Evil Cannot Create, It Can Only Misquote

Discussing a Tolkien quote that Tolkien never actually said

Paul (Timothee Chalamet) using The Voice on the Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling) is me whenever somebody uses that Tolkien misquote as a stick to beat up Rings of Power. ©2024, Warner Brothers

For the longest time, I used to believe that Admiral Chester Nimitz had said this: “Oh God, grant that I may always have the courage to do what I think is right even if I think it is hopeless.” It’s a beautiful quote. Unfortunately, Nimitz almost certainly never said it, for unlike some of his peers in World War II like Patton or MacArthur he was not a man of faith. Like, not even a little bit; historian Craig Symonds even has a story one Sunday after the war, Nimitz went to church to spend time with his family, and he unexpectedly knelt. His daughter Catherine (who would eventually become a Dominican sister), probably hoping for a conversion, asked what had happened; he responded that his knee was badly cramping. However, I was unaware of this element of Nimitz’s life until 2022, when I finally read Symonds’ Nimitz At War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. But once I had learned about this aspect of Nimitz’s character, I phased out that quote from my library of Nimitz trivia. Being able to acknowledge and move on from mistakes or misconceptions is part of being a serious student and a good person.

Unfortunately, when it comes to some of the online discourse regarding The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, there are a whole lot of mistakes and misconceptions that people, having made in the first place, double down on. One of the earliest concerns a quote by Tolkien, which became something of a catchphrase for the ragebaiters and hatemongers and was brought out in the comments sections whenever Rings of Power had the audacity to share something to Social Media: “Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.” You’ll see this everywhere. EVERYWHERE:

And have you noticed how so many of these have to do with Warrior Galadriel and the show's PoC actors?

There’s just one problem. Tolkien never said this. And even if we’re charitable and assume that the people using this quote are trying to hearken back to something he actually did say, they’re using this quote out of context, in a way far removed from the circumstances where it originally comes from.

But what is the original quote that, I think, most people are trying to reference? To answer that question, we need to turn to The Return of the King, as Frodo and Sam are joyfully reuniting beyond hope in the Tower of Cirith Ungol and planning their next move. Frodo’s already-meager food rations, except for the lembas of Galadriel, have been plundered and ruined by his Orc captors, leaving only Sam’s to support the two of them all the way to Mount Doom. Sam, generally a trifle more optimistic about their long-term prospects of surviving the quest and also a bit more concerned about more pedestrian matters like how to survive the quest, points out that they don’t have time to search the tower for more rations, and wonders whether Orcs even eat like normal living beings. Frodo responds that yes, Orcs do eat: “The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them.” So in the context in which this original quote comes up, Frodo is not speaking in some general, abstract context, but in a very specific, in-universe one, regarding a specific point of orcish biology.

So, even if all these glib memes and Twitter posts had gotten the quote correct, they wouldn’t be using it correctly. A similar situation occurs concerning another famous Tolkien quote: “No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.” Much like the “evil cannot create” quote, it appears ALL THE TIME. Unlike the other one, it is something that Tolkien actually said. But once again, it is being applied in general terms instead of the very specific context in which it appears; in this case, it’s something Tolkien wrote to his beloved fiancee Edith as she was struggling with the choice to convert to Catholicism before they could be married. But at least this time the quote, first appearing in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography, is correct. And at least it’s being used in a positive way. This other one, though? I have never, ever, EVER seen it being used as anything other than as a stick to beat Rings of Power and its fans over the head. This cannot stand. The show, while not perfect, is still very good, very faithful in spirit to Tolkien’s themes and ideals, and it deserves the same respect that any other good adaptation gets from the community. At the very least, if these people are so interested in engaging with the show in bad faith, they could try to go to what Tolkien actually said when beating up the show. I have seen people strain at a gnat to say that Miriel being described as “fairer than pearls or ivory” should mean that she can only be played by a white Caucasian, or that a single letter and a couple of scribbled paragraphs from the end of Tolkien’s life that depict Galadriel as “Unstained” can successfully invalidate what else we know of her from UT and earlier letters; it looks silly, and constitutes cherry-picking and selective reading, but at least the arguments are based on actual Tolkien quotes. But Tolkien never said “Evil cannot create, only corrupt”, and he didn’t even use the actual quote about the shadow only being able to mock in a general context.

