Was there ever any doubt?

[dreamflower]

The cool thing is, I didn't have to manipulate my answers one little bit! This is a really *good* quiz!

Which literature classic are you?

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are entertaining and imaginative, creating whole new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you have a whole league of imitators, none of which is quite as profound as you are. Stories and songs give a spark of joy in the middle of your eternal battle with the forces of evil.
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Comments

[shirebound]

Yup, looks about right. *nods*

[dreamflower]

It's funny! I took it a second time, and that time I only picked one answer to each question, and I still got the same results.

The only way I could get a different answer was to deliberately pick answers that were *not* my first choices. And what's funny then, is that I got another favorite of mine "The Name of the Rose". LOL!

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

I'm The Name of the Rose :)

[dreamflower]

Well, when I left out my "first choice" answers, that's what I got. Another book I love, though I've not re-read it in several years.

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

I've never read it; looks like I'll be clicking on Amazon soon.

I know exactly what got me there--it was the questions about evil. I don't know why exactly, but whenever I am faced with a decision to call something evil, I am very reluctant to do so. I don't think there is a "force" for evil; I think people are ignorant and stupid and undisciplined in their emotions, or mentally ill--and when they act on these things, they create evil, but I don't think evil exists in itself, as a force working against us. As they say, you create your own hell.

It's like orcs--when you read those parts of LOTR where the orcs are having conversations, it's patently obvious they're not too bright, just ignorant guys doing the job the smart guys told them to do, and yes, doing terrible things, but that's what comes of ignorance and not being open to ideas. They don't follow the smart guys admiringly--they complain about The Eye all the time and sometimes even give voice to frustration. And the smart guys--Sauron and Melkor--well, they're greedy and ambitious and vainglorious and sociopathic and and it's all about THEM--but is that evil, or again, is that a whole lot of really twisted character traits that lead them to create horror? Tolkien, I think, muses somewhere on the turning of orcs, and Gamgeefest's Blue Wizard Blues considers the redemption of Sauron.

Whoa, I do go on. But I was so struck by the fact that it was those questions that made the difference, and I knew they were going to when I answered them. Cool quiz, though--made me think!

[dreamflower]

Well, for "Name of the Rose", you also probably had to click on the answer about liking a library in a medieval monastery, because *that's* the exact setting of that book!

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

I did! :)

[dreamflower]

As to the question of "evil"--I *do* believe in it, because I do believe there are people and entities who deliberately reject good. And to me that is the definition of evil. I think it exists as an actual force, but this is not to say that someone who is evil cannot be redeemed, nor that someone who is good cannot make a choice for evil.

Look at LotR: Boromir was essentially an honorable and good man, but he made an evil choice--still, he repented and was redeemed. Lobelia was essentially a spiteful and evil-natured hobbit, but she also repented. Denethor, however, deliberately courted evil out of pride, because he thought he could control it, and rejected redemption. The same thing goes for Saruman.

So, I guess the answer is, I do believe that evil exists, but not that it is equal to good. I suppose I am more of an Augustinian than a Manichean, at least as far as the question of good and evil go.

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the movie "Where the Heart Is"? Not sure if the line is in the book also, but I like the part when Novelee is trying to comfort her friend. She says (paraphrased) "there's good and evil in all of us, but it's the good that counts". That pretty sums up my thoughts on the good/evil debate.

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd call myself Manichean, if that involves believing there is no omnipotent power of good. I DO believe there is. But I don't believe there exists an equal power of evil--in the sense of "a powerful and mysterious supernatural or metaphysical force that lies behind individual instances of hurt and suffering". Lucifer was created by God and God does not create evil things; Lucifer was of his own free will jealous and ambitious and he wanted for himself what God had made, and he was powerful enough to fashion--as did Melkor in Middle-earth--a twisted, dark, ill-fitting sort of reality, in which he cowed a great many people by the darkness of his thought. But his power was not the power of life, and in combat with God was revealed as a poor attempt. His apparently endless resentment is aided and stoked by human ignorance, fear, stupidity and sin, however, and people can be drawn into evil deeds when they are weak and greedy and self-serving. Does Evil then become a power, with so many acolytes? Perhaps, but often it is so badly realized that it ends up destroying itself (as indeed the thoroughly compromised Gollum did with the Ring).

