“Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”
—Aragorn
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth, free will is real. It is not only a gift, but a great gift, highly valued. It is a gift that can be given only by Eru Ilúvatar himself, and therefore it is a gift that should never be taken away from someone else. This, in part, is an answer to the question posed in the previous chapter. It is why choice is so important in Tolkien’s works. Or, put another way, free will is what makes heroism possible in Middle-earth, and the choices made by heroes are what define them as heroes. It is also an answer to the question of why the One Ring is so inherently evil: its power is to dominate other wills and to steal the gift of freedom.
It is worth noting that Tolkien’s emphasis on the choices of his characters is also the reason many critics—in particular, those who believe that humans are merely complex biochemical computers or machines, products of blind, purposeless chance who have no free will—are often so adamantly opposed to his stories, and more broadly to any heroic literature, or “literature of freedom.” While Tolkien’s vision of reality may be appealing to many readers because his underlying philosophy rings true (whether or not we are consciously aware of it), to modern materialists his vision of humans as beings of free will, created with a purpose, is deceptive and dangerous. And that, rather than any stylistic issue, is at the core of most criticisms of the Middle-earth legendarium.
There may be only one aspect of Tolkien’s underlying philosophy that draws even more ire from critics, and that aspect is yet another reason why free will is so important in Middle-earth. We inched close to it in the first chapter of this book in our discussion of the treatment of prisoners and ethics in war. It is the notion of objective morality and moral responsibility. Objective morality—or what some people call “moral absolutes”—is a definition of good and evil that is real and true for every person (and every culture), regardless of whether that person (or culture) happens to believe it to be true. In the first chapter I wrote of torture as an ethical issue. But it would be more accurate, and more to the point of this chapter, to speak of it as a moral issue. Torturing prisoners may simply be morally wrong, for all people at all times. Whether it is Sauron or Gandalf doing the torturing makes no difference, Tolkien’s stories tell us. Nor does it matter if the tortured prisoner has important information that could be used for a good purpose. Torture is wrong. Evil means are still evil; they are not justified by a good end. That, at least, seems to be Tolkien’s view.
Objective morality stands in sharp contrast to subjective morality, or moral relativism. Objective morality is independent of the individual subject or subjects (whether it is a person, nation, culture, or era). Fëanor’s evil deeds, for example, especially the tragic Kinslaying at Alqualondë, are going to be judged. But on what basis are they to be judged? Looking at the question another way, the discourse between Manwë and Mandos about Fëanor speaks of both good and evil: Manwë claims that Ilúvatar will bring some good out of the evil of Fëanor, and Mandos replies that the deeds themselves will yet remain evil. But the “good” and “evil” of which Manwë speaks are moral categories independent of any particular character, and this implies some standard for judgment that is likewise independent. What is the standard? Whatever it is, it is something outside of Fëanor. And, in fact, it is above even Manwë himself.
Before exploring the reality and importance of objective moral categories in Tolkien’s works, first identifying the relationship between free will and morality, and then outlining the prevailing worldviews regarding morality will help us to see just how sharply the writings of Tolkien contrast with today’s dominant cultural views. We begin with the way that many popular strands of contemporary thought deny the very existence of free will, and the relationship between free will and moral responsibility.
Consider a computer virus. No matter how inconvenient or destructive it is, a computer virus is just an impersonal collection of computer code composed of bits (zeros and ones) on a computer. A virus has no will of its own and cannot be considered evil or immoral. The person who creates a virus, by contrast, might well be considered evil, especially if the virus is designed with malicious intent. Put another way, if we have suffered the results of a malicious computer virus, we may seek to have the programmer of the virus punished (perhaps by a fine or by jail time), but we probably don’t seek to punish the bits (zeros and ones of computer code) that compose the virus.
Now suppose that a person who commits a heinous crime is only acting as he or she is programmed to do, as a materialist worldview states is the case. (For the sake of this discussion, it is irrelevant whether that programming comes by nature or nurture.) Then by no means can that person be evil; only the programmer of that person can be evil. In this case, however, the programmer is believed to be a blind, impersonal force. In short, where there is no choice at all, there can be no moral (or immoral) choice. In a merely material world, we may at worst consider another person’s actions as inconvenient to us; we cannot call them “evil” or “immoral.” Or, if we do, then we are really only calling “immoral” the universe itself: the impersonal universe that programmed the person. In any case the word immoral has no meaning in this context. We are stuck saying, as the famous twentieth-century materialist philosopher Bertrand Russell writes, “When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behavior is a result of antecedent causes.”[49] The language of “good” and “evil” (or “wickedness”) has been replaced by that of “convenience” and “annoyance.” If we start with the presupposition of materialism that denies free will, then we can immediately conclude that there is no such thing as objective morality, and we are left with the popular position of moral relativism (or with no morality at all).
