Hatred in Lord of the Rings

Elberry considers what JRR Tolkien’s masterpiece can teach us about an all-too human emotion.

Tolkien’s vision of evil is subtle and extensive. He is not content with black riders and Balrogs and orcs, these dramatic but thoroughly inhuman enemies; there is also the all-too familiar and all-too human emotion of hatred, a passion both petty and intense. The two exemplary haters are Denethor and Saruman.

Saruman the White, head of the White Council and later traitor, seems to have resented Gandalf the Grey from the start; this eventually matures into hatred. Denethor, Steward of Gondor, has two sons: Boromir (a kind of amiable oaf) and Faramir (amiable and sharp). Denethor cherishes Boromir but consistently treats Faramir with scorn and a strange resentment. And yet, as it is said, of the two sons Faramir is most like the father.

These hatreds are complex, as is usually the case in real life. Naturally, both Saruman and Denethor hate what they cannot control, even though neither Gandalf nor Faramir oppose or even inconvenience them. Here is Saruman, having summoned Gandalf to Orthanc:

‘So you have come, Gandalf,’ he said to me gravely; but in his eyes there seemed to be a white light, as if a cold laughter was in his heart.

‘Yes, I have come,’ I said. ‘I have come for your aid, Saruman the White.’ And that title seemed to anger him.

‘Have you indeed, Gandalf the Grey!’ he scoffed. ‘For aid? It has seldom been heard of that Gandalf the Grey sought for aid, one so cunning and so wise, wandering about the lands, and concerning himself in every business, whether it belongs to him or not.’

And here is Denethor with his son, as Faramir relates his perils:

‘The rest of my company I sent south to strengthen the garrison at the fords of Osgiliath. I hope that I have not done ill?’ He looked at his father.

‘Ill?’ cried Denethor, and his eyes flashed suddenly. ‘Why do you ask? The men were under your command. Or do you ask for my judgement on all your deeds? Your bearing is lowly in my presence, yet it is long now since you turned from your own way at my counsel. See, you have spoken skilfully, as ever; but I, have I not seen your eye fixed on Mithrandir, seeking whether you said well or too much? He has long had your heart in his keeping.’

The tone of inexhaustible bitterness will be familiar to those who have endured ill company, whether at home or work or elsewhere.

And both Saruman and Denethor have been corrupted by a palantír, a seeing stone. Sauron holds the master palantír and so is able to bend the will of anyone who touches the lesser stones. While he cannot simply command men like Saruman or Denethor, he is able to tempt, to lure, to subvert. With Denethor he shows him the full might of Mordor, and so Denethor falls into despair, believing defeat to be certain. Denethor’s mind stays clear, but his soul is eaten away.

While Saruman and Denethor hate what they cannot control, there is a deeper explanation. Gandalf is Saruman ‘as he should have been’, and Faramir likewise is a younger, uncorrupted Denethor, with his father’s greatness of mind and will, but with undarkened nobility. Both Saruman and Denethor hate those who remind them of their own corruption. Hatred is often of this kind; people hate those they in part resemble, as if partial likeness contaminates as utter difference cannot. Hatred is a means of pushing the shadow self, the bad brother, the semblable, far off. And both Saruman and Denethor judge those they hate by their own mean standards. So when Gandalf offers Saruman his freedom, Saruman cannot credit Gandalf with the generosity of spirit that he himself lacks:

‘But when I say “free”, I mean “free”: free from bond, of chain or command: to go where you will, even, even to Mordor, Saruman, if you desire. But you will first surrender to me the Key of Orthanc, and your staff. They shall be pledges of your conduct, to be returned later, if you merit them.’

Saruman’s face grew livid, twisted with rage, and a red light was kindled in his eyes. He laughed wildly. ‘Later!’ he cried, and his voice rose to a scream. ‘Later! Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now. A modest plan. Hardly one in which my help is needed!’

And Denethor, when he learns that Frodo came within Faramir’s reach, and Faramir allowed him, and thus the Ring, to go his way, rather than seizing it for Gondor; Denethor is by now so corrupt he cannot comprehend the nobility of spirit that moved Faramir to let the Ring pass from his reach:

‘If what I have done displeases you, my father,’ said Faramir quietly, ‘I wish I had known your counsel before the burden of so weighty a judgement was thrust on me.’

‘Would that have availed to change your judgement?’ said Denethor. ‘You would still have done just so, I deem. I know you well. Ever your desire is to appear lordly and generous as a king of old, gracious, gentle. That may well befit one of high race, if he sits in power and peace. But in desperate hours gentleness may be repaid with death.’

‘So be it,’ said Faramir.

‘So be it!’ cried Denethor. ‘But not with your death only, Lord Faramir: with the death also of your father, and of all your people, whom it is your part to protect now that Boromir is gone.’

Ever behind hatred is this unease, the hater uncomfortable about himself, ferociously defining and encircling himself by his hatred. Thus it is often with families, that each defines him or herself as the negation of a brother or father, or mother or sister. Behind this hatred is a deep unease; the hater is anxious to have no kinship with the hated, so anxious indeed that often he or she becomes as aggressive and bitter as the parent or sibling in question, and sometimes more so.

