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Beware That Baker in the Kitchen! - Page 6

© Michael Martinez

Orcs, therefore, were not so utterly evil that they could always be distinguished from Men. Or perhaps Men were not always so good that they could be distinguished from Orcs. The Elves' disobedience wasn't universal, as was the disobedience of Men. The Elves were able to learn the errors of their ways, and to reject the path of darkness. Men had to wait for another form of redemption. Yet we see the good and evil in Middle-earth mostly through the eyes of the Hobbits. There were some mean Hobbits, and Hobbits who willingly served Saruman. But in general, the Hobbits possessed an innocence, a faithfulness to good, which all Men and Elves must have once shared. That is not to say the Hobbits hadn't shared in the Fall of Man. They must have, being (as Tolkien said) a branch of the Human race. But they had turned aside from the darkness and never wholly gone back toward it. A few, like Smeagol and Lotho Sackville-Baggins, stole down the path and vanished into oblivion. To Hobbits, the Elves were good and the Orcs were bad. Such thinking was at once right (because the Hobbits judged the Elves and Orcs on the basis of their actions) and wrong (because the Hobbits didn't look deeper than their own experience). What did Sam think of Feanor's rebellion? Well, it was all in the past for him, no doubt. It was a matter long set right. But did he understand that the Orcs weren't really to blame for their nature? Did he understand that Gandalf pitied even Sauron's slaves, or why? On the other hand, Hobbits were generally of a gentle nature. They didn't beat their children, didn't (apparently) suffer from alcoholism, and seem not to have had much of a problem with bank robbers, murderers, and kidnappers. What would a Hobbit kidnapper demand for ransom, anyway? A cartload of pipeweed? The pride and anger which brought down other peoples really doesn't well up much in the Hobbits. They are long-suffering and long-enduring people, but they also lack ambition. And all the troubles of Elves and Men seem to come from ambition. Or desire. About the most ambitious act any Hobbit outside the Sackville-Baggins family seemed to express, was to steal mushrooms or cover as many taverns as possible. Lotho's ambition to become the Boss brought him to a sad and pathetic end. Paladin II, Pippin's father, was outraged that anyone should try to set himself up as ruler of the Shire, but he didn't do anything to contest Lotho. The Tooks simply waited out the storm in their own land, rather than marching to war against the Ruffians. It wasn't important enough for Paladin to start a war which might result in the deaths of many Hobbits.

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