They Just Talk: Heroes and Morgoth

[NuBatFan]

So I was reading The Silmarillion for the first ime a few years ago while talking to some of my fellow Harry Potter fans. I was complaining about the horrible "climactic fight" between Harry and Voldemort in which Harry asked the most insane, inhuman and vile being to ever live to "try for some remorse."

I compared it to Fingolfin marching up to Angband and, instead of calling Morgoth out to a duel, he asks him to feel bad for what he's done.

And so the topic. What happy dopey "I'll save everyone" heroes would try to talk Morgoth down? He is being very polite and listening to their heroic speeches about why he should abandon his wicked ways.

Also could any of them actually get through to him?

[Omegalith]

Also could any of them actually get through to him?

Blackjack from Fallout Equestria Project Horizons talked down a building-sized futuristic tank piloted by the disembodied brain of a 200 year old mass-murdering rapist by telling him it wasn't too late to be a better person.

Nowhere near good enough to talk down a devil figure as old as the universe, but still a fairly impressive example that I read in the last week.

...Though of course her leverage was "I am also a cyborg who has done horrible things, and everyone treats me like a hero because I keep trying to help people all the time", so there was actual logic involved.

[mailedbypostman1]

Blackjack from Fallout Equestria Project Horizons talked down a building-sized futuristic tank piloted by the disembodied brain of a 200 year old mass-murdering rapist by telling him it wasn't too late to be a better person.

Nowhere near good enough to talk down a devil figure as old as the universe, but still a fairly impressive example that I read in the last week.

...Though of course her leverage was "I am also a cyborg who has done horrible things, and everyone treats me like a hero because I keep trying to help people all the time", so there was actual logic involved.

Did he actually want to be a good person though?

[Omegalith]

Did he actually want to be a good person though?

Well, I don't really have any insight into his motivations, but I can give you his life story:

-Started off in the military due to figuring there wasn't much else a big dumb guy would be good at.
-Failed to properly acknowledge that no means no when a female squadmate was heavily drunk.
-Got beaten to within an inch of death by rest of squad.
-Spent most of his prison term in solitary confinement due to repeatedly assaulting other inmates.
-Got picked as test subject for experimental cyborg supersoldier project.
-Shoddy job left his organic components in constant near crippling pain.
-Changes his nickname from Doofus to Deus.
-Survived collapse of society due to nuclear war, walked away from rubble of ruined prison building.
-Spent two centuries as an incredibly brutal mercenary warlord.
-Took several rocket launcher shots to the face and fell off the roof of a building which then collapsed on him.
-Had brain recovered from corpse and installed into a tank.
-Spent several weeks trundling around angrily blowing stuff up, looking for revenge.
-Discovered that his killer had taken most of his cybernetic components for herself.
-Killer appeals to his better nature when cornered with no weapons and three broken limbs.
-Spares his killer, blows up a random wall then trundles off to fight for justice.

[Sharpandpointies]

Doesn't work. Melkor was a bit of a jackass, really, even back when he was 'at his best' - that was when he was hanging out with Ilúvatar. By the time he had sunk into the pit of foulness that was Morgoth, he was orders of magnitude more of an evil creep than that.

Dude had tons of issues and, unlike Sauron, never showed any signs of trying to get past them.

...I'm actually having a hard time seeing Morgoth being polite, as well. Dude was more powerful than Sauron, but always comes off as a childish, greedy bully.

[Omegalith]

Maybe he's in a good mood because it's a lovely night, all his schemes are progressing ahead of shedule and Sauron just baked a tray of fresh scones.

[Sharpandpointies]

Morgoth would get pissy because Sauron is a better cook than he is.

[Surtur]

Here I was ready to have Morgoth call out Peter Petrelli for being stupid.

[Siriel]

Morgoth would get pissy because Sauron is a better cook than he is.

Hey, he's probably used to it. Sauron is better at everything except "Smash stuff in various ways".

[Sharpandpointies]

Hey, he's probably used to it. Sauron is better at everything except "Smash stuff in various ways".

Also creation.

Morgoth was pretty dumb with his expenditures of power, but the dude not only took old designs and created something completely new from them (orcs, trolls), but created brand new stuff that had never been seen before. The dragons, for example, were something Sauron never could have imagined putting together (if he could have, he would have... :), and Morgoth not only whipped them up, but made a couple of luminaries (Glaurung, Ancalagon).

(Also, dude was a lot better at Middle Earth 'sorcery', so to speak, than Sauron, but that might fall under the 'smash things' heading. :)

Sauron was basically an improver. He took existing designs (orcs and trolls were already around, he just improved on them) and tinkered with them to make them a little better. Even his best creation - the One Ring - was in large part thanks to his work with Celebrimbor.

Morgoth, here, would be the guy who sees little bread buns and says 'Hey, you know what? I think I could make this thing I'll call scones...'

Sauron would be the guy who eats a scone and says 'Great idea! Maybe I'll give it a shot and add some lemon zest to them.'

I'll certainly agree that Sauron was 100% smarter on a strategic and tactical level, had better long-term plans, more contingencies, was far more capable of manipulation and trickery (Melkor wasn't horrid at that in the beginning, but at some point completely lost track of such things), and in general was a better all-around Dark Lord than Morgoth. ^_^