#you all can't handle too many nuances complex world building and ideas I know I know

[nycteris-g]

You want examples of anti-Manicheanism in Tolkien?

Take Maedhros - he who performed "deeds of surpassing valor" and stood against the darkness and armies of Morgoth for centuries. He who swore a blasphemous oath, condemning himself to damnation. He who murdered his kin not once, not twice, but four times. And he who, finally holding the very object that symbolized his damnation, realizes the futility of all the evil he committed and throws himself into the fire.

Is he bad? Is he good? He swore a blasphemous oath - by Tolkien's standards, that alone would make him 'bad.' And then, of course, there are, you know, the murders. But is he absolutely evil? Born to be a murderous thing? Beyond any redemption or pity? How can someone who so fearlessly resisted The Evil be an entirely lost case? Can absolute evil even recognize the horror of its own deeds?

Tolkien, far more insightful than those who try to divide humankind into simple categories of good and bad, masterfully depicted the complexity of human nature (the Children of Ilúvatar). Humanity is not inherently evil, nor is it doomed to fall - yet it does, and still holds the potential to rise again: to see, to believe, to choose to do good.