Yes, that's what I thought Saruman meant with his words. It's cruel because in showing him mercy I think it has a lot of the connotations we associate with pity, like Frodo is looking down at him from far above.
As an aside, I still can't wrap my mind around that thread commentator you quoted, about Bin Laden. They are not speaking of pity, even in the negative, shadenfreude way that Tolkien was writing about. Do they mean attempting to gain understanding? Or empathy?
Honestly, I'm not sure. Since there were a lot of 9/11 references I got the impression that she assumed bin Laden was everyone's idea of the most evil a person could be, and so the sign of being a good person would be if you could feel sorry for him (perhaps? In that "I'm praying for you because Jesus loves you kind of way?") even while he was making a video or ordering someone beaten. But this situation didn't really seem to demonstrate anything to me.
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Date: 2004-04-05 08:15 am (UTC)As an aside, I still can't wrap my mind around that thread commentator you quoted, about Bin Laden. They are not speaking of pity, even in the negative, shadenfreude way that Tolkien was writing about. Do they mean attempting to gain understanding? Or empathy?
Honestly, I'm not sure. Since there were a lot of 9/11 references I got the impression that she assumed bin Laden was everyone's idea of the most evil a person could be, and so the sign of being a good person would be if you could feel sorry for him (perhaps? In that "I'm praying for you because Jesus loves you kind of way?") even while he was making a video or ordering someone beaten. But this situation didn't really seem to demonstrate anything to me.