The Hobbit and Tolkien’s Mythology

Recently I read a collection of essays The Hobbit and Tolkien’s Mythology, edited by Bradford Lee Eden. Overall, it is a collection that provides interesting insights into the understanding of various elements of Tolkien’s first novel, its revisions and adaptations.

But one essay particularly spoke to me: Gregory Hartley’s "Civilised Goblins and Talking Animals", which muses about the theological justification and clarification of the origins and fates or several of Tolkien’s fictional races. To be precise, it discusses whether or not these have salvable souls, and how plausible their existence in Middle-earth is given that only Eru can give life to creatures. How do these creatures then fit into the creator-god’s plan? How can they have free will if not brought to life by Eru? And how can they act independently if they depend on the will of their Dark creators, Melkor and Sauron?

For example, about giants Hartley says that they could be made of stones, just like the Ents are made of trees — likely Maia spirits of lesser rank called to inhabit stone material similarly as Yavanna called lesser spirits to inhabit trees. In that case, the stone trolls of The Hobbit can be explained as the result of Melkor or Sauron’s attempts to imitate these stone-spirits or tormenting them, similarly to the Elves they made into Orcs, and thus engineering new species from them, which would also explain why some of the trolls are sensible to daylight while others in The Lord of the Rings seem not to be.

One thing that Hartley does not consider, though, and which immediately occurred to me is that perhaps trolls are the result of Melkor’s or rather Sauron’s necromancing activities — revived dead spirits made to inhabit stone or other materials. Perhaps, in line with Hartley’s reasoning, the original giants were indeed just nature-spirits, ignorant of the world outside their sphere of power (eg. the mountain giants in The Hobbit don’t attack Thorin’s company per se, they just "play" stone throwing among themselves, as Hartley notes. Likewise, Ents are generaly disinterested in the happening in the outside world, unless it involves their enemies = orcs) The Dark Lords might have tried to subdue some of these into their services. But also failing to interest these "dimwits" (I suppose the Dark Lords would perceive them as such) in their activities (since they are outside the nature-spirits’ scope), they could have tried to imitate these by making the spirits of their dead evil servants awaken by dark magic and forcing them to take on similarly looking bodies made of nature materials, thus creating trolls.

But there remains the question why, if the giants are spirits inhabiting natural materials per Eru’s bidding, are they so disinterested in the world they live in and don’t actively support the "good side" in their fight against the Dark Lords.

Perhaps the giants, like Ents, were indeed Maiar of lesser rank. Perhaps Morgoth and Sauron might have successfully turned some of them to their (evil) side during the earlier ages — that’s why some of them are still in the Dark Lord’s services far into the 3rd age, similar to Balrogs. Or perhaps the giants originated as Maiar whom Morgoth, imitating Yavanna’s doing, outright invited to inhabit stone to mock her Ents. And if in the 3rd age there exist any giants who are independent of Sauron, but also relatively hostile towards the good creatures, their existence can be explained as that they are the Maiar, who at some point renounced serving the Dark Lords, but did not want to return to Valinor or rejoin the other good Maiar either.

After all, they would not be the only Maia spirits trying to stay impartial in the good-evil fight over the fate of Middle-earth or ignorant of it altogether. The first one was Melian, who cowardly only hid her and her husband Thingol’s kingdom under an inpenetrable veil, but refused to use her immense powers in fighting Melkor openly. And after Thingol’s death, she abandoned the kingdom and her people to return to Valinor, careless of what would happen to them afterwards. Likewise, there is Tom Bombadil, whom many scholars interpret as a Maia, and who, similar to Melian, only lives and rules over his little piece of land, and cares not about what happens outside it.

I am not sure if I made any sense in the above musings, but let me summarise it in a simpler way:

Possible origin of giants and trolls:

1. Giants = Maia spirits inhabiting natural materials (stone, trees...) → some of them subdued by Dark Lords → trolls = twisted, engineered versions of giants

2. Giants = Maia spirits inhabiting natural materials (stone, trees...), independent of anyone → trolls = made in mockery of these via necromancy

3. Giants/trolls = Maia spirits originally invited by Melkor to inhabits stone in mockery of Ents inhabiting trees → some of them later renounced Dark Lords, remained independent

Postscript:

A curiosity that I noticed in a later essay by Ford and Reid, "Polytemporality and Epic Characterization": a constant mis-spelling of Saruman’s name as Sarumon in one paragraph of the essay, despite it being spelled correctly everywhere else. The editing gnomes were mischievous here.

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