Dissecting Tolkien's Conscience, Part Four

Isn't Sam the only character who's able to willingly give up the ring?

Yes. Even Bilbo is coerced to a certain extent by Gandalf. In the film he sort of drops it and leaves. In the book he stumbles with the envelope that holds it and drops it and Gandalf puts it back on the shelf (if my memory serves). But without Gandalf's haranguing, it wouldn't work.

Sam, however, comes to the decision on his own, and has a particularly beautiful inner dialog and realization about it, too. He is the only character, when faced directly with the temptation of the ring to claim it as his own, who fully and completely rejects it.

I remember that's one of the reasons I liked Sam so much -- I didn't think he was able to give up the ring because he was simple or stupid, but because out of the majority of the characters, he was the one who knew himself, and what he really wanted out of life.

[If I recall correctly], Sam is the only hobbit to return to the Shire and live a hobbit's life to the fullest (Frodo's there for a while, but ultimately leaves with the elves). He restores the Shire, gets his Rosie and a family, and is happy. In the hero's journey / monomyth, he completes the actions of The Return, whereas Frodo writes a big ol' book and takes off.

Okay, reading through this whole incredible conversation that we've had amongst ourselves ....

I still love these books and yes, they are classics for a reason, and very few authors have even come close to equaling them in terms of depth and complexity. Most modern fantasy steals only the surface elements of the plot -- the epic sweeping adventure-quest without going any deeper.

But.

Peter Jackson's movies made me go back and re-read them. And, they are very different to me now, now that I look upon them with an adult's eyes and a mind that's been exposed to critical theory.

(As an aside, most of the changes between the books and Jackson's movies are to do with the differences in mediums between Film and Literature, and things that work in books often don't in movies.

For example, I like the way that Jackson beefed up the role of Arwen and made her a more active character than she was in the books.)

I don't know if Tolkien was a Racist, but many ways he certainly was a man of his times and I find it "problematic" (to use a nice, polite, academic term) that all of the good guys are clearly Caucasian, while, with one exception, no one who has dark or swarthy skin is good and they all seem to have always been a degenerate, evil, lesser race. (And this racism is unfortunately played up in Jackson's movies.)

That said, there are many things to like about the world of Middle Earth and the books set in it. The world building has yet to be equaled.

It's an early environmentalist work, which also questions the "progress" wrought by the "order" of mechanization and industrialization.

For all that there's a "good" side and a "bad" side, Tolkien devotes a great deal of time to exploring the idea of we have met the enemy and it is us.

It also explores what happens when law and order is taken to the point of totalitarianism. What twisted Sauron's mind is that he loved order -- too much. He was disturbed by the diversity of ways and races he saw, finding it too chaotic. He is rigid and inflexible and over time, that becomes seeking to destroy anyone or anything that would deviate from his notions of what is best.

Eowyn's monologue to Aragorn about what she fears most, is a classic feminist statement, and considering when it was written, and by whom, it's well ahead of its time.

And for all that this book is full of, and seems to celebrate notions of Noble Manly Men, of Long Lineages, On Grand Quests to Save Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings is incredibly subversive. As my fellow Tarts have pointed out, it's not High And Mighty Lord King White Guy who saves the day.

It's the woman and the humble working class race who save everybody.

So, yeah, Lord of the Rings is a flawed work, but for all it's faults, it's still a profoundly thought provoking and deeply moving work.

I'm trying to read through the long thread but who knows when I will get that done so forgive me if this has already come up.

The foundation for Middle Earth was created when Tolkien was recovering from trench fever after fighting in World War I. The experience of being an officer and leading troops in the horrible trench warfare of the time completely colors The Lord of the Rings. I took a course on The Lord of the Rings at the Smithsonian years ago and I'm trying to dig up my notes as I remember all the WWI parallels were fascinating. The influence of the perceived dangers in industrialization and British class structure of the time certainly show up but it was the war that really impacted the development of Middle Earth.

After that class, the questionable racial elements always reminded me of war propaganda posters and the efforts to demonize the enemy. I believe that is what he was doing and it was a product of his society that white = good. He is a British country gentleman academic who is a devout Catholic and enjoys reading Icelandic sagas in the original Old Norse. There is little around him to counter-act white rule until much later in his life.

Thanks for that, Karon.

This is why literature books often come with long (often boring) introductory essays by academics. It would be nice to get a short, insightful briefing on that in the usual copies for general consumption. It also helps demonize creators with failings less when you see what shaped those failings, even when we discuss why it's wrong to perpetuate it!

Trench warfare, and thinking long on it, would also lead to a lack of key women involved. During that time, his interaction with women was probably limited to nurses and writing home to relatives or encountering refugees and wives / daughters in occupied areas.

Apparently Tolkien himself rode a bike everywhere and a lot of the stuff in the books is based on the way industrial sprawl started taking over in the countryside. My dad grew up in London for awhile after WWII and he mentioned that one of the issues is that they did a lot of coal mining and factory developing, with no thought about sustainability.

The environmentalism in LoTR is more than slightly prescient, too, though I doubt he was really trying to predict anything. But his concentration, especially with the hobbits and ents, on phrases like "good tilled earth" and that kind of respectful use of land is, in hindsight, something we should all have been a lot more careful about.

What's interesting is that I know people who read it as some kind of anti technological manifesto, which I disagree with. But I do think he felt that doing things just because we can, and not considering the long term effects, was irresponsible. There are lots of ways we can have both...and environment that's not poisonous, and advances in industry and tech that don't in effect put people out of work and ruin the area it exists in.

Some of my favorite parts of the books revolve around the way he describe forests. There' s the Old Forest which exists on the borders of Buckland, and then Fangorn when Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard. There's a lot of reverence in the writing for these places, and a concentration on their ancient "stuffy" quality.

And then there's farming/gardening which we mainly view through the hobbits. Which is about as respectful a version of farming as you're likely to get see. Where you grow what you need, and take care of each other, but don't go bananas and just start tearing things down for no reason. I think it's let's a condemnation of advancement or modernization as it is looking at what we often throw away in the name of progress.