used only the sources listed in the bibliography and identified as references.

Prohlášení

Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci vypracoval samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů a zdrojů uvedených v seznamu literatury v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů.

In Brno, April 14, 2020 Tomáš Pelc

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ……………………………………………...... 9 2. Inspiration ……………………………………………………………………. 10 2.1. Christianity ……………………………………………………………… 12 2.2. Old Norse Mythology ………………………………………………….... 14 3. Tolkien’s Antagonists ………………………………………………………... 16 3.1. Melkor …………………………………………………………………… 20 3.2. Fëanor …………………………………………………………………… 22 3.3. Sauron …………………………………………………………………… 26 3.4. Ar-Pharazôn …………………………………………………………….. 29 3.5. Saruman …………………………………………………………………. 31 3.6. Other Antagonists ……………………………………………….………. 33 4. World Wars and Environment ……………………………………………… 37 5. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….…… 41

Sources ……………………………………………………………………….…… 43

1. Introduction

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a 20th century British writer best known for his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (later referred to only as LotR). Tolkien is also known as a creator of fictional languages which led him to create a fictional world in which these languages could evolve. This fictional world evolved and, in later years of Tolkien’s life, became the main object of his interest. After his death, his son Christopher Tolkien1 published the mythology that Tolkien created as The Silmarillion (1977). Despite the world with its mythology being originally created only as a background for Tolkien’s languages, somewhere in the process Tolkien decided to create a fictional mythology of England, a piece of literature similar to Beowulf, but capturing the essence of England (not the whole Britain and its Scandinavian heritage). The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), and The Silmarillion (1977) were the results of this want.

Despite Tolkien being openly dissatisfied with allegories and the use of author’s life in interpreting his works (Carpenter, 2000, p. 9), he claimed that every “myth and fairy-story must … reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error)” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 167). On this basis, this thesis will try to define Tolkien’s own view on evil by drawing connections and discovering analogies between Tolkien’s mythology and his life.

The aim of this thesis is to summarize portrayals of evil in Christianity (as Tolkien was strongly religious) and Old Norse mythology, and then analyse the antagonists that Tolkien created and look for similarities between the antagonists and connections with the portrayals of religious/mythological evil in the real world. First, this thesis will present findings of scholars concerning the acts of evil in the Bible (for example Satan or the original sin). Then it will examine acts of evil in Norse mythology, focusing on the character of Loki, who is colloquially known as the God of mischief. After that, analyses of antagonists from The Silmarillion (Melkor, Fëanor, Ar-Pharazôn, Glaurung, Ungoliant), and The Hobbit and LotR (Sauron, Saruman, Shelob, Smaug) will follow, together with the description of their connections to Christianity and Norse mythology. Last, to complete the findings that will be presented, this thesis will present several secondary sources concerning Tolkien and the world wars and the reflection of these wars in Tolkien’s work. By these means, this thesis will provide a complete list of characteristics of Tolkien’s antagonists, and at the same time, based on the quote cited above, Tolkien’s understanding of evil.

1 For the purpose of clarity, the surname Tolkien will serve to refer only to J. R. R. Tolkien, his son will be referred to by his first name Christopher.

2. Inspiration

In this chapter, important background information about the life of J. R. R. Tolkien that may have impacted his fictional world will be given and analysed. The chapter will focus mainly on defining evil from various aspects and the definitions will be used in the subsequent chapter, which will focus on the analysis of Tolkien’s fictional world and the antagonists in it.

It is a common knowledge that Tolkien was a devoted Catholic. Humphrey Carpenter (2000), Tolkien’s official biographer, described numerous theological conversations that Tolkien held with C. S. Lewis. Beside that, Tolkien wrote in his letter to Robert Murray that “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 191). This serves as a reason enough to analyse the similarities between Bible and The Legendarium.2 The concept of catholic evil has been greatly debated for centuries and the resources concerning Tolkien’s own interpretation of catholic evil are scarce. For this reason, this thesis will focus only on the colloquially best known stories and characters, such as the character of Satan, the concept of seven deadly sins, or the stories of Genesis, such as the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the slaying of Abel.

Beside his faith, Tolkien was certainly affected by Norse and Finnish mythologies. Tolkien is the author of one of the English translations of Beowulf and co-author of the Oxford English Dictionary, in which he was tasked with researching the Old and Middle English etymology. During his career at Oxford and Leeds he also gave many lectures concerning Germanic, Gothic, Welsh and Icelandic languages (Carpenter, 2000). Tolkien’s letter to W. H. Auden, a New York Times reviewer, Tolkien wrote that he “was immensely attracted by something in the air of the Kalevala3 (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 229), which serves as another example of his fascination by Norse, Finnish and Germanic mythologies. On this basis, this thesis will analyse the depiction of evil in Norse mythology, where it will concern itself mainly with Loki, colloquially known as the “God of mischief”, but it will also briefly analyse the character of Óđinn, as he shares similar traits with Loki, yet he is considered a morally good character, unlike Loki who is considered an evildoer.

The last possible influence mentioned here will be the World War I, in which Tolkien fought as a signalling officer (Carpenter, 2000, pp. 80-87). It is a common knowledge that World War I produced so called Lost Generation of authors, whose literary works are focused on the horrors of the war. Yet, despite being present at the Battle of the Somme, Tolkien is not a part of the Lost Generation, since his

2 The Legendarium is a term colloquially used to describe all written sources concerning Tolkien’s fictional world. This term includes also stories published post mortem by Tolkien’s son Christopher and also the collection of Tolkien’s letters, as they often contain information that did not appear in any of the officially released books. 3 Kalevala is an old Finnish epos.

10 books do not reflect the horrors of war, at least not unless deeply analysed, which will be done in this thesis.

After analysing all of the possible influences mentioned above, this chapter will have provided all the necessary information and definitions needed to analyse the portrayal of evil in The Legendarium and to draw connections with Tolkien’s life.

2. 1. Christianity

As stated above, it is practically impossible to define categorical evil as far as Christian faith is concerned, the Bible offers many ways of reading, and both historical and contemporary scholars have been debating about possible interpretations without a success. For this reason, this sub-chapter will provide only the most basic and vastly acknowledged definitions.4

Starting with Satan, the mostly acknowledged interpretation of this figure is the enemy of the God and the father of all evil.5 Satan is often portrayed as envious and jealous of men. Cohon (1948, p. 301) says that Satan “envied Adam’s position in Eden […], his lordship over creation, and above all Adam’s possession of Eve”. Caldwell makes similar point, saying that Satan “is jealous for the honor of God” (The doctrine of Satan: I. In the Old Testament, 1913, p. 32) and for that reason “he [Satan] sought man’s destruction” (The doctrine of Satan: II. Satan in extra-Biblical apocalyptical literature, 1913, p. 102). Despite being a supernatural being, Satan is unable of a direct confrontation. James (4:7) states that if you “resist the devil, he will flee from you”. Instead, Satan is described to use deception – as in the story of Job, where Satan tried to trick Job into “sin by charging God with wrongdoing” (Job 1:22) – and also other angels that he “made his subjects” (Cohon, 1948, p. 286). In some literature, Satans (evil spirits associated with Satan) “tempt to evil through lustful suggestion, evil counsel, teaching men war and its weapons” (The doctrine of Satan: II. Satan in extra-Biblical apocalyptical literature, 1913, p. 101). Cohon also states that Satan’s servants “showed men all the blows of death and the weapons of war” (1948, p. 286).

The character of Satan also plays an important role in the story of the Fall in Genesis. Fall is the story of Adam and Eve and the original sin. Despite Satan not being directly present in the story, some authors, such as (Caldwell, 1913) and (Dubarle & Higgens, 1958) believe that the serpent that persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit was a shapeshifted Satan, judging by the serpent’s crafty and “particularly subtle speech” (Dubarle & Higgens, 1958, p. 347) and other characteristics often “assigned to the devil, as tempter, calumniator, and hinderer” (Caldwell, The doctrine of Satan: I. In the Old Testament, 1913, p. 30). Satan is then the reason for the original sin. The story of the Fall has therefore two wrongdoers, the first being the first humans that “overstepped the bounds of humanity” (Cohon, 1948, p. 280) and broke the divine command. The second wrongdoer is Satan in the form of the serpent who tricked Eve into sinning. According to McClockey this is the basic definition of moral evil for theists, the “breach of

4 In this chapter, mostly resources published during the 20th century will be cited, as the aim of the chapter is to offer interpretations Tolkien might have been familiar with and influenced by. More recent sources do not offer this, as they might introduce interpretations of the Bible not known to Tolkien. 5 According to Caldwell (The doctrine of Satan: I. In the Old Testament, 1913), the word Satan was originally used to describe any adversary of God, only in the New Testament it became a name for the single entity known nowadays.

God’s law” and the punishment often includes “eternal damnation” and “suffering of other persons” (1960, p. 109).

In the Biblical mythology, there is yet another case of rebellion against God and it is the story of the Fall of Babylon, in which the Babylonians tried to build a tower so big that it would reach the Heaven, which was against God’s will. As a punishment for this, God “confused” their languages so they could not communicate with each other. These three instances suggest that one of the greatest offenses in Biblical mythology is “the rebellion against that authoritative [God’s] revelation” (Hibbs, 2016, p. 45).

On the other hand, there are other instances of God’s wrath unleashed upon the human race (or individuals). The one important for this thesis is the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain, which is considered to be the first murder. Even though a motive of rebellion can be seen once again, the prevalent motive in this story is the one of envy and wrath that forced Cain to kill Abel after God favoured Abel because of his sacrifice. This act of Cain can be judged extremely evil, as God tells Cain that he will “suffer vengeance seven times over” (Genesis 4:15), seemingly a very strict punishment.

