“Using your line of analysis, Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” is anti-Christian.”
“You said it, not me.
But now that you mention it ...”
This back-and-forth illustrates - unwittingly perhaps - why so many less religiously inclined citizens lump Christians together with the Flat Earthers.
Before we know it, mkjessup will be shaking his/her finger at the forum, warning (in the tones and cadences of the illiterate backwoods preacher) that eternal damnation and hellfire will be our lot, less’n we stop wastin’ time readin’ them durned novels, which surely be tools of the Divvil.
Both respondents may have a passing familiarity with J.R.R. Tolkien’s _The Lord of the Rings_ but they haven’t the slightest knowledge of the late philologist’s worldview, his conception of morality or civilization, nor indeed the basics of the fantasy world he envisioned.
Orphaned by the age of ten, Tolkien was a childhood convert to Roman Catholicism and obtained most of his education courtesy of English Catholic organizations.
Many have sung praises for the realism - everyday, gritty, or terrifying - of the world he imagined and brought to life in his two most popular works; he did take great pains to ensure the physical details of Middle Earth were accurate, coordinated, and consistent.
But what is less recognized is the extreme care he took to construct a moral order for his imaginary universe; his additional work in the genre - less polished than _The Lord of the Rings_ - goes into surprisingly fine detail on creation, deity equivalents, angelic entities, the hierarchies that governed all of them, even religious rites observed by lower beings, mortal and immortal.
He just didn’t bother to include much of that backstory, or undergirding, in either _The Hobbit_ or _The Lord of the Rings_.
Of far greater import to the topic at hand is the possibility of finding any moralistic message in Tolkien’s work.
Scholars of greater education and renown than I have opined that the entire tale cycle - it covers thousands of years - is a tragedy.
Those who remain faithful to the legitimate moral order are rewarded. Sometimes it comes to pass only at length; meanwhile, their sufferings, dilemmas, and crises can engender despair in the stoutest of hearts.
Those who rebel - even those who do so for understandable (or at least forgivable) reasons, such as impatience or overmastering passion, to assail an undoubtedly evil enemy - ultimately fail.
Self - seekers who gather power unto themselves, for reasons of vanity or unwarranted aggrandizement, march willfully to their own ruin.
Literary critics and academics are free to disagree.
But the basics are quite accessible, especially since J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher has complied, edited, and published _The Silmarillion_, and numerous additional volumes of his father’s writings, many unfinished.
Pleasant reading.
"Using your line of analysis, Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" is anti-Christian."
"You said it, not me."
"But now that you mention it ..."
This back-and-forth illustrates - unwittingly perhaps - why so many less religiously inclined citizens lump Christians together with the Flat Earthers. Before we know it, mkjessup will be shaking his finger at the forum, warning (in the tones and cadences of the illiterate backwoods preacher) that eternal damnation and hellfire will be our lot, less'n we stop wastin' time readin' them durned novels, which surely be tools of the Divvil.
Welllll now, looks like my comments ended up causing you to get your panties all messed up in a big fecal mess did you?
Your own anti-Christian bigotry is a sad thing to witness, let's see
"illiterate backwoods preacher", "Christians and Flat Earthers", "tools of the 'Divvil'," you are the 'tool' no doubt, but not quite sharp enough for any demonic purposes.
Work on that.
SO very sorry if I rubbed your fur
(Warg fur of course) the wrong way, devoted LotR fan you surely must be.
Here, as the saying goes
'Lighten Up Francis' and relieve your premature exasperation with some lighter reading:
Oh yeah, and
Merry Christmas Smeagol! LOL