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Comment by JoeDaDude | Hacker News Reader

For an alternative to Tolkien's simple morality, consider “The Last Ringbearer” by one Yisroel Markov. It is effectively telling the LOTR story a Mordor point of view. Quoting from an article [1] about it:

"In Yeskov’s retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor ... He’s in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become “masters of the world,” and turn Middle-earth into a “bad copy” of their magical homeland across the sea. ...the remnants of Mordor’s civilization fight a rear-guard guerrilla campaign to sustain the “green shoots of reason and progress,” in opposition to the “static” and “tidy” pseudo-paradise of Middle-earth under the elven regime."

[1] http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer/

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The Last Ringbearer is good fun. But I wouldn't recommend it for its moral sophistication.

People seem to miss that Tolkien's rejection of moral ambiguity was not just some lacuna. It was the point. In his world it is usually not hard to know what it is the right thing to do, bit it can be very hard to do it.

Tolkien, the Catholic, wants us to forgive others (e.g. Gollum) when they fail this difficult moral test, but still resolve to pass it ourselves rather than evade it by making excuses about complexity and ambiguity.

You might not agree with that philosophy, but it is still a serious message that pervades the story, and lends it much of its beauty.

> In his world it is usually not hard to know what it is the right thing to do, bit it can be very hard to do it.

Yes, that is indeed one of the major themes of the book. Related to that, I love how Gandalf says (quoting from memory here, might not be word-perfect): "We cannot choose which times we live in, but we can choose what do with the times that are given us."

This sounds so wonderful, even as a Tolkien fan, I always thought that many at the side of Saruman and Co. were doing what they thought best, and eventually may even refine their arts to match those of the elves.

Saruman did what he thought best, initially for noble reasons... and that turned out poorly.

This is part of the seductive power theme in LotR, which in general I consider something of a counterpoint to GGP's complaints about "simplistic morals" and "obvious dichotomy".

True, it's an interesting point.

As it was with Boromir (who wanted it for good) or Gandalf when he denies taking the ring. They could've ended doing evil with initial noble intentions, that's how the ring would've exploited them.

Exactly. Galadriel, Elrond, and Faramir also have the opportunity to take the One Ring, and choose not to. Sadly Faramir's rejection of it was not portrayed in the movies.

Wow, that looks like a good read. Thanks!

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