As mentioned above, the hand of Cain was led by envy and wrath, which connects that story to the last important depiction of evil in Christian faith which is the concept of seven deadly (sometimes also called cardinal) sins. The essence of these myths have been changing throughout the history, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, the order and the nature of those sins was firmly established (Mustanoja, 1954). It is then certain that the sins as known nowadays are the same that Tolkien was familiar with. Two of the sins were already mentioned above, envy and wrath. The remaining five are pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, and lust. Envy and wrath were the cause of the first brother-slaying, pride and envy are argued to be the reasons behind the rebellion of Satan, sexual lust lead to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and sloth, greed and gluttony are usually the characteristics given to Pharaohs enslaving the people of Moses.

To conclude, the Biblical myth considers evil mainly the rebellion against God that can be seen in the three stories mentioned above, but also the concept of cardinal sins that are a reoccurring topic in the Bible.

2. 2. Old Norse Mythology

Contemporary knowledge of Norse myths comes from two sources, the older poetic Edda, which is not a very reliable source as the majority of the poem is missing, and the prosaic Edda, that retells the poetic Edda in prosaic form and is predominantly preserved, though this Edda was written during the era when Christianity was spreading through Scandinavia and Iceland, thus the story might involve not only original Norse themes, but also Christian themes (Lindow, 2001, pp. 2-31).

Similarly to Biblical mythology, evil in Norse myths is difficult to define as not many characters in Norse myths are morally good. Nevertheless, the prevalent amount of evildoing is done by the character of Loki. In his guide to Norse mythology, John Lindow calls Loki “the enemy of the gods in the far mythic past” and adds that Loki “reverts to this status as the mythic future approaches and arrives” (2001, p. 219). For this reason, this sub-chapter will analyse the character of Loki, but Óđinn, the ruler of gods, will also be mentioned, as he shares several features with Loki, yet is seen as morally purer character than Loki.

In his article about intelligence in Norse mythology, Wanner (2009, p. 217) stated that there are various interpretations of Loki. Philologists, such as Anna Birgitta Rooth, agree that the original image of Loki is that of a spider (Von Schnurbein, 2000, p. 113; Lindow, 2001, pp. 219-220). This interpretation does not offer any other characteristics, as the sources from before Christianity influenced the mythology are scarce.

The first complex theory about Loki is attributed to Jacob Grimm who defined him as the God of fire (Von Schnurbein, 2000, p. 112). Though further research showed that the God of fire is Logi, a different entity, in the Icelandic culture, those two characters remained one, due to regular volcanic eruptions, that “inspired terror” (Cawley, 1939, p. 315).

Nowadays, Loki is known as the god of mischief, a “trickster figure” (Lindow, 2001, p. 216). The majority of scholars and experts in this field describe him as “cunning, intelligent, prone to trickery, resourceful” (Wanner, 2009, pp. 214-215). Loki is also often seen taking shapes of other creatures to achieve his goals, as well as seducing his opponents (Wanner, 2009, p. 218). Unlike other gods of the Norse pantheon, Loki is described to have nearly no physical capacities and must rely on magic and “quick witted words” (Von Schnurbein, 2000, p. 122).

Although the characteristics mentioned above cannot be deemed honourable in Old Norse culture that praised warriors above all else, they are not by itself enough to make a person (or in Loki’s case a God) evil. Óđinn after all shares with Loki many of the mentioned features, and still is seen as a morally good (though not purely) chief of gods and the defender of human race. Óđinn can often be seen “engaging in dishonorable behaviour”, lying to others for selfish reasons, deceiving, shapeshifting or fleeing battle

(Wanner, 2009, pp. 220-221). Yet Óđinn is the ruler of gods and is being often praised for his role, but Loki is the enemy and one of the antagonists of the Eddas. The reason for this seemingly unfair distinction is that Óđinn is the protector of the human race, but Loki, despite working with other gods and often helping them with his cunning intelligence, where the strength of others do not help, sides with enemies at the final battle Ragnarok (Von Schnurbein, 2000, p. 115). Loki is thus the cause of the ultimate destruction of the world (Frakes, 1987, p. 478).

In conclusion of the Norse mythology, there are many interpretations of Loki and his nature. Though the first two major theories about Loki (Loki as a spider and Loki as a God of fire) have been disproved, they survive in some form and Tolkien as an expert in this field was surely aware of them. Yet, the prevalent nature of Loki is the enemy of gods, “the leader of the forces of destruction” (Wanner, 2009, p. 233) and the physically weak, but mentally superior, and selfish deceiver.

Beside Old Norse mythology, Tolkien was also familiar with an old Finnish epos Kalevala. Kalevala is not as famous as the Eddas are, but Tolkien was greatly influenced by this story. Mainly the story of Children of Húrin has a direct connection to the story of Kullervo6, thus there is a possibility of other elements of the epos appearing in The Legendarium. Bardowell (2009) described possible connections between Kalevala and Tolkien’s creation myth Ainulindale7, which will be described in more detail later. For this chapter, the story of a battle of singing is important, which was a competition held between two bards. One of the bards wins because his music is in harmony with “Deep Origins” that represent nature and its forces, while the losing bard is playing an original melody that goes against the above mentioned Origins. This discord played by the losing bard is seen as a rebellion against the Origins and he is therefore punished by losing the battle (Bardowell, 2009, pp. 97-98).

6 Kullervo is one of the stories featured in Kalevala. It is a tragedy of a hero named Kullervo and it features scenes of enslavement, mass murders, incest and suicide. The hero Kullervo is analogous to Tolkien’s character Túrin, the main character of Children of Húrin, one of the stories featured in The Sillmarilion and later on published as a stand-alone story. 7 Ainulindale is the first part of The Silmarillion which describes the cosmological myth of creation of Eä.

3. Tolkien’s Antagonists

This chapter will make use of previously defined ideas of evil and will look for these ideas and characteristics in The Legendarium. This will be done by analysing the most prominent antagonists that Tolkien created and relating them to Biblical and Norse mythologies. This chapter will analyse all of the antagonists with the intention of listing out their qualities and motivations.

Before an analysis of Tolkien’s antagonists can be done, a brief summary of the history of his fictional world must be given. The world where the stories of The Legendarium take place is called Eä, which was created by an omnipotent god Eru Ilúvatar (Tolkien’s version of Christian God). Eru created Ainur, “the offspring of his thought [that] were with him before aught else was made” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 3), for simplicity they are often called demi-gods or angels. These Ainur were divided to Valar (singular form is Vala) and Maiar (singular form is Maia). The difference between Valar and Maiar is not clearly stated, they are only said to be “of the same order as Valar but of less degree” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 17). Though Maiar are not necessarily weaker than Valar, they assume the role of their servants. To simplify their relationships, Valar are often related to archangels, while Maiar to regular angels.

Eru and the Ainur existed before the creation of the world, the world is a result of their music, called Ainulindale, during which Eru presented a music and the Ainur played the music in harmony. Here, the first antagonist of The Legendarium is presented. Melkor, the mightiest Vala, who “[interwove] matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 4). Melkor created discord in the music which finally resulted in Eru stopping the music at which point the universe (Eä) was created.

Eä consisted of one flat planet called Arda on which the Ainur were allowed to descent and to shape it to their will and prepare it for the coming of The Children of Ilúvatar (which are the intelligent races, mainly Elves and Men). During this time, the Valar were modifying the planet, while Melkor was destroying everything they made. The planet was mainly dark, since Sun and Moon did not yet exist and Melkor destroyed every source of light that Valar produced (except for stars, those were beyond Melkor’s reach).

After a non-specified amount of time, Eru awakened the first of his children, the Elves. When Elves first came to be, Valar defeated Melkor in a great battle and locked him in the Halls of Mandos (a mysterious place where the souls of all immortal beings go to be judged by Mandos, the wisest of Valar), and the reshaping of Arda stopped. Arda at that time contained three large continents, the Middle-Earth (where The Lord of the Rings8 and The Silmarillion take place), which further divides into Beleriand (the setting

8 Further referred to only as LotR.

16 of The Silmarillion) and East Lands (known from LotR). Another continent was Aman (also called the Undying Lands), where Valar set their kingdom of Valinor, in which the Trees of Light grew that were the source of light for the whole planet. The last continent was located at the very east of the – still flat – planet, and is not mentioned any further.

The Elves first awoke in the east of Middle-Earth. Before Valar were able to defeat Melkor, he captured some of them and turned them to Orcs. The rest were saved by Valar, and as another immortal creatures (Both Elves and Ainur may be killed, but their spirits will be judged by Mandos and after some time can assume a physical form again), they were invited to the realm of Valinor. Some of them refused, since they believed the lies of Melkor and his servants, and were thus afraid of Valar. These elves are not important for the rest of the story. The rest of the elves accepted and went on a march to Aman. The first that arrived there were called Vanyar and they were the most devoted to Ainur and Eru. The second that arrived were Noldor and they later on rebelled against the Ainur. The third that arrived were the Teleri who crossed the sea to get to the continent of Aman, but they stayed at the shore and never arrived in the realm of Valar. The last group of elves, called Sindar, went on the march, but stopped before reaching the sea, since their leader, King Thingol, fell in love with Melian, who was a Maia. These elves stayed in Beleriand and fought the servants of Melkor that were spawning there.