It can be said that Boromir chose evil in trying to take the Ring; but did he really choose, or was he (as somebody once argued) weakend by ambition and thereby easily "mugged" by the Ring, in much the same manner that Frodo ultimately was--though Frodo was only weakened after a long, brutal struggle to the death. I think Boromir was less of a servant of evil, if you will, than Gollum was. Lobelia was spiteful and unpleasant, but could she be said to be an agent of Melkor, who embodied the concept of Evil? She was just a greedy and selfish and bad-tempered hobbit, and in the end it came to naught. She had no power--she was no match for the Ruffians, who were more brutal and selfish than she--and THEY were ultimately no match for the Travellers, who were neither brutal nor selfish, but only desirous of peace and the common Good.

I think we're in agreement that whatever Evil may think it is, it is no match for Good--which is why I think I hesitate to confer credibility with regard to its ultimate designs. I just won't give credit where credit is not due or where it may be used to infer worth where there in none. (I hope that makes sense--this is a tough subject, deserving of more eloquence of thought than I am currently capable of giving it--though I am working on it all the time! It's a continuous subject of inquiry with me, as I'm sure it is with you, too.)

[dreamflower]

Hmm...sometimes I forget not everyone has the same historical interests that I do. "Manichean" was the heresy that arose in the early part of the Christian era (and was much influenced by Persian Zoroasteranism) that Good and Evil not only both existed, but that both were equal. There were two co-equal forces, one Dark and one Light, and they were supposed to be forever balanced. In the Manichean fallacy Satan was just as powerful as God, and rather than created *by* him, was co-existant with Him. Too much "good" was considered just as big a problem as too much "bad".

In his early life St. Augustine was very taken with the Manicheans, but he gradually came to reject their beliefs, and to come up with very good arguments against them.

His reasoning came to be behind the basic and traditional orthodox Christian view of the question of evil, which is that yes, there is a "a powerful and mysterious supernatural or metaphysical force that lies behind individual instances of hurt and suffering", but that, NO, it is NOT equal with God, and eventually at the end of history, both evil and the force representing it will be completely defeated.

In the context of LotR, to me that means that JRRT reflected his own Catholic beliefs by his idea of Morgoth--who became evil, as did Lucifer, out of an excess of pride, and introduced the "marring" of Arda, and brought with him many of the other powers, such as Sauron and Ungoliant.

Like Lucifer, he and his acolytes were cast out of the presence of the One, but they could never ultimately win, because eventually all their efforts were actually turned to greater good by Iluvatar. However, as in our world, upon *lesser* creatures, his power was too vast to be defeated *without* the grace and help of Eru--and that, of course, is the entire story of the Quest.

As for those characters, such as Boromir or Denethor--yes, in a sense they *were* "mugged" or overpowered by Sauron. But it happened because they thought, in their pride, that they could handle that evil alone, and so courted the evil until it chose to attack. Boromir recognized he was wrong at the end, but Denethor refused to do so, and thus cooperated with his own enemy.

Lobelia, Lotho, Sandyman, Bill Ferny--petty, yes. But the thing is, evil *can* be petty. "Spite", and "selfishness" and "greed" are in and of themselves an evil thing; entertainging those things without admitting that they are an evil to be rooted out puts one on the side of evil. Not all evil *needs* to be all-powerful. Have you ever read CS Lewis' "Screwtape Letters"? He shows so clearly how evil most often tries to get at people not by tempting them to do some huge thing like murder, but by little everyday pettinesses that gradually add up in the end.

I think that from all appearances, you and I are in essential agreement on the question of evil--it is, as things so very often are, a question of symantecs. But you are right--it is a question almost all humans struggle with, and is always worthy of discussing and examining.

[mumstheword54.livejournal.com]

Well put!

What an interesting discussion!

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

What a great response; thank you so much for taking time with me!

I think essentially it is a question of semantics, and also I think I am influenced in my thinking by both the events of our times (which are tumultuous and, I think, very telling) and a long experience of mental illness--not my own, but that of a number of other people in my life. They struggle greatly with organic predisposition, but are at heart not so very different from the rest of us. As my mother used to say often, "There but for the grace of God go I." It is painful to hear them described as Evil, when they are much afflicted. The playing field is not even in some respects and because I trust in God's ultimate wisdom, I have to question Augustine's. It has become easier to say, "That is Evil" than to wonder what that person is about.

There is a point, yes, where people fall into evil ways, but might we have been able to give them a reason not to? Perhaps the test is not about them, but about us. Might Gollum have been redeemed on the stairs had Sam not deemed him Evil outright? Maybe....but then, Gollum had a part to play....Och! It's like thinking about time-travel--boggles the mind after awhle!