It must be pointed out that one need not believe in materialism in order to hold a view of moral relativism. One may be a theist, a deist, a polytheist, and so on, and still hold to relativism. Also, there are many forms of moral relativism, including cultural forms, that claim that good and evil are defined by society and not the individual and thus may be defined differently by different societies. The point is only that the prevailing credo of our time is this: right and wrong are personal choices, like the type of ice cream we prefer. This view was already widely popular when Tolkien was thinking about a sequel to The Hobbit. Anthropologist Ruth Benedict, author of Patterns of Culture (1934), aptly expresses this relativistic worldview.
It is a point that has been made more often in relation to ethics than in relation to psychiatry. We do not any longer make the mistake of deriving the morality of our locality and decade directly from the inevitable constitution of human nature. We do not elevate it to the dignity of a first principle. We recognize that morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits. Mankind has always preferred to say “it is morally good,” rather than “it is habitual,” and the fact of this preference is matter enough for a critical science of ethics. But historically the two phrases are synonymous.[50]
Benedict dismisses any notion that morality may be a first principle—that is, an objective reality from which other principles may be derived—and instead reduces moral virtue, or goodness, to mere habit. This view permeates modern thinking. The only remaining virtue still accepted as objective is tolerance; intolerance is the only thing we are free not to tolerate. Whether or not one comes to the question of morality from a materialist worldview, in the modern world objective morality is out and subjective morality is in: good and evil, if they exist as categories at all, are only personal or at best societal.
Tolkien, of course, does use the language of objective good and evil. This language is woven into the very fabric of his works, from start to finish. He rejects altogether the thinking behind Benedict’s quote. Indeed, I think he must have had some notion of that form of relativism in mind when he wrote the dialogue between Gandalf and Saruman when Saruman’s treachery is first made known. Gandalf recounts this dialogue to the council.
“‘I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.’
‘I liked white better,’ I said.
‘White!’ he sneered. ‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’
‘In which case it is no longer white,’ said I. ‘And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’” (II/ii)
Black and white have long been images of evil and good. Saruman rejects the very notion of white, saying that it is something that may be dyed, overwritten, broken. By doing so, he is denying—perhaps in an attempt to justify his own actions, which otherwise must be seen as treacherous and evil—the existence of any higher moral law, or at least any higher law that applies to him. Saruman’s sneering disdain for white in each of the three metaphors (cloth, paper, and light) and his preference instead for that which is multicolored is, then, a preference for relativism. Gandalf’s rebuttal gives us a good idea of what Tolkien probably thinks of this: such moral relativism is a departure from the path of wisdom. With the dialogue seen in this light, Saruman’s fall may be seen as a fall away from objective morality into subjectivity and may well represent Tolkien’s view of the downfall of our whole society.
Now for those who question the particular interpretation of the symbolism of black and white given in the previous paragraph, the case for the reality and importance of objective morality in Tolkien’s writing does not rest just in this one passage. The existence of objective morals—definitions of good and evil that are true for everybody regardless of whether any person or culture believes them true—is central to The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Objective moral principles are referred to time and again. Speaking of his encounter with Saruman and his subsequent captivity, Gandalf later comments, “There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil” (II/i, emphasis added). Fëanor will be judged, and not by his own personal standards, or even by the standards of the Noldor; he will be judged by a transcendent law. “Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman,” Mandos the Judge tells Fëanor. “For blood ye shall render blood” (Silm, 88).
Objective Morality and Judgment
We get glimpses of this objective morality even in The Hobbit. Consider the array of morality words used throughout the book: evil, good, wicked, fair, unfair, and so forth. “Evil things did not come into that valley” (Hobbit, 94), the narrator tells us of Elrond’s domain of Rivendell, while of wood-elves we are told, “Still Elves they were and remain, and that is Good People” (Hobbit, 219). By contrast, the narrator also tells us that goblins “are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted” (Hobbit, 108). The casting of these moral judgments by the narrator, without any diminishing of their strength by qualification in some particular subjective or cultural or even situational context, suggests a moral authority that is above the characters within the story.
Tolkien also makes an important comment about Bilbo’s understanding of morality at the end of his riddle game with Gollum: “He knew, of course, that the riddle-game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it” (Hobbit, 126–27). What Bilbo’s thoughts convey is that the definitions of good and evil are known not only by those who are good but even by those who are evil, or “wicked.” “Wicked creatures” may choose to disobey the “sacred” moral laws, but even in their disobedience the law itself is not invalidated. Indeed, such is Gollum’s knowledge of this moral law that when he breaks it—murdering his brother, thieving from his neighbors, not keeping his bargain with Bilbo—he makes excuses for why it is justifiable for him in his particular circumstance to do what he does, rather than just pretending that no such law exists (the Ring was a gift, Bilbo’s question wasn’t fair, etc.). Tolkien believed the influence of moral law to be so powerful as to be understood even in an imaginary universe, and even by the wicked creatures there.