In Valinor, the elves were prospering under the rule of Valar, they were learning their lore and other skills, while also being close to the Trees of Light that provided a large amount of power to everyone who saw them. After several centuries, Melkor was released from prison and walked freely in Valinor. Around the same time, the most powerful elf Fëanor (another antagonist that will be analysed in this thesis) forged three gems out of the Trees of Light. These gems are called the Silmarilli (singular form is “Silmarill”) and they are told to be the most beautiful and powerful things ever created. It is said that “all that dwelt in Aman were filled with wonder and delight”, even Melkor “lusted for the Silmarills” and “the heart of Fëanor was fast bound to these things” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 55).

As Melkor desired them above else, he started to prone the Noldor to rebel against the Valar, and he himself allied with a giant spider Ungoliant and together they destroyed the Trees, stole the Silmarilli, killed the high king of elves, and escaped to Beleriand, where Melkor hid in his fortress Angband and set the Silmarilli in his iron crown. From that day, Melkor was called Morgoth, translated as “the dark enemy of the world” (in this thesis he will mainly be referred to as Melkor, but in direct citations either of the names will be used).

Fëanor swore he would recover the Silmarilli from Melkor, assumed a leadership upon Noldor, rebelled against Valar who forbade anyone leaving Valinor, slaughtered the Teleri in order to use the ships that they had built, and left Valinor in pursue of Melkor.

All Noldor arrived in Beleriand, but only some of them used the ships, some were dissatisfied with the kin slaying, so they crossed the sea using an icy bridge Helcaraxë. Whereas these elves settled in

Beleriand and tried to make alliances with other inhabitants, the elves that followed Fëanor (which included his seven sons), attacked Melkor’s fortress. But at the time Melkor already had a strong army of creatures that he corrupted to his cause. Other than before mentioned orcs (corrupted elves), it was Sauron – former servant of the Vala Aulë (father of dwarves) – and Balrogs (former spirits of fire, now corrupted to serve Melkor). This army averted Fëanor’s offence and killed Fëanor. Fëanor’s sons then swore an oath to not rest until Silmarilli are in their possession and to make their enemy of anyone who possesses the gems.

Meanwhile, Valar created the Sun and the Moon from the remains of the Trees, and illuminated the planet. Also, the dwarves were created (the process will be explained later) and also Men awoke in Middle-Earth. Some dwarves and men allied with Melkor and broadened his army, while others allied with elves.

The War of the Jewels, as is the war for Silmarilli called, lasted several centuries, during which another big stories took place, none of which are of peculiar importance for this thesis, and the fragments needed will be introduced when necessary. The War of the Jewels ended by the united armies (Sindar, Noldor, some clans of Men and Dwarves, and the host of Vanyar sent by Valar) defeated Melkor and his armies and wrestled the Silmarilli from him. During this war, two of the Silmarilli were lost and one was made into a star. This war also led to the destruction of Beleriand.

All elves that fought in the war were allowed to return to the Lands of Undying, though some refused. Men were awarded their own island (Númenor) where they could live and the rest had to run from the collapsing Beleriand to the east part of Middle-Earth that remained intact. Amongst those who ran were some of the Noldor who refused to return to Valinor (for example Galadriel known from LotR) and Melkor’s servants. Melkor himself was casted into the Void9, foretold to return at the end of the world. This was the end of what is called the first age.

The second age revolves mainly around the island of Númenor, where Men created highly civilised society, with the aid of elves. As mentioned above, this island was a reward for their help with defeating Melkor and Men were allowed to sail wherever they desired, but they were forbidden to travel into the Undying Lands. Númenoreans thus travelled east to Middle-Earth where they conquered primitive tribes and established their continental kingdom. At the same time, Sauron, former servant of Melkor, established his kingdom in Mordor and became the second dark lord, creating a new army of former Melkor’s servants and infiltrating elves who helped him to experiment with magical rings and to ultimately forge the rings of power. These rings were forged by an elven smith Celebrimbor with the aid of Sauron and were supposed to magnify the power of their bearers. In secrecy, Sauron forged the One Ring that was superior to other rings and through this Sauron was able to read minds of the owners

9 Void is a completely empty space outside of Eä.

18 of other rings and even control them. That is when the war between Sauron and the elves began, since the elves revealed Sauron’s plans and stopped using the rings.

At the same time, Númenor built an army so big that they decided to aid the elves and forced Sauron to surrender. At the time, the king of Númenor was Ar-Pharazôn, who will be analysed in detail later. During his reign, Númenor declared an open hostility against elves and Valar and was building an army to invade the Undying Realms. After capturing Sauron, Ar-Pharazôn jailed him in Númenor, but Sauron used his cunning intelligence and became the chief advisor to the king, supporting him in the decision to invade Valinor and starting a black magic cult that worshiped Melkor. It is argued that during this time Sauron distributed other rings of power he had in his possession to Men, who later on became Sauron’s lieutenants called Nazgûls (or Ringwraiths/Black Riders).

At the very end of the second age, Sauron persuaded Ar-Pharazôn to proceed with the invasion. As a result of this, Valar asked Eru to aid them and Eru destroyed the fleet of Númenor, sank the island, so only Sauron and rebels who still worshiped Eru in secrecy survived, and made the planet a globe, while also removing Valinor from the planet and shifting it to a higher sphere of being, so men could never be tempted to go there again. After this, Sauron returned to Mordor, and surviving Númenoreans established the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, and allied with continental elves in a war against Sauron. At the end of the war, Sauron was defeated, but Men kept the Ruling Ring, due to which Sauron survived, but was in hiding.

The third age is described in LotR, the greatest event was the rising of Sauron and the quest for destruction of the Ring. During this time, the magic of the elves started to perish (at the end of the third age, all elves and all magic left the Middle-Earth), and beside Sauron other antagonists appeared, of which Saruman will be of the greatest importance in this thesis, and thus will be explained in detail later. The third age ends with the destruction of the Ring and the defeat of Sauron and all evil in Middle-Earth.

The description above is the basic plot of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, though significantly simplified. In the following sub-chapters, the analysis of above mentioned antagonists will be given. The order will be the same as in this description, starting with the primordial evildoer Melkor, followed by his enemy Fëanor, his lieutenant Sauron, Ar-Pharazôn the last king of Númenor, and Saruman, originally Sauron’s enemy, later on his ally. A short sub-chapter will be given to other minor antagonists.

3. 1. Melkor

As stated above, Melkor/Morgoth is the first antagonist appearing in The Legendarium, assuming the role of a troublemaker even before the creation of the world, and as such is the primordial source of evil. In this sub-chapter, Melkor will be analysed in detail, starting with his rebellion during the creation myth Ainulindale, and drawing the first connections with Biblical mythology. Following that will be the discussion of sub-creation which will explain Tolkien’s creationistic ethics, which is strongly connected to his idea of evildoing. At the end, Melkor’s qualities and characteristics will be analysed, which will connect him to the Norse god Loki and will also complete the connections with Bible.

In the previous chapter, the creation myth Ainulindale was described, in which the Ainur played a music presented by Ilúvatar, but the mightiest of Ainur, Melkor, played his own theme that wove his thoughts into the music and made other Ainur “attune their music to his rather than the thought which they had at first” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 4). Eru stopped Melkor’s melody and started a new one, but Melkor corrupted every theme that Eru presented. After Melkor altered the theme for the third time, Eru stopped the music and created the universe. The reason for Melkor’s rebellion is that “he sought […] to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 4). In this act of Melkor, the first connection to a Biblical myth can be seen. It is not only an open rebellion against God, as seen for example in the story of Adam and Eve, but the reason for Melkor’s rebellion can be attributed to several of the deadly sins. Melkor thinks he can alter the theme of Ilúvatar, which points to the oldest of the deadly sins, pride, being in control of Melkor’s behaviour. The greed and lust of power is also present, due to Melkor wanting to amplify his own power. All this behaviour then leads to Melkor being “filled with shame, of which came secret anger” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 5), which is another of the deadly sins. Even before the creation of the universe, Melkor was being controlled by at least five of the seven deadly sins.

Based on the analysis above, one might think that Tolkien believed in a strict authoritarian God that punishes every act of free will. But The Legendarium offers much deeper ethical problem of sub- creation. In order to uncover Tolkien’s view on sub-creation, a brief description of the creation of dwarves must be given, as Tolkien described their creation as yet another act of rebellion against Eru’s will, yet this offense was pardoned. Eru’s plan was to create the immortal elves first and after them Men and possibly other sentient races. But this plan was halted by a Vala Aulë, who created the seven fathers of dwarves before even the elves were awakened. Eru, being omnipotent, noticed this act and questioned Aulë for the reason of this rebellion, as dwarves were not in Eru’s plan and elves were supposed to be the first intelligent race. Aulë defended himself by these words:

“I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which though hast caused to be. For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most

part empty still, and dumb. And in my impatience I have fallen into folly. Yet the making things is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son his father. […] But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 31)

After these words, Eru forgave Aulë for his rebellion under the condition that Aulë would awaken the dwarves only after the elves came to be. The speech by Aulë offers several interpretations of Eru’s forgiveness of the rebellion. The first one being Aulë’s humility, but shame can be seen even in Melkor’s doing, thus this distinction is not the main difference between the ultimately evil Melkor and morally good Aulë. The main distinction is the ethics of the process of sub-creation. In Aulë’s own words, his act was not a “mockery”, it was an imitation of Eru’s will. In an article about possible connection between Ainulindale and Finnish Kalevala, Bardowell (2009, p. 99) states that “Aulë’s desire for creating to some degree harmonizes with Ilúvatar’s will”. On the other hand, Melkor creates “something wholly separate” (Bardowell, 2009, p. 98) and, in Tolkien’s own words, “introduces alterations, not interpretations of the mind of the One” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 300).