I do so appreciate you, though! (hug)

[dreamflower]

(((hugs back)))

It is amazingly and endlessly fascinating; such a paradox. I have a feeling that if we ever, beyong the "circles of Arda" learn the answer, we will be shocked at the simplicity of it. But until that time it seems incredibly complex!

As you said, like time travel, or trying to figure whether the chicken or the egg is first.

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

:D

Given that the egg is rather the "idea" of the chicken, and so is the chicken in the process of creation, I vote for the egg!

[dreamflower]

I think that I probably would agree with that.

[dreamflower]

They struggle greatly with organic predisposition, but are at heart not so very different from the rest of us. As my mother used to say often, "There but for the grace of God go I." It is painful to hear them described as Evil, when they are much afflicted. The playing field is not even in some respects and because I trust in God's ultimate wisdom, I have to question Augustine's. It has become easier to say, "That is Evil" than to wonder what that person is about.

This reminds me of something CS Lewis said in "The Weight of Glory" I think it was, how all of us are creatures on the one hand grander and more glorious than we can begin to imagine, and how on the other hand, are lower to the same degree. He talks about how people will point out a Christian who is a poor example, say a woman who gossips and spiteful, as saying what a hypocrite she is, and then they will point out someone else who's an atheist, who leads a kind and exemplary life and does a lot of charity, and say it proves one doesn't need God to be good.

His response to that is: how can we begin to know what sort of pressures and problems are keeping that woman from walking more fully in her faith, and how do we know that without the grace of God, she would not be much worse? And as for the kind and philanthropic atheist, how do we know how much more wonderful a person he could come to be, and what great destiny he might have, if he did accept God's grace? Very good questions.

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

Good, and honest questions.

I have of late been asking enlightenment and have opened myself to whatever comes, and I must, in the spirit of honesty, tell you I had a swift comeuppance in this last hour with regard to something I left out of my arguments here and which must be said. This came in the form of an article on CNN.com, out of Madison, Wisconsin: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/23/body.found.ap/index.html.

This is, without a doubt, EVIL, and she is, without a doubt, a monster, or at least guilty of monstrous thinking and behavior. And whatever the source of that may be--whether a triumphant Force of Evil, or human selfishness, or pathetic, organic accident--it is incumbent on me to say that we do need to Draw a Line at which compassion must be checked in favor of protecting the essence of humanity. Humanity (and hobbit-dom!) must never reach a point where this becomes simply an aberrant behavior. This is inhuman and must be defined as such.

So, grace in comeuppance, and perhaps more clarity, though the path remains mysterioius!

[dreamflower]

That *is* horrible! And yes, it shows that there are some actions that by any reasonable stretch of the imagination can be described by no other word than "evil". And whether people who engage in those actions have other qualities considered "good", by that engagement forfeit the consideration of those qualities. We all hear about serial murderers who were considered ideal citizens and pillars of the community, until their crimes are uncovered. Being a Boy Scout leader or singing in the choir does not make a murderer less evil.

And as for this woman, perhaps by her actions in "blowing the whistle" she has set in train a possibility for her own eventual redemption, her actions in taking part in such a heinous thing in the first place *still* needs to be punished.

[elandulin.livejournal.com]

I very much agree with you. And I absolutely believe there is a level of depravity whereby a person forfeits his/her humanity and their right to our compassion, whether their behavior is prompted by fear or stupidity or lust or whatever. There is just a point--across all cultures--where you have to stand up, no matter what, and cry out against that which has transcended selfishness to become pure horror. THAT is the place where evil exists. A neat scene in the movie that illustrated this moment was the one with Eomer and Wormtongue--there was a palpable sense of creeping horror in that scene and Eomer's response to Wormtongue's perversions was both personal and representational. He not only feared for his sister and his uncle, but also for his people. I thought he did such a good job--just sick with loathing.

[aspenjules.livejournal.com]

I am also Lord of the Rings. I tried hard not to base my answers on things that I thought would bring that result, but it's hard to say how it influenced me.

Perhaps it's just that those of us with certain qualities were drawn to that classic because of those qualities, and then to each other.

What are some of the other possible results - does anyone know?

[dreamflower]

Well I know that "Name of the Rose" is also a choice, but I'm not sure what else.

[mumstheword54.livejournal.com]

Somewhere on the "reveal" page, there's a link to view all possible answers.