In The Lord of the Rings, we see moral language and the contrast between good and evil in many places. Tom Shippey makes a point about the orcs that is similar to the one just made about Gollum. Drawing on the dialogue between Gorbag and Shagrat after they take Frodo prisoner, he writes that Gorbag “is convinced that it is wrong, and contemptible, to abandon your companions.”[51] Shippey goes on to conclude, “Orcs here, and on other occasions, have a clear idea of what is admirable and what is contemptible behaviour, which is exactly the same as ours. They cannot revoke what [C. S.] Lewis calls ‘the Moral Law’ and create a counter-morality based on evil, any more than they can revoke biology and live on poison. They are moral beings, who talk freely and repeatedly of what is ‘good,’ meaning by that more or less what we do.”[52] Of course, the orcs rarely come close to living up to that moral law—there is no indication that they even make any effort—but this failure to put the law into practice by living good lives denies neither the existence of that objective law nor their knowledge of it. Tolkien also shows us glimpses of this objective moral law in the internal debate between Sméagol’s two sides (which is given such prominence in The Two Towers). The foundation for this debate is laid by Gandalf early in The Fellowship of the Ring: “There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as through a chink in the dark. . . . But that, of course, would only make the evil part of him angrier in the end—unless it could be conquered” (I/ii). That the two sides or “parts” of him are not merely different but morally distinguishable, with only one part being seen as “evil,” gives insight into the moral nature of Middle-earth.
The objective distinction between good and evil in Middle-earth is so clear and powerful that those among Tolkien’s characters who are morally attuned may even sense it externally at times. “You have frightened me several times tonight,” Frodo says to Aragorn shortly after they meet, “but never in the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would—well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand” (I/x). Aragorn later has the same experience when he meets Gandalf after the wizard’s return from death: “Aragorn felt a shudder run through him at the sound, a strange cold thrill; and yet it was not fear or terror that he felt: rather it was like the sudden bite of a keen air, or the slap of a cold rain that wakes an uneasy sleeper” (III/v). Evil has a feel to it, and it is different from the feel of good.
Tolkien’s morality is also a morality that is not situational. Consider the words of Faramir when he discovers what it is that Frodo is carrying: “We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. Not if I found it on the highway would I take it, I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them” (IV/v). We see that Faramir recognizes that it is wrong to break one’s vow. Not even a situation in which breaking his vow were the only way for Faramir to save his country would turn the evil of breaking it into a good. Breaking a vow is an objective moral ill, independent of the situation. There are also echoes here of earlier words spoken by Faramir, that he would not speak a falsehood even to snare an orc. Men of Gondor speak the truth, whatever the situation. Thus, the main conclusion of chapter 4, that moral victory is more important than military victory, is just one application of this broader principle: morality is objective and does not change with the shifting winds or with different situations; even the situation of military battle does not justify breaking moral law.
Tolkien gets even more specific in his articulation of objective morality. One of the most important passages among those that deal with the nature of morality is the dialogue between Éomer and Aragorn when the two first meet on the Plains of Rohan. We have already considered this passage in our discussion of free will and the “doom of choice” in chapter 5, and we now resume our explorations from that starting point. Remember Éomer’s question to Aragorn: “What doom do you bring out of the North?” After replying, “The doom of choice,” Aragorn goes on to add, “You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him, with Sauron or against him” (III/ii, emphasis added). I grant that there is not yet any explicit mention of good, evil, or morality in this passage. Yet Aragorn, in the context of a statement about “choice”—and in particular about the “doom” of those who must make choices—states that ultimately there are only two choices to be made in Middle-earth at this time: to fight “with Sauron or against him.” As Aragorn tells us, there is no neutral ground: for Théoden, the dividing barrier between black and white is a sharp line, with no gray territory. There are, of course, many different strategies and tactics the king might choose to use in the war, for one side or the other, but the distinction between the sides cannot be any clearer than Tolkien has painted it. This is an objective standard for making a choice. And Aragorn lays upon Éomer another equally clear choice: help the three hunters on their quest to find and free the captured hobbits, or hinder them.
We don’t, however, have to risk stretching Aragorn’s words beyond what they were intended to mean in order to reveal the existence of an objective moral basis for judgment. Because of the paralysis of his king and uncle, Éomer has not yet been faced with the many difficult decisions Aragorn has had to make, and has not yet acquired the wisdom that comes with making those decisions. At a loss for whether or not to help Aragorn, he asks, “How shall a man judge what to do in such times?” Aragorn’s answer is the key passage in this chapter: “As he has ever judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house” (III/ii). Here is our straightforward proclamation of moral absolutes: “good and ill” are the same, not only across cultures (of dwarf, man, elf), but across times and eras as well, from yesteryear to today. Morality is neither spatially relative, temporally relative, nor culturally relative. The meaning of right and wrong does not, and has not, changed. “And this deed was unlawful,” Mandos tells Fëanor, before pronouncing his judgment, “whether in Aman or not in Aman” (Silm, 71).
