A Wilderness of Dragons
The first part of the Hobbit trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, is not yet available on DVD, though the Howard Shore soundtrack is. But it’s available in two theater versions, one in 2D at 24fps and in 3D at 48 fps. It’s been available in print for decades. But its literary role is something of a mystery. The Hobbit is commonly regarded in its literary form at least as inferior to Tolkien’s later magnum opus. Yet anyone who has read his landmark paper on Beowulf will instantly realize that the comparative simplicity of the Hobbit is due not to Tolkien’s immaturity as a writer but rather to the fact that he was laying down the foundation stones for his later creation.
Although described as a “prequel” to the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit is really a different version of the same story; less “pre-telling” than a the narrative of the same universal experience from a different perspective. Almost every element in the Hobbit reappears in the Lord of the Rings, familiar, as the Shire was to Bilbo when he returns, yet changed.
The Quest for Erebor clearly forshadows the Journey into Mordor; Smaug, the last of the old monsters, prefigures Sauron the destroyer of souls; Thorin Oakenshield is the proto-Aragorn. And the homesickness for Shire adumbrates the longing the Undying Lands. There is the Lonely Mountain for Mordor and the sojourn through Goblin Town in place of that in Moria. In both cases the company issues out onto a open hillside, in the first case missing Bilbo and in the second Gandalf, though both will return. Even the giant spiders that Radagast finds in the greenwood are echoes of Shelob.
The parallels are no coincidence. They are linked stories. The difference between the treatment of themes in the Hobbit and the LOTR is one of level, it is not fundamentally one of time. The dilemmas and dramas faced by the company of Thorin Oakenshield are neither different nor inferior to those faced by the Fellowship of the Ring, they are simply the same things seen at different depths.
Of the characters in the story only Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield are explicitly aware that the superficial plot may be part of a larger tale. Jackson lets us know by hints and signs that Gandalf’s true purpose in organizing the Quest for Erebor is not to simply help a company of dwarves reclaim their ancestral hoard. He could care less about trinkets, jewels and gold — but more deviously to eliminate Smaug as a factor in the coming War which he even then fears is approaching.
Thorin also understands, but through some gift of his kingly greatness. He shrewdly guesses that Gandalf would only choose a hobbit to burgle Smaug’s den if it served the wizard’s purpose in far wider sense than the mere recovery of Erebor, the dwarven kingdom occupied by the Great Worm. Though he cannot clearly see what Gandalf’s ends are, he understands that Bilbo’s selection is part of vaster canvas. “I will not be responsible for his safety,” he tells Gandalf before the start of the journey. “Nor will I be answerable for his fate.”
This is a key riff. From the time of his scholarship in Beowulf, which Tolkien called his greatest source material for his later writing, he concerned himself with the two lives of every man. The first and the one we all know, was the mortal “life”: the question of physical survival from one day to the next. The second we lead, sometimes quite without knowing it, is role we played in the history of things. Our part on the Road. It is what Thorin called “fate”. The dwarf prince understands these two matters are separate: indeed Bilbo’s safety, though often threatened, is assured; but it is Bilbo’s fate which is sealed. He is doomed to set in motion and play a part in the matter of the Ring.
It’s crisp writing and keen insights like this that makes this one of my favorite blogs. Thanks once again Richard.
I first encountered LOTR in a Ballantine pirate version in the early 1960s. I have no idea why I picked it off a drug-store rack near Codman Sq, Dorchester, MA, but I did. I was 19/20 at the time and enthralled; I still am. I have read the books at least 7 or 8 times (the Hobbit fewer) and seen the movies 3 or 4 times, still enthralled.
I was in my 50s before I learned of Tolkien’s Christian/Catholic message, and I have since read a few critical essays explaining his other sources and themes. Vox Populi points out that these religious/moral themes are at the heart of LOTR’s magic and continuing attraction, and that the absence of a moral core and the presence of secularist cynicism is what destroys other epics, especially Martin’s Game of Thrones.
Your own commentary adds to my pleasure. Thank you.
“The Hobbit is commonly regarded in its literary form at least as inferior to Tolkien’s later magnum opus.”
I always advise anyone interested in Tolkien to read The Hobbit first, and not simply because it’s earlier in the overall story line. The Hobbit is much more readable and entertaining a book than Lord of the Rings. That LOTR has more deeply developed themes and a considerably more complex plot does not make The Hobbit a lesser book.
I think that the LOTR films are the greatest films ever made, and doubt The Hobbit films will quite rise that level. (While I would recommend the first Hobbit film strongly, it is about the 4th best film I saw in 2012 — actually, maybe the 6th if you count 2011 films released nationally in early 2012. By contrast, I thought Fellowship of the Ring was the most amazing film I had ever seen by the time the Fellowship exscaped Moria, and perhaps even before.)
But I also think Peter Jackson did a better job of telling the LOTR story on screen than Tolkien did in prose. Tolkien deserves absolute credit for the basic plot, themes, characters, etc. But as a book LOTR is not particularly easy to follow, or always terribly clear.
2. bob s
Like you I have read LOTR many times, the most recent over a 3-4 month period on a nightly basis, out loud, with my 12 year old. There is something wonderful about reading the book out loud – it slows you down of course, but seems to bring the characters more to life.
I like the point you make about Game of Thrones – the moral relativism and absence of a moral core is what sets it apart (for me) from LOTR and what I find that makes Game of Thrones lacking. To quote Bertrand Russell (probably the most eloquent atheist philosopher) “I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it”.
Perhaps I have too literal a mind, one who seeks truth in the concrete, but I disliked all four books and only read them to punch my hippie ticket back in the 60′s.
Which raises the question, why did the hippie-types so love these books?
Did they simply mis-read them? No counter-cultural type would draw similar conclusions and lessons from the books as have Wetchard and Spengler.
Looking back over the history of England, I can recognize no similarities with LOTR and the development of civilization, from the time of the first Roman invasion to today.
Maybe I’ll watch the many hours of the screen version once it comes out on DVD and I have time to kill.
He lusts not for the flesh, but for the domination of the spirit.
It is unclear (to me) just what Sauron wants, I thought the traditional trope was material mastery because he cares nothing for the soul, it is at most a nuisance.
I haven’t seen the Hobbit movie yet, sounds like Jackson taking his liberties a bit again, as I suppose must be expected. Why would Gandalf take the hobbit, because he’s afraid? Well, he’s forbidden from fighting strength with strength, he says … or Tolkien says, somewhere. The lesson there is supposed to be that might does not make right, and perhaps also that the righteous need not fear, or at least that faith is more than myth.