For reasons mentioned above, the first sin of Melkor is not the act of free will or sub-creation, but rather a direct opposition to the will of an almighty Eru.10 Hibbs (2016) says that Melkor assaults the harmony “established by God” (p. 49), suggesting parallels between Melkor’s behaviour and “the behaviour of the serpent and Adam and Eve in Genesis 3” (p. 44). It can be also argued that this “non-harmonious autonomy” is a sin that Tolkien saw as a root of all evil, since Melkor’s interference in Ainulindale made other beings turn to evil, and by his corrupted music, created all evil that Tolkien later depicted in The Legendarium. Though, there is no direct evidence for this argument in any of Tolkien’s written work, in one of his letters he wrote that all evil arises “from an apparently good root”, but not the “Beginner of Evil: his was a sub-creative Fall” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 169), proving that he (Melkor) is not only the first antagonist, but also the origin of evil, being responsible for every other evil deed done, thus making a rebellion against God the worst sin, the same way Satan’s (and subsequently Adam and Eve’s) rebellion lead to all other evil deeds in Biblical mythology.

Now when the origin of evil, being Melkor controlled by deadly sins, and the problematics of sub- creation is established, the ways of how this evil presents itself needs to be analysed. After the creation of Arda (meaning after Melkor’s original rebellion), Ainur went to reshape the planet to build a home for The Children of Ilúvatar, while Melkor was continually halting their progress. This was done, besides corrupting other creatures to his cause, by destroying the work of Valar. Melkor can almost never be seen creating his own things (exception being his fortress Angband). Every other creation of Melkor is only a twisted form of what someone else created. The most prominent of Melkor’s servants is the race

10 The question of sub-creation will be further discussed in following chapters, since this matter concerns not only Melkor, but nearly every other villain in The Legendarium, but for the moment the important distinction between “good” and “bad” sub-creation is its relation to God.

21 of Orcs, which was created by torturing captured elves (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 38). Here follow other instances of Melkor corrupting the works of others: Sauron (former servant of Aulë became Melkor’s lieutenant and later on his successor), Ossë (master of seas whom Melkor persuaded to rebel against Ulmo, the master of all waters, but later on was pardoned and his allegiance to Ulmo was renewed, though he still “delights in violence” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 18)), Balrogs (originally spirits of fire, arguably also in service of Aulë), trolls (originally ents), and many other living creatures. A very prominent instance in Melkor’s corruption is death, which is called the “Gift of Ilúvatar”, but Melkor “cast his shadow upon it” and “brought evil out of good” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 30). This suggests that death was originally a gift, but men started to fear it due to Melkor’s interference.

All the instances above lead to the conclusion that Melkor is not an inventor, but he is neither a warrior, yet Melkor is the main antagonist of The Silmarillion, so he needs to possess some skillset that would make him a danger for others. Melkor is often portrayed as being afraid of others, be it other Valar,11 the race of men (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 29) or even his own servants and allies, for example the giant spider Ungoliant that „swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that Melkor was afraid“ (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 64). Besides being often afraid of his enemies and allies, he is also rarely seen fighting in battles, the only instance being his duel with Fingolfin, one of the elven kings (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 138-139). In all other cases Melkor served only as a commander of his forces, hiding in his fortress, or was forced to fight only as a last resort. Despite Melkor being made the most powerful Vala, he is not a skilled fighter, losing a fight to Ungoliant and being rescued by his servants (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 67-68). He shares this feature with the Norse God Loki, with whom he also shares the same strength of “cunning intelligence” (Wanner, 2009) and using tricks and deception to achieve his goals (Sanacore, 2015, p. 31). Similarly to Loki, Melkor is also capable of metamorphosis, changing shapes as seeing fit, often to hide himself from other Valar. Though all Ainur have this power, it is used mainly by Melkor and Sauron.

In conclusion, Melkor is the origin of all evil, bringing chaos and discord into the world even before its creation, corrupting the works of others and relying mainly on deception and destruction to achieve his goals. In his character, connections to both Biblical and Norse mythologies can be seen. Melkor is driven by at least five of the seven deadly sins, also his rebellion and subsequent fall is “analogous to Satan’s” (Mathison, 2011). Elements of Kalevala can also be seen in this rebellion, mainly in the conflict of harmony and dissonance (Bardowell, 2009, p. 91). Lastly, Melkor and Loki share several common features, mainly their lack of physical abilities, their intelligence and their use of trickery and destruction, but also some form of creativity.

11 “In the confusion and the darkness Melkor escaped, though fear fell upon him; for above the roaring of the seas he heard the voice of Manwë … and the earth trembled beneath the feet of Tulkas.“ (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 25)

3. 2. Fëanor

Fëanor was the eldest son of Finwë, king of Noldor, and after Finwë was killed by Melkor, he became the King and led the rebellion of Noldor against Valar. He was the smith that created the Silmarilli that were the cause of a several centuries long war. After Melkor attacked Valinor, killed Finwë and escaped with the Silmarilli, Fëanor pursued him with the host of Noldor, slaughtered Teleri, the elven ship- builders, which resulted in Noldor being cursed by Mandos and forbidden to return to Valinor, and attacked Melkor’s fortress. During this battle Fëanor was mortally wounded and just before his death he made his sons swore an oath that forced them to retake the Silmarilli at all costs and made enemies of everyone that held the gems without their permission. In this chapter, these deeds of Fëanor and his sons will be analysed in detail, first proving his nature of an antagonist, then analysing his characteristics and at the end relating Fëanor to Melkor.

Between Tolkien’s fans, a debate is being held about whether Fëanor is an antagonist or not. In Tolkien’s own words “The fall of the Elves comes about through the possessive attitude of Fëanor and his seven sons” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 170). This should serve as a proof enough that Fëanor was at least the source of evildoing and demise of elves, if not the chief initiator, but from further analysis it will become clear that he shares a great many common features with Melkor.

As said above, Fëanor was the creator of the Silmarilli, the most beautiful gems in The Legendarium. These gems contained the light of the Trees (the predecessors of Sun and Moon) and as a result of this, everyone loved them, including Melkor. Because Fëanor “began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love”, he locked them away, despite them not being his possession, due to the light in them not being his own (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 57). The deadly sin of greed is used to describe Fëanor’s attitude towards the Silmarilli. Other deadly sins, though not mentioned directly, can be deduced from the description of Fëanor. Fëanor, as the most skilled of the elves, “was driven by the fire of his own heart only” and “sought the counsel of none … great or small” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 54). During the time when Fëanor claimed the Silmarilli solely for him, Melkor lived in Valinor and he started slowly influencing the minds of Noldor (even the mind of Fëanor), causing that the „pride and anger were awake among the Noldor” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 57). From these it can be deduced that at the time, Fëanor was being controlled by greed, pride and wrath, three of the seven deadly sins. It can also be argued that envy was another one, since Fëanor had two half-brothers, which he „had no great love for” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 52), though no specific reason for this attitude of his is known. Fëanor shares three of the sins with Melkor, and the fourth sin attributed to Melkor is envy, making this sin controlling Fëanor as well almost a certainty, due to all the shared features between Melkor and Fëanor (which will yet be discussed).

But Fëanor’s sins were not only those of greed, wrath and pride. Similarly to Melkor, Fëanor also rebelled against the God, though not directly, as Eru has never revealed himself to his children, but indirectly through the rebellion against Valar and Manwë, who was appointed a King of Arda. After Melkor stole the Silmarilli and killed Fëanor’s father, Fëanor was the one leading the host of Noldor out of Valinor, despite the order of Valar not to pursue Melkor. Despite Fëanor not being entirely at fault, from quotes cited above it is clear that Melkor influenced minds of Noldor and thus also is to blame for that, Fëanor assumed the leadership and opposed those Noldor who advised him to obey the commands of Valar, and thus is the primal reason for their subsequent banishment.

The rebellion itself was not the only reason for the banishment of Noldor, though. Arguably the worst crime committed by them was when Teleri, elves who lived at the shores of Aman, refused to give Fëanor their ships, so he could sail through the sea to Beleriand where Melkor was hiding. Teleri refused to disobey Valar and argued that their ships were to them “as are the gems of the Noldor” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 73), making them their equivalents of the Silmarilli. Despite there being a temporal bridge of ice between Aman and Beleriand, Fëanor decided to kill the Teleri, steal their ships, and after he sailed across the sea, burn them down (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 73-77). This kin-slaying was seen again only when sons of Fëanor and their oath was concerned, making this an infamous and unusual act in The Legendarium, resembling the story of Cain and Abel, where it was also envy and greed that caused the first murder.

Concerning Fëanor’s relation to Melkor, excluding previously established connections of seven deadly sins and rebellion against God, they also share similar skillset. Unlike Melkor, Fëanor was an inventor, creating not only the Silmarilli, but also an alphabet and other technological wonders (for example the Palantíri that played a major role in LotR). But the greatest inventions of Fëanor, the Silmarilli, share one feature with creations of Melkor, the feature being a corruption of something that already existed. To create the Silmarilli, Fëanor “imprisoned the Light of Valinor” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 170), the same way Melkor imprisoned and tortured elves to create orcs. Another shared feature is the way these two characters solve conflicts. Neither Melkor nor Fëanor are warriors (even though Fëanor was leading the charge on Angband, unlike Melkor who hides inside the fortress), but both of them are skilled at influencing the minds of others. If Fëanor’s ability to unite Noldor under his lead and make them rebel against Valar (even those who opposed him) is not a prove enough of this shared quality, a description of Fëanor’s wife says that unlike him she desired “to understand minds rather than to master them” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 52), giving another piece of evidence of Fëanor being not only a skilled smith but also an influencer, just like Melkor.

