The Return of the King Good vs. Evil

Even before Aragorn goes on his voyage along the Paths of the Dead, we've gotten plenty of indications that disturbing the dead is a bad idea in Middle-earth: you've got the Barrow-wights of the Old Forest in The Fellowship of the Ring and the ghostly faces of the Dead Marshes in The Two Towers Book 4, Chapter 2, for a start. But the story of the Sleepless Dead is a weird one, morally speaking: Aragorn is reaching across time and death itself to give these soldiers a chance to fulfill their oath to fight Sauron. That's good, right? He's restoring their honor. But on the other hand, it seems bizarre to use ghosts to fight Sauron. Sauron has his own ghost army, controlled by the Lord of the Nazgûl (see The Two Towers Book 4, Chapter 8). Should Aragorn be using the tools of the enemy? Then again, maybe that's all a part of Tolkien's moral lesson. The people on the side of good are able to take Mordor's own instruments (evil ghosts) to fight evil. Sauron isn't the only one who can make the weapons of his enemies work to his advantage. And evil contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Sauron's power has grown so great that he can actually stop the sun from shining with his evil. That's serious business. But this hushed, dark stillness serves another purpose besides demonstrating that Sauron will be an extremely tough enemy to beat. The hush of the world before the final battle raises the reader's expectation that the actual battle is going to be huge and climactic when it finally comes. This repeated trope of "Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn" (5.1.198) underlines how high the stakes are in this war against Sauron, and raises our suspense as readers. We have to wonder how this ragtag bunch of soldiers (plus a bunch of dead guys) are going to win against a power strong enough to blot out the sun.

Pippin makes it very clear that Beregond has to choose between his orders to stay at his post and his inclination to save Faramir. The greater good would obviously be served in saving Faramir, but Beregond's own moral code tells him that he has to follow his Lord's orders (thanks to years of military training). To us, this situation seems like a pretty black-and-white one, in which disobeying orders is justified. For crying out loud, Beregond's lord is about to set his own son on fire, alive. But still, it's a tough moral call for Beregond to make. Neither choice is a good one per se. So which is the right one? Where would you draw the line between an individual soldier's sense of good and evil and the larger good and larger evil being faced by the military as a whole?

In one of Tolkien's many, many letters to his son Christopher, he comments: "All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast powers and perpetual success—in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in" (source, pg. 76) In other words, even as evil works hard to achieve its goals, all it does is pave the way for "unexpected good." Evil holds the seeds of its own destruction. Here, Éomer echoes his creator's words: Sauron's darkness is actually giving cover to the side of Good, as the Riders of Rohan travel to Gondor. In the middle of all of the wickedness that is covering Middle-earth, the Good side can still find hope in the fact that Evil is so destructive that it even damages itself. Smooth move, Sauron.

Um, jealous much, Denethor? Even before Denethor looks into the palantír, there is obviously trouble brewing between him and Gandalf. And it is difficult to imagine such a proud man willfully stepping aside for Aragorn once he arrives. Unfortunately, this means that when the time comes, Sauron plays on Denethor's pride and ego like a violin. All of the things Denethor shouts at Gandalf in the House of the Stewards are merely amplifications and exaggerations of his own, earlier jealousy of Gandalf, suspicion of Pippin, and resentment of Aragorn. Denethor is a strong man in many ways, but his pride makes him vulnerable to Sauron's manipulations. His big ego makes him an easy target for evil.

Gandalf's account of the war against Sauron contains hints of a larger Good-vs.-Evil spiritual worldview. For example, Gandalf notes that, as wicked as Sauron is, he is also "but a servant or emissary" of a larger Big Bad, implicit in creation itself. By contrast, Gandalf describes himself as "a steward" of "all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands" (5.1.87). In other words, he, too, is a servant or emissary, but of the light force rather than the dark. So while we are watching a war between servants of larger forces of light and dark, the actual nature of these forces (be they God and Satan or Good and Evil more generally) remains pretty undefined in The Lord of the Rings.

As Frodo and Sam trudge through Mordor, they discover (much to their surprise) that, as unhappy and polluted as this land is, it's not quite dead yet. There are still living things: thorny plants and biting flies. They aren't nice living things, to be sure, but they are still clinging to life in this unhealthy place. So here is our question: is the persistence of life itself a sign of lingering goodness in this land? Or do these scrubby trees and "hungry midges" form part of the evil of Mordor? Given Tolkien's affection for all things green, would you say that the things that still grow in Mordor, "harsh, twisted, bitter, struggling for life" though they may be, symbolize hope for Mordor's rebirth? Or are they just part of the horrifying landscape of the Land of Shadow?

At long last: a moment of clarity. Sam sees that their current struggles against Sauron (while still important) cannot touch "light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach." As pressing as the evil all around them may be, Frodo and Sam's doom is still dwarfed in importance by the larger good of the universe. Sam's sudden faith in the basic goodness of creation is what soothes his fear and allows him to sleep.

"Pimple" is, of course, Lotho Sackville-Baggins. Farmer Cotton is sharing the story of his fall into greed and wickedness with Frodo and Merry. The first part of Lotho's story could be the self-made-man story for any number of businessmen working in capitalist economies: Lotho starts with some money, which he uses to invest in "mills and malt-houses and inns, and farms, and leaf-plantations." And he keeps pouring the profits from these enterprises into more industries, for even greater profits. When does Lotho cross the line from savvy businessman to exploitative monster? How does Tolkien seem to regard the world of business in general, based on this description? When does business go from good to evil?

Throughout this chapter of the "Scouring of the Shire," we see Frodo incredibly reluctant to take a life. Here, as with Gollum, Frodo has every provocation to kill Saruman. If it hadn't been for Frodo's mithril-coat, Saruman would have stabbed Frodo in the belly; what's worse, Saruman is responsible for much of the pointless damage that has been done to the Shire. So Frodo would be forgiven if he allowed Sam to kill Saruman. Instead, Frodo decides, "I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find" his cure. As a sinner himself (what with claiming the Ring and all; to see thoughts on that subject, check out Frodo's "Character Analysis") Frodo is wise and humble enough not to judge others too much. He is willing to believe that anyone who has fallen into evil may be redeemed. So here is the last moral lesson of The Lord of the Rings series: don't be too quick to pass judgment. Instead, believe that everyone can be cured of evil.