Oakenshield as Aragorn is an interesting parallel, Jackson messed up the Aragorn theme in LOTR making him a slacker being dragged into his fate, I hope in the new film Oakenshield is not on quest because he’s in arrears on his taxes. Overall I agree that The Hobbit is thematically and structurally very similar to LOTR, either as eternal recurrence or as an author warming up his pen, or of course both.
–
w @ 5: Which raises the question, why did the hippie-types so love these books?
It’s a natural high.
Like Beowulf, so too the I Ching:
In the beginning there was as yet no moral or social order. Men knew their mothers only, not their fathers. When hungry, they searched for food; when satisfied, they threw away the remnants. They devoured their food hide and hair, drank the blood, and clad themselves in skins and rushes. Then came Fu Xi and looked upward and contemplated the images in the heavens, and looked downward and contemplated the occurrences on earth. He united man and wife, regulated the five stages of change, and laid down the laws of humanity. He devised the eight trigrams, in order to gain mastery over the world. — Ban Gu
Wikipedia “Fu Xi” goes on to say “Fu Xi taught his subjects to cook, to fish with nets, and to hunt with weapons made of iron. He instituted marriage and offered the first open-air sacrifices to heaven”
Fu Xi is legended to be the author of the I Ching. Sometime around 3000 BC. Beowulf dates to about 530 AD.
5 @whitehall
Which raises the question, why did the hippie-types so love these books?
If I had to guess, it was the anti-industrial, idyllic country living (Shire) themes that probably attracted them. Wasn’t there a hippie commune in Lucifer’s Hammer named The Shire?
I do not believe I’ve read Louis L’Amour in 30 years. A great story:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCK2VK/ref=oh_d__o04_details_o04__i00
“Which raises the question, why did the hippie-types so love these books?”
The closest I ever got to reading any of them was the inside from cover of the parody “Bored of the Rings” when I worked in a library in college. And that much only because I was shelving it. I do have one of the movies on VHS, purchased new for $2.00; I have never even unwrapped it.
But I suspect it was a hippie favorite because it brings forth the idea of a great quest, being part of something vast and important. After all, Bilbo was Everyman, not Luke Skywalker or Chuck Yeager. Which is what the hippie types liked to think they were doing while they studiously focused on doing nothing much at all.
“The second we lead, sometimes quite without knowing it, is role we played in the history of things.”
I used to – still do – think of what I could do, what opportunities I could have seized, if I went back in time to, say, 1946. Brand new P-38′s were available for $1500 then, prime Palos Verdes real estate for $3000, and literally tons of vintage stuff that would bring high prices today from collectors that was basically free.
But then I think of the things I did pass up. The old abandoned AT-6 that I could have hauled away for nothing, just to get that eyesore off the airport. The stuff I saw at swap meets that was practically free. The Hudsons moldering away in rotting garages. I was there for those opportunities but did pass them up.
A Vietnam era A-1 pilot described circling above the clouds over Laos, waiting to get called down to deliver his ordnance in an attempt to rescue a downed pilot. It was so boring during those waits that he brought along an adventure novel, and paused in his reading to think, “Why doesn’t anything exciting like this story ever happen to me?” Then he looked around and realized he was sitting under a bubble canopy behind a 3300 cu in radial engine over a vast mountainous jungle and soon would be called down to do battle with unseen foes. He was living an adventure novel but had never thought about it that way.
So, maybe we are all in an adventure novel, right now, and don’t realize it. Like Bilbo we have stepped off the curb and entered the tale, only at least he knew it.
Simply brilliant Wretch.
“Why doesn’t anything exciting like this story ever happen to me?” Very good. We all have some small part to play in our second role… few keen enough to recognize it.
I worked with an A1 pilot once upon a time. Used to pick palm fronds from his undercarriage.
I read _The Hobbit, or There and Back Again_, but not the subsequent appendices. This was in the 70′s, with whatever edition of the book was current then. I’ve since learned the edition matters a lot. For instance, in the first edition Gollum willingly bets The Ring in a gamble with Bilbo. Of course, at that point the ring was just your common, ordinary run-of-the-mill invisibility ring and not The Ring To Rule Them All, as would later develop. Tolkien ammended the book a lot as he developed the next book, _The New Hobbit_, which would become the LOTR trilogy.
So, having come to the movie from my experience of _The Hobbit_, I was initially shocked and dismayed. It seemed to overspend its allowance for deviation from the original text as it strained to make the book into something it’s not. _The Hobbit_ is not a grand epic trilogy, that’s LOTR. _The Hobbit_ is a wonderfully fun romp. Jackson seemed intent on forcing it into what it is not, on prying an epic out of it.
But since then I’ve heard from folks who are devoted Tolkien fans. They have read the appendices and other background material, which I have not. They claim that the film is actually pretty faithful to this larger context. Perhaps that’s true. Yet, I’ve got a memory of the beautiful, unencumbered economy of _The Hobbit_, the riproaring fast-paced tale of Bilbo’s scandalous adventure in burglary. And the film isn’t that. The film’s self consciously “epic-ized”, although to its credit done in better fashion than what George Lucas has done.
I saw the film on Christmas Day with my wife, two of my sons, and two of my nieces. They all loved it dearly. None had read the book. My eldest son, to whom I gave the book for Christmas, has since read it. He agrees with me that movie tells not just a different story than the book but a different kind of story than the book, and that’s sort of a shame.
But, taken on its own terms, it’s a good flick. As always, if you read the book, the film will most often disappoint you. As I’m finding out in spades now in reading _Les Miserables_ for the first time. Wow. Victor Hugo is simply amazing. At ease on the field of the greats.
“In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.”
Don’t we all?
The Hobbit was a labor of love written by a man for his son. It shows.
The Hobbit was originally written [or at least used] as a bedtime story for Christopher Tolkien. And so it was for all of my children, with an extension into the Fellowship. By that time they were 7 or so, and could read themselves and attacked the books themselves at varying speeds. My kids are bibliophiles, and have been since they were small and figured out what those funny squiggles on paper were. If the stories you hear as a child are what shape your worldview, the universe of J.R.R. Tolkien was not a bad start.
We take issue with Jackson’s LOTR, in the mandatory PC insertion of more and stronger female roles, and the removal of the Scouring of the Shire. But still, a wonderful effort.
But we can be sure that the Silmarillion will not be made into films any more than the rest of Tolkien’s friend’s C.S. Lewis’ series will be made. It is not a matter of money, it is a matter of themes. For the conflicts of good and evil are couched in terms that modern Americans will not tolerate. It reveals truths that burn the members of our society as the light from Elvish weapons burned Gollum. *We hates it, we does. Nasty honor, free will, and morality! It burnses, it does.*
#6 Josh
Much of what he wants is revealed in the early history of Tolkien’s universe. The creation of the universe by Eru Ilúvatar is arguably far more poetic [and definitely musical] than the Genesis story. In very foreshortened form, he created the Ainur who are roughly equivalent to archangels with the power to create beings themselves, beings who could be touched by Eru and given independent existence. Among the Ainur was Melkor, who sought to control the Flame Imperishable [a combination of life and free will].
