Because, in Middle-earth, all evil originates in goodness, there are
no wholly good or bad people, only shades of corruption. ‘I do not
deal in Absolute Evil...’ Tolkien wrote. ‘I do not think that at any
rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil’. The line between good
and evil ‘is not just external, between the white chess pieces and the
black, but within every single piece on the board’. The corrupting
process of power is therefore potentially at work in every person,
and the Ring magnifies and accelerates it – proving too great a test
for Boromir, who aches for ‘power of Command’ and is
overcome by visions of great alliances and glorious victories under
his banner. Even Hobbits, who are generally protected from the
libido dominandi by their native lack of strength and ambition, can be
twisted: Sam sees Gorgoroth turned into a garden; and Sméagol
drools over his puny fantasies of Gollum the Great eating fish
‘every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea.’
From the 'Afterword'
David Rowe
To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November.
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