Truth

What is the truth in Grendel? Is there truth in The Shaper’s stories and poems? Or is truth what The Dragon says? Or maybe, is truth what Grendel sees? The Shaper paints pictures of happiness, with good triumphing over bad and with everything being right and just. He praises his master, Hrothgar and tells of his glory. But if everything he says is true, then is what he says about Grendel true? Maybe he’s a monster and just never knew it. But he acts like humans. But The Dragon also says that Grendel is evil. He says that things are predetermined and that everyone has a role and Grendel’s role is to be an unstoppable monster to the people in Hrothgar’s kingdom. But Grendel is new to the outside world. He is still innocent, still figuring things out. But is he evil? Maybe the two sources of knowledge are disagree with each other in most ways, but they both agree that Grendel is bad and that there’s nothing he can do about it because it is ‘fate’. Grendel is new and has just started interacting with humans. He kills animals, but that’s for food, not for territory or for fun, like he’s seen humans do. And he doesn’t kill his own kind. Meanwhile, he sees the human having wars, slaughtering each other, destroying villages. He is the one that is attacked by the humans gets caught up in a war thrust upon him. Does that make him the bad one? Are The Shaper and The Dragon correct?