Posted on 09/12/2011 4:17:08 PM PDT by HMS Surprise
Evidently John McCain couldn’t stay awake for the entire movie. If he had he would have discovered that the real heros in the battle for Middle Earth were not the kings, or queens, or any other establishment type. The real heros were the lowly hobbits of the shire, led by Frodo, a reluctant but lion-hearted and trustworthy warrior-poet who was capable of denying himself the corrupting influence of the ring of power.
John McCain, you are no Frodo.
(Excerpt) Read more at teapartytribune.com ...
Um... Actually Tolkien lifted the LOTR concept from Wagner's Ring Cycle.
So, you are arguing that there is zero, zilch, nada Christian narrative interloping within LOTR? My first instinct is to naysay, but I shall google first, then naysay.
Google results for: Lord of the Rings christian symbolism: 88 million results. The first few seem compelling to me. I’m going to go ahead and declare victory and await your official protest.
Maybe but there is MOST DEFINITELY a STRONG similarity between LOTR and Wagner's Ring Cycle. Tolkien denied it but his denial was lame. Very lame.
All artists steal, and especially fantasists. Tolkien didn’t invent trolls, he reimagined them. I am sure that McCain probably had trolls in mind when he called the Tea Party hobbits by the way.
Similarities between the works are superficial. The motivations of the authors are very different and therefore the motivations of the characters is too. While there are certain parallels, Wagner celebrated power and eros while Tolkien warned of the dangers of power and celebrated the value of true and loving service to others. The Ring Cycle ends dreadful and dark for most of the characters while most of the protagonists of LOTR mostly come to good ends.
LMAO!!! Funny, and a little bit scary..
That is too funny!
Wow, man. I´m havin´ a flashback.
Tolkien=Bible=Wagner????? Lighten up. Ya’ll could take the fun outta ice cream. Or is it sherbet,or sorbet, or frozen yogurt,or Heaven forbid ice milk???/s
Two things are wrong with your thesis. One, Sam took the Ring because it was too great a burden to Frodo. Everyone else coveted the Ring for the power it gave them. But not Sam. He took it simply to relieve a friend of his load. So Sam knew the corrupting power of the Ring, but took it anyway.
“So what,” you say. “Many others knew the Ring corrupted but coveted it and would gladly have taken it.” True. But they would have taken it for their own ends (even if those ends were ostensibly good). Sam, the selfless servant, had no such designs.
The second flaw in your argument comes from the fact that Sam WILLINGLY gave the Ring back to Frodo — even when he knew what it would do to him. Sam knew that the battle Frodo was fighting was one he had to win on his own. Sam himself had no such struggle to overcome. He could as easily tossed the Ring into the river of fire as he threw away a potato peel. It meant nothing to him. He was incorruptible.
I agree thsat it is simplistic to say Sam is THE hero of LOTR; there are many, including the valiant Frodo. But none — not even Galadriel, Elrond, or Gandalf dared to bear the Ring for fear of its taint. Sam did and survived intact.
Before he was sacked by Gollum, Frodo claimed the Ring for his own aloud. He was going to walk out of Mount Doom wearing the Ring of Power. As soon as he slipped on the Ring, Gollum hit him and then it was really on. Frodo lost the Ring to Gollum in the struggle and, exulting, Gollum danced over the ledge and into the Fires of Orodruin. Frodo warned Gollum that if he tried to take back the Ring, he would command him to be cast into the fire. As it happened, Gollum did fall in.
Sam held the Ring out before Frodo in Cirith Ungol and said he would be willing to share the burden with Frodo, if he'd let him. Instead, in a fit, Frodo snatched it from him. He took it before Sam could quite give it to him. Sam would have resisted the Ring for a long time. But even he, after wearing it, was not immune from the desire of possessing it. Frodo did give up the Ring willingly to Tom Bombadil. Who, after examining it and toying with it, returned it.
Actually, it’s arguable that even Bilbo gave up the Ring when he departed the Shire. But it had laid its claim on him, even though he seldom wore it and had no real notion of its power.
I still think that Sam was the spiritual force behind Frodo’s success in destroying the Ring. He was the unflinching, eternally loyal, none-too-bright but incorruptible conscience that kept Frodo from succumbing entirely to the lure of power. Maybe I give him too much credit but I’ve always thought of him as the salt-of-the-earth Everyman, whose sheer goodness is born of naivete as much as an almost Buddhist lack of Desire.
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