Melkor revolted, and was cast out. In the course of the destruction, murders, and thefts that constituted his revolt during the First Age, he became known as Morgoth. As such, he was worshipped and continued his revolt.
Sauron, the prime antagonist in LOTR, was merely one of Morgoth’s lieutenants. He continued the wars that actually were carried on through the Second to the end of the Third Age, and is the Necromancer in the Hobbit.
This was a battle for the spiritual and temporal universe. Bodies and weaknesses of the flesh were weapons and tools, not goals.
Note that there is more than a wee bit of abridgement there.
Subotai Bahadur
Wretchard, thank you. An insightful rendering of a timeless classic.
I read The Hobbit in @ the 6th grade, then the trilogy. I *think* the school library edition (old school with an old school library) was published in the 1940s. I looked upon them as great adventure fiction of good versus evil. I didn’t even know it was popular with hippies.
I’m wondering if it is too late to save even remnants of Western Culture. It is starting to look like Oswald Spengler was right. First Culture, then civilization, which eventually corrupts and destroys the culture, and all fall down. Communications helps spread corruption but it also helps preserve the culture and produces rally points for those who oppose the angst and secularism of the “elite.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaA7yzHh2as
I also read the Hobbit early on – although not LOTR, even when it almost seemed to be required during the late 1960s. (I read it about a decade after most of my high school friends seems to have.) But I read the whole thing aloud – The Hobbit and LOTR to my little brother, and then to my daughter as an evening or bedtime story. At about a chapter or two an evening, it took the best part of a year and then some. But it is a wonderful book to read to children. My brother was eight, and loved it so much that he could talk like Sam Gamgee by the end and insisted on dressing like a hobbit for Halloween. My daughter also loved it – and begged for more, every eveing. Did you notice – that almost every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger? She was only five when we began it, but she was so enthralled that the mother of her best friend began to read it to her daughter … but we were several chapters ahead, so my daughter could always tell her friend what was happening…
sb @ 14: This was a battle for the spiritual and temporal universe. Bodies and weaknesses of the flesh were weapons and tools, not goals. Note that there is more than a wee bit of abridgement there.
Quite, but then even Tolkien is just doing his version of even older themes from Beowulf to Jesus to Arthur and Merlin. The question is what does evil ever want, how is it that Lucifer fell, even Sauron was not evil in the beginning? Is it the same as Adam falling? Perhaps men can see the error that Lucifer makes, even if Lucifer never does, and thus Lucifer serves a purpose in the universe in spite of himself, as a bad example. Tolkien never tries to grasp such issues explicitly, CS Lewis pretty much does, and therein perhaps is the difference between the two.
What a great blog and amzing comments. Very thoughtful and thought provoking.
Thank you all.
Was rooming during summer break in a college town, having returned from civil rights work in MS. Things were jumping. 200-300 dead a week in VN. Cities burning. Old order not only under attack, but even thinking it might be well to consider was thought to be evidence of facism. One of my roommates was wholesaling grass from the basement until I told him to take his work elsewhere.
Would sit on the porch in the evening with a quart of beer and read LOTR until dark, alternating with watching the girls go by.
Reread the whole thing after jump school.
It was a different freaking world. It was so well-realized that you could actually get away from this one. There were no incidents of the author reaching out from the book, punching you in the nose with a clanger and telling you it was just a story.
One writer, an English prof at USMAA, said he’d read it in his tank in VN. Those guys had lights they could use, bastards.
Youtube has some songs by the old Brothers Four group at UCLA. The camera pans the audience. It was in the mid Sixties. You can see the audience is not only enthralled by the music. They’re happy to be “away” from the world for a while. Outside the hall….in the real world….
Sauron, like most (all?) Evil, lusts after the things that they can never have, to fill the hole in their being (soul?) where a conscience, morals and love can exist in even the most normal of men.
Sauron wanted dominion and power over all living things, and wanted immortality (which in some degree he had). Even Morgoth, who was “cast out” still lived, waiting until the breaking of the foundations of the world to have his fate determined by Eru (Judgement Day). Sauron wanted Power, the power to create, even in corrupted images, like the power of Eru and that which was granted to the Valar (Guardians of the World).
The mythological (metaphysical) themes that Tolkien touched on are found in the myths and religious stories of a variety of cultures. The struggle of Good versus Evil, the struggle for virtue, the story of courage against almost insurmountable odds. Our ideas of heroism, where we are incorruptable struggling against evil, still find play in our own beliefs in politics today, as modern politics have become a kind of vulgar secular religion.
The style of storytelling is not unlike the epic poetry from the dawn of Western civilization. Much of the history of “Middle Earth” is told to the reader in poems and songs, not unlike Homeric tales of Odysseus and the Trojan war.
In a hundred years, Tolkien and his books may be forgotten or totally ridiculed, as our society changes and mutates. But to paraphrase what the guy said in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”, ‘when the myth is better than the truth, print the myth’. We want to believe myths because they are frequently better stories than the truth. We all want to believe myths about ourselves, our ancestors and our country too, just because.
My friend who works at the theater won’t let me in anymore. I’ll wait for him to buy it, then borrow sometime.
Deuteronomy 29:29 ►
New International Version (©1984)
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Proverbs 25:2
New International Version (©1984)
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
……………
There are two kinds of will to power. The first is the will to power over nature. This will to power God blesses–because the better we understand the laws of nature the better we understand God’s law. God for ordained this in any case: Genesis 1:26 ►
New International Version (©1984)
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
The second will to power is the will to be God. This is what Satan, one of God’s angels wanted before he was kicked out of heaven. In the LOTR mythology it appears that satan is analogous to– according to 14. Subotai Bahadur — ” Melkor, who sought to control the Flame Imperishable [a combination of life and free will]. ” Either way, God does not bless this will to power.
Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they wanted to “be like God knowing good from evil.” Genesis 3:5
Genesis 3:22 ►
New International Version (©1984)
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
All men are born into the curse of Adam.
One of the many gifts that Jesus gives to Christians is the ability to choose NOT to do evil–for christians have evil in them same as anyone else.
Romans 7:21-25
New King James Version (NKJV)
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
22. David
We all want to believe myths about ourselves, our ancestors and our country too, just because.
…..
It is not just because.
Great stories give people the courage to live.
Courage makes everything else possible.
It is after all Bilbo’s valiant but almost implausible out of character effort at the end to save Thorin Oakenshield that makes the rescue by the eagles possible.
