XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: no.spam@no.spam   
      
   Lately I had a powerful insight. Actually, it was more like   
   a revelation. A regular epiphany.   
      
   I'll try to explain.   
      
   When I first read _Lord of the Rings_ (circa 1965) I assumed right away   
   that at least *I* would never have succumbed to the Ring's evil power.   
   Of course this is what I was meant to think. (Meant by the Enemy,   
   that is.)   
      
   After all, I was young and in college and idealistic and thought   
   I was incorruptible. (Alas, how sadly wrong that fond notion   
   turned out to be. Sigh.)   
      
   And then of course later on when I saw pictures of the Ring   
   as depicted by various artists, the gold looked very fair and pure,   
   and I thought how rich and beautiful was its colour, how perfect was   
   its roundness. An admirable thing and altogether precious.   
      
   Still and all though, given how nasty the Ring was I thought at least   
   *I'd* have no problem dropping it into the Cracks of Doom in the depths   
   of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain.   
      
   This comforting (and self-deceptive) thought stayed with me for   
   nearly 5 decades.   
      
   And then -- just recently -- something happened to shake this   
   complacent attitude.   
      
   I was watching a horror show on TV. Or the first few minutes of it,   
   anyway; it soon got too horrifying to watch and I turned it off   
   in favor of some Donald Duck cartoons on YouTube.   
      
   Despite how funny Donald is (my favorite Disney character)   
   I couldn't stop thinking about the TV show. That's about when   
   this revelation began to dawn on me.   
      
   The horror story was _The Devil's Diary_. The plot is simple:   
   write down what you want to happen to someone on a blank space   
   in the diary and it will soon come true. But only if it's   
   an evil wish. (For instance trying to accommodate your best   
   (female) friend who wants to grow bigger boobs won't work;   
   only something with some real malicious intent will come to pass.)   
      
   The diary itself looked innocuous enough. Just a dark blue   
   hard-bound notebook like you can find in any stationery supply.   
      
   What would one do with such an evil thing? Destroy it, of course   
   (if possible)! Naturally it would be too dangerous to simply throw   
   or give it away, letting it loose in a wicked world like ours   
   where it could fall into the wrong hands. (Which is to say,   
   any other hands but one's own!)   
      
   So would I take this thing, if it lay by the highway? Or leave it   
   lying there, perhaps to be acquired by the Enemy? Surely Faramir,   
   although of good faith, wasn't being sensible. Obviously someone   
   had to take it up -- if only to act as Bearer seeking to destroy it.   
      
   But first -- wouldn't it be satisfying to pay back just a few   
   of the people who have hurt me over the years? Such as that bully   
   in high school, and the girl who led me on and used me and then   
   dumped me so cruelly, and what about that abusive boss who I was   
   so pissed at? After all, where's the real harm in a few painful   
   (but not life-threatening and oh so satisfying to inflict) pranks   
   by way of poetic justice which they richly deserve anyway?   
   (Especially if I can arrange things so they see me watching them   
   suffer as I gleefully remind them of what they did to me).   
      
   That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas!   
      
   After all, while I'm at it, how about making the world a better place   
   (deploring maybe evils done along the way) but approving the high   
   and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; with the power   
   (according to my stature) (and I'm no Winston Churchill) to order   
   all things as I see fit, for that good which only the Wise   
   (ie, myself) can see.   
      
   For instance, I could start by taking out a few tyrants of the likes   
   of Kim Jong-un, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Joe Arpaio (notorious sheriff   
   of Maricopa County, Arizona).   
      
   Well, that's roughly equivalent to what John F. Kennedy did   
   (or at least acquiesced to) in the death of Ngo Dinh Diem,   
   president of South Vietnam who was assassinated in 1963   
   (a few weeks before Kennedy himself was killed).   
      
   And what was the result? For all his faults (which were glaring),   
   Diem had at least held together a stable (if oppressive) government   
   for nearly 2 decades. After his death the Saigon regime was so   
   destabilized that close to two dozen coups (including failed attempts)   
   took place in less than 18 months. Among other consequences   
   tending to weaken the government, ARVN forces needed to combat   
   the Viet Cong had to be deployed in Saigon instead to guard against   
   yet another coup. (For example see the film _Go Tell the Spartans_,   
   acclaimed as one of the better ones about the Vietnam war.)   
   And as the regime declined, American military and other intervention   
   escalated to prop it up whilst the oppression of its defenseless   
   peasants worsened.   
      
   The point of all this being that even if I could remove Kim Jong-un   
   by using the Magic Diary, EVEN WITH THE GOOD INTENTION OF LIBERATING   
   THE OPPRESSED NORTH KOREANS, the plan might backfire badly. They might   
   well (and probably would, given the evil nature of the tool used)   
   end up even worse off. Then I might feel compelled to intervene   
   again -- doing even more damage -- and so on.   
      
   Well there it is. The gateway to the slippery slope down into the Black   
   Abyss from which there is no exit, and perhaps no redemption. For with   
   that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me   
   the Diary (or the Ring; there being no essential difference, merely   
   a similar talisman in a new and different guise) would gain a power   
   still greater and more deadly. For I do not wish to become like   
   the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Dark Power to my heart   
   is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.   
      
   .....[pause for dramatic effect] [Wagnerian musical interlude].....   
      
   And so this Awesome Insight got right in my face, where after all this   
   time I could ignore it no longer.   
      
   FOR EVEN THOUGH SAURON'S EVIL RING EXISTS IN FICTION ONLY, IT WAS   
   STILL POWERFUL ENOUGH TO REACH RIGHT UP FROM OUT OF THE PRINTED PAGE   
   TO DECEIVE (AND PERHAPS CORRUPT) ME!   
      
   But there's more to confess. It gets even worse. Note that in the above   
   I'm still blaming the Ring alone, which is just another way of ignoring   
   (or denying) my own Dark Side. It would be more accurate to say:   
      
   FOR EVEN THOUGH SAURON'S EVIL RING EXISTS IN FICTION ONLY, IT WAS   
   STILL POWERFUL ENOUGH TO INDUCE ME TO DECEIVE (AND CORRUPT) MYSELF.   
      
   The Ring is "altogether evil". How often I've glossed over that phrase;   
   seeing the truth of it only with my rational mind and never before with   
   the conviction of real belief; with feeling at the gut level.   
      
   The Halfling's trove may look fair to see, but it's altogether evil.   
   ALTOGETHER EVIL!!! How long it took me to grok that simple truth. Duh.   
      
   The truth that Boromir didn't see until too late. I hope it isn't   
   too late for me.   
      
   In short, one simply can't bring about a good outcome with evil methods,   
   magical or otherwise.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)