[Batrachian]

"Our present administration might do well to heed Gandalf's caution that there is no way to defeat evil militarily"

Except that the West of Middle Earth would have been overrun long before the Ring was destroyed if not for military power. What a shallow, self-serving lesson to take from The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf was no pacifist and councelled anyone who would listen to resist with all their capabilities. It was only because Sauron was so much stronger that they couldn't defeat him militarily, not because "violence is wrong".

Does the author of this piece think that we can defeat Osama Bin Laden by destroying his ring?

[ClearCase_guy]

Gandalf was no pacifist

Indeed. Gandalf was the keeper of the elven ring Narya the Great, the ring of fire. It has always seemed obvious to me that the power of this ring was to keep hope burning in the hearts of the Free Peoples. Gandalf has been moving against Sauron for (if I rememeber correctly) 2000 years and he is no pacifist. He worked to destroy the dragon Smaug -- because Sauron might have used Smaug in the coming War. Gandalf urged the White Council to drive Sauron from the fortress of Dol Guldur, and he awakens Theoden to fight against Saruman, and urges Denethor to prepare for war against Sauron.

Pacifist! Hmmmphhh! The wizard burns with the desire for Freedom.

[radiohead]

Our present administration might do well to heed Gandalf's caution that there is no way to defeat evil militarily"

The author is an idiot. What Gandalf meant was, in their world there exists a magic ring with a mind of its own; military might wasn't the only thing that was going to defeat Mordor. They could slaughter all the orcs they wanted, and Mordor and its evil would still be around as long as the ring existed.

Gandalf, who had no problem fighting in battles himself, obviously didn't mean that we shouldn't use military might when necessary. How the heck else are you to save yourself from evil at your doorstep?

Note to author - The Lord of the Rings is not a fairy tale. Tolkien was creating a myth for England, a pre-history. That is not the same thing as a fairy tale. You might want to actually read the books.

[Chi-townChief]

It just occurred to me that the author may view the Ring as the religious fanaticism of the Islamonazis but he is too P.C. to spell it out.

[EFirmage]

You're right. Gandalf wasn't a pacifist, but he also knew that anything he, the Fellowship, or the armies of the West could do was simply a sideshow to the main event, which was as he called it, a fool's errand. It is foolishness in the eyes of a military power such as Sauron's to take a weapon of power and destroy it rather than trying to use it against the enemy. In that sense, the ultimate victory of Gandalf and his friends comes through a renunciation of power and violence. Only when the weapon of power is destroyed, rather than used, is evil ultimately vanquished. Isildur took a different path, and Sauron lived to fight another day as a result.

As for Osama, we're fooling ourselves if we think we can in any fundamental sense defeat his kind militarily. As long as the Middle East remains, for a variety of reasons, fertile ground for fundamentalist activity, and as long as the U.S. throws its weight around like the school bully, we shall be the favored target of an endless stream of Osamas. To be sure, we may kill Osama bin Laden, but to eliminate the threat of which he is but one example, we too shall have to renounce the use of our superpower military and convince the disenfranchised of the Middle East that we are not only not a threat but that we stand with them in THEIR fight for civil rights, democratic government (even when we don't like it), a decent standard of living, etc. Like Frodo's quest, this will be seen by power mongers at the Pentagon as a fool's quest. But, then, so were Gandhi's stance against the British Empire and the early Christian opposition to the Roman Empire.

What many readers of the Lord of Rings miss is the element of tragedy and futility that surrounds the heroic bits (e.g., the battle at Helm's Deep or the siege of Minas Tirith). Tolkien, as a reader of Germanic epics such as Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon, knew this heroic-tragic tradition inside and out. What makes being a hero heroic is precisely the fact that you know at the start that your efforts are likely to fail and yet you proceed anyway (examples are legion: Gilgamesh, Achilles, Hector, Beowulf, Siegfried, Byrhtnoth). In the pagan epics, failure is the end note; it's all about glorious failure, not glorious success. Tolkien's epic is different in that it is informed by a kind of grace, and that grace comes, as it does in Christianity, by adopting a path of renunciation that is foolishness in the eyes of the world. Nor is it only Frodo's errand that is foolishness. Gandalf senses, as no Germanic hero would ever have done, that Gollum might yet prove to be an important part of the story. Bilbo chose mercy rather than violence in dealing with Gollum, and Gandalf senses that in such mercy may well lie the key to the whole quest.

[EFirmage]

You're right. Gandalf wasn't a pacifist, but he also knew that anything he, the Fellowship, or the armies of the West could do was simply a sideshow to the main event, which was as he called it, a fool's errand. It is foolishness in the eyes of a military power such as Sauron's to take a weapon of power and destroy it rather than trying to use it against the enemy. In that sense, the ultimate victory of Gandalf and his friends comes through a renunciation of power and violence. Only when the weapon of power is destroyed, rather than used, is evil ultimately vanquished. Isildur took a different path, and Sauron lived to fight another day as a result.

As for Osama, we're fooling ourselves if we think we can in any fundamental sense defeat his kind militarily. As long as the Middle East remains, for a variety of reasons, fertile ground for fundamentalist activity, and as long as the U.S. throws its weight around like the school bully, we shall be the favored target of an endless stream of Osamas. To be sure, we may kill Osama bin Laden, but to eliminate the threat of which he is but one example, we too shall have to renounce the use of our superpower military and convince the disenfranchised of the Middle East that we are not only not a threat but that we stand with them in THEIR fight for civil rights, democratic government (even when we don't like it), a decent standard of living, etc. Like Frodo's quest, this will be seen by power mongers at the Pentagon as a fool's quest. But, then, so were Gandhi's stance against the British Empire and the early Christian opposition to the Roman Empire.

What many readers of the Lord of Rings miss is the element of tragedy and futility that surrounds the heroic bits (e.g., the battle at Helm's Deep or the siege of Minas Tirith). Tolkien, as a reader of Germanic epics such as Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon, knew this heroic-tragic tradition inside and out. What makes being a hero heroic is precisely the fact that you know at the start that your efforts are likely to fail and yet you proceed anyway (examples are legion: Gilgamesh, Achilles, Hector, Beowulf, Siegfried, Byrhtnoth). In the pagan epics, failure is the end note; it's all about glorious failure, not glorious success. Tolkien's epic is different in that it is informed by a kind of grace, and that grace comes, as it does in Christianity, by adopting a path of renunciation that is foolishness in the eyes of the world. Nor is it only Frodo's errand that is foolishness. Gandalf senses, as no Germanic hero would ever have done, that Gollum might yet prove to be an important part of the story. Bilbo chose mercy rather than violence in dealing with Gollum, and Gandalf senses that in such mercy may well lie the key to the whole quest.