All Night by Alvin Darling and Celebration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpaSZSYzbZM
imho this bit of gospel kicks.
My brother – obsessive rock&roll&surf&ChetAtkins guitarist and painter of fiendishly detailed landscapes & wildlife – discovered the same Ballentine “unauthorized” versions of Tolkien’s works in the spring of 1966. He read the books to me and our mother for months.
As kids we had previously (circa 1960) discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs books mouldering in the SeaBee base library (Port Hueneme, CA.) Burroughs’ family evidently were living off the loot from his TARZAN movies, and never bothered renewing the copyrights. I’ve gone out and found first edition prints of a lot of of his novels – Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, et cetera – dating from the time of WWI.
The Donald Wollheim ACE editions of the Burroughs books that emerged in the mid-60s featured stunning covers by FRANK FRAZETTA, one of the most influential illustrators of our generation. (After Norman Rockwell, of course!) Mr. Frazetta had an un-matched ability to capture movement – a sword or axe trailing an arc of carmine arterial blood; or the drama of confrontation in the moment that a ruthless demon notices a challenging hero; or the intoxicating beauty of a voluptuous barbarian princess, facing a twitchy tiger with naught but a bitty blade and a brazen bra.
But Tolkien’s prose has a majesty far beyond the pot-boilery of ERBurroughs. The themes of steadfast perseverance and dedication to a quest beyond the self reverberates in a generation of people who see their culture descending into an abyss of hedonism and indulgence. A lot of the hippies and freaks must have simply enjoyed the novelty, just as many of them took up hallucinogens as a diversion. The idea that the potential transformative power of literature or mescaline might lead to epiphany or transcendent vision seems to have whizzed past most of them.
As a filmmaker/animator I am humbled and awestruck at the work of Peter Jackson and the dedicated company of artists he has attracted. They have managed to cohere and maintain and even distill a soaring reverence now over a decade and more for translating the work of Tolkien into the medium of the motion picture.
Whatever fears or doubts I had about whether Wingnut films could match (much less surpass) the Ring trilogy All melted with the first deep resonating chords of the song of the Dwarves after they’d cleaned up from their untidy meal in Bilbo’s hobbit-hole. That music gave the scene unexpected emotional depth and urgency, and managed to echo memories of a rich history, and a PAST for these characters.
Those guys know how to weave a story.
I’ve been trying to remember a line. It was something like, “I feel like the last bit of butter being spread on toast. I’ve been spread so thin you can see through me.”
It’s from the LOTR, when Bilbo realizes he is living an unnaturally long life, not from more life but as if the same life were being extended like a rubber band.
As a hippie in college in the 1970s, I tried reading The Hobbit but lost interest after about 30 pages. I’ve never cared much for fiction.
I bought No Way In but haven’t gotten around to reading it. I spend too much time on the internet.
Subotai Bahadur @ 14 said:
“The creation of the universe by Eru Ilúvatar is arguably far more poetic [and definitely musical] than the Genesis story. … he created the Ainur who are roughly equivalent to archangels with the power to create beings themselves, beings who could be touched by Eru and given independent existence. Among the Ainur was Melkor, who sought to control the Flame Imperishable [a combination of life and free will]. Melkor revolted, and was cast out. … Sauron, the prime antagonist in LOTR, was merely one of Morgoth’s lieutenants.”
Tolkien the devout Catholic tried to clean up some logical inconsistencies with his own version of the Genesis story. The classic logical contradiction with Genesis was that God created everything including Satan who was the creator of all evil. Unlike mortal men, angels like Satan did not have free will and therefore Satan’s rebellion was the act of a puppet. Tolkien dodged this logical contradiction by having Eru Ilúvatar creating the Valar (most powerful of the Ainur) and granting them free will to create celestial music. Each Valar created its own voice in this celestial polyphonic music. Melkor was the greatest of the Valar and contributed to the celestial music by adding a dissonant voice thus providing contrast against the other voices (Melkor’s contribution actually made the celestial music better). After the celestial music was completed, Eru Ilúvatar invoked his creative power by causing Middle Earth to come into being using the celestial music as a prototype. After Middle Earth was created, many of the Ainur chose to leave Eru Ilúvatar’s immediate presence and live in Middle Earth. Those Ainur were effectively “fallen angels” but none of them (including Melkor) had actually opposed Eru Ilúvatar but chose instead to serve him on Middle Earth. After coming to Middle Earth, the different Valar performed roles as demigods that were consistent with their original voices in the celestial music. As Subotai Bahadur said, Sauron served as Melkor’s lieutenant in fulfilling Melkor’s realization of the original celestial music. Sauron was a maiar which was a lesser Ainur. As an aside, Gandalf, Saruman and the Balrog were also Maiar (supposedly wizards like Gandalf had most of their power removed after they assumed human form). Melkor was never actually destroyed but was instead pushed beyond the confines of Middle Earth (presumably sent back to Eru Ilúvatar to rejoin the other Ainur). After Melkor’s departure, Sauron assumed Melkor’s function as the prime driver of discord in Middle Earth.
With this as the back story: Here’s my favorite Tolkien theological question:
Who was the most powerful being on Middle Earth?
The obvious answer is Tom Bombadil.
Tolkien fanatics love to argue over what exactly was Tom Bombadil. Some argue that Bombadil was Eru Ilúvatar in human form. I believe Tolkien would have rejected that explanation as impious. Bombadil had total mastery over the ruling ring which implied he was stronger than Sauron. This implies that Bombadil was a Valar and not a Maiar. My own theory is that Bombadil was a Valar who chose a passive halfway position between the Valar who came to Middle Earth as active demigods versus the Valar who remained with Eru Ilúvatar.
This leads to an interesting LotR’s gee-wiz: Sauron’s defeat was partially enabled by the Witch-king of Angmar (the leader of the Nazgûl) being killed by Éowyn. However Éowyn was able to kill the Witch-king only because the Witch-king had just been stabbed by Merry Brandybuck with an elven dagger (the Witch-king would normally have been immune to an ordinary sword). The elven dagger was given to Merry by Tom Bombadil.
If you read between the lines, you’ll see Tom Bombadil peeping around the edges of the entire LotR story. I’m convinced that Tolkien did this deliberately with Tom Bombadil performing the analogous role of an “Easter Egg” in a complicated computer software.
David @22
“We want to believe myths because they are frequently better stories than the truth. We all want to believe myths about ourselves, our ancestors and our country too, just because.”
I interpreted your comment to mean that we believe myths because they illustrate the stories in which we play what Wretchard calls our second life, our part on the Road, our fate.
