without a will? Tolkien considered the Machine evil -- but a machine does
not have a will. To take the extreme example of a killing machine, I
suppose you could argue that a doomsday device is not, in and of itself, evil,
but isn't there something evil about it? How about the gas chambers of
Auschwitz? Couldn't certain machines be the products of evil minds?
The Ring responded to Sauron's call when it left Gollum, but for hundreds of
years before that it did nothing, even though Sauron was
present.
“I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more 'life' a story has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.)” (From Tolkien Letter # 131.)
