Frodo in Mount Doom
Faith is indeed a mystery, yet those who believe leave behind tangible reflections of this mystery not through their words and deeds alone, but also in their art. As the Catholic Faith is the only belief system that is entirely true on account of it having been revealed by God, this will thus be reflected in the art produced by her sons and daughters. Worldview is reflected through culture; as the morality of Catholicism is more noble and just than any that can possibly be conceived, the art that has been forged within her fold will satisfy man’s innate teleological drive, for only this religion knows the true purpose of man’s existence. Consequently, art which has been forged outside of her fold will inevitably fall short of portraying the moral universe. Even if such works attempt to explicitly engage the audience in a tale of the struggle of Good against Evil, their foundational conception of good and evil will doom them to a faulty portrayal of these two forces, thereby confounding the stark antithesis their authors set out to prove.
The two great epics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these being The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien and the Star Wars saga by George Lucas, provide ample evidence of this reality. For Tolkien crafted his realm of Middle Earth according to the Catholic understanding of good and evil, while the agnostic Lucas drew from a variety of source material—religious, mythological, and cultural—to construct his Galaxy and, as a result, portrayed quite a different understanding. While both men sought to tell their stories as unambiguous struggles of Good against Evil, where Tolkien triumphed Lucas failed; for where the morality of Tolkien’s epic is thoroughly consistent, the morality of Lucas’ epic ends in murkiness.
This problem of storytelling—as with all problems at their root—is theological in nature. Tolkien’s belief in Divine Simplicity influenced the depiction of the Valar (beings akin to angels) and the Free Peoples as servants of a Providence analogous to God, who is Goodness itself. Moreover, his Catholicism also found expression in his portrayal of Sauron and the Enslaved Peoples as corruptions of good beings, for the Faith holds that evil is a privation—not a substance. On the contrary, Lucas’ syncretism led to the dualistic concept of the Force, the supernatural energy or substance that animates all living things in the Star Wars universe, as it consists of a light side and a dark side—a good side and an evil side. This raises the following question: if the Force is the source of all life, does this not imply that evil is natural? By establishing a binary of seemingly equal essences in this Force, Lucas thus suggests a gnostic understanding of good and evil, which must work against the kind of story he intended to tell.
Consequently, these contrary theological positions form how the nature of good and evil is defined in these two universes. In Middle Earth, evil is something that cannot create, but only crudely imitate; in the Galaxy, evil is actually something inherent to all living things. This abstract but essential difference informs substantial moments within their legendary stories: where the representation of Tolkien’s position of innate goodness against deprivation clarifies the justice of the Fellowship’s cause, Lucas’ symbiotic parallelism muddies the path of the Jedi.
For instance, in Matthew Woodring Stover’s adaptation of The Revenge of the Sith, during a conversation about Anakin’s role as the potential “chosen one” of Jedi prophecy between Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu, the latter of these Master Jedi states:1
Stover, 213
Jedi create light, but the Sith do not create darkness. They merely use the darkness that is already there. That has always been there. Greed and jealousy, aggression and lust and fear—these are all natural to sentient beings. The legacy of the jungle. Our inheritance from the dark.
According to Windu, one of the highest-ranking Jedi, darkness has “always been there” and furthermore that sinful behavior, which comes from the dark side, are “natural to sentient beings.” Thus he answers the prior question in the affirmative. He distinguishes the Jedi as creators of light, presumably in the sense that they bring about good in the universe through cooperating with the light side, but points out that the Sith “use” this eternal darkness. Are the Sith users—as opposed to creators—because they seek to harness the Dark side to impose their dark designs upon the Galaxy rather than carry out its will, or is this described distinction merely the result of Windu’s allegiance to his Order? In either case, the Dark side is still natural to the universe; this then begs the question that if the Force has a good and an evil side, does it have two wills or one will? The Force is a monist concept, in that all things have their individual identity ultimately sublimated to this impersonal energy of life; yet it is also gnostic, in that both good and evil—light and darkness—are equal parts of the creation and the governance of the universe.2 Since the will of the Force—the closest concept to Providence in the Star Wars universe—must contain morally positive and a negative elements, then it follows that the will of the Force is unknowable. For absolute moral neutrality is an impossibility, and a mixture of good and evil wills in a divine substance entails an essential contradiction within a supposedly perfect being. In order to be perfect, a being has to be in harmony; it cannot compete against itself. How then can there be harmony in the Force if good and evil—its light side and dark side—are locked in an eternal struggle? Therefore Windu is entirely reasonable when, during the aforementioned moment in the text, he goes on to remark:
(Ibid)
We don’t even truly understand what it means to bring balance to the Force.