The reason we consider myths to be better stories than what you called the truth (which I read as our “first life”, the mortal one concerned with getting through daily life) is because they acknowledge that we all play a role in how the world evolves. Even bystanders, a la Milton, “serve”.
#14 SB-
Agree wholeheartedly regarding The Silmarillion. And the one story in that collection that will truly never be made into film is Akallabeth.
In this story, the Elrond and Elros, twin brothers from a marriage between elf and human, are given a choice when they reach the age of maturity. Remain elven, and be unaging and immortal (absent death by violent trauma) but be bound to Middle Earth, or become human and know that you will be given a lifespan five times longer than most other humans but eventually age and die and receive the gift of the Valar (the equivalent of Christian heaven). Elrond, of course, chose the former, hence his appearance in all the later stories.
It is the story of the brother and his descendants that the left could never tolerate being put out in popular form.
Elros, being a person of good soul, chose the latter option, and was given a large continent off the coast to populate with his heirs. For a long time his people, Numenor, prospered, becoming the most powerful and advanced civilization of men that had ever existed. However, eventually they lost faith in the Valar, and came to hate the fact that they were mortal, resented his choice, hated children because they were a drag on their own joy and because they were a constant reminder of their own impending demise and death, and so stopped having them with any vigor or numbers – and when they did have them, they sent them away to be raised by others. The few that remained faithful to the ideals of their forefathers were persecuted and banished. Eventually, the Numenoreans became so “aggrieved” and so angry at the fact that they couldn’t be godlike and immortal that they mounted a military expedition to conquer the elves and the gods. They sailed forth with a huge navy and sailed across the sea to mount the attack, only to find that the gods really didn’t care too much about them anymore. However, for their cheek, their island was destroyed by the gods, their navy and almost all of their people were killed, and the only tiny band of survivors from the entire nation was the persecuted band of the faithful that they had cast out previously, who never lost sight of the fact that with the long life and success came great responsibility and the need for humility before the cosmos.
Really, can you see Hollywood making a movie out of that?
How utilitarian is culture? The religions, the myths, and such? In the History of the US there have been several religious “awakenings.” I wonder if there will be another one and I wonder if it will be confined to the US? There seems to be a growing anger from both the very religious and the “only religious” on holidays groups at the aggressive tactics of the left and atheists attacks on God centered religions in the US….except for Islam of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Awakening
Whitehall @ 5 – Maybe the issue is the difference between fiction and non-fiction. I read very little fiction, preferring non-fiction, particularly biography.
Why just read about fire breathing dragons, when you can use the inspiration of heroic men (John Winthrop, George Washington, Taffy Three, Churchill, or Shackleton for instance) to do your own heroic deeds, such as extinguish the Hell Fires of Kuwait, KILLING REAL FIRE BREATHING DRAGONS?
You need to leave school and go out into the Real World eventually.
For me the Hobbit that reached me first was the 1977 animated one. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/) It is still one of my favorite versions of the story even though it is obviously abridged. I think I read the Hobbit for reals back in 4th/5th grade (1989/90) and with one of the earlier editions than my time period, but definitely post the “Lord of Rings” edits. (I.e. never heard of the earlier version of the riddle game until I was much older)
To me the Hobbit was always a small, self-contained story, that while fitting into the larger world, was a quick “one shot” adventure. The Animated version does a good job of just rolling it all up into an adventure that kids can get and I look forward to sharing with my children.
Americans in particular like to view themselves as pragmatic or utilitarian. The history of the “awakenings” are periods when perhaps the majority actually cast about for more metaphysical or spiritual meanings to life. Pragmatism can be a great asset, but also a great blindness to the deeper needs of men, beyond our daily bread.
There is a great and overarching need for a metaphysical philosophy for Americans to grasp that will unite our past, present and history into system of values and beliefs that encompass our most cherished myths and make them something which can be applied to the concrete, the real world. We all like to hold onto the myths of our families and friends (to a degree), and Tolkien offers us myths about those things that are so nebulous but so real; courage, love, loyalty, friendship, honor.
All these things seem to be in somewhat short supply these days, because there is no ‘mythos’ or underlying metaphysical story that ties these things together in a national story. Revisionism in America constantly re-writes the past into whatever is most convenient to explain the present. We are now in the middle of another “re-write” of history to justify what those in power now wish to do TO us.
A stronger grasp of our metaphysical values (a stronger philosophical grounding) of what America truly is would help innoculate us against the coming tragedy of revisionism that will sweep away much of our past, re-write it to justify a new tyranny.
Or maybe it’s all a bad dream and we will wake up tomorrow to find it has passed away.
Subotai @ 14 – Strong women are not just figments of a politically correct culture. Here is an excerpt from Narrative of the Town of Machias by George W. Drisko pg 401
You Go Granny!!!
Middle Earth was populated with many race colors or creeds. By and large each group had its own economic specialties and kept to themselves. The underlying myths of the United States are powerful and liberating for all but as of late it has been taught that they were for European settlers by and large and that different ethnic groups needed to develop and retain their own myths.
The gifts of liberty that bind us all have been debunked by academia effectively enough that we are all treated to “blanket blank ethnicity month”. Cultural celebrations are as American as apple pie but they seem to have risen to the point that they go beyond pride of affiliation with closed groups to one of self-sense of superiority. Perhaps this is because as these old country cultural celebrations are becoming more strident we have seen the cultural institutions of the American heritage denigrated as in the negative circumspection of Columbus and even the founding fathers like Jefferson or Washington.
It is too late now for Hobbits to stay in the enclave of the shire. It will pass in time the enemies of man are all vanquished or, to spread the land evenly, Orcs will be bussed into Bree to upraise the sensitivity of the locals.
Perhaps, living in LA, the so-called melting pot,I am particularly vulnerable to the cultural isolation as a male of European ancestry. If I lived in Stoughton Wisconsin I might have already had it up to here with ludefisk and Norwegian celebration days.
egg @ 31: The obvious answer is Tom Bombadil.
Yet at the Council Galdor points out that Sauron can contort the very Earth and Bombadil would fall. The underlying mythos is the power of nature versus the power of technology – versus the power of God. Various religions including Christian heresies posit that the Earth is under Satan’s direct control because part of Satan’s error is concern with the mere material, over which he is the direct master, God being too far away to bother with us directly. I think this rather informs a lot of LOTR. IOW in the short term mastery of technology wins the battles, but perhaps yet loses the war. Variations on this are also the theme in C.S. Lewis, esp “That Hideous Strength”.
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am @ 39: Perhaps, living in LA, the so-called melting pot,I am particularly vulnerable to the cultural isolation as a male of European ancestry.