Now a moral law such as what I have described in Middle-earth is sometimes referred to as part of “natural law”; the hobbits of the Shire sometimes call this “The Rules.” If by “natural law” one means no more and no less than what I have said above—namely, moral laws that are not only universally in effect for all eras and all peoples but also seem to be commonly known or felt even among those who disobey them—then “natural law” is a correct term. However, if by “natural law” we mean a law whose source is nature itself, where nature is an impersonal object, then it is the wrong term. In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the law has come down from Ilúvatar through Manwë, and thus it bears the authority not just of nature, but of the Creator of nature. We see this in the words of the Vala Mandos when he reminds Fëanor both that Manwë is king over all Arda and that Mandos himself is the judge. Even the simple hobbits, who never dwelt in Valinor with the Valar and have little contact with the elves who did, have a vague understanding of this: “For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just” (Prologue). So it is that Gandalf can reply to Pippin, after Pippin tries to defend his looking into the palantír with the plea that he had no idea what he was doing: “Oh yes, you did [. . .]. You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen” (III/xi, emphasis added).
We should also note that even though Tolkien makes it clear that the distinction between good and evil is real and objective, when it comes to individuals—whether elf, dwarf, man, or hobbit—there are none who are either completely good or completely evil. Sauron alone might be considered completely evil, but even he was not so in the beginning, we are told. The ambiguity of good and evil doesn’t lie in the law itself but in the moral state of those who follow (or disobey) the law. Indeed, the criticism that objective moral law in Tolkien’s universe leads to simplistic black-and-white characters so greatly misses the mark that one wonders if those who make this criticism even see the target. Boromir may fail morally at a critical point, but he is by no means completely evil, as is evident when he gives his life to save Merry and Pippin. Gandalf may have great moral character, yet he is not above pride, and in desperation possibly even gives in to the temptation of resorting to the evil of torture. Or consider the opposite and complex trajectories of Denethor and Théoden, both of whom display good motives as well as evil ones. Or consider Pippin’s falling to temptation with the palantír, or the behavior of some of the Shirrifs (in “The Scouring of the Shire”) who may not be wholly corrupt and yet who collaborate in some way with Sharkey. The reality of a moral standard enlivens and richens rather than simplifies and diminishes Tolkien’s characters. It makes their choices that much more important. Which brings us back to the discussion of this chapter.
Moral Responsibility
Now we can begin to see even more deeply the significance of the gift of free will. One’s choices mean more than which of two (or ten, or twenty) flavors of ice cream he or she will consume. There is good, and there is ill, and as Aragorn says, “It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.” That there are objective moral standards by which our choices may be judged is also to say that there are real—that is, moral—consequences to our actions, and where we have free will and moral consequences, we have moral responsibility. Aragorn and Éomer are free, and they must make choices; and because there is an objective definition of good and ill, Aragorn says, they have a moral responsibility—a “man’s part”—to discover what that “good” is and to act accordingly.
Once again, though Tolkien gives these ideas a fuller expression in The Lord of the Rings, and a mythological (or theological) basis in The Silmarillion, we can see the notion of moral responsibility even in The Hobbit. For example, The Hobbit is full of references to duty, a word that refers to an obligation or responsibility of a moral or legal type. Time and again, we see Bilbo making moral choices about what he ought to do, usually in contrast to what he wants to do: “He had a horrible thought that the cakes might run short, and then he—as the host: he knew his duty and stuck to it however painful—he might have to go without” (Hobbit, 38). Like many instances early in The Hobbit, the consequences of Bilbo’s choice are not presented as especially significant at the moment; the issue at stake is only whether or not Bilbo or the dwarves will get the last of the hobbit’s supply of cakes. Yet in basing even such small decisions on moral responsibility, Bilbo is training himself, so that when the more significant decisions are placed before him—whether or not he ought to risk going back into the goblins’ caves to rescue the dwarves, for example—he is ready to perform his duty. This is exactly what we see: “He had just made up his mind that it was his duty, that he must turn back—and very miserable he felt about it—when he heard voices” (Hobbit, 137). Though these two choices involve consequences of entirely different magnitudes, Tolkien uses a similar voice in presenting them to the reader. In both cases, the contrast is between doing what is comfortable and doing what is right, and Tolkien interrupts the sentence to let the reader know that the right thing is a “painful” or “miserable” choice. We also must note that in both cases there is no legal obligation on Bilbo to act in some particular way; in other words, the obligation implied by duty is a moral one.
