[Andreth]

I have a question for anyone who wants to give me an opinion, or maybe let me know if you've seen something about it floating around in the vast ocean of HoMe -

In Morgoth's Ring there's this passage:

"Morever, the final eradication of Sauron was achievable by the destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible since this required the complete disintegration of the 'matter' of Arda. Sauron's power was not (for example) in gold as such, but in a particular form or shape made of a particular portion of total gold. Morgoth's power was disseminated throughout Gold, if nowhere absolute (for he did not create Gold) it was nowhere absent. It was this Morgoth-element in matter, indeed, which was a prerequisite for such 'magic' and other evils as Sauron practised with it and upon it.

It is quite possible of course, that certain elements or conditions of matter had attracted Morgoth's special attention (mainly unless in the remote past, for reasons of his own plans). For example, all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have had a specially 'evil' trend - but not silver."

Okay, I apologize for the long quote there, but I wanted to have the whole thing there to get a proper opinion on. Why was gold evil and not silver? I know you see this in different stories throughout history, i.e. golden calf=drunken orgies=evil, silver bullet=dead bad things=good. But in the situation of Middle-earth, why would gold be used more for evil as opposed to silver? Any thoughts? Anybody? Please?


Anna

[sindohte]

Hmm, you know it is truly scary when it is 6:30ish in the morning and you actually understand something from Morgoth's Ring But to answer your question - in most cultures gold was considered to be the most precious of all metals. In fact some cultures even believed that it represented the flesh of their gods. Byzantine icons and images of Buddha were gilded with gold as a way to show absolute perfection and enlightenment.

Now here is an interesting little quote which is probably what you are looking for Anna - "minted gold is a symbol of perversion and the exaltation of unclean desires" (this is a secondary reference from Le symbolisme dans la mythologie grecque by Paul Diel).

And another interesting little tidbit - Egyptians believed that their gods' bones were made of silver and their flesh was made of gold.

There also is a general sense of ambivalence as to whether gold is considered to be "good" (flesh of the gods/enlightenment) or "evil" (greed and covetousness). So if you consider the One Ring and how the various individuals who encountered it along its lifespan, you can get a portrait of that ambivalence.

I have always thought that Gollum was a symbol or an actual physical representation of how gold, or by extension, the Ring, was neither truly good or evil. Gollum was a creature at war with himself internally. His conflict could be expressed in his statements and in his actions towards other individuals such as Sam and Frodo. Now as for the Ring, it is mute. So the ambivalence of its nature has to be expressed through whoever currently owns it.

Wow, that is giving me a Sauron bunny Dang you Anna. You have made me a Sauron slut

[BittenBuggy]

Wow... uh. Facinating.

[NancyBrooke]

That's very interesting. Does that play out elsewhere in Tolkien?

Mallorn's have silver bark and golden leaves, right? = not bad
Galadriel I always think of as gold ...
Mithril, clearly good - strong pure etc.

But in the mythology of Men in middle earth - Minas Ithil becomes Minas Morgul but Minas Anor remains uncorrupted to become Minas Tirith.

There is the Golden hall of Meduseld, and it's golden-haired denizens ...

Clearly more complicated.

In Fanon Boromir is often seen as gold and Faramir as silver (Anorien and Ithilien)

[Andreth]

I think he was more talking about the actual metal gold rather than just the color. Sindohte, that quote from Diel you gave made sense - so I guess it's more that gold is associated with riches and greed, and gold is generally considered to be more precious than silver so it would be what greedy, rich, pretentious people would be more interested in and what Morgoth focused more of his powers on because those were the kinds of people he wanted to attract. Does that make sense?

Nancy, I didn't know that Faramir was associated with silver and Boromir with gold. That's an interesting fact to store away for future use.

On an off note, just because the other thread about war in middle-earth got me to thinking about it - I've always wondered if Boromir's temptation and downhill slide didn't have something to do with another passage in this same section of Morgoth's Ring. It's talking about mind reading abilities among the different levels of beings in Arda and it says,

"Minds can exhibit or reveal themselves to other minds by the action of their own wills...It is thus a temptation to minds of greater power to govern or constrain the will of other, and weaker, minds, so as to induce or force them to reveal themselves. But to force such a revelation, or to induce it by any lying or deception, even for supposedly 'good' purposes (including the 'good' of the person so persuaded or dominated), is absolutely forbidden. To do so is a crime, and the 'good' in the purposes of those who commit this crime swiftly becomes corrupted."

To me, this sounds like what Galadriel did to Boromir in Lothlorien. Granted she did it to the others as well, but Boromir said that it was only after his encounter with Galadriel when they arrived in Caras Galadhon that his desire for the Ring became clear to him. Maybe Galadriel had good intentions in prodding the minds of the others, but her good intentions turned out badly and set Boromir on his self-destructive path with the Ring.

Anyway, just something I've obviously given too much thought to.


Anna

[SilverMoonLady]

Wow! See, gathering knowledge is very very good! I never knew/suspected the possibility of Galadriel's 'test' pushing him over the edge in that way:) Hmmmm..... thoughts thoughts...

[Beruthiel]

Hi,

just a tidbit of information I came across in the sil:

[Andreth]

Thanks, Beruthiel. I had forgotten about that passage. It's a good one to have.

I don't think I worded my original question properly, though. What I was basically wondering was why Tolkien says that Melkor focused on putting the influence of his powers into the metal gold and not silver, making gold have an evil trend in Middle-earth. Was it because Melkor just preferred gold for some reason or did silver maybe have some properties in it that resisted his powers? Like water, which was said to be almost completely free of Morgoth's corruption. Although it says that things that *held* water could still have a level of Morgoth-corruption.

I figure that water has less Morgoth-influence because of the Ulmo-influence in it, so I wondered if there was something like that going on with silver, too, or if Morgoth just overlooked that metal because he preferred gold.


Anna