Yeah well me too, but I’m OK with it, Middle Earth was an interesting place to live and so is LA. The average LA high school has kids from 50 to 100 different nations and languages, the average set of grocery lines in a supermarket probably have a dozen. When I travel in flyover country and look around in a public venue, I get a strange case of unease that something is missing when everyone speaks normal English.
I am much less at ease watching the talking heads on ABC This Week right now, actually Greta Van Susteren just made sense for three sentences in a row, but most of the guests are pathological characters and dumb as rocks, dumb orcs following Obambus the Mouth of Sauron. They are mostly white males of European descent, or were before they were twisted into the service of the Hawaiian Lord.
#6 Josh
The Aragorn theme was such an important part of Tolkien’s narrative that such a drastic alteration of his character is why I can’t give a complete “seal of approval” to the film version. I could live with the CGI overkill, the sometimes overbearing musical score, the often clumsy attempts at humor, and even some of the other strange deviations from the original, but his “reluctant slacker” Aragorn makes me think Jackson doesn’t really understand the story Tolkien was trying to tell.
BTW, the Ballantine paperbacks were the authorized version, the “pirate” version was published by Ace.
#40 Josh
LA is beginning to resemble the LA of Blade Runner, without all the rain (and the hovercars, damnit).
Deferring the weighty aspects of the fight of Good and Evil over the Spirit of Man, I have seen both the 24 fps version and the 48 fps version. I think Jackson has taken a great risk running in 48 fps, and for the most part I see it as an exciting technical advance in film making. There are definitely some issues with the 48 fps version, all visual, and though they will not be so readily apparent to the average viewer, they will walk away with the perception that it looked different:
Some scenes appear over exposed with light, and I suspect it will take a few years for those working the lights to compensate for this.
The higher resolution brings forth greater details in little things, like sets and costumes. There are some really nice costume details that are brought out, and you can also spot a few ‘cheap pieces’: Gandalf’s hat being the most egregious one.
There also were some obvious blue screen backdrop moments in 48 fps where they are not so telling in 24 fps. A couple of scenes sort of puts us back to Dorothy and her band skipping towards a painted canvas or some memorable Charlton Heston biblical feature movies.
But all in all, I think the risk paid off and it puts Jackson and his team in command of a new technology. The depth is wonderful in the 3-D. And the details produced make the film stronger for the most part.
Thanks so much for this essay – I really like reading your work.
The Hobbit has a very special significance to me as my Daddy read it to my brother and me when we were very little. I remember it vividly (and I’m nigh on my fifth decade). He also read to us “Twas the Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” on Halloween.
When I saw The Hobbit movie was out, I made a date with my Daddy (now in his 70s) to see it with him….that was just last month. It was wonderful – the combination of earlier memories and making more memories surrounded by a wonderful story is unbeatable.
Not sure about the Thorin/Aragorn parallel. True, they were both kings without crowns who hoped to restore their dynasties to the throne. But Thorin eventually succumbed to his desire for the Arkenstone while Aragorn resisted all the temptations of the Ring. In fact, I think Aragorn was more interested in defeating Sauron, come what may, than he was in regaining the lost throne. A recurring theme in LOTR is leaders putting aside their personal/political interests in order to fight the common enemy. Thorin was unable to do this in the end, so maybe he’s more of a tragic anti-Aragorn.
I think Richard Aubrey in #21 has the best answer so far to my question about why the 60′s counter-cultural types were so enthused by the books.
Yes it was escapism plus the books had cultural and moral resonances in them FROM WHICH THEY WERE TOLD TO ESCAPE.
Hippies were told to NOT be heroic and to be relativistic but those values still live within us. They could read the books and believe yet still be politically correct in worshipping Timothy Leary and his “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” mantra. We all knew that the Viet Cong were evil Communists but sang “What are we fighting for? Well, I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam!”
The Weathermen were another reaction to the passive hippie philosophy. Wonder what Bill Ayers thinks of LOTR?
Whitehall,
Thanks for the mention. I should say that I was not in the counterculture. The civil rights demographic overlapped what was called “The Movement”, a loosely defined set of ideas which didn’t like war, liked marijuana, didn’t like college deans, did like flowers, didn’t like business but would like a job, and all in varying degrees of intensity.
Part of The Movement was civil rights and part was counterculture and some was individuals like myself who figured what the hell, or why not, or it’s a good idea, or getting whacked in MS would save a lot of trouble on the way to getting whacked in SEA. Where, I should say, I did not serve, having become a sole survivor in the fall of 1970.
I think the soldiers who read LOTR saw different things to admire, along with escapism. You couldn’t trust a hippy. There’s a reason morality was relative. It’s convenient. You could trust the Brotherhood. And maybe we’re looking for a Brotherhood, as Harry Potter is looking for a family.
I read these books to my kids when they were little and they still remember it when they are in their 40s. “Watership Down” is another great book for reading aloud to kids.
Which raises the question, why did the hippie-types so love these books?
Pipeweed
B71,
They went better with marijuana. Like some of those other-worldly posters.
I think the “peace and love,” “back to nature” type hippies were attracted first of all by the hobbits, depicted as gentle, non-combative types, living rather charming, rustic lives. Beyond that, the theme of slaying the dragon is archetypical, and has very broad appeal over many cultures and is practically timeless. Check out the stars, where Hercules faces off with Draco, for instance.
“The ‘signature’ formula for the myth of the divine hero who slays the serpent recurs in the same linguistic form. . . in texts from the Rig Veda. . . through Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Hittite myth, Greek epic and lyric, Celtic and Germanic epic and saga down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. The formula shapes the narration of ‘heroic’ killing or overcoming of adversaries over the Indo-European world for millenia.” Calvert Watkins, _How to Kill a Dragon_,OUP, 1995.
Richard Aubrey #21:
Those Youtube videos of folkies and Hootenanny from the 60s are among my favorites. They exemplify the truth that much that was described as 60s behavior was no such thing. Most of what ails us was post-60s.
Those college students panned by the cameras were so innocent, fresh-faced, and dressed like proverbial squares. They sang along like well behaved schoolkids during Assembly.
Dear Lord, could we as a culture return to those days…
As a vignette those videos belong on a thread about good and evil, and the loss of civilization, and the fight to restore what was lost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M10lwUDzoYA
@ 33 no mo uro
Not quite sure what your point is re: Hollywood. Also, you’ve omitted the minor detail that Sauron corrupted the Numenoreans and particularly Ar-Pharazôn and tricked them into attempting to attack Valinor.
Great analysis, but you should be careful about the degree to which you claim that Tolkien thought of The Hobbit as a precursor to LOTR in the beginning. For instance, Gollum gives up the ring willingly in the first edition of The Hobbit, and the ring itself is very far from being the all-consuming artifact it became. Tolkien re-wrote the chapter because his publisher didn’t want his epic of the elves (The Simlarillion) but rather another book about hobbits. So he rewrote key passages in The Hobbit to tie it more explicitly into the storyline of the new hobbit book, which eventually evolved into the LOTR.
