Grima Wormtongue.
Who ?
That dude in the Lord of the Rings, the one that poisons the mind of the king with his forked tongue.
Now who in blue blazes names their kid Grima Wormtongue? With parents like that it's no wonder the boy grew up to be such a detestable sort. Imagine the trauma he must have gone through as a child. But does that excuse him from being a royal prick ? ( No pun intended, honest.)
One might argue that he cannot be held responsible for being the way he is, we humans being the sum of our experiences, unable to move beyond the circle of things that have affected us. The human brain does not create new experiences or ideas, it simply recombines things it has already learned into new forms, like a child playing with a 12 piece Lego set. Applying this to our friend Grima, we might argue that being given such a name, not to mention a forked tongue and a complexion not even the geekiest geek could match, have resulted in a traumatic experience for him, and his only coping mechanism has been to turn people against each other, with said funky forked tongue. Following this line of argument, he isn't responsible for what he did or does. We are. Everybody but him, for whatever real or imagined harm that might have befallen him.
But this argument refuses to look at one thing. The one most important thing that makes us who we are and what we are. Self-awareness. You are aware of your actions, and also how it affects others. You may choose to ignore how your action helps or hurt others, but this is also your choice. You are free, indeed you cannot help but learn if what you are doing is right or wrong in the basic moral sense.
So either Grima knew what he was doing was wrong and chose to do it anyway, or he chose to ignore how it affects others. Either way you are still responsible for your own actions.
I have wondered if what he does is excusable. From the moral sense of course, it isn't. From the machiavellian ( I'm not saying machiavellianism is the flip side of morality, it's simply another way of viewing things. ) point of view, he took the most logical step in the current situation. He waged a P.R war. He separated his enemies and deceived them, which any battlefield commander would light a cigar for achieving. His sheer talent for deception is almost commendable.
So now we have two very conflicting views of this man's actions. One view says that he is a villain for practising deception. The other says that he is a hero, a genius who achieved something military tacticians sweat and cry over.
It's not the purpose of this essay to decide which view is correct, that would, in fact, be impossible. It is not the purpose of this essay to judge funky fork-tongued Grima. But does Grima's past and his present, absolve him of guilt for wrongdoing, the hurt he has caused others ?
No, it does not. Because he has a choice. And he made that choice. And he paid for it. Causality's a bitch isn't it?