Why Rivendell couldn't exist with out Mordor (and vice versa)

[Tim]

Tolkien's authorial genius: Islands of Light in a Sea of Darkness. http://t.co/ZFotWntU

[Nat]

Come on!!
It's a fight between Good and Evil!!
Of course you have to have a super peacefull place(Rivendell, and Shire) and a horrible destoyed place(mordor).

[Tim]

True enough. But then again, Tolkien succeeds where so many other writers fail. He constructs a deeply resonant mythological world that gets at something fundamental about human nature. I'd say that's an accomplishment worth celebrating. Sounds like you disagree?

[Astraea]

Sophy wrote: "Come on!!
It's a fight between Good and Evil!!
Of course you have to have a super peacefull place(Rivendell, and Shire) and a horrible destoyed place(mordor)."

Well, that's Manichaeanism.... the idea that goodness, truth, peace, beauty etc. have to be balanced in the universe by evil, betrayal, war, ugliness etc. Not everyone believes that this is necessary. (I certainly don't). *

Tolkien, I think, did not subscribe to the idea that there must be a hell if there is to be a heaven. I know some Catholics do. But I think he was attempting to explain the existence of evil, and explore the nature of it, rather than justify it. You get this more in the Silmarillion and Akallabeth.

*To see a reductio ad absurdum of this idea, see Ursula K. LeGuin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."

Andy

[Nat]

Astraea wrote: "Sophy wrote: "Come on!!
It's a fight between Good and Evil!!
Of course you have to have a super peacefull place(Rivendell, and Shire) and a horrible destoyed place(mordor)."

Well, that's Manichaea..."

i don't believe that evil and good are opposites that have to be balenced, i just meant that there wouldn't be much of a story without some kind of conflict between them. But i do believe that evil could not exist without good,but not vice versa.
Just wanted to clarify that little point up!
Thanks!!!