You’re spot on in pointing out that all of those books, like Beowulf, straddle two eras. That dynamic is at its most explicit in The Hobbit. Bilbo is in essence a member of the 19th-century English landed gentry, like a character out of Trollope’s Barsetshire novels or Jane Austen. His universe is one of handkerchiefs, hot meals, and social circles, and the “contract” the dwarves draw up for him is a not-so-subtle mockery of his comfortable and unheroic world. Thorin Oakenshield, meanwhile, is cast from an almost pure Anglo-Saxon hero mould. The comedy of the story is in large part made up of the ironic contrast of those two worlds. Even Smaug the dragon gets in on this game. He slides into Bilbo’s style of speech rather easily for an ancient monster of yore (“Lucky numbers don’t always come off,” he tells Bilbo, as if he knew all about the Lotto). And Bilbo throws it back in his face, addressing him as, among other archaic sounding grand names, “O Smaug the unassessably wealthy,” as if his tax bracket could be appended to his list of heroic-age attributes.
Couldn’t care less. Not could care less. Sorry, that drives me up the wall.
Otherwise a good analysis–but what about comparing Thorin/Aragorn to Beren and the Silmarils?
Lord of the Rings is frequently at or very near the top of most lists of “best books of all time.” The best reason I have been able to come up with to explain this remarkable coincidence is that, in fact, the book is the best, or very near the best, book ever written.
I first encountered the books as a youngster, eleven years old I think, when I picked up a copy of “The Two Towers” from the local library. Having not read “The Hobbit” nor “Fellowship of the Ring” I quickly found myself confused and put it down for a couple of years. In High School I realized my error after talking with a friend and located “The Hobbit” which then sparked a desire to read “The Lord of the Rings” properly.
Now I was then, and am now, an avid reader. I began reading the “classics” at age ten. By the age of twelve I had read most of those “classics” including The Iliad, The Odyssey, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Gone with the Wind and anything else I could find that qualified as a “classic”.
As great as all of those books were, none of them exited my imagination and made my mind wander the fertile fields of imagination like the science fiction works of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury.
But when I finally did read “Lord of the Rings” I discovered a book that had all the depth, complexity, moral quandaries and character development of “the classics” and the epic scope, breadth and brilliant imagination of “Foundation” or “Childhood’s End.”
Back in those days LotR was not revered like it is today. I managed to convince most of my friends to read it, and they all became converts as well. Over time I saw more and more scholarly and critical re-examinations of the books until the books left the realm of “pulp fantasy” and entered the ranks of “great literature.”
For those who say that the books are “hard to read” I understand that Tolkien’s style is unorthodox and his descriptions are long and detailed. Many people don’t like to read a detailed description of a particular star-shaped white flower vine circling the head of a fallen statue as the setting sun’s last rays just happen to catch the scene and illuminate it for an exhausted and frightened hobbit, and so they may not catch the complex illustration of the power of imagery and symbolism to restore the failing spirits of a demoralized “every man” who knows the future holds nothing but “blood, toils, sweat and tears,” and yet is inspired to carry on in the face of overwhelming odds against them.
Those are the moments in LotR that many people miss if they tend to skip over Tolkien’s deliberately symbolic prose because they find it verbose or laborious.
I found it enchanting and would savor every word of such moments. I view Tolkien’s writing almost as if he were painting with a pen. His description of Frodo’s meeting with Strider is one of the great character studies in all of fiction.
The impact of “LotR” on our culture is hard to estimate. It could be argued that an entire multi-billion dollar gaming industry would never have developed had LotR not inspired a group of military history geeks to put aside their armies and instead recreate for themselves through role playing, the wonder and terror of the Fellowship in their basement on scraps of paper and using odd Platonic solids for dice.
There is no doubt that LotR is the single book that has inspired me more than any other. I have read it more than a dozen times and have enjoyed it every time. While all things have their detractors, I admit to having a sense of pride in having recognized the value of Tolkien’s magnum opus back when it was still being sneered at by the self-appointed cogniscenti.
The story will endure.
I’m sorry to say I think Jackson fails rather badly in this outing, and not only because the interminable first edition of his “Hobbit” films reminded me more of his bloated “King Kong” in 2005 than the relatively-sprightly (while still awfully long) “LOTR” films.
Jackson repeats an error that Tolkien himself made in the early 1960′s, when the author briefly attempted to re-write “The Hobbit” in the more serious style of “The Lord Of The Rings.” Tolkien gave it up as a bad idea after about three chapters (which can now be read in volume 2 of “The History of The Hobbit” by John D. Rateliff) for a number of reasons, not least being that Bilbo comes off as a bumbling fool who isn’t worthy of the reader’s interest.
Jackson ought to have taken that example to heart.
PS someone wrote:
>>It is unclear (to me) just what Sauron wants
Sauron specifically wants the destruction of Men. The Silmarillion gives a lot of good background on this.
Morgoth, Sauron’s boss, always hated Men(again, Beren stole the Silmarils, the curse on Hurin and his family, etc) even more than he hated Elves. I think this has to do with Morgoth’s fear of the Gift of Men (death and going to heaven to be with God).
After Morgoth was cast down, Sauron continued the work by seducing and destroying the Men of Numenor. Later Sauron was focused on finding and killing the heirs of Isildur, the Man who took the Ring. This was long before Sauron found Gollum and realized that the Ring had been found. So Sauron’s motivation seems to be all about ruining the lives of Men.
Just two cents from a nerd.
[BIT OF SPOILERS]
The Hobbit (film) has a much younger target audience. I still remember years ago, watching the FOTR trailer for the first time in a movie theatre and seeing little kids literally freaking out at the sight of the orcs. Nowadays Goblin Town denizens look cute and funny.
Also contrast the violent, creepy depiction of the troll attack at Balin’s tomb in FOTR, versus the Three Stooges-like scene in The Hobbit.
Radagast on a sled was also probably unnecessary.
I wonder how they’re going to stretch the rest of the book on two movies. Spread too thin like butter on too much bread, as the halfling said.
A great post, and here I would argue that this parallel of lesser story to greater story is another sign of Tolkein’s use of his works to point to the story of God’s redemption of mankind. As his friend C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, cultures are full of “good stories” which are useful in that culture for those who bring the Gospel to it to use as a point of understanding, and of course these particular good stories were written purposefully by a believer to be one of those points; by the grace of God his work has achieved legendary status. And, I would argue, this is why so many from the generations succeeding Tolkein’s writings have been able to latch onto it: it rings true against the general revelations of truth written on our hearts. Ultimately, again as Lewis would say, these little stories of shadow will give way to the real, greatest story which is set to begin.
