Any thread which can relate KFC in Iraq to Tolkien is enjoyable.

On the Tolkien rabbit trail though, allegorizing Middle Earth to anything in particular (Mordor as Saudi Arabia, Sauron as Allah) is selling the story short. Tolkien stated several times that he disliked allegory, and didn’t like his stories taken as such. His argument was that mythology should transcend a particular concrete time/place in human history. Rather than the Ring, Orcs, or Sauron corresponding to any particular evil (sin, industry, Nazi Germany), they should relate to all evil, at all times. The power of myth for Tolkien was to strip away all particular features that are accidental to human existence, use imagination to add in features of your own creation, and in so doing reveal the deeper fundamental truths underneath. Tolkien considered himself as a “sub-creator” when he wrote myth, creating a universe which was different from our own in every respect except for the most important ones, the great themes of the books.

That said, The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings are distinctly Western myths, and there is an uncanny resemblance to Europe (the Shire has a distinctly English feel to it). Any human action must come from its particular context. But the myth functions not by starting out recognizing Sauron as partaking of Allah, but by recognizing Sauron as partaking of evil, and when you add incidental flesh to the core truth, you can more clearly see Allah as partaking of evil. While the result may be the same, the myth allows the reader to apply the truths of the story on a universal scale. Suddenly, to the Western mind, Ancient Persia, Islam, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, can all be Sauron.

And that is how KFC and Tolkien can go together. Wretchard’s point about enjoying the little things while we have them mirrors the changing/enduring nature of Middle Earth in Galadriel’s “long defeat.” Suddenly, KFC in Fallujah is the same thing as Samwise Gamgee enjoying his brace of conies in Ithilien.