Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-93.82.58.211-20170422153051/@comment-26088681-20170424203329

Eoros wrote: Just because there's a God in a book doesn't mean it's based off Christianity...

Just because sin has consequences in a book doesn't mean it's based of Christianity...

Also, Illuvatar is like a deist God: he doesn't do anything. This is nothing like what Christians believe their God to be. If Melkor is Satan, then Satan was defeated loooong ago and can do literally nothing, not even tempt people.

Starting to see problems?

And I will add about Satan been Melkor that Tolkien took inspiration from both the Christian view of evil and the Manicheist view: From Christian's point of view, (I recommend you to read Boethius's book, The Consolation of Philosophy) evil is meant to be powerless and infinitely weaker than good: Neither Satan or Melkor can create by their own, they can only corrupt, and make weaker copies of what was create by God. Their only aim is to destroy God's creation. Fatally, both, in the end, lose.

But Tolkien is also inspired and influenced by Manicheism: although Melkor is weaker than the Valar, he has a body, and he is strong on his own. Although he was bannished from ME, his influence spreads and corrupts: his servants are powerful, can terrorize populations, and yes, he can tempt the good ones, because Melkor embodies "evil", and the Ring is an evil being, who can act on his own, is a sentient and can corrupt and seduce the heart of people.

However in the end, the Ring is destroyed by Providence (Gollum randomly falls into the lava), symbolizing the triumph of Ilúvatar and God. Plus Gollum is the instrument of this Providence, and he only lives because Frodo had pity for him. Mercy is an important notion of Christianity.

Well I won't get too much into the details aha but if you're interested you can read this entire thesis dedicated to Good and Bad in Tolkien's works and made by Alvise Dal Ri here: [].