Lord Have Mercy; What About Lord Vader? looks at mercy and justice — and the tension between the two — in The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the real world:
Through superb characterization, Tolkien earns mercy for Gollum. Gollum is a murderer and liar, but he is also a broken-down, pathetic creature, whose torture at the hands of Sauron’s minions atoned for many sins. His unfulfilled addiction for the Ring tears at his very sanity, subjecting him to pains that none save Frodo can fully understand. To extend mercy to Gollum is to recognize that his potential for evil had ebbed, and that a rough justice had already been visited upon him. Sam could have killed Gollum justly, but Gollum’s misery and broken spirit created a space for forgiveness.By contrast, Lucas cheats. He spends two-and-a-half movies proving that Darth Vader is an appalling monster. Yet halfway through ROTJ, Luke tells Vader (and, indirectly, the audience) that ‘I can feel the good in you, father.’ It’s easy to pick worthy objects of mercy when your goodness-sense is tingling. But nothing in episodes IV and V suggests that Vader had any good worth saving. The Force convinced Luke that Vader deserved mercy, and that’s more than the script and character development could do.
Lacking the Force, or a kindly narrator to ensure that every act of mercy is blessed, rewarded, and bestowed upon a worthy recipient, how should we dispose of our villains? Should we reckon them to be frail, unwitting victims of evil’s seduction, like Gollum? Terrible monsters to be preserved in the name of their potential for good, like Darth Vader or Saruman? Or grotesque embodiments of evil to be destroyed, like the Emperor or Sauron?
The answer is: all of the above. Evil can seduce the small and mighty alike. Mercy makes allowances for the weakness of will that afflicts all men. But some men embrace evil as a lover.