Tolkien, The Rings of Power, and the Nature of Evil

Critics say Tolkien's notion was binary. The Rings of Power shows it wasn't so.

Photo by Ergo Zakki on Unsplash

With the release of The Rings of Power, Amazon’s new prequel series to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, old debates about Middle Earth have reignited like the fires of Mount Doom. Is it a good show? Is it better than House of the Dragon? Is it true to the books? Is Galadriel a Mary Sue? And on, and on, and on. While I’m writing this, episode 8 of the show just aired, I have a wicked cold, and I’ve read enough hot takes to light the Beacons of Minas Tirith. But one topic I haven’t had enough of yet is the exploration of Good and Evil, in both the new show and the original books.

Over the years, many have debated—criticized and lauded—Tolkien’s series, particularly the way it depicts morality. Some celebrate it as an epic tale of good vs. evil, while others criticize its seemingly binary distinction as lacking nuance, wishing it had more grey. George R. R. Martin, the writer of A Song of Ice & Fire and ardent Tolkien fan, has stated that his favorite character was Boromir, the epitome of a grey character, and his least favorite was Gandalf the White (the resurrected form of Gandalf the Grey). One might be inclined to read the Game of Thrones writer’s propensity for making (and killing) a plethora of morally dubious characters as an act of revisionist Tolkien fan fiction—and not just in the Thrones books. But then again, all fiction is fan fiction to one degree or another, in conversation with its literary predecessors. And Martin has written many great stories which challenge the nature of Evil—two favorites, Fevre Dream and “Sandkings.” The point is, even in The Lord of the Rings, which has its clear heroes and villains, there is also Boromir, who is not a goody-two-shoes elf, nor is he a bad-to-the-bone orc. He has flaws, and while he initially fails the internal fight between good and evil, he realizes his mistake and fights for redemption. Boromir is one of Tolkien's most overt expressions of this internal quandary, but I would argue that many of the characters have a little bit of Boromir in each of them.

In The Lord of the Rings, you have the supermodel Elves on one end and ugly ass Orcs on the other. Somewhere in the middle, you have the noble, but occasionally isolationist Dwarves and the unpredictable “race of Men.” And as the armies of darkness threaten to dominate Middle Earth, it is in Men, the ethically dubious, technologically less advanced, politically divided people, that the rest of the world must place their hope. And the Hobbits, which Tolkien described as a variety of Men, are a part of that story. While Frodo and Sam make the long, grueling trek to Mordor, the armies of humanity must rally against Sauron. And both groups are tested along the way.

So, who here believes in Good and Evil? Or is it all just chaos? Or, more importantly, does not believing in Evil take away from the enjoyment of the story?

Ideas like good and evil are religious concepts. And Tolkien was a religious man. But whether you believe in them or not, fiction is the ideal place where these ideas and questions can be explored. Because fiction, by definition, is not dogmatic, prescriptive, or real. Tolkien himself was adamantly opposed to allegories in fiction. In the forward to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, he wrote:

As for any inner meaning or ‘message,’ it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical…. I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

And while Tolkien has, at other times, stated the conscious influence of Christianity (specifically Catholicism) on his text, I think he was trying to communicate that The Lord of the Rings is not a story with answers, it is an exploration of certain questions, at times, religious ones.

So, while some might argue that a lack of exploration of the hearts of the orcs, or Sauron, or any of the other seemingly evil characters might seem like Tolkien slipping into allegory (Sauron as Satan, orcs as the legions of Hell, for example), I think their apparent evilness was more about serving a basic metaphor.

Sauron, the Ring, and the orcs are metaphors for Power and its corruptive influence. It is a big concept, important and long-lasting, and too abstract for the strict confines of allegory. It is this influence of power that lives at the heart of all our main characters’ internal struggles, whether it be Frodo feeling the weight of the One Ring around his neck, Aragorn not wanting to be king for fear of turning out like his father, or Galadriel looking into the fortune well and facing what she would become if she were to take the Ring for herself.

So, Boromir is not the only grey character.

In the face of impending darkness, all the hero characters are, to varying degrees, fighting for the light within. Boromir is just the only one who fails in his struggle against the dark and then seeks to be redeemed. Well, he and Gollum. Gollum and his alter ego Smeagol constantly fight over whether to help Frodo or steal the Ring. And, like Boromir, he pays for that struggle with his life. But, unlike Boromir, who finds redemption in his final acts, Gollum's desire for the ring of power is too strong.

Unfortunately, neither the orcs nor Sauron are offered equitable explorations of their internal struggle as the hero characters are. In the case of orcs, absolute power corrupts absolutely; there is no gray. Take this quote from an article by China Mieville (author of the Bas Lag series and many other good books) on Tolkien’s trilogy:

The linguistic cliches are matched by thematic ones. The stories are structured by moralist, abstract logic, rather than being grounded and organic. Tolkien wrote the seminal text for fantasy where morality is absolute, and political complexities conveniently evaporate. Battles are glorious and death is noble. The good look the part, and the evil are ugly. Elves are natural aristos, hobbits are the salt of the earth, and – in a fairyland version of genetic determinism – orcs are shits by birth. This is a conservative hymn to order and reason – to the status quo.