Because of this connection between duty and moral obligation, the notion of duty and Tolkien’s use of the concept is interesting. When teaching courses on Tolkien’s works, I have occasionally had students criticize Bilbo for acting only according to the dictates of duty, without having any warm feelings or heartfelt desire corresponding to his actions. According to this popular view, acting only in duty is somewhat less morally admirable: Bilbo should have felt like doing good rather than ill; he should have been happy to watch the dwarves eat the rest of his cakes even if he went without. Some go so far as to say that acting only in duty is hypocritical, in that our actions are not in unity with our real feelings and emotions. But it is clear that Tolkien portrays dutiful actions as virtuous and makes this a mark of those characters in Middle-earth who are most heroic. In another sense, however, a case could be made that Bilbo really does want to do his duty; he may want to be comfortable as well as do his duty, but his actions show us that his desire to do his duty is greater than his desire to be comfortable. Whether one agrees with this understanding or not, the significant issue is that in this notion of duty Tolkien is emphasizing Bilbo’s moral responsibility.
In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gives a more profound and explicit elucidation of this responsibility. In the important dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo in “The Shadow of the Past,” near the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo laments that the burden of the Ring has fallen onto him.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf. “And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” (I/ii)
This, in a nutshell, is the summary of what moral responsibility means to every individual in Middle-earth. None can choose the time into which they are born, nor can they choose what great events or great crises will come to pass in the time that is theirs. The times and their corresponding choices are beyond their control; they are given to them. They may be pleasant choices, such as those Bilbo faced throughout the majority of his long life, or they may be painful choices, such as those faced by Frodo. In short, the characters in Tolkien’s stories are not responsible for the actions and decisions of others. What they are responsible for—what they have to discern, as Aragorn says—is what to do with the choices given to them.
This is such an important concept that Tolkien repeats it often throughout his work. Gandalf lays out this moral responsibility to the Captains of the West in “The Last Debate,” using the imagery of gardening: “Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule” (V/ix). Again, the captains are not responsible for the decisions of others; they needn’t “master all the tides of the world.” Their responsibility—their “part”—is for how they act in “those years wherein [they] are set.” Each age (and even each person) will face a different set of evils, a different set of weeds in the gardens that they till. They needn’t worry about the evils that others face in their own earth, and they needn’t worry about the choices that others must make in the face of those evils; they are responsible only for the “evils in the fields that [they] know.”
Gandalf gives even more insight in this speech when he speaks of doing “what is in us.” The suggestion is that each person has been given certain strengths and abilities—a set of gifts, if you will—and each is responsible for how those strengths and gifts are used. The implication is that more will be expected of those to whom more has been given: more of Denethor than of Pippin, more of Faramir than of one of his soldiers.
Another Word on (or against) Judgment
Before turning to the issue of stewardship, one important point needs to be made about objective morality and judgment. While Tolkien makes it clear that there is a real difference between good and evil and that it is a person’s part to learn to discern, or judge, what that difference is and to act accordingly, the characters of his story are also strongly warned not to judge one another. That is, they can (and indeed must) judge between good and evil actions—and they themselves will be subject to the judgment of Ilúvatar for how well they choose—but they are not given authority to judge other persons. Frodo is given this lesson in stern fashion by Gandalf when Frodo suggests that Gollum ought to have been put to death for his crimes.
“Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”
“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” (I/ii)
Gandalf presents to Frodo a rather stern admonition against judging others. Though Gollum is the narrow topic of conversation, Gandalf’s phrasing suggests a much broader and more general application. For example, he speaks not just of Gollum’s evil but of the “many” others who have committed evil deeds as well. Certainly his final sentence is phrased in a general way. Given the wisdom with which Gandalf is portrayed, readers might well imagine such a stern admonition coming from Tolkien himself, to all his readers. Don’t be eager to judge others.
Now an admonition such as the one Tolkien puts in Gandalf’s mouth may be motivated by at least three different beliefs, and an understanding of which of these three beliefs motivated (or did not motivate) Gandalf will help us understand the philosophies beyond Tolkien’s vision. One possible underlying philosophy that would make judging others ludicrous is the philosophy of materialism, or materialistic determinism—namely, that none of us are actually free to make choices. No matter how much the actions of others bother us, if we know they are not actually free to choose otherwise—their genetic and social programming leaves them no choice but to act in annoying ways, as Bertrand Russell has suggested is the case—then it makes no sense to judge them for their choice. So we must admonish against judging. Which, as we noted above, is just what Russell does.