Thus it can be said that the most prominent features of Melkor are also the most prominent features of Fëanor. They are both proud, envious and greedy, they both rely on their persuasive powers, rather than strength, they are prone to rebellion against Eru, and despite both being creative, they corrupt the works

24 of others (although Fëanor was also able to create things on his own, combining both Melkor’s twisted sub-creation and Aulë’s sub-creation that is in harmony with The One). Connections to Biblical and Norse mythology do not need to be given, as they are the same as the ones of Melkor, due to the similarity of those two characters. The only connection not seen in Melkor is the kin-slaying, though this is partly due to Melkor’s kin being analogies of angles, thus not being able to be slain, and it can be argued that corruption of other Ainur to his cause is similar to Fëanor killing other elves for their boats.

3. 3. Sauron

Sauron is the main antagonist of LotR, mainly known as the creator of the One Ring, but he was also present, though limitedly, in The Silmarillion. Sauron was one of the Maiar, originally he was the servant of Aulë, but at some point in time, he was corrupted by Melkor, becoming “only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 19). The first major role of Sauron was in the story of Beren and Lúthien, where Sauron commanded the host of werewolves, as he was their lord (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 157-158)12. After that he was not directly involved in any of the stories, though as Melkor’s lieutenant he was surely in charge of his own army, but only after the defeat of Melkor, he became important again, as he became the second Dark Lord. He survived the destruction of Beleriand (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 226-236) and created his own stronghold in Middle-Earth (specifically in the land of Mordor). There he was recreating an army of orcs, while at the same time infiltrating elven smiths and working with them on forging magical rings. Due to his former service to Aulë, he was able to create powerful rings, which Elves used to amplify their powers, but they did not know that he in secrecy created The Ruling Ring, which allowed him to control the minds of the bearers of other rings. That was the beginning of his war against elves and men. At the end of the Second Age, he was captured by Ar-Pharazôn and became his slave in Númenor. From that he became a chief advisor of the king and persuaded him to invade Valinor, which caused the destruction of Númenor (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 237-262). Sauron escaped the destruction, returned to Mordor and waged another war against The Free Peoples of Middle-Earth (name for all nations opposing Sauron), only to be defeated by Isildur, the king of Gondor. Sauron did not die, since his power was entangled with The Ring, so during the Third Age, he was hiding and rebuilding his armies, just to be defeated by Frodo (the protagonist of LotR) who destroyed the One Ring. In this sub-chapter, Sauron’s strengths will be examined and the similarities and differences with Melkor will be discussed. The role of the One Ring will also be analysed, as the Ring is the primary point of interest of LotR. Sauron’s role in the fall of Númenor will be mentioned, though full analysis will be given in the subsequent chapter about Ar-Pharazôn.

As stated above, Sauron, as well as everyone else, was not originally evil, he was “of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 19). As Aulë was “a smith and a master of all crafts” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 15), Sauron was therefore a smith as well, but he was “corrupted by the Prime Dark Lord Morgoth” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 207). A little is known about the inventions of Sauron, but from what is known, his sub-creative ethics is different from the one of Melkor. Whereas Melkor created his servants by torturing and corrupting

12 Beren and Lúthien is one of the stories featured in The Silmarillion. In the story, Beren, a mortal men, and Lúthien, an elven princess, face the powers of Melkor in order to obtain one of the Silmarilli that Melkor possesses. One of the enemies they have to beat in order to achieve their quest is Sauron and his army of werewolves.

26 others, Sauron used his knowledge received from Aulë to achieve the same thing. He infiltrated the elven smiths by taking a beautiful shape and naming himself “the Lord of Gifts” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 265) and helping the Noldor with their crafts. Though the rings were not made by him, only under his guidance, they are not a corruption of something else, like all inventions of Melkor, they are things on their own. But the connection between creations of Melkor and Sauron is the purpose of their creations. Melkor created his servants to destroy the doings of others, Sauron does the same. The rings of power that he gave to the Free Peoples served to amplify their powers, but at the end, they were “subject wholly to it [The One Ring]” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 265), used by Sauron only to bring the bearers of the rings under his will. This deed was successful only with the nine rings that Sauron distributed amongst men, making the bearers their slaves without them “recognizing their slavery” (Stanton, 2001, p. 137), making them his chief servants, called the Nazgûl. In this act, similarity with Melkor enslaving elves and reshaping them into orcs can be seen. Stanton (2001) in his analysis of LotR also claims that the evil trees encountered by the Hobbits in several forests were also corrupted by Sauron (p. 135), making this the only known instances where Sauron created new servants (all of his other servants were originally created by Melkor), the same way Melkor did, by corrupting something already existing, despite the creation of the rings was an entirely new process.

The power to corrupt other beings is not the only feature that Sauron shares with Melkor. The same way Melkor is rarely seen fighting, there is only one instance of Sauron personally fighting in a battle (the same battle that he was defeated by Isildur in), and amplifies his power by trickery and deception. Sauron, like Melkor, was often using the power of metamorphosis to achieve his goals. When he battled Beren and Lúthien, he appeared in four shapes (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 158). Similar strategy was used when infiltrating the Noldor (as described above) where he took the form of an elf. But the most prominent strengths of Sauron was his power to deceive people. This power was used not only to forge the rings of power, but also to sway Saruman, who was initially sent to oppose Sauron, to his cause, and to rise from the slave of Ar-Pharazôn to his most trusted servant (both instances will be discussed in detail later).

Sauron’s deceptive abilities can be best described by analysing how The One Ring works, as “much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 265), suggesting that the Ring inherited Sauron’s powers. The most obvious power of The Ring is to make its bearer invisible, the same way Ainur (including Sauron) were able to walk the lands without being seen or changing their shapes as seen fit. Nevertheless, this power is not the predominant power of The Ring, despite being the most obvious one. The greatest power of The Ring was influencing the minds of others, as seen several times in LotR and The Hobbit. This power can first be seen when Bilbo encounters Gollum in The Hobbit. Gollum was at the time the bearer of The Ring for several centuries, and it is said that he used The Ring either to hunt Orcs for food, or “when he could not bear to be parted from it any longer” (Tolkien, The Hobbit, or, There and back again, 1995, pp. 77-78). This suggests certain

27 addictive power of The Ring, and this power is later on advanced. Another glimpse at this power is when Bilbo refuses to tell his companions about The Ring, despite having no reason to hide its existence (Tolkien, The Hobbit, or, There and back again, 1995, pp. 88-89), and later on in LotR, Bilbo struggles to give The Ring to Frodo, when Gandalf insists on it, Bilbo starts getting angrier and more possessive (Tolkien, The fellowship of the ring, 1991, pp. 54-57). Similar attitude is later on seen when Frodo offers The Ring to Galadriel, a powerful elven queen, who says that her “heart has greatly desired to ask what you [Frodo] offer [The Ring]” (Tolkien, The fellowship of the ring, 1991, p. 474). Despite refusing The Ring, Galadriel admits that she desired it. The same thing happens to Frodo in The Return of the King. When Frodo is captured by the orcs, Samwise takes The Ring so as the Orcs do not hand it to Sauron. When Samwise saves Frodo and gives him The Ring back, Frodo starts to be possessive, accusing Samwise of theft of The Ring (Tolkien, The return of the king, 1991, p. 224). Lastly, the climax of The Return of the King was Frodo failing to destroy The Ring and instead claiming it for himself (Tolkien, The return of the king, 1991, pp. 268-269), the same way Isildur claimed The Ring for himself after the defeat of Sauron.

Bearing that in mind, a question about how does The Ring achieve that possessive attitude, has to be asked. The most obvious explanation might be that the Ring shares the powers of Sauron, thus he can influence the minds of other beings. But even Sauron’s power was not strictly magical, his power to persuade others was described merely as a very crafty speech, thus the Ring’s power must be the same. Despite the Ring not being able to speak, it possesses the power of persuasion via suggestion. The Ring suggests to its bearers, that by using it, it can give them the power to achieve their dreams. This is argued to be the reason behind the ending of LotR, where Frodo, the bearer of the Ring, refuses to destroy it. The Ring promised Frodo the power to save Shire, which was Frodo’s driving force for the whole story (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 347). The Ring offers to its bearer an immense power to do everything they want to do, but with this immense power, even the purest intentions would turn out to be catastrophic for the world. As Tolkien wrote in one of his letter, if Gandalf possessed the Ring, he “would have been far worse than Sauron” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 350), despite Gandalf without a doubt being a morally good character.

In conclusion, Sauron shares almost every feature with his master Melkor, they are both skilled smiths, but unlike Aulë, they use their inventions for destruction and deception. Deception and trickery are the other features that Sauron shares with Melkor. Sauron is also the maker of the central item of interest of LotR, the Ring of Power. Brief analysis of the Ring offers an interpretation of Tolkien’s view on power, suggesting that Tolkien saw power as something that corrupts even the morally purest characters.