*also LOTR*

[mumstheword54.livejournal.com]

Actually it's "See All Possible Results," which are:
1984 -- George Orwell
The Name of the Rose -- Umberto Eco
The Portrait of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde
LOTR -- JRRT
Orlando -- Virginia Woolf
The Flowers of Evil -- Charles Baudelaire
Sonnets -- Shakespeare
The Wasteland -- T. S. Eliot

[dreamflower]

You know, those are some fascinating choices to represent "classic literature" out of all the "classics" there are in the world. I have nothing against any of the inclusions, though I've never read "Orlando" or "The Flowers of Evil", but it makes me wonder about all the *exclusions*--like "Canterbury Tales" or "The Decameron" or "Paradise Lost" or "Dante's Inferno" or "Moby Dick" or "Tom Sawyer" or "The Grapes of Wrath"? (And lots of others, as well. I know they could not *all* have been included, but I'm curious as to why *those* particular books were chosen over other considerations...

[fell-beast2.livejournal.com]

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a mystery novel dealing with theology, especially with catholic vs liberal issues. You search wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that learning is essential in life.

Odd that I got a theological story, since religion is utterly irrelevant to my life. The rest is dead on, though. I love mysteries.

[dreamflower]

Well, whether or not it's irrelevant to your own life, theology and religion *are* the driving forces behind a large number of the "classic" books of literature. Aside from whether you believe in religion or not, it presents a very cogent source of conflict--and conflict is what drives plot! So that makes it not so very odd. After all, it's not so much whether the *reader* believes in religion--but whether the characters in the book do!!

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

I got "Name of the Rose" also - and I didn't very many of the theological, good/evil, or library setting options! :( Weird.

And I just looked the book up on Amazon and read some of the reader reviews (they're more reliable than the editor's reviews I think) and it so doesn't sound like the kind of book I would be inclined to read. *shrugs* Oh well. Maybe I'll check it out of the library some day.

[dreamflower]

Depends on whether or not you like historical mysteries--which is what it is. For someone like me, who loves medieval history, and the idea of monastic libraries and scriptoriums, it's wonderful.

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

You lost me at 'historical'. :P

[dreamflower]

Ah! I always find it curious when people say they are not interested in history. It's so fascinating to me that I don't really understand *not* liking it. Not, you see, that I don't know there are people who *don't*, but it kind of baffles me--the same way it baffles me that there are people who don't like hobbits!

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just the way it was taught in my schools. It was always a rather bland topic and I never had a teacher who could make it exciting or even mildly fascinating. I did enjoy the anthropology class I took in college though. Seeing the differences between cultures and how they evolved was quite fascinating.

I do get the being baffled part though. The vast majority of the population needs their coffee to wake up, and I just don't get it. It baffles me just as much as people who drink alcohol for any reason, and then how they can sit and talk about drinking alcohol. Just don't get it.

[dreamflower]

I really don't remember a thing about history from school--geography, yes, civics, yes--but I suspect that history must have been taught rather blandly in my schools as well (This was back in the days *before* "Social Studies"). But I was always interested in the *past* and learned most everything I know about history on my own, from library books--both fiction and non-fiction, and later on with the SCA from doing independent research for my persona or for other things.

Yes, it's true. Each of us has certain tastes or knowledge that is so ingrained in us that we just have a hard time *getting* it when others do not share them with us. (I'm with you on coffee and alchohol. Coffee *smells* nice, but tastes bitter to me. And booze? Well everyone says it's an "acquired taste" but I just do not understand why someone would want to acquire a taste for something that tastes so nasty. I'd just as soon drink a glass of Nyquill with my dinner as I would a beer or wine, and as for the stronger stuff--*ick*!!!) I mean, I can see it for medicinal purposes, or for drinking in the old days when water was unsafe and there weren't any alternatives, like soda. But I still think it would be like drinking cough medicine!

[dreamflower]

Oh, by the way, did you get your notification on your MEFA nomination?

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

Not as of yet. Have they been looking for me?

[dreamflower]

I nominated you for "In the Bleak, Cold Winter". Since I just entered the nomination a couple nights ago, they may not have gotten in touch with you yet--but I wanted to be sure you got to know about it!

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

I checked my e-mail address and they had my old one. I think I updated it correctly.

Thanks for letting me know! And thanks for the nom on "Winter"!! ((hugs))

[dreamflower]

You are welcome! You know how I love that story--so seldom do we get Sam and Merry friendship fics, and I love the way you dealt with all that in the stories leading up to it!

[melilot-hill.livejournal.com]

Of course you are :-D

[dreamflower]

Of course. *grin*