Tower of Ivory - "On the Free Will of Ogres"

On the Free Will of Ogres
by
David Dayton

As I exited the theatre after viewing the computer animation film Shrek, I found myself thinking about ogres. The film presents an ogre as just another sort of humanoid in the woods, not evil at all. I was interested in this concept because of another old question I've had for quite a bit:

Can you have a good ogre/troll/goblin/dragon/etc...?***

For a while now, I have been bandying about a similar concept about vampires and the opportunity for a vampire to choose between good and evil. Crucially, however, vampires are human to begin with. We know that humans can be good or bad, and my thought has always been that you simply can't make a good human into a vampire - he would necessarily reject the evil and sacrifice his life in the process, rather than submit to the fear of death and enter into a pact with evil. Vampires, then, aren't really a class of beings - rather, they are modified humans who have chosen evil.

Goblins, trolls, and the like are a different story. Although some tales do present them as mere beasts, with no reason, the more general trend to is present these creatures as sentient humanoids. Let us assume that ogres, then, are capable of rational thought (the ability to speak seems to imply this). If an ogre is capable of rational thought, then this very act of thought is an action of will. Ogres have been presented as capable of choosing between different options, although they generally choose the selfish and evil over the good. If an ogre has rational thought and the capability to make decisions, then it has free will, like people, angels, and devils. As an ogre can be killed, it is necessarily mortal, and thus closer related to humans than to angels or devils.

Mortals with free will live within the constraints of time, unlike angels and devils (who are simply fallen angels). The very nature of the angels (blessed and fallen) dictates that they can't "change their minds:" an angel decides upon his course of life, and lives it out. There is no time, so the angel never changes, but keeps his decision eternally. People, however, live within time and constantly flip-flop between doing good and wallowing in evil. If an ogre has free will, and lives within time, it would seem that it would necessarily share this characteristic with man. An ogre, then, would seem to be able to choose to do good rather than evil, even if no ogre has ever done so.

Why would a rational creature choose evil over good? It must be remembered that Adam and Eve, the parents of humanity, chose to disobey God - and that their sin affected all of creation. What's more, their sin taints all their descendents. While Adam and Eve's original sin does not cause man to choose evil, it does make evil more attractive and harder to resist. Now, if man could fall, why not another creature of equal or lesser capability than man? Or, for that matter, what if this creature was brought down because of man's sin... I would think this creature might harbor a grudge against the one that tainted him. If all of creation fell when man did, things get interesting.

Regardless of why ogres fell, whether it was through their own sin or that of another, the fact remains that ogres must have fallen. God makes nothing evil, so ogres would have to have been naturally good to begin with. When evil came, ogres turned to it.

While some of Tolkien's work could be construed to imply that ogres are fallen men or elves, the fact remains that ogres would seem to have to come from somewhere. Unless ogres are unlike every other creature on this planet, they reproduce. There should therefore be generations of ogres. If ogres have free will, I refuse to believe that all these ogres being born are evil by nature. If they were, Satan has triumphed by creating evil beings, which is preposterous. Nothing is made evil to begin with, but many things can be corrupted. If ogres do have free will, they must be either good or evil. If evil, then it is by their own choice.

It might seem strange that generations of intelligent creatures would choose evil, but it should be noted that not all of the ogres would need to choose evil for their population to do evil. Not all Germans were evil, yet Nazi Germany committed atrocities, with thousands of ordinary men becoming lock-in-step solidiers of the Furher. Aztec men and women may have been good people, but their kings and priests practiced human sacrifice and other truly evil things, bringing the whole nation into the sin. What if ogres were the same way? What if the generations of ogre chieftans had chosen terrible evil, forcing their kinsmen into the evil with them?

Evil can't be forced about anyone; they must freely choose it. If that is so, I refuse to believe than children of evil parents must necessarily be evil. Jesus Himself said as much when He was asked why the blind man was cursed. Jesus told the crowd that a man is not evil because of the sins of his parents, but is sinful because of his own sins. With this in mind, I cheerfully submit to you my belief that ogres, trolls, and other such mythical folk need to not necessarily need to be evil. Demons, witches, and vampires are evil, as their own free will brought them into sin. An ogre can only be evil if it chooses to be.

For a discussion on the use of mythical creatures as symbolism, please check out - or even add in your own thoughts! to - the thread at Phantasmagoric Miscellanea.

Editor's Notes:

1. This is supposing, of course, that ogres were real and subjected to God's law.

2. This question will be addressed more fully in a forthcoming article.

3. I.e., the evil temptation to "live forever" on the proviso that ones own "undead life" would be contingent upon the murder of others.

4. Including ogres. This is, again, presupposing that since the author of any world is actually subcreating, in the words of Tolkein, then the world which the author creates is, necessarily, similar to our own - in its moral laws, if not its physics, history, topography, etc. C. S. Lewis' example of this subcreation is best found in his The Magician's Nephew, where he recreates an Adam and Eve story. Tolkein, himself, presupposes original sin and concupiscience in his Lord of the Rings Trilogy, when Frodo is unable to rid himself of the temptation of the ring.

Other authors, who do not profess the Judeo-Christian mores, still display the unspoken belief in the sinful nature of humans (although the particularization of what is and isn't a sin may not always coincide with the general agreement of the major world religions). Whether one ascribes to Adam or Eve, or to Pandora's Box, ours is a fallen world in need of redemption. Easier to gain general agreement with (at least in the Western Hemisphere) is the belief in "free will." Our society idolizes "choice" - just as much as Adam and Eve.

Considering, then, that ogres are, in fact, the main creation of Western culture, and that this culture is steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the use of ogres - and other mythological beings - in literature is as much a plot device, as it is a symbol of deeper spiritual truths about the leanings of our own souls.

The End