The anecdote about Admiral Chester Nimitz I relay below even features in the 2019 movie “Midway”, where as part of an excellent performance Woody Harrelson as Nimitz completely sells it. ©2019, Summit Entertainment

Of course, not every historical quote or anecdote is fictional, and a closer look at the historical record can yield many witty, and humorous, or deep and thoughtful, examples that might be unbelievable if they weren’t documented. To return to Admiral Nimitz; he may not have been a man of faith, but he was a man of surprising humor and gaiety considering his somewhat implacable facade. One example of this comes from the story of the Battle of Midway. Nimitz’s gifted intelligence chief, CMDR Edwin Layton, predicted on the basis of his personal relationship with the codebreakers of Station HYPO that the Japanese carrier fleet would “come in from the northwest on bearing 325 degrees, and they will be sighted at about 175 miles from Midway, and the time will be about 0600 [on June 4] Midway time.” Sure enough, when the Kido Butai arrived, scout aircraft from Midway spotted them about 6 am Midway time and reported them on “bearing 320, course 135, speed 25, distance 180.” Once this intelligence was received at Pearl Harbor, Nimitz flashed a brilliant smile at Layton and told him, “Well, you were only five miles, five degrees, and five minutes off.” To me at least, this quote might seem somewhat out of character for such a calm, placid, supposedly professional character as Nimitz. But although he was all of these things, the historical record shows that he was fond of jest and gentle teasing; what’s more, this quote has been reported upon by multiple sources including Layton in his memoirs.

In that spirit, I would like to end this essay with some quotes drawn from Tolkien that are applicable to the discussion surrounding Rings of Power, all of which he…actually did say. He may never have said that “Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt,” but he DID say the following:

“Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fëanor in defense of her mother’s kin, she did not turn back. Her pride was unwilling to return, a defeated suppliant for pardon, but now she burned with desire to follow Fëanor with her anger to whatever lands he might come, and to thwart him in all ways that she could.”—Unfinished Tales

These three quotes bolstering the idea of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) being a warrior are, of course, only the tip of the spear in the case in favor of this interpretation; for more details, see “Triumphant Leader” my in-depth defense of this idea.

“Indeed she with Celeborn fought heroically in defense of Alqualonde against the assault of the Noldor, and Celeborn’s ship was saved from them.”—Ibid.

“She was then of Amazon disposition and bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats.”—Letter 348

“The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller and shorter, and they were all beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble, and they preferred highlands and hillsides.”—The Fellowship of the Ring

Of course, I’ve always found complaints about Harfoot skin color, such as Marigold Brandyfoot’s (Sara Zwangobani) to be silly. They’re HARFOOTS, not humans; human anthropology doesn’t apply. And besides, in general skin color matters far less than their interpretation and understanding of the assignment.

“Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo’s head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam’s brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master’s breast.”—The Two Towers

“Sam drew out the elven-glass of Galadriel again. As if to do honor to his hardihood, and to grace with splendor his faithful brown hobbit-hand that had done such deeds, the phial blazed forth suddenly, so that all the shadowy court was lit with a dazzling radiance like lightning.”—The Return of the King

Yeah…

“The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in, say, Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled ‘Egyptians’—the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in 'theology’ : in which respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan…)”—Letter 211

Sauron (Charlie Vickers) being not a fallen hero but still a morally complex grey character has proven to be an unexpectedly hot take in some circles, thanks to people who are more used to the armored giant from the prologue of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship.

“Sauron was, of course, not ‘evil’ in origin…At the beginning of the Second Age he was still beautiful…and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all reformers who want to hurry up with reconstruction and reorganization are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up.”—Letter 153

“When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West.”—The Silmarillion

“He still had the relics of positive purpose that descended from the good of the nature in which he began; it had been his virtue (and also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction…”— “Morgoth’s Ring”, The History of Middle-earth, Volume X

I could go on, but I think you get the point. There so many Tolkien quotes that he actually did say that one can use when talking about Rings of Power. And in no small measure due to the show’s success, more quotes come to light each year, as new Tolkien books or reissues of old ones, are released on an almost yearly basis. Why not make use of them when trying to make a point about the show, rather than recycling cringe and erroneous memes?

Food for thought 😊