While Mieville's critique about good and evil looking the part is spot on, the rest is a bit of an overstatement. The political complexities do not “conveniently evaporate” in the books. I would argue that they are the most compelling adversaries of the plot. Take Saruman, the once-good wizard who turns to the dark side in the hopes of gaining a political alliance with Sauron. The elves—for the most part—choose to retreat instead of fight for “personal reasons.” Our favorite grey character Boromir’s internal struggles are both personal and political, for as the son of the Steward of Gondor, he initially resents Aragorn, who is the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor. And as for Mieville’s description of Tolkien’s story as a “conservative hymn to order and reason,” I think the truth is much more pedestrian. John Carpenter, when discussing the horror genre, once said that there were two types of horror: conservative and liberal. Conservative horror, Carpenter claimed, was external horror, fear from without, while liberal horror was internal, fear from within. But, with all due respect to John Carpenter, I would argue that all fictional horror is internal, even that which is portrayed as external. Sauron is a reflection of Tolkien’s fears, and society’s (as he saw them). Keep in mind that Tolkien wrote much of The Lord of the Rings during World War II, as serial chapters, which he would send to his son who was serving in the British Royal Air Force. If I was a veteran of World War I (like Tolkien was) and then watched my child go off to fight in World War II, I could see myself wanting write a story that would give my child hope, about striving for the light in the face of impending doom. And I can see how I might not spend too much time on the orcs’ inner thoughts, even if it would give the story more depth.

That said, the orc origins are not absent from the books. It is mentioned, albeit briefly, that orcs were once elves, but were corrupted. And this short explanation is an important one because it explains that orcs are not necessarily “shits by birth,” as Mieville claimed. They were corrupted and deformed by individuals with power and nefarious motives. And while this is not the primary subject of the original books, it is one of the key plots and most compelling additions to the new series, The Rings of Power.

Regarding the nature of evil, the show is not trying to fix something broken but is building upon something that was already there, but was, if not underdeveloped, at least underexplored. In Galadriel, as she is portrayed in the show, lies a journey of Boromiric proportions, the search for light against the darkness within. For her, the very thing that has threatened to corrupt her is the battle against evil itself. She has been a warrior for so long that she risks becoming defined by her opposition to that which she hopes to destroy; she risks becoming like Tolkien's conception of orcs, an elf corrupted to the point of no return. There is no room for middle ground, for grey, in a worldview that sees only good and evil. And when Adar, the leader of the orcs ( or Uruks, as they're called in the show) explains to Galadriel his morally complicated reasoning for leading his army, Galadriel replies with a rather terrifying speech of her own:

Your kind was a mistake, made in mockery. And even if it takes all of this age, I vow to eradicate every last one of you. But you shall be kept alive, so that one day, before I drive my dagger into your poisoned heart, I will whisper in your piked ear, that all your offspring are dead, and the scourge of your kind ends with you.

Chilling words, to which the orc general replies, “it would seem I am not the only elf alive who has been transformed by darkness. Perhaps your search for Morgoth’s successor should have ended in your mirror.” Galadriel is conflicted, clearly shaken by his words, for in the very next episode, she admonishes a young boy who celebrates her killing of orcs by saying, “it darkens the heart to call dark deeds ‘good.’” I think she was speaking as much to herself at that moment as to the boy. The scene also shares a similarity with a scene in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo expresses to Gandalf that it was a pity Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance. To which Gandalf replies, “Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand.”

The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

The Rings of Power builds upon the emotional, thematic, and moral landscape founded in The Lord of the Rings. And no, the original is not perfect. Neither is the new show. Neither were the Peter Jackson films. No work of fiction ever is. But just like the big question of whether or not you believe in Good and Evil, it is less about finding an answer to a question—Is it a good show? Does the show honor the books? Is the show better than House of the Dragon? etc.—and more about whether or not the question sparks a meaningful conversation. Or, in my case, a rambling train of thought.

I don’t believe in Evil—at least, not in an external, supernatural evil. But I do believe that everyone is corruptible. Nobody is immune to the draw of the Ring of Power, “one ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.” That’s why everyone else in the Fellowship (besides Frodo and Boromir) refuses the Ring like it’s a hot potato. Because they know that they would not have the will to resist. That’s why Sauron is so terrifying. Because he too was corrupted. As Elrond states, in reference to the Ring, before a council of elves, men, dwarves, hobbits, and a wizard, "as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”

What I'm Reading Now:

• The Lady of the Lake by Adrzej Sapkowski

• Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and Haunting by W. Scott Poole

• The Vampire Papers by Bernhardt J. Hurwood