3. 4. Ar-Pharazôn

Ar-Pharazôn was the last King of the island of Númenor. Númenor was an island awarded to men by Valar for their help in defeating Melkor. Númenoreans, unlike men from the Middle-Earth, were close friends of elves, lived longer than usual men and they were able to build a highly civilised society, being “mighty in crafts” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 240) and growing “mighty and glorious, and in all things more like to the Firstborn [elves]” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 239). They mastered the art of sea-craft, but were forbidden to sail west, which would lead them to the Lands of Undying, as they were mortals. Despite following the ban, “they did not fully understand the purpose” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 240), and after several centuries they started to “hunger for the undying city” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 241). This “hunger” slowly lead to them antagonising elves and Valar, banning elven languages and stopping every trade with them. Before Ar-Pharazôn became a king, the population of the island was already split into two groups, those serving the king, and the Faithful, who in secrecy still traded with elves and wanted to restore the kingdom to its former glory, though their number were few and the majority of the population disbelieved the elves and Valar. During this time, Ar-Pharazôn came to power and build the greatest army of men in history. With this army, he enslaved Sauron, who then became his advisor and started a cult of Melkor in Númenor. After several years of Sauron’s persuasion, Ar-Pharazôn invaded the Undying Lands and as a result of this act, Númenor was destroyed. In this chapter, the analysis of Sauron will follow, as he played a major role in the destruction of Númenor, but the character of Ar-Pharazôn will also be examined. Other kings of Númenor will not be discussed, as Ar-Pharazôn committed every sin of his predecessors and as such the analysis of his character will also serve as general analysis of the continuously worsening political mood in Númenor.

As stated previously, Sauron was captured by the Númenorean army and became their slave. This part of Sauron’s story only further demonstrates his cunningness. In his letters, Tolkien wrote that “Sauron’s personal surrender [to Ar-Pharazôn] was voluntary and cunning” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 296) and while in Númenor, “he [Sauron] swiftly rises by his cunning and knowledge from servant to chief counsellor of the king, and seduces the king and most of the lords and people with his lies” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 174). Though Sauron’s influence was not described in detail, from what little is written about his time in Númenor, it can be deduced that his influence on Ar-Pharazôn was the same as the influence of The Ring, promising Ar-Pharazôn immortality and additional power, things that the kings of Númenor desired the most (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 249).

This power would be useless though, as in the case of The Ring, if it had nothing to corrupt. But, as was the case at previously mentioned antagonists, Ar-Pharazôn was controlled by several of the deadly sins, being described as “the mightiest and proudest [of the kings of Númenor]” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 247) and often being portrayed as controlled by anger and envy (Tolkien, The silmarillion,

2007, pp. 246-259). Similarly to Melkor, “his [Ar-Pharazôn’s] heart was filled with the desire of power unbounded” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 247-248).

Though Ar-Pharazôn is not a smith, unlike the previous antagonists mentioned, “the Dúnedain [different name for Númenoreans] became mighty in crafts, so that if they had had the mind they could easily have surpassed the evil kings of Middle-Earth in the making of war and the forging of weapons” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 240) and also “with the aid and counsel of Sauron they multiplied their possessions, and they devised engines, and they built ever greater ships” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 251), meaning, that despite Ar-Pharazôn not being a smith himself, the society of Númenor mastered that craft, thus they share this attribute with Melkor, Fëanor and Sauron.

The greatest difference between Ar-Pharazôn (and Númenor as a whole) and other antagonists is that, unlike the others, Númenoreans did not deceive others, and did not commit the act of twisted sub- creation, but were only the victims of Sauron’s lies, despite the fall of their society had begun long before Sauron’s captivity, which can be attributed, as mentioned above, to their pride and lust for immortality.

Despite all the sins mentioned above being prominent features of previous antagonists, they were not by itself the reason for the destruction of Númenor, but rather lead to the greatest sin that Númenoreans committed, which was yet another rebellion against Eru. Not only did Ar-Pharazôn not obey the ban of Valar, which said that could not sail westward, so as not to be tempted to arrive to Valinor, but he also decided to invade those lands, which were promised only to immortal creatures. Though this rule was not created by Eru, it was created by his messengers and thus disobeying it was an indirect rebellion against him, as seen with both Melkor and Fëanor.

In conclusion, Ar-Pharazôn and the later society of Númenor shares some characteristics with other antagonists. As was the case in previous chapters, deadly sins are seen in play, as well as rebellion against higher power, and the mastery of technology. Unlike previous chapters, trickery and corruption were not deployed by Númenoreans, but rather used on them by Sauron, using their pride, greed and great power to seduce them to his side and for his benefit.

3. 5. Saruman

Saruman was one of the Maiar sent to Middle-Earth in the Third Age to fight the rearising power of Sauron (his companions were Gandalf, Radagast and two other wizards). Their goal was to help the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth to finally defeat Sauron. All of the wizards chose various means, with Saruman receiving a lordship over Isengard, a strategically placed fortress built by Númenoreans and later on controlled by Gondor. By residing in this fortress, he was supposed to be loyal to Gondor and to fight against Sauron. Despite opposing Sauron at first, at some point, Saruman started to work against his allies, lusting for Sauron’s power. In this chapter, the similarity between Saruman and Sauron will be explained in detail, as well as the connection to Ar-Pharazôn.

Almost every characteristics that could be attributed to Sauron could also be attributed to Saruman. In the chapter about Sauron, these characteristics were emphasised: cunningness, intelligence, deception, his great power, art of corruption and twisted sub-creation, his nature of a smith and his pride, wrath and greed. Although no significant creations of Saruman can be seen in The Legendarium, his mastery of this craft can be deduced from a) his original name Curunín, which means a Man of Craft (Tolkien, Unfinished tales of Númenor & Middle-Earth, 2014, p. 504), b) his former affiliation to Aulë the Smith (Tolkien, Unfinished tales of Númenor & Middle-Earth, 2014, p. 509), and c) his army of orcs that he created and, most importantly, armed in The Two Towers. The same rule that applies to the inventions of Melkor and Sauron applies also to Saruman’s creations, it is twisted and unoriginal. Bardowell (2009) links this to the Finnish epos Kalevala, saying that Saruman “rejects the old wisdom in favour of his own” (p. 104), the same way the losing bard in Kalevala rejected his Origins. As stated before, this is something connecting all of the antagonists of The Legendarium.

Another connection with Sauron is Saruman’s ability of persuasion. Similarly to Sauron, Saruman, despite being “the greatest of [the wizard] order” (Tolkien, Unfinished tales of Númenor & Middle- Earth, 2014, p. 518), is rarely seen fighting, and even his army of orcs was unleashed only after Saruman’s main power failed to achieve his goals. This power of his is, once again, the power of deception. As established, this feature is shared with almost every other major antagonist in The Legendarium, but in the case of Saruman, it can be best seen how this power works, as one whole chapter in LotR is dedicated to this power (the chapter is even called “The Voice of Saruman”). This chapter presents Saruman after his defeat by Gandalf and the Ents13, yet even at the beginning of the chapter Gandalf warns his companions that even when defeated, Saruman’s voice is still dangerous. Saruman then proceeds to persuade the minds of Gandalf’s companions in order to save himself. The chapter shows that the corruption of others is not through magic, but merely through carefully chosen words. In

13 Saruman sent his armies to conquer Rohan, a neighbouring kingdom. His army was defeated and at the same time the shepherds of trees, called Ents, attacked Saruman’s private fortress and imprisoned him in his tower.

31 one of his letters, Tolkien stated that “Saruman’s voice was not hypnotic but persuasive” and that “Saruman corrupted the reasoning powers” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 294).

The last connection to Sauron are Saruman’s motives. Despite serving as an antagonist, Saruman began as Sauron’s adversary, and only after a certain amount of time joined Sauron’s side (though with the intention to overthrow Sauron). Saruman originally wanted to use the Ring for himself, believing that with the Ring he could defeat Sauron. Hawkins (2014) states that it was lust, pride and desire for power that changed Saruman from a protagonist to an antagonist. Saruman is also similar to Ar-Pharazôn, in a way, as Saruman was in contact with Sauron, and it can be argued that the change of Saruman’s character was aided by Sauron’s own corruptive abilities, as he demonstrated when imprisoned by Ar-Pharazôn, though the scope of this interference can only be guessed, as Tolkien does not offer a definitive answer to this question.

In essence, the character of Saruman demonstrates the key abilities of other antagonists. He demonstrates the fall from a protagonist to an antagonist caused by a) previously existing antagonist, in this case Sauron, and b) seven deadly sins such as lust and pride, but also the corruption of power. He also demonstrates the twisted form of creation and mostly, he proves that the power of deception is not magical in The Legendarium, but rather a skill that could be learned and applied even in the real world. Though this detail might seem insignificant, it is a kind of warning of Tolkien, suggesting that this danger does not appear only in fiction, even real people can be affected and corrupted by it.

3. 6. Other antagonists

In the previous chapters, the most prominent and important antagonists of The Legendarium were analysed. Though this could be enough, along with the possible connections to mythology, to establish what Tolkien perceived as evil, this chapter will give a brief description of other antagonists to complement the argument.

In LotR and The Hobbit, the protagonists rarely face any of the antagonists mentioned above. The main enemies are the orcs, goblins, trolls and other creatures of similar nature. These creatures are the main forces of Melkor, Sauron and Saruman. They are created by corrupting and torturing other living creatures, making them the perfect examples of sub-creation which is against the wish of Eru. The reason why these sub-creations are unethical were discussed when Melkor was compared to Aulë and his dwarves. The only thing that was not mentioned was the individuality of these creatures. Up until now they were discussed only as slaves of higher antagonists, but their existence raises a question whether they are truly evil or just another victims. The answer to this is largely debated, the main question being whether orcs, as former immortal elves, are still immortal and thus whether, after their deaths, will their souls be pardoned by Mandos, or whether they share the unknown fate of men, or whether there is an entirely different ending for them. Tolkien himself never answered this question, but from the fact, that unlike elves, who cannot die by old age, orcs have a limited life-span, it can be deduced that they do not share the fate of elves. Despite their service to the higher evils may not be their fault, they share the hatred of the works of others with Melkor, their creator.

