Destiny asked about whether stories or media ever had an example of a hero who, in the face of pure evil and villainy, had to resort to adopting anti-hero behavior, perhaps by abandoning their principles, to defeat the villain, and who wasn't "solved" by either killing them off or completing their arc into becoming a villain.

I couldn't think of any.

But I was rewatching LOTR extended editions, and one theme I realized, that evaded me as a media-illiterate teen the first time I watched it, was that Frodo's ultimate failure to destroy the One Ring, and Gollum's subsequent role in getting it destroyed, had a point.

The Ring was a divine creation of 100% pure evil. No one could destroy it, even the noblest, humblest of hobbits failed, in the end. What destroyed the Ring was its own corruption, evil, and greed. The Ring created Gollum, and it was Gollum's corruption, evil, and greed, that got the Ring killed.

But another point the entire story spells out repeatedly, starting in the Fellowship, that I initially misunderstood, that the pity of Hobbits would decide the fate of Men, wasn't saying that Men's devotion to eliminate evil would destroy the Ring, rather that their commitment to good would allow the forces of evil to precipitate its own downfall.

And Frodo isn't killed off or made entirely a villain following his weakness in those final moments. He's not exactly redeemed, either, but after he's recognized for his sacrifices by King Aragorn, he returns to the Shire along with the others, and isn't the same. He is fundamentally changed. That's why he has to go West with the Elves and Bilbo, because he doesn't belong anymore. It's the story's way of solving the anti-hero puzzle, just ship 'em off to the West.

One of Tolkien's main ideas was that evil was fundamentally uncreative. That it could only corrupt that which already exists, and would ultimately consume itself. I think that's a useful lesson to internalize in these times.

Not to say that people don't suffer and that we don't have a role to play in fighting for good, but it might be worth examining that dynamic, because it plays out throughout history consistently, e.g. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Union, Russia, even Trump in his second term, to some extent.

One lesson for liberals could be to help accelerate their self-inflicted downfall in ways that minimize the suffering brought on us all. Let their own corruption and incompetence consume them, limit the damage, and be there to pick up the pieces and suffocate the threat for good, (or at least until the next big threat, hopefully decades later). Another comparison might be to controlled forest fires or avalanches.

When the Nazis start oppressing and ousting the Jews in the '30s, welcome them with open arms. When Russia starts a war of aggression in Ukraine, empower the Ukrainians to fight back and drain Russia of its power. When Trump is fighting for his life on the Epstein Files or the Iran War or tariffs & inflation, all self-…

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能改变理解方式，而不只是重复常识；符合当前抓取需求；它提供了新的理解或解释，而不只是表面观点

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