Tolkien and Capital Punishment

A Guest Post by Mike Schramm

Let me first say that I have no idea if J.R.R. Tolkien was for or against the death penalty.

Let me also say that I am fully aware of the Church's formal and informal positions regarding the death penalty and the relatively recent controversy surrounding it.

Let me ALSO say that I would never sully the good name of J.R.R. Tolkien or The Lord of the Rings by arguing that he was trying to secretly sneak (Sneak! Sneak!) some political ideology into his masterpiece of a story.

Last one, I promise, let me also preemptively state that I am aware, and supportive, of the Church’s historically very nuanced position on the death penalty and not trying myself to imply that it should change this teaching or that it is not a reasonable one. For a philosophical, biblical and historical defense of the death penalty, see Ed Feser’s and Joseph Bessette’s By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed. However, this is primarily a defense of the death penalty in principle, on which the Church has never wavered. Where there is still room for the development we have seen in the last 50 years is in the prudential practice of capital punishment.

I am simply reflecting on one of the most prevalent themes in the story of the One Ring, both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and the significance that one cannot help but draw from it. While there is no example from the Tolkien Legendarium that includes a formal execution or the stopping of one, either licit or illicit, there are certainly opportunities for executions that the attentive reader could argue, irrespective of the consequences, would have been justified.

One can probably already predict where I might be going with this but there are scenes in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings where Bilbo and Frodo, and later Sam, are tempted to kill the creature, Gollum, yet “it was Pity that stayed [their] hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.” It is when Frodo is discussing Bilbo’s opportunity that he rightfully invokes the justice of Gollum’s death, to which Gandalf replies, “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”¹ Gandalf is advising prudence and discernment for so heavy a burden, one that Frodo was taking too lightly. Tolkien elaborates on this point in his letters:

It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome – in themselves. In this case the cause (not the ‘hero’) was triumphant, because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed and disaster averted. Gandalf certainly foresaw this… Of course, he did not mean to say that one must be merciful, for it may prove useful later – it would not then be mercy or pity, which are only truly present when contrary to prudence.²

If this were the only moment, though its parallel to the actual event with Bilbo in The Hobbit is significant as well, then maybe a reader could write it off. However, Tolkien continues this scene in other pivotal moments of the series.

Perhaps an even more contemptible character from LOTR than Gollum is that of the slimy Gríma Wormtongue. Though he had not (yet) been directly responsible for any deaths, his influence on King Théoden as a stooge for Saruman had certainly produced indirect deaths along with Théoden’s sorcerous stupor. After Théoden’s exorcism by Gandalf in The Two Towers, there is the scene, slightly altered from the books to the movies but retaining the same sentiment, where Aragorn (book: Gandalf) stops Théoden (Éomer) from killing Wormtongue. It is even noted that “[t]o slay it would be just”³ and yet the character shows mercy. Again, while no phrase regarding the inadmissibility of the death penalty is included, it is significant that Wormtongue was spared, despite the virtual certainty that he would return to Saruman and continue to cause harm. The greater danger appeared to be how execution would change Théoden/Éomer. Again, a worthy point of discernment from Gandalf.

Later in The Two Towers, there is also the sparing of Gollum at the forbidden pool by both Frodo, through his counsel, and Faramir, through his command. This is arguably the weakest piece of evidence as one could argue Frodo only spared Gollum because he needed him to get into Mordor to destroy the Ring. However, this logic would somewhat betray the Catholic ethics that had formed Tolkien and that he had infused into his book. For him to suddenly make his hero a utilitarian consequentialist, and make that the real or only reason Frodo spares Gollum, undermine one of Tolkien’s greatest themes in LOTR.

Finally, Saruman, who may deserve death more than any other character previously mentioned, is spared by Gandalf at the tower of Orthanc after the fall of Isengard and by the hobbits before his death by Gríma’s hand in the Scouring of the Shire. Gandalf recognized the murder and betrayal that Saruman had wrought. He was almost certainly powerful enough to bring about this justice, having the ability to break Saruman’s staff, yet he did not execute him.