Another possible reason not to judge others is simply that there is no objective moral basis on which any actions may be judged. If all of our decisions are ultimately personal preferences, such as what flavor of ice cream we are going to eat, then there are no grounds for judging others for any particular decision they might make. We can express a personal preference against actions we find annoying, but we cannot judge those actions as right or wrong, and thus certainly cannot judge a person as deserving of death. This understanding makes Gandalf’s admonition against judging others a very popular one in a society that has rejected objective morality and recognizes tolerance as the only virtue. It is therefore not surprising that, out of the entire long dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo in chapter 2 of The Fellowship of the Ring, in which the wizard tells the young hobbit much of the history of the Ring, this one line of Gandalf’s was chosen to remain (word for word) in the script of Peter Jackson’s film while many other important portions were cut. If morality is purely subjective, then holding tolerance as the highest (and perhaps only) virtue makes sense: of course we must “tolerate” someone choosing chocolate over vanilla, we argue, as we must do of all seemingly moral choices if indeed there is no basis for morality. Of course if this is true, then we must also realize that there is no moral basis for claiming that tolerance itself is good, and we must be careful not to judge people for intolerance.
In any case, it is clear that Gandalf’s (and Tolkien’s) reason for abstaining from “dealing out death in judgment” is different from either of the two above. His reason is certainly not that there is no objective moral basis for judgment, nor that there is no such thing as free will; the passages explored earlier in this chapter should make this very clear. In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, free will is real and there is an objective basis for moral judgment. Indeed, even in this very passage in which we hear Gandalf’s admonition against judging others, the wizard’s own words acknowledge that there is an objective moral basis for judging actions: there are some who “deserve death,” the wizard bluntly states, and others who deserve life. Thus Tolkien’s reason for sparing judgment on others is not that there is no objective basis for such a judgment, or that people don’t deserve to be judged.
As an infantryman in World War I, and later as a citizen of England in a war against Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Tolkien confronted what he understood to be real evil in his world, and he understood that evil as something to be opposed. If nothing else, The Lord of the Rings forces the reader to confront real evil in Middle-earth. We see it not only in Mordor but also in Isengard, in Bree, and later in the Shire itself. Tolerance of a certain type in many situations may be virtuous, and a sign of humility, but tolerance of evil is not a virtue. A decision by one of the enemies of Sauron, such as Boromir, to possess and use the Ring is no more to be tolerated than Sauron’s enslavement of all Middle-earth.
In fact, Gandalf’s admonition isn’t even a blanket statement covering all instances of judgment. He does not say never to judge—though certainly a blanket admonition against being judgmental might well have come from Gandalf’s lips. Rather, the wizard in this instance warns only against dealing out death in judgment. And even then, he doesn’t say it could never be done but only that Frodo must not be quick to do it.
What, then, is the motivation for this admonition? Gandalf’s primary reason for not dealing out death in judgment seems to be that nobody in Middle-earth has the wisdom or authority to enact such justice. For one thing, no finite being in Middle-earth—not even the wise wizard Gandalf—has the wisdom to know fully who deserves life and who deserves death. Even acts of judgment involving punishments less severe than death may often be beyond the wisdom of one person. In a comment Faramir makes to Gollum after the incident at the Forbidden Pool, we see something like this at work: “Nothing?” Faramir asks, when Gollum claims to have done nothing wrong. “Have you never done anything worthy of binding or of worse punishment? However, that is not for me to judge, happily” (IV/vi). First, Faramir is saying (as did Gandalf) that there are moral crimes worthy of punishment; second, he is guessing that Gollum has indeed committed some of these. Yet Faramir is also confessing a lack of the knowledge and wisdom necessary to judge Gollum for anything beyond a very limited area in which he has been invested with authority to judge.
A second reason that nobody within Middle-earth can claim the ultimate authority of judgment—the sentencing to life or death—is that life, like free will, is so valuable a gift, given by Ilúvatar himself. It is too valuable for one person to take from another. Judgment must be served at times, as Mandos does with Fëanor. For a society to function, it must have laws and a means of enforcing those laws. But dealing out death in judgment is beyond mortal authority. Even the Valar, when faced with the outright rebellion of the men of Númenor at the end of the Akallabêth, choose to abdicate their authority in Middle-earth and turn to Ilúvatar to judge rather than themselves dealing out death in judgment. Neither do they deal out death in judgment on Fëanor and the rebelling Noldor, even after the Kinslaying at Alqualondë.
Third, and finally, no one in Middle-earth has fully lived up to the moral law. In other words, everyone is deserving of some judgment, and so who can act as the judge? Tolkien spells out this last point in one of his letters, even as he affirms that there is an objective moral basis for judgment.
