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Symbolic Expression in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings
Crooked
9/6/2K6
"crooked and malicious"
-- of Gollum (Fellowship, p. 63)
Nothing is evil in the beginning in Middle-earth. Evil is always a corruption of something that was once good.
The idea that evil is a corruption finds expression in Tolkien's fiction.
The idea also finds expression in ordinary everyday language, in the word "crooked" and related words, when these words are used in the sense of bad. The usage is not limited to English. The idea seems to be that of something straight that has become bent or twisted.
Tolkien was a master of words. You don't have to be a master of words, however, to use "crooked" in this way. It is nevertheless fitting for Tolkien to use it, since the idea behind it figures prominently in his fiction.
When Gollum first found the Ring, it made him invisible, and he put it to uses that were "crooked" (Fellowship, p. 63).
It is but a hop, skip, and a jump to turn "crooked" and its relatives into images, and these images abound in Tolkien's fiction.
The weapons of the enemy are almost never straight.
There are exceptions, but the exceptions are few and far between. The orc-captain that tried to skewer Frodo in the Mines of Moria used a spear. I grant this as an exception, even though the story doesn't specify that the spear was straight :). However, even the orc-captain then pulled out a curved scimitar.
Almost always the weapons of the enemy are twisted, curved, or crooked.
That evil is a corruption finds expression in the shapes of these weapons.
The weapons are not themselves expressions of the idea. Rather the idea finds expression in the weapons. It influences what they look like.
The expression of this idea in Tolkien is not limited to blades either. The legs of the orcs, or at least some orcs, are crooked. And there are many other examples.