Thus the peculiar fascination and loathing the hobbits feel for Gollum, who was himself once a hobbit:

‘I can’t believe that Gollum was connected with hobbits, however distantly,’ said Frodo with some heat. ‘What an abominable notion!’

Frodo feels contaminated by the existence of Gollum precisely because Gollum was once a hobbit, and a ring bearer. If Gollum was once as Frodo is, then Frodo might one day be as Gollum is. Hence his unexpectedly homicidal:

‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’

– an example of the violent hatred particular to tame, sheltered folk, when a darker, wilder world intrudes. Frodo, however, moves beyond this simplistic loathing, to an involuntary affinity and understanding, for he and Gollum are, after all, fellow addicts. Even the dim but loyal Sam is unable to hate Gollum, once he has known the Ring’s degrading power:

Sam’s hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil. It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. He himself, though only for a little while, had borne the  Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again.

Hobbits are not, temperamentally, given to hatred. Too easy-going, and also too able to put themselves in another’s shoes (or hairy feet). For Saruman and Denethor, the existence of the uncorrupted is a rebuke; one can imagine with what scorn and loathing Denethor would have regarded Aragorn, had they met. Denethor and Saruman both instinctively deny their likeness to others; they set themselves up as lone, heroic figures: Denethor as the solitary defender of the West, and Saruman as the next Dark Lord. They cannot endure the suggestion of kinship, of being other than utterly unique. Hobbits, by contrast, have no ego to speak of, nothing to defend, and so no reason to deny their kinship with other living things; and so, they have no reason to hate.

Share This Post

About Author Profile: Elberry

elberry@thedabbler.co.uk'

11 thoughts on “Hatred in Lord of the Rings

  1. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    September 28, 2011 at 14:20

    These hatreds are complex, as is usually the case in real life
    I think not Elberry, despite the theoretical stuff, hate is that most simple of all human emotions, as it is so basic how could it be otherwise, the hatred may stem from genuine or imagined grievance, which in itself may be tangled but the actual emotion, black, black, black.
    How’s it all working out then, I hate Hamburg, don’t you.

  2. Gaw
    September 28, 2011 at 17:13

    LotR seems at first glance morally straightforward, but the more you dig the more complex it becomes. JRRT is a very interesting (and contemporary) thinker.

  3. walter_aske@yahoo.co.uk'
    September 28, 2011 at 20:19

    Well, in my experience as a hater of various people & things, i find it’s often pretty complex, or so it seems to me. Depends on what you call hatred and what you call complex. If it seems like bullshit, well, then it’s bullshit if you like, plenty more where that came from.

    • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
      malty
      September 28, 2011 at 20:36

      Depends on what you call experience.

  4. walter_aske@yahoo.co.uk'
    September 28, 2011 at 20:27

    p.s. don’t know Hamburg but i don’t really like big cities so have no interest in seeing it now.

  5. walter_aske@yahoo.co.uk'
    elberry
    September 29, 2011 at 06:30

    Depends on what you call call.

    • johngjobling@googlemail.com'
      malty
      September 29, 2011 at 09:11

      The thing is, Elberry, where were Shelob’s relatives when she needed them, there she was, minding her own business, enjoying the orc-free diet, reading the web repair for dummies when in through the back door creep these hairy carrot crunching midgets, up to no good I’ll be bound. Little wonder then that she had a pet lip on, especially with the little fat one, you know, looked a bit like Johnny Vegas, said he was just there to look after Bilbo, yeah right, mincing little pooftah.
      Anyhow, wham, bang, thank you Sam, that’s Shelob whacked, off to that great gossamer web in the sky, and where, may one inquire, were the relations, Aunt Shelob and Uncle Wriggly, eh? turned out for the reading of the will no doubt, family, who would have them and don’t you just hate ’em.

  6. walter_aske@yahoo.co.uk'
    elberry
    September 29, 2011 at 15:21

    i believe Shelob was the last of the great spiders, spawn of Ungoliant, but there were lesser spiders in Mirkwood. However, if my reading of Tolkien holds good, Shelob’s relatives were most likely living on the other side of Mordor, clucking their pincers & mandibles about how old Auntie Shelob thinks she’s too good for them, how she upset Doris in the 1st Millenium, that terrible scandal with the Balrog and the missing tea service, not to mention the spoons, and some of them were genuine silver too, and when her time comes don’t bleedin’ expect us to air her sheets and feed the cats, not after what she said about our Gareth, course it’s true he DID end up in the slammer, ten year for armed robbery, out in 5 for good behaviour then glassed in a pub, but she didn’t have to say it, no she didn’t.

    • Gaw
      September 29, 2011 at 19:25

      I think it’s Garth.

  7. walter_aske@yahoo.co.uk'
    September 29, 2011 at 22:23

    He were always a nice lad, our Gareth, all done up proper and that, he did us all proud till he went funny in the head, then it were only matter of time till he got a shooter and tried to hold up the bookie.

Comments are closed.