“The Hobbit” was contemporaneous with R.E. Howard’s burgeoning “Sword and Sorcery,” a more genre and fan-based take on fantasy, with the emphasis on fun.
Tolkien’s eventual accomplishment largely rests on the fact that he put just enough “fun” into the staid and rather sensible field of a more mainstream take on fantasy to make it palatable to genre-based fans and enough staid sensibility to make the later LOTR appeal to the mainstream.
Howard’s legacy ruled the roost into the ’70s and then collapsed. Today the great majority of fantasy is, sadly, based on a single literary ancestor, Tolkien, and conformity rules. Howard’s legacy permeated comics and fantasy literature and there was not a sign of genre-fan interest in Tolkien until the early ’70s, and that was quickly overhauled and subsumed by LOTR as a new generation came of age.
@ 31 – Eggplant
RE: Merry’s weapon used against the witch king
Merry was not given a dagger by Tom Bombadil. The dagger used by Merry was recovered from the Barrow Wights, and was made by the Dunedain. The dagger was destroyed once it struck the nazgul, but was not made specifically for that purpose. All the 4 hobbit members of the fellowship carried the same daggers from the Barrow encounter, up until Frodo exchanged his for Sting, given to him by Bilbo at Rivendell.
Tolkein references the unknown maker of the Dunedain dagger, who would have been humbled knowing the significance of the blow it ended up striking.
I saw Aragorn as GW Bush, fighting an unspeakable evil that would destroy all, and reduce all to servitude of Morgoth/Sauron(Allah) with its chosen ones as the Mouth of Sauron.
That works for Thorin too. The unspeakable evil of Smaug must be fought. Though it sleeps for a time, that is the time to gather forces for battle, even if battle looks daunting.
We have only to choose what to do with the time that is given us…
Merry’s dagger was indeed selected by Tom Bombadil, and given to Merry-
and LOTR-RotK states that the enemy of Arthedain was Angmar, that no mightier weapon would have dealt the Witchking so deadly a wound, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews.
Now THIS is cultural criticism. The blatherings of Andrew Klavan and the other would-be culture critics on this site are but roach farts in comparison.
We went to see The Hobbit on Christmas Eve. I like many of you was at that critical age when I first discovered it. My History teacher in Jr. High recommended it, and then I became hooked. I eventually wore my copies of the Hobbit and LOTR out re-reading them.
And then I went in another direction and into the real world and left it behind. Only later did I read some of the commentaries and of Tolkien’s experiences in the Great War. He began LOTR as Hitler ascended to dominance of Western Europe. Sauron had risen and Tolkien as a Christian used this as an allegory.
The diptych is the great masterwork of modern, and perhaps all mythic storytelling. It is like the mail shirt of mithril; seamless, almost perfect and an intellectual shield against hopelessness and lack of faith. Tolkein was the world’s experts on Northern European mythology, and I’m sure was very well read across it and related fields. I don’t think anyone else would have had the clarity of vision, background, or skill to have thought out so complex and whole a world.
The themes are as complex and as simple as the great books. Great quests. The heroics of the everyman and of flawed heroes. Loss and Redemption. And underlying this as in his great friend Lewis’ fantasies, an incredibly well reasoned and rock solid faith in Christianity and redemption that underlies it all.
The issue of faith is never mentioned except between the characters themselves, but underlies the entire enterprise.
WRT the Jackson changes to Aragorn’s story/motivation, I always saw that as a nod to contemporaneous sensibilities concerning egalitarianism and entitlement. The idea that Aragorn should feel entitled to just walk into Gondor and claim his throne by birthright is contrary to today’s almost universal popular disdain for privilege. Likewise, the idea that this right is based upon his being one of what is basically a superior bloodline of humans (the Numenoreans) carries too many racist overtones. This is, IMHO, was also much of the reason for the changes to the Faramir/Frodo story. The idea that Faramir was able to resist the ring because “the blood of Numenor ran truer” in him than Boromir would have been a hard sell.
It should be noted that Jackson is working off the revised version of the Hobbit. When Tolkein wrote the original, in the mid-1930s, it was quite different from the later version in terms of its treatment of the ring. In the original, the ring was nothing more than a trinket and Gollum was willing to part with it. In the second edition, Tolkein writes in the preface that Bilbo had, in fact, lied to Gandalf and Frodo about the nature of the ring. The second edition represents the “true” version of what happened. This makes it more of a prequel to LOTR. When I first saw the trailer for Jackson’s movie, my first thought was “This isn’t the Hobbit, this is 2941, Third Age.”
67 submandave:
Agreed. Also, this might be heresy among Tolkein fans, but I think Tolkein’s Aragorn is boring. He is all resolve and purpose and cold practicality. Making him question his purposes and come to accept his role over the course of the film made him more empathetic.
In contrast, I don’t at all understand or agree with Jackson’s decision to make Elrond more wishy-washy. Whereas Aragon who as written is boring became more human abd likeable, Elrond who was fine as written became whiny and annoying.
Chris, my take is as follows:
Aragorn – Dull, boring, bureaucrat
Strider – All kinds of awesome!
He “could care less”? Then perhaps he should.
That’s terrible writing.
You’re making the error of treating evil as a thing. See this video for a further explanation. (Just as one need not believe that Socrates actually said everything Plato attributed to him in order to appreciate the arguments in Plato’s writings, one need not believe that a young Einstein is the source of the argument in the video to appreciate it. Also, the argument in the video does not prove the existence of God. It proves the error of one argument that attempts to refute the existence of God.)
False. Because you referred to Tolkein’s Catholicism, I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially #391 through 393.
You suppose there’s a “logical contradiction” only because the physics of eternity is only partially revealed to us on this side of the veil and therefore is only poorly understood by us. Eternity is timeless and therefore change as we experience change here in time does not occur within eternity. When we mortal men pass into eternity, our choice to be with or away from God will become fixed eternally. Angels have free will just as we do but because their existence began in eternity, their exercise of free will happens and concludes all at once* rather than happening over the duration of an earthly life and concluding when that life ends with the passage into eternity.
*The phrase “happens and concludes all at once” is metaphorical because eternity lacks time as we know it.
Went to see The Hobbit in 2D this past weekend and, while I don’t think I liked all the changes in the storyline, I did find it good as entertainment. Just go with the flow.
I was skeptical that The Hobbit should have been planned as three full-length movies but I doubt that I’d regret going to see the rest of them. Come to think of it, I think I may even be looking forward now to what each movie will bring (in spite of changes to the storyline). I think that is called success in movie making.