One of the most incorrect ideas people heard from Tolkien and then just kept repeating without stopping to actually think about it is the whole idea that "evil cannot create anything new, only copy and corrupt".
Give it 1 minute. You can probably think of examples that completely disprove this.
I wouldn't phrase this as anything Tolkien said as well - I don't think that specific quote is from him. Versions of that come from characters in his fantasy novels discussing the capacity of his evil, divine beings to create new life ex nihilo? They have this whole thing about being jealous of their creator's capacity to do so, and corrupting life in mockery of it. But even then, good divine beings can't create life either. God has to help them do it, and it is a bit like how a toddler "helps" their parents make dinner - we all know god did all the work here. And meanwhile, evil *people* in Middle Earth absolutely have kids and write books.
Tolkien is doing a metaphor? And religious commentary that goes back to St Augustus and debates with Manicheans about the inequality between good & evil. Tolkien didn't think bad people couldn't make art! He thought the fantasy fallen angels in his worldbuilding splatbook had to corrupt elves to make orcs (and even then only maybe). I don't think it is on him if others start applying that to actual human beings.
Fair re: His own worldbuilding details. I was thinking more of how people latched onto the concept and try to apply it to everything from generative AI to "woke" adaptations, always repeating that idea as if it was some profound and applicable truth.
For sure, I was aiming to clarify not rebut - I also have seen exactly the people you describe using quotes like this, and it is like come on guys. There were evil elves. Hell, the *most evil elf* is the *most famous artist* with the *most famous kids*! He didn't mean it the way y'all are using it. Think for a bit.
#Gonna get nerd sniped into a āwas Feanor evilā debate aren't I
Without descending into that particular admittedly-broad debate, we can start with - "pretty sure Feanor was less evil than either Eol or Maeglin, at least."
(Using Tolkein's standards of "evil" as opposed to, say, Yudkowsky's.)
I of course don't think, particularly in the deontological world of Tolkein, there is any "most evil" elf. Instead we can say that the evil of Maeglin was personal, and born of weakness. He was a refugee in Gondolin after his own father tried to kill him. He was valiant in battle and wise in council, yes, but those were eclipsed by his lust and resentment. He did not concoct some grand scheme to destroy Gondolin in revenge for his spurning by Idril; he was captured by orcs while ranging in petty defiance of his lord Turgon, and was turned into a tool in the hands of Morgoth. He led no armies in the Fall of Gondolin, and died in disgrace, failing to kill his own lord. Born in the shadows, cursed by his own father's dying words, he seemed almost fated to live a life of suffering and failure. He fulfilled that destiny.
Feanor, meanwhile, was the mightiest elf to ever life, in a way that seemed planned by Eru Himself. Heir to throne of the Noldor, adept at every craft and skill his hands touched, chosen by the Valar to marry the light of the Tree of Valinor, the very spirit of Arda, into his own will via the forging of the Silmarils - an act of divine creation. And then, as all those whose lives are planned by fate must witness, he faced a challenge equal to his gifts. His father was murdered, his Silmarils stolen, and the Trees themselves were destroyed by the source of all Evil - a threat he had forseen and yet had still danced on its strings, more than any other of the Eldar. And when he is asked by the Valar to sacrifice the Silmarils to restore the Light of the Trees, he refuses.
It is crucial to Feanor's story that the Valar make this request of him before he knows the Silmarils have been stolen. They are not yet a bundled part of the crime of Morgoth against Feanor, for which such a request is in a sense a denial of his justice. He has the chance to better the world and his people as King of the Noldor (which he, unknowingly, already is, his father being slain by Morgoth during the theft), and he turns it down out of pure pride. He has no other defense he can call on. And from that same wound the trail of his future sins spills out. He binds the will of all his sons with his Oath to be forever opposed to the Valar; he abandons his brother Fingolfin and his men to die by the score crossing the frigid Helcaraxe, he burns his own ships and dooms his own host's retreat, and he recklessly leads his men to their deaths on the slopes of the Ered Wethrin.
Notice how I didn't even mention the Kinslaying? It is obviously the worst of his sins, but you don't even need it; he has so many chances to turn back, reconsider his actions, put anything above pride and revenge, and he fails again and again. He spends down a lifetime of greatness in a single stretch, like a gambler refusing to accept that the night is a loss. To me it is what sets him apart from Maeglin and the other "evil" Elves. They tend to, in some form, be cursed - by birth, by circumstances, by literal curses - which leads them to double down on their weak character by committing a great crime. But Feanor is in control for so much of his life! He had dozens of other options, and chooses to bring so many people into the fold of his arrogance. And in the Catholic metaphysics of Middle Earth, where free will is the heart of morality, to me this counts for more.
Both of them suck though, in case that wasn't clear!
(Eol to me is a clear lesser candidate- he is bad for sure but he also a victim in a lot of ways. He is this kind of literary "doomed by circumstances" character trope, where yeah in practice bro just put the spear down, but he also gets screwed over a bunch and you can see where he is coming from at least a bit)
