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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2310618" data-attributes="member: 4937">Ok, but the origin of that belief system (that evil souls become demons if they are 'worthy' in some fashion) is Satanism.  Make of that what you will.I firmly reject the notion that evil must exist in order to make good meaningful.No, in Tolkein's world, Balrogs are 'demons of fire' and are literally fallen angelic beings which no embody an evil principle.  That didn't become the archeatypal fantasy demon by some misundertanding.Let me get this straight.  You are saying that a better analogy to a demon than a demon would be a non-demon?  It's going to take me a while to get my head around that. Yes.  But its not clear to me that the Ringwraiths by this point retain any existance which is separate from thier master.   They are disembodied manifestations of fear and despair which Sauron wields like a fist.  In that fashion, they have become 'demonic', but there is nothing in them which we now recognize as people - no element of 'complexity' in thier personality.   They have neither names nor existence apart from the will of Sauron and they perish when his thought perishes.  The only thing recognizable in them is their orginal lust for power and immortality back when they were mortal, but they remain only as object lessons in complete slavery.   It's difficult to imagine that they retain those human motivations, or any independent motivation at all for that matter.I think we have different concepts of this too.  But, whether or not good or evil are human concepts is somewhat unimportant here.  The whole purpose of discussing evil in terms of 'demons' (or good in terms of 'angels') is to be able to remove the humanity from the equation and ask, "What is the essential nature of evil?"   Even if evil is only a human concept in its invention, it has to have some recognizable quality of itself that let's us distinguish an evil act from one that isn't.   What is evil like in its pure form?  Evil is of course too abstract of a concept to deal with easily (otherwise we wouldn't still be arguing about what it meant), and symbols like 'demons' and such give us a more concrete language for addressing that question through narrative.</blockquote>

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