In context of the Jedi prophecy they are discussing, this is shocking. The prior Prequel films showed the Jedi seeing Anakin as this “chosen one”—chosen to restore balance to the Force—and their interpretation led them to accept the boy into their Order and train them as one of their own. The implication within that train of events is that the chosen one must be trained as Jedi and defeat the last remnants of the Sith; thus “balance” in this sense means the complete victory of the light side over the dark side. By questioning that understanding of the prophecy’s language, Windu is inadvertently pointing out the fundamental flaw of such a belief: if the Force is both light and dark, good and evil, how then can there truly be “balance” if the followers of the Light annihilate those who follow the Dark? If even this Master Jedi raises such doubt over the prophecy’s meaning, it casts a shadow over how the Order has treated Anakin.
Has the Jedi Order then manipulated him on a whim, demanding his detachment from all beings and total trust in their system when their highest authorities are themselves uncertain of the very future they see for him? Such a question is only one of many wielded by Palpatine to make Anakin disillusioned with the Jedi throughout The Revenge of the Sith, yet this particular accusation carries all the more weight as it seems to be confirmed by the voices of the heroes themselves. Encountering this truth, the audience is not only led to feel sympathy for Anakin, but also is tempted to become convinced of the way of the Sith alongside him.
Tolkien portrayed the difference between Light and Dark without any muddying of the waters. Using the same terms, he makes the position of each apparent from one another, and thus the transition from good to evil within his universe is not one of switching between one eternally coequal or “natural” side to another, but one of corruption. For example, while in the dark lands of Mordor, Frodo muses upon the origin of the Orcs in the following terms:3
(Tolkien, 893)
The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined and twisted them…
In suggesting this, Frodo has applied the knowledge of evil he has learned from the corrupting power of the Ring—which he has experienced himself plenty of times by this point in the story—to deduce the nature of the Orcs. He understands that the Shadow is a perverter of Good, which is why he says that it “can only mock, it cannot make.” Making implies a certain legitimacy; Sauron can only “create” by unmaking things, which are good in their essence, into repulsive deviations. As it happens, Frodo’s statement recalls something said by the ent Treebeard in an earlier part of The Lord of the Rings cycle to two other hobbits:4
(Tolkien, 474)
…Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.
Frodo’s guesswork thus follows a statement by one who witnessed the primordial age of Middle Earth, and thus can speak with authority on what the evil creatures really are. He names both Orcs and Trolls as being “counterfeits”—and therefore illegitimate by nature—of two preexisting types of creatures or races, and there is no reason to doubt him: as with the other good characters of these books, Treebeard is a reliable source of information, unlike the moral authorities of the Star Wars universe. This being so, the concept that evil exists only as a corruption of good, as indicated by Frodo and Treebeard, reflects the Catholic nature of Tolkien’s world; for among other eminent theologians, St. Bonaventure defines sin as “the defection of the created will” (Breviloquium III. 1).5
With these two contrary views on the nature of good and evil considered in context, one can better understand the significance of how they inform character moments within these stories. Given that in Star Wars the dark side is an equal side of the Force to the light side, it is therefore possible for the Dark to overpower the Light; this is made manifest when, during Anakin’s moment of internal crisis, the power of the light within the Jedi Temple—where it is most palpable—seems incapable of assisting him against the temptations of the darkness. Stover relates this conflict in the following terms:
Alone in the Chamber of the Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker wrestled with his dragon.
