If I recall correctly, there is a moment in the Helm's Deep battle in the book when the orcs start slinging the severed heads of the defenders they have killed back over the walls into the keep as a tactic intended to create despair. "Gentle medievalist" indeed!
"Gentle medievalist" indeed! Tolkien understood, in a way that Ebert never will, just how serious the battle against evil really is.
Ebert was shaped by the mold of morally relative postmodernist thought. Unless he can overcome that -- which is doubtful -- he will never "get it" when it comes to Tolkien.