Gollum was pitiable, but he ended in persistent wickedness, and the fact that this worked good was no credit to him. His marvellous courage and endurance, as great as Frodo and Sam’s or greater, being devoted to evil was portentous, but not honourable. I am afraid, whatever our beliefs, we have to face the fact that there are persons who yield to temptation, reject their chances of nobility or salvation, and appear to be “damnable.” . . . But we who are all “in the same boat” must not usurp the Judge. (Letters, 234)
Tolkien explicitly states that Gollum, though he deserved pity, is nonetheless wicked and also deserving of death. As with Fëanor, good is brought out of his wickedness, but also as with Fëanor, that is “no credit to him”; it does not change the fact that he chose evil. And here Tolkien is very explicit in holding views that are immensely unpopular today: “Whatever our beliefs, we have to face the fact that there are persons who yield to temptation . . . and appear to be ‘damnable.’” This thread of thought, spelled out explicitly in this letter, runs implicitly through The Lord of the Rings. But Tolkien also then points out something all his readers should likewise realize, that “we who are all ‘in the same boat’ must not usurp the Judge.”
The Steward of Middle-earth
And now we turn to the issue of stewardship, which is an important concept in The Lord of the Rings. It is important, in part, because the stakes are high. The greater the evil that must be confronted, the more wisdom necessary to make good choices. The greater the gifts that one is given—with freedom being the greatest of them all—the more wisdom is needed to use those gifts well. Stewardship refers to the responsibility one has for those things that have been placed under one’s care. The word steward comes from the Old English stigweard, which itself is derived from two words: stig and weard. Though it later comes to mean an “inn,” a stig in its earlier meaning is a “hall,” as in a mead hall where an English or Saxon chieftain or king would rule. Beorn’s home in The Hobbit, as well as Meduseld in Rohan where king Théoden ruled, are both modeled after Anglo-Saxon mead halls. Weard means “lord” or “keeper,” and has a modern derivative in warden. Thus, a steward, or stigweard, is the keeper or warden of the mead hall. The word implies a certain set of responsibilities. The Anglo-Saxon stigweard was a host in charge of taking care of the guests of the hall. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Barliman Butterbur is something of a steward in this sense. He is the host of an inn, or mead hall of sorts (the Prancing Pony of Bree), and is responsible to his guests. This can be seen especially in his response after the attack of the Black Riders. “I’ll do what I can,” he tells the hobbits, and he does. He buys a new pony for them (though he must pay three times its value for it), and he gives Merry another eighteen pence as compensation for his lost animals (I/xi). In short, though he was not to blame for the losses, as the innkeeper (steward), he takes personal responsibility to make reparations to Frodo and company.
In contemporary usage, steward means one who manages the possessions or affairs of another, oftentimes in the absence of that other. To be a steward of something implies both that you have a responsibility over that thing and that it belongs to another. A steward has authority, but it is an authority granted by and subject to some other, higher authority. As Gandalf says to Denethor:
“Well, my lord Steward, it is your task to keep some kingdom still against that event, which few now look to see. In that task you shall have all the aid that you are pleased to ask for. But I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?” (V/i)
This is as close as Gandalf comes to explicitly identifying his own role and purpose in Middle-earth: he is a steward. Of what? Of “all worthy things.” Of anything “that can still grow fair or bear fruit or flower.” In short, he is the steward of Middle-earth itself, or of all that is good in Middle-earth. His responsibility—his “task,” as he himself names it—is to care for those things and to make good and wise choices concerning them. As the imagery suggests, he is like a gardener caring for a garden, helping it grow to maturity and produce fruit. Thus, the essence of stewardship is really the essence of moral responsibility. But Gandalf’s task is also to train others to be good stewards: first, to help the people of Middle-earth to realize that they are stewards, each one of them, and then to help them grow in the wisdom to be good stewards. This is at the heart of many of his speeches. As he tells the Captains of the West gathered as representatives of the peoples of Middle-earth, they are all responsible for what they do with the freedom, the time, and the power given them. They are stewards of these things—time, skills, freedom, abilities—just as Gandalf himself is a steward. To be a steward, however, is to acknowledge the higher authority of another, just as Denethor, as Steward of Gondor, is (or ought to be) responsible to the king of Gondor if he should ever return: “to keep some kingdom still against that event.”
Here is where there is a sharp contrast between Gandalf and Denethor, who holds the official role as Steward of Gondor and yet does not hold to the meaning of the word steward. For Denethor has begun to see himself more as lord (weard) than as steward (stigweard): “Yet the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men’s purposes,” he says of himself to Gandalf. “And the rule of Gondor, my lord, is mine and no other man’s, unless the king should come again” (V/i, emphasis added). Although he gives lip service to the possibility that “the king should come again,” he does not act as if that is even desirable. He is more concerned with his own rule and power. Indeed, when the king does return, Denethor will not even consider his claim to the throne. “With the left hand thou wouldst use me for a little while as a shield against Mordor,” he says to Gandalf, “and with the right bring up this Ranger of the North to supplant me.” He sees the return of the king not as the hoped-for event for which he is to prepare, but as a threat to “supplant” his power. Ironically, it is in clinging to the title of Steward that Denethor refuses to do the very thing a steward is called to do: to uphold the king’s authority. “I will not step down to be the dotard chamberlain of an upstart. . . . I will not bow to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity” (V/vii).