He was losing.
He paced the Chamber in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs. He could not feel currents of the Force around him; he could not feel the echoes of Jedi Masters in these ancient seats.
He had never dreamed there was this much pain in the universe.
(Stover, 319)
Despite being within what is essentially a Jedi sanctuary, this tragic knight is crushed under the weight of his agony, his “dragon”—this being his fear of losing his beloved wife, Padmé. His strength in the light side is not enough: it is not enough to give him spiritual sight in this trial, for he wanders in “blind arcs”, and it is not enough to keep him from “stumbling among” the chairs of the great Jedi Masters. Taken together, these two details symbolize how ineffectual the presence of the Light appears in these dire hours, and consequently how Anakin’s fall to the Dark seems inevitable.
On the other hand, within the third book of The Lord of the Rings the language of the natural world is used in a subtly beautiful moment to present an inspiring image of how Goodness ultimately triumphs over Evil. The fact that this occurs during Frodo and Sam’s perilous mission in the land of Mordor—the stronghold of the villain Sauron—renders this all the more moving. Narrating this moment, Tolkien writes:
(Tolkien, 901)
Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
Though the Shire-loving Sam is experiencing harshness that he has never known before in the “forsaken” land of Mordor, it is this brief glimmer of beauty—as represented by the twinkling of the white star—that gives him hope in this valley of darkness. It is a hope that implicitly rekindles his belief in his shared mission with his friend Frodo, but also that adds to it by granting him an insight into a transcendent form of beauty that even Sauron cannot corrupt. For he star, unlike the polluted and nearly lifeless domain he has claimed for himself, is a “light and high beauty for ever beyond” his reach. He cannot reach the stars, even if he tried in all the power of his hate; for Sauron is akin to a fallen angel, a being far less powerful than the God of Middle Earth, who is not a mixture of Light and Dark, but is entirely Light.
There are, however, more important examples to examine: the fall of the respective main protagonists to darkness. Both Frodo and Anakin fail in their missions, but in very different respects—and this too results from the morality that governs their universes.
For Frodo, though he has been tormented by the Ring for some time, his lapse into becoming possessed by it is sudden. He and Sam have just entered Mount Doom, and everything appears to be going according to the Quest until he cries out: “I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!” (Tolkien, 924). All seems lost, for he hides himself using the cloaking power of the Ring; yet it is Gollum, the corrupted husk who has trailed the hobbits to reclaim the device for himself, who in wrestling it from the fallen hero falls into the magma, thus bringing this symbol of sin to a fiery destruction.
After being freed of its spell, Frodo reflects to his friend, admitting his own natural weakness against the presence of this supernatural evil and the providential role of the irredeemable creature:
(Tolkien, 926)
But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring.
There is no sense here that Frodo would have benefited in any way from continuing in his fallen state; it is only a temporary deviation from his purpose. Frodo’s inability represents the incapacity of man to confront and defeat evil on his own accord; he does not have the ultimate power over evil, the schism of being as Maistre put it,6 because “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). In Tolkien’s world, the God arranges events in such manner so as to account for this weakness, allowing evil to destroy itself—because that is the course of it, as it can only unmake, not create. Thus even evil has a purpose in the plan of Absolute Good, and, even where it is most present, is thwarted by the most unlikely of means to bring about good.
Anakin’s fall to the dark side, however, is far more sympathetic. This is not only on account of Stover’s more intimate narrative voice (for though Tolkien does not provide the exact details of Frodo’s inner conflict, Stover does so with Anakin), but also because of Palpatine’s criticisms of the Jedi, and how these address contradictions within their philosophy—contradictions from which Anakin himself suffers from. The moment of his fall from Anakin Skywalker into becoming the infamous Darth Vader is one marked by choice between Light and Dark, not one wherein the Dark overpowers his frail human nature.