Two important creatures in The Silmarillion and LotR are the giant spider Ungoliant and her daughter Shelob. Though there is no evidence of Ungoliant’s origin, she is believed to be one of the Ainur corrupted by Melkor during Ainulindale. What is known is that she is not Melkor’s servant, she only allied with him to assault Valinor where she absorbed the light of the Trees of Light. There are two important aspects about Ungoliant, first being her spider shape. Spiders are seen as the antagonists in both LotR and The Hobbit, but the reason for this is unknown. Tolkien admitted he did not like to touch spiders, but insisted on not being afraid of them and denying that there would be any connection between Ungoliant (and other spider-shaped antagonists in The Legendarium) and the tarantula that bit him when he was a child (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 230). Though this is just a pure speculation, the answer might be the etymological origin of Loki, who, as described in previous chapters, was by some scholars thought to be of the shape of a spider. With Loki’s prominent features being incorporated into almost every Tolkien’s antagonist, it could be argued that Tolkien used spiders as antagonists, not only for their visual characteristics, but mainly for their connection with Loki. The shape that Ungoliant took is not of the greatest interest to this thesis, it serves only as another potential connection with Norse Mythology. What is of peculiar interest is her behaviour. Ungoliant was not a servant of Melkor, yet she allied with him, despite being afraid of the power of Valar (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 62). Despite that,

Melkor managed to persuade her into helping him, appealing to her lust and hunger, saying: “Do as I bid; and if thou huger still when all is done, then I will give thee whatsoever thy lust may demand” (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, p. 62). Melkor appealed to her greatest characteristics, her hunger (in biblical words, gluttony) and her lust, two deadly sins. Shelob, the daughter of Ungoliant, which was encountered by Frodo and Sam in The Return of the King shares the same characteristics. Shelob comes into that story in a very similar way to Ungoliant. The same way Melkor appealed to Ungoliant’s lust and gluttony to make her another antagonist, Gollum does the same with Shelob. Gollum desired The Ring that Frodo wore around his neck. For this reason, he led Frodo to Shelob with the promise that she will consume Frodo. This behaviour is strikingly similar to Melkor’s, with Gollum using Shelob’s hunger and lust for meat to achieve his goals, Gollum introduces Shelob to the story in exactly the same way Melkor introduced Ungoliant, as an antagonist with a mind on its own, but controlled by two deadly sins, gluttony and lust (Hawkins, 2014).

Going back to Melkor’s servants, there are two cases of his servants involving the symbolism of fire. The first being Balrogs and the second dragons. About Balrogs enough has been written above, and their significance will be discussed in the last chapter, but dragons have not yet been mentioned. The reason being, dragons as a species do not advance the understanding of Tolkien’s ethics, the process of their creation is unknown, that is why they do not serve as a good example of sub-creation, and their connection to fire and destructive powers is similar to the ones of Balrogs and as such will be discussed in the last chapter as well. Nevertheless, a brief analysis of two dragons can further enforce the arguments given. The first dragon is Glaurung, who was the first dragon unleashed by Melkor. He is a significant antagonist in the tale of Húrin’s children. This tale was largely inspired by the Finnish Kullervo (Bardowell, 2009), and is known as the darkest story featured in The Legendarium. The plot of the story is quite complicated, but suffice it to say, that the main hero, Túrin, goes through a lot of sufferings in the story, becoming an outlaw, being responsible for the deaths of all his close friends, and marrying his own sister. The dragon Glaurung is an important figure in this story, as he is the source of many of these sufferings, mainly the incest marriage. Though Glaurung was described as a huge lizard with great destructive powers, the way he interfered with the story was, as seen at many antagonists before him, the power of his words. Unlike Melkor, Sauron or Saruman, who were great deceivers, Glaurung had a magical power that forced his victims to listen to his words and allowed him to control them. Glaurung’s curse was the reason that Túrin’s sister lost her memory, which lead to their marriage, his curse was also the reason for Túrin being unable to save some of his friends from orcs, and at the end, after Túrin killed Glaurung, with his last words Glaurung unveiled his plots which was the reason for Túrin’s death (Tolkien, The silmarillion, 2007, pp. 181-208). Without explaining the story in detail, Glaurung was a chief instrument of Melkor that advanced the tragedy of Túrin, and as seen several times before, it was not done by Glaurung’s destructive powers, though they were immense, but rather by his ability to curse people and influence their mind. Despite Glaurung’s power being magical, unlike

Melkor’s or Sauron’s who persuaded others using only their wits, the way the power manifested itself was the same, the damage done was not directly by the wielders of the power, but by the characters influenced by it.

Another prominent dragon in The Legendarium is Smaug, the main antagonist of The Hobbit. Unlike other dragons appearing in The Legendarium, Smaug was not serving the purpose of a weapon of a more powerful master, but rather as an individual, performing his evildoings not because he was ordered to, but from his own initiative. At the beginning of The Hobbit, Smaug attacked the city of Erebor (city founded by the dwarves, known for its riches), hoarded the treasures of the city into one room and then fell asleep on the pile of gold. There is no doubt that Smaug was Tolkien’s analogy of the dragon in Beowulf, as both dragons sleep on a pile of gold and both are the reasons for the death of a king (though in The Hobbit the king of Erebor was not directly killed by Smaug, yet was killed during his quest to defeat the dragon). In his article about Tolkien’s dragons, Evans (1998) explains the connections between Smaug and “Germanic dragon-lore”, saying that the most important topic of The Hobbit is the association between the dragon and hoarded treasure” (p. 184). Despite The Hobbit not being as complex as the rest of The Legendarium14, it contains Tolkien’s view on greed, as Smaug was hoarding treasures just for the sake of having them, and even one of the main protagonists, Thorin, the king of the dwarves, succumbed to greed and started a war only because he was unwilling to share his riches with others15. The character of Smaug is the best representation of the whole moral motif of The Hobbit, which is a warning against greed.

14 The Hobbit was originally written as a stand-alone fairy-tale for children, only later on was connected to The Silmarillion and the rest of Legendarium. 15 In the last part of The Hobbit, Smaug goes on to destroy a city of men. During the battle between Smaug and the people of the city, Thorin and his companions reinforce the, now abandoned, city of Erebor, and claim all its riches for themselves. The inhabitants of the city of men defeat Smaug and want to receive a reward for the damage the dragon did to their city. Thoring refuses to give up any of his newly acquired riches and a war starts between Thorin and his company and the people of the city that was almost destroyed by Smaug.

4. World Wars and Environment

Before summarizing the findings of this thesis, one more important aspect of Tolkien’s life and its impact on The Legendarium must be given. This aspect are the World War I, World War II, and the impact of wars and technological progress on environment. Tolkien joined the World War I in June 1916, his battalion was taking part in the battle of Somme. Unlike many of Tolkien’s childhood friends, Tolkien survived the battle, and thanks to the trench fever he got infected by, he was sent back to England on November 1916 (Carpenter, 2000, pp. 88-93). Despite spending relatively short time in the trenches, the war influenced Tolkien (as will be shown in this chapter). The Word War II, despite coming much later in Tolkien’s life, when some of his books were being released (The Hobbit was published in 1937, LotR in 54-55), could have enforced Tolkien’s view on wars and matters related to it. This chapter will briefly analyse the ways that the world wars influenced The Legendarium. The reason for this not being mentioned in the “Inspiration” chapter is due to the radical differences between mythology and religion, discussed in the second chapter, and the war experience. This chapter will not provide deep geopolitical or psychological analysis of the wars, as that would be beyond the scope of the thesis, rather this thesis will build upon already existing sources concerning specifically Tolkien. In this way, this chapter will offer several small pieces of information broadening Tolkien’s understanding of evil.

The first story that Tolkien wrote and that was later on developed into The Legendarium was The Fall of Gondolin, which “was written in prose during sick leave” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 229).16 The story is concerned with the destruction of an elven city Gondolin by armies of Melkor. Very important aspect of the whole story are the powers of Melkor’s armies. Armies of Melkor attacking Gondolin were composed not only of orcs, but mainly of Balrogs, dragons and iron snakes. In the stand-alone story, Tolkien describes the enemy armies and the destruction they cause with phrases such as “spirits of blazing fire”, “rivers of fire”, or “stifling heat and a black smoke and stench” (Tolkien, The fall of Gondolin, 2018, pp. 72-78). The imagery that Tolkien paints is a one of destruction by fire, iron and smoke. Garth (2003) in his book about Tolkien’s part in the World War I connects this to Tolkien’s experience from the Somme (Garth, 2003, pp. 203-207). Garth describes the land in which Tolkien’s battalion spent most of their time as “scared and torn away … heralded by stench” (Garth, 2003, p. 160). Garth also states that during Tolkien’s stay at the Somme, he also devised the majority of the monsters appearing in The Legendarium, such as orcs that “were bread in the subterranean heats and slime” and Balrogs, the “flame wielding shock troops” (Garth, 2003, p. 208).