In Middle-earth, Tolkien is dealing with similar prudential judgments in his own implementation, or lack thereof, of the death penalty. This is what makes his particular “case” against the death penalty so profound. Not only would the execution of both Gollum and Wormtongue satisfy the cause of “retributive justice,” but it would also provide future protection of innocent members of the respective communities. In the aftermath of WWII, Tolkien made a similar observation about the post-war punishment of Germany:

We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes.⁴

Even when conventional wisdom says to execute, Tolkien always chooses mercy, even when he knows it will have adverse consequences for the characters. One could try to argue this is Tolkien’s end-around way of showing that the mercy of not executing these characters was wrong because they inevitably did something evil afterwards, but this completely misunderstands the Catholicism that would have formed Tolkien. Whether you are a Catholic who agrees or disagrees with the death penalty, your reasoning CANNOT be influenced by a consequentialism that has allowed for the infantile at best, atrocious at worst, lack of reasoning in modern moral thinking. Of course, these characters don’t know what will come about from their decision to spare this enemy, but that’s the whole point. They don’t try to speculate about what the consequences might be in order to justify their mercy, because mercy needs no external justification.

But what about all those who had been killed because of Gríma’s actions already? What about the death Saruman had already wrought? What about Déagol, the victim of Sméagol’s greed and desire for the Ring? Does Tolkien not care about justice for these many victims? As Aragorn in the movie says while stopping Théoden’s hand, “Enough blood has been spilled on his account.” Similarly, just before the Battle of Bywater, Frodo warned his companions,

[T]here is to be no slaying of hobbits, not even if they have gone over to the other side. Really gone over, I mean; not just obeying ruffians’ orders because they are frightened. No hobbit has ever killed another on purpose in the Shire, and it is not to begin now. And nobody is to be killed at all, if it can be helped. Keep your tempers and hold your hands to the last possible moment!⁵

Tolkien also seems to imply that the mercy shown to these individuals, especially Gollum and Gríma, proves to be important in the plot of the story. Gollum of course because of his removal of the Ring from Frodo after he fell under its power, and Gríma will later end Saruman’s life at the Scouring of the Shire. As Tolkien wrote in his letters,

[T]he ‘salvation’ of the world and Frodo’s own ‘salvation’ is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury. At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum would certainlyfn48 betray him, and could rob him in the end. To ‘pity’ him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity even if disastrous in the world of time. He did rob him and injure him in the end – but by a ‘grace’, that last betrayal was at a precise juncture when the final evil deed was the most beneficial thing any one [could] have done for Frodo! By a situation created by his ‘forgiveness’, he was saved himself, and relieved of his burden.⁶

Besides the symbolic value in showing that evil will ultimately devour itself, there is obvious necessity to Gollum’s role and fittingness to Gríma’s. This is not a backhanded consequentialism sneaking into the story, because ultimately it is consistent with the characters that evil makes evil ends, or as Théoden said, “oft evil will shall evil mar.”⁷

What one can take away from all of this is not, as previously stated, that Tolkien, or the individual Catholic, or the Catholic Church, must be opposed to the death penalty in all cases. Consider again the words from Gandalf and the importance of humility and discernment when these weighty matters of life and death are presented.

I am no great model of courage like Aragorn, or even Théoden, and God-willing I will never be in the position to take life even for a just cause. What should be taken away from this brief treatment, which has too many examples to be coincidental, is that even in a world (much like ours) where death could be cruel, swift and violent, the taking of lives was still a grave matter upon which our heroes must meditate. We, too, if we want to make models of these and our “real life” heroes of the Faith, must show similar discernment and attention when considering matters of life— and death.

(Cover image source: Illustration by Ron Kurniawan: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/ring-cycle-2)

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1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, 2004), 59. Kindle.

2. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (eds), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), letter 192.

3. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 520.

4. Tolkien, Letters, letter 96.

5. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 1006.

6. Tolkien, Letters, letter 181.

7. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 595.