Ultimately, under the pretense of stewardship, Denethor claims an authority that not even the wise kings of old had: to take his own life and the life of his son. Gandalf chastises him for this, but to no avail. “‘Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,’ answered Gandalf. ‘And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death’” (V/vii). It is interesting that Tolkien uses the word heathen to describe Denethor’s behavior; a heathen is an “unbeliever,” one who does not acknowledge God. If Tolkien really meant this word, then it implies that Denethor’s real fault is deeper than his refusal to acknowledge the authority of a king; it is a refusal to acknowledge the divine authority that is over even a king’s, the authority of Ilúvatar. Amandil, the grandfather of Isildur and the sire of the race of kings of Gondor, speaks of Ilúvatar’s ultimate authority even over earthly kings: “For there is but one loyalty from which no man can be absolved in heart for any cause” (Silm, 275). This is the loyalty that Denethor does not seem to acknowledge, though his son Faramir does. In any case, a central point Gandalf is making is that there is authority given to all stewards no matter what they are stewards of, and that authority is bestowed with the title, but there is also authority that a steward does not have. The moral responsibility of those in Middle-earth is to be good stewards of their gifts—that is, of those things under the authority that has been given them—and not to usurp authority that is not theirs. Denethor eventually fails in both of these.
Gandalf, unlike Denethor, is the ideal steward. He does not claim any lordship or authority over others. “The rule of no realm is mine,” he says, and his actions validate that claim. Earlier, in examining Gandalf’s wisdom, I quoted a personal letter in which Tolkien himself describes who Gandalf is: “There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate ‘angel.’” This same letter also gives insight into Gandalf’s role and nature as a steward, a role that is closely tied to his wisdom. In the letter, Tolkien leads into this description of Gandalf by explaining something about Gandalf’s sacrifice at Khazad-dûm.
Gandalf really “died,” and was changed: for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called “death” as making no difference. “I am G. the White, who has returned from death.” Probably he should rather have said to Wormtongue: “I have not passed through death (not ‘fire and flood’) to bandy crooked words with a serving-man.” And so on. I might say much more, but it would only be in (perhaps tedious) elucidation of the “mythological” ideas in my mind. . . . G. is not, of course, a human being (Man or Hobbit). There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate “angel.” . . .
. . . At this point in the fabulous history the purpose was precisely to limit and hinder their exhibition of “power” on the physical plane, and so that they should do what they were primarily sent for: train, advise, instruct, arouse the hearts and minds of those threatened by Sauron to a resistance with their own strengths; and not just to do the job for them. . . .
[But] the crisis had become too grave and needed an enhancement of power. So Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned. (Letters, 201–3)
This comment speaks to two different aspects of Gandalf’s stewardship. We see that his own power is enhanced after his death and return. Some of the limitations on his exhibition of “angelic” power have been removed, which is to say he is now more powerful on the physical plane. As a result, he is now responsible for the stewardship of an even greater gift—namely, his enhanced power. We might say that Gandalf had proven to be a faithful steward with the smaller gifts he originally had been given, and so he was given even more over which to be a steward.
And he remains a good steward! He does not use his enhanced power to claim more rule or authority over others. Indeed, his relationship to those around him remains fundamentally the same as before his power was enhanced. He does not command, but he trains, advises, instructs. And, most especially, he arouses “the hearts and minds of those threatened by Sauron to a resistance with their own strengths.” This is what he does with Théoden, first in Meduseld and later on the way to Isengard. As we mentioned earlier, it is also what he does on the walls of Minas Tirith. It is what he does with the hobbits throughout the Quest, especially Frodo and Pippin. In other words, inasmuch as it is Gandalf’s role to be a steward, it is also his role to train those around him to be stewards themselves. His goal is to see each person use his or her own time and abilities to fight against Mordor. He wants each person to understand the moral responsibility that comes with free will, and to choose well. This is why he does not do people’s jobs for them. If he did others’ jobs for them, so that they needn’t use their own strength, then he would be removing their moral responsibility. It might make Gandalf’s life simpler and accomplish his “military” goals more quickly if he were to exercise more power and do more, but his goal is not to make his own life simple. His ultimate aim is for the moral good of those around him, which is to say for their training in moral responsibility.
This returns us to the earlier conclusion that moral victory is more important than military victory, and to the importance of free will and choice. If there is no objective right and wrong, then one is free to win the military victory by whatever means is possible; power is what matters, not right and wrong. This is the path Saruman takes. Likewise, if there is no right or wrong—if all choices are equally good—then choice itself and our free will to make choices become less important; it is not the choosing that matters but only the outcome. But in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, there is objective morality. There is a standard for judgment. As a result, moral decisions are important.