Tolkien’s experience at the battle of Somme did not lead only to the creation of the filthy orcs or Balrogs, the spirits of fire. In Tolkien’s biography, Carpenter (2000) keeps stressing Tolkien’s view on ecology,

16 Despite being the first story written, Tolkien never published it. The story was published later on by his son Christopher, first as a part of The Silmarillion and recently as a stand-alone.

37 saying Tolkien was “sensitive to the damage that was inflicted on the Oxfordshire countryside” (p. 130). Tolkien’s love for nature cannot be attributed only to the destruction of environment he witnessed, but the French countryside damaged by the machines of war surely had an impact on this part of Tolkien’s personality. Besides conflicts mentioned in the previous chapters, The Legendarium also contains conflicts between nature and machines. Probably the greatest example is the character of Saruman. In LotR, Saruman uses a nearby forest to fuel his forges to arm his armies. The forest that Saruman is destroying is a home to the race of Ents whom Carpenter (2000) calls “the ultimate expression of Tolkien’s love and respect for Trees” (p. 198). At the end, Saruman is defeated by the Ents, as he possesses a threat to their lifestyle. Brawley (2007) calls this threat that Saruman represents “a threat of appropriation, a sense of ownership or possession of nature” (p. 305). The destruction of environment is typical not only for Saruman, but also for other antagonists, such as Melkor and his role in The Fall of Gondolin, or Sauron, whose headquarters are located in the land of Mordor that is often described as a wasteland without sun, plants or water. From this it can be deduced that Tolkien was rather sceptical of technology, mainly to the one used in war, as he was worried about the impact of technology on mankind and also environment.17

Beside the destructive side, both world wars could also be seen as another reinforcement of Tolkien’s dislike of persuasion, as propaganda was a regular part of both wars and there are examples of Tolkien’s dislike and scepticism towards this tool. The first example comes from Garth (2003) who writes that “war propaganda and its consumers were regularly demonized by soldiers of the Great War” (p. 170). As the whole book concerns Tolkien’s part in the World War I, Garth implies that this attitude was applicable even for Tolkien. Second example of Tolkien’s dislike of propaganda comes from his letter to Rutten & Loening, German publishers, who were supposed to publish the German translation of The Hobbit. R&L asked Tolkien to provide an information about his possible arisch origins.18 To this, Tolkien responded quite harshly, implying that the policies of NSDAP might result in a state “when a German name will no longer be a source of pride” (Carpenter & Tolkien, 1981, p. 46). Despite the letter not containing any direct opposition to the policies of NSDAP, the tone of the letter was rather condescending, implying Tolkien’s dissatisfaction with the possible use of his work for propaganda purposes.

17 When Tolkien heard about the possibility of atomic bomb being created, he wrote this: „The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace'. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But he does not look kindly on Babel-builders.” (Carpenter & Tolkien, The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981, p. 133) 18 The year was 1938.

In conclusion, this chapter showed first, another possible reasons for Tolkien’s dislike of deception (in this instance war propaganda) and second, offered yet another characteristics of evil, the characteristics being the use of technology and machinery at the expense of environment.

5. Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to provide a definition of evil in works of J. R. R. Tolkien by analysing antagonists and evildoers in The Legendarium and connecting the qualities and characteristics typical for them with important aspects that shaped the life of Tolkien.

The second chapter focused on Christianity and Norse mythology, as two mythologies that arguably influenced Tolkien the most. The chapter provided a brief summary of what could be considered evil in those two mythologies. First the chapter focused on the Bible and the ways that rebellion against God’s will caused suffering to mankind, followed by analysis of Satan as a deceptive and destructive causer of evil, and finally briefly described the seven deadly sins and their role in theism. Afterwards the chapter provided a brief description of Norse mythology, with several possible interpretations of the Norse God Loki, focusing on the best known interpretation of Loki as a trickster and a shapeshifter. As a side note, the chapter also described the Finnish epos Kalevala and the role of harmony with nature and the past in the epos.

In the third chapter, a thorough analysis of antagonists of The Legendarium was given. Melkor was analysed first, as he was the first evildoer in the mythology, and connections between him, and Satan and Loki were described. The analysis of Melkor generated a set of characteristics that the following chapters proved to be shared with other prominent antagonists of The Legendarium. The fourth chapter built upon the previous two chapters and reinforced some of the arguments given, but also broadened the set of qualities of evil.

In conclusion, this thesis attributed this set of qualities and characteristics to evil in The Legendarium:

a) Rebellion against higher powers is evil. As the second chapter said, Tolkien was strongly religious, and thus it can be no wonder that the greatest attribute of Biblical evil, the disobedience of God’s will (as seen in the story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Ábel or in Satan’s behaviour) is also the greatest sin in The Legendarium. All the evil in Eä was created by Melkor disobeying Eru Ilúvatar (the analogy of the Christian God) during the creation of the world, the suffering of the Noldor (the most prominent elven tribe in The Silmarillion) came from disobeying orders of Valar, semi-divine beings, and the Fall of Númenor was caused by the king worshiping dark powers (represented by Sauron) and shunning Eru and the Valar. b) Deception, tricks, lies and everything that forcibly influences minds of others are tools of evildoers. The power to deceive and shift between different forms is a key power of almost every antagonist in The Legendarium. Characters like Melkor, Sauron and Saruman, who are semi-divine beings and thus should wield great powers, achieve their goals by influencing and corrupting others. Melkor was the original antagonist in the story, but corrupted other, originally noble, spirits to his side. This quality can be firstly linked to Satan, as Satan and Loki, as they

also use deception and cunning intelligence to achieve their goals. Another possible connection is to the war propaganda which Tolkien witnessed during both World Wars. A discussion can be held here whether or not the corrupted are also evil, or whether only the corrupter is, but the fact that Sauron and Saruman (originally noble spirits, then corrupted antagonists) were banished from the world suggests that Tolkien’s view on corrupted was the same as his view on the corrupter (an analogy with the Serpent deceiving Eve into sin and God then punishing not only the serpent but also mankind can be made here). c) Cardinal sins (pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth) lead to evil. The same way the seven deadly sins can be found in every evildoing in the Bible, they can also be found in every evildoing in The Legendarium. The only cardinal sin that seems to be missing is sloth, but the discussion about a possible reason for this is not the aim of this thesis. What is important for this thesis is that the six remaining deadly sins appear in Tolkien’s mythology. Melkor was being driven by greed and lust for power, as well as jealousy of elves and men for their relationship with Eru, and anger for Eru and other Valar halting his works. Feanor’s greatest characteristics was pride of his skill and his works, lust for the Silmarilli, envy of his brothers for their relationship with their father, and wrath aimed at everyone who stands between him and the Silmarilli. Similar characteristics were shown to be typical for Ar-Pharazón, Saruman and Sauron. Gluttony played a special role when it came to the spider-shaped antagonists (Ungoliant and Shelob) who were driven only by hunger for everything living. Finally, greed could have been appointed the role of the main antagonist of The Hobbit, as it was not only the driving force of Smaug, the literal antagonist, but also of Thorin and his company, who were the protagonists of the story. Greed and lust for power were also the tools through which the iconic One Ring influenced the minds of its bearers and evoked in them extremely strong possessive attitudes. d) Destruction of environment is evil, and technological progress is ambiguous. Environment plays a huge part in The Legendarium, mainly in The Lord of the Rings, as a whole chapter is devoted to the war between Saruman the Smith and Ents, the tree shepherds. The lands of the antagonists are described as wastelands, while the homes of the protagonists are usually picturesque and floral. The majority of the antagonists are also skilled smiths and inventors, by which Tolkien warns against technological progress, but does not completely refuse it, as many inventions serve a good purpose in his mythology.19 The matter of Tolkien’s view on sub-creation is a complicated one, as, according to Tolkien, every sub-creation must be in harmony with God’s

19 For example the Palantíri, the seeing-stones that were used for communicating across large distances, and that for a long time served to the kings of Gondor and Arnor, human kingdoms that opposed Sauron. Another examples can be rings of power that were originally used by the elves to improve their quality of life and improve their homes, only later on they were used against them by Sauron.

will20, as this chapter presented by comparing Melkor and his servants with Aulë and his dwarves. e) Lastly, power corrupts. It is no coincidence that the antagonists of The Legendarium are often the most powerful beings of their order. Melkor is the most powerful Vala, Sauron the most powerful Maia, Fëanor the most powerful elf, Saruman the most powerful wizard, and Ar- Pharazôn was a king of the most powerful nation of men. The fact that this is no coincidence was proved by analysing the powers of the One Ring that influenced the minds of others by promising them immense power (it is also said that The Ring serves as a symbolism for power itself).

It is fairly difficult to say exactly what aspect of Tolkien’s idea of evil was shaped by which influence, but this thesis showed that many qualities of evildoers of The Legendarium are a reoccurring topic in many of Tolkien’s influences. Rebellion of Melkor could be analogous to both rebellion against the God in the Bible or to the rebellion of the losing bard against Deep Origins in Kalevala. Cunning intelligence might originate from war propaganda or Satan’s and Loki’s skillsets. The fire imagery can be based on Tolkien’s war experience, or on the Icelandic interpretation of Loki as a spirit of fire. And similar thing can be said about every other aspect of evil in The Legendarium. Nevertheless, this thesis summarized all of the influences and linked them to specific antagonists that Tolkien created, their actions and their behaviour.

20 What exactly is God’s will is of course a question that cannot be answered in this thesis, as it is a matter of great discussion between theists all over the world, but according to Tolkien, environment is a part of it, and its destruction is thus yet another way of discord with God.

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