He has stepped into a battle to the death between Palpatine and Windu, both of whom have matched the other in power by this point in the duel; therefore Anakin must intervene to save one and destroy the other—to reject the Dark and affirm the Light, or side with the Dark against the Light. The troubled chosen one, agonized by this choice, still sees good in the Jedi yet sees value in the potential of the Sith. In telling him the “legend” of Darth Plagueis the Wise prior to this event, Palpatine practically held out the possibility that the Sith know how to save people from death—something that he knows the Jedi cannot do. Such a power is especially relevant to Anakin, as he desires to save her from the future death that the Force reveals to him in his nightmares. This is why when Windu, noticing Anakin’s hesitation, threatens to kill Palpatine himself; the Jedi Knight responds in haste:
I need him alive!” Skywalker shouted. I need him to save Padmé!
(Stover, 334)
And because Windu does not heed his injunction, Anakin helps Palpatine kill him; thus he betrays the Jedi Order not for himself, but ostensibly out of love for his wife. Yet this moment was merely the culmination of Palpatine’s influence upon the young man. For instance, during a conversation between Anakin and the secret Sith Lord, the seemingly benign old man criticizes the Jedi philosophy and contrasts theirs with that of the Sith in the following terms:
“The Jedi fear the dark side so much they cut themselves off from the most important aspect of life: passion. Of any kind. They don’t even allow themselves to love.”
Except for me, Anakin thought. Then again, I’ve never been exactly the perfect Jedi.
“The Sith do not fear the dark side. The Sith have no fear. They embrace the whole spectrum of existence, from the heights of transcendent joy to the depths of hatred and despair. Beings have these emotions for a reason, Anakin. That is why the Sith are more powerful: they are not afraid to feel.”
(Stover, 225)
These words resonate with Anakin, who has long struggled with the Jedi command of absolute detachment from one’s feelings. Granted, though the Sith alternative is not as pleasant as Palpatine presents it here, he does make a critical point against the Jedi Order in claiming that sentient beings “have these emotions for a reason”: if one believes that the Force is good, and that this same Force has granted feelings—even negative ones—as a part of the natural condition of all living beings, why reject them? Palpatine, unlike Sauron, is able to effectively criticize the standard of goodness in his universe—because that standard is faulty to begin with. On this, then, one can argue that Anakin’s fall was good because he was liberating himself from an Order that arbitrarily restricted him; his only fault in this, if he has any, lies in the how of his rebellion against the Jedi, not the what.
Therefore, because the standard of justice in the Star Wars saga is fundamentally flawed owing to its dualistic nature, it consequently makes its villains appear more than sympathetic—it possibly makes them appear right. Such a point may account for the perspective, not uncommon among audiences, to interpret the Sith and even the Galactic Empire as good, though Lucas clearly wishes to communicate to us that these are the villains of his story. Meanwhile, very few—if any—sincerely argue that Sauron and his hordes were truly in the right, as the morality of Tolkien’s Middle Earth is unambiguous. Where Lucas failed because of his faulty theology, Tolkien triumphed; for only where the standard of justice is rooted in the Revealed Religion, the Good is found unpolluted and pure.
-
Stover, Matthew Woodring. Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Lucasbooks. Hardcover ed. 2005. -
See for reference Fr. Copleston’s explanation of Manicheanism, an ancient cult that was influenced by Gnosticism:
– Fr. Copleston S.J., A History of Philosophy, Vol. II: Medieval Philosophy. p. 41.
The Manicheans, however, maintained a dualistic theory, according to which there are two ultimate principles, that of light, God or Ormuzd, and an evil principle, that of darkness, Ahriman. These principles are both eternal and their strife is eternal, a strife reflected in the world which is the production of the two principles in mutual conflict. In man the soul, composed of light, is the work of the good principle, while the body, composed of grosser matter, is the work of the evil principle. -
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. William Morrow Paperbacks. 2012. -
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers. William Morrow Paperbacks. 2012. -
St. Bonaventure. The Breviloquium. Translated by José de Vinck. St. Anthony’s Guild Press. 1963. p. 110. -
Considerations on France. Translated by Edward Maxwell III. Maistre: Major Works, Volume I. Imperium Press. p. 83.