Posted on 11/06/2003 7:47:49 AM PST by Pyro7480
Divine Mercy in the Lord of the Rings
by Joseph Pearce
The Return of the King, the final part of Peter Jackson's blockbuster film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, will be let loose on an expectant nation this December. During the coming months, it will be watched by millions of movie-goers throughout the world, most of whom will be unaware that they are watching a film version of a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.
The work's author, J.R.R. Tolkien, was a lifelong devout Catholic who poured his Catholic heart into the writing of the myth that is now captivating a new generation, half a century after its first publication. Tolkien insisted that the fact that he as "a Christian, which can be deduced from my stories, and in fact a Roman Catholic," was the most important and "really significant" element in his work. Indeed, it's not difficult to discover the manifestation of Divine Mercy in The Lord of the Rings.
In this epic tale of good and evil, the great Ring of power must be destroyed otherwise it will be used by the Dark Lord Sauron to enslave all of Middle Earth. The hobbit Bilbo and then his nephew Frodo come into possession of the Ring from Gollum - a hobbit who has been reduced to a crazed and pitiable shadow of his former self through long exposure to the Ring.
With his trusty servant Sam, Frodo accepts the daunting mission of destroying the Ring by returning to the fire of Mount Doom, where it was forged by the Dark Lord. On their quest to reach Mount Doom in the heart of the evil land of Mordor, Frodo and Sam's steps are dogged by Gollum, who willing to do anything to regain possession of the Ring himself.
The issue then becomes do Frodo and Sam take matters into their on hands by killing Gollum, or do they show him mercy even though he poses a threat to them at points on their arduous journey?
Knowing his treacherous intent, Frodo had wished that Gollum has been killed: "What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!"
"Pity?" replied Gandalf, the wise wizard. "It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy." Gandalf believes Gollum is mystically bound up with the fate of the Ring. "My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least." (Caution: Spoilers ahead for those who haven't read the book yet!)
These words are recalled later by Frodo when he, too, has the chance to kill Gollum. Like Bilbo, Frodo also chooses the path of mercy over vengeance, and, like Bilbo, his charitable choice comes to "rule the fate of many." At the climatic moment on Mount Doom, Frodo finds that he cannot, at the very last, cast the Ring into the fire. On the very brink of success, he finds himself on the verge of final,and fatal, failure.
It is at this crucial moment that Frodo and Middle Earth itself are saved by Gollum who rushes forward and bites the Ring from Frodo's finger before falling into the abyss, destroying himself and the Ring in the process.
The scene is not only a triumph of divine providence over fate, it is the triumph of Divine Mercy, in which free will, supported by grace, is fully vindicated. According to Tolkien himself, Frodo has been saved "because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and had then done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do. He, and the Cause, were saved - by mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of pity and forgiveness and injury" (from Tolkien's Letters).
In the Church, the greatest manifestation of Divine Mercy is, of course, the Incarnation and the Crucifixion. At its deepest, Tolkien's myth serves as a reflection of this archetypal mercy. The journey of Frodo and Sam is emblematic of the Christian's imitation of Christ in carrying the cross.
Tolkien makes the parallel even more explicitly. "I should say," he wrote, explaining the final climatic moments on Mount Doom when the Ring is finally unmade, "that within the mode of the story [it] exemplifies (an aspect of) the familiar words: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive [those who] trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.'"
Furthermore, Tolkien makes the Christian dimension even more unmistakable in the fact that the climatic destruction of the Ring - and in consequence the destruction of the Dark Lord who had forged it - occurred on "the twenty-fifth of March." That's believed to be the date Christ was crucified. It is also, of course, the Feast of the Annunciation, the celebration of the absolute center of all history as the moment when God Himself became incarnate as man.
As a Catholic, Tolkien knew March 25 was the date in which God had "unmade" Original Sin, which, like the Ring, has brought humanity under the sway of the Shadow. If the Ring, which is unmade at the culmination of Tolkien's Quest, is the "one ring to rule them all... and in the darkness bind them," the Fall was the "One Sin to rule them all... and in the darkness bind them." On the twenty-fifth of March the One Sin, like the One Ring, has been "unmade," destroying the power of the Dark Lord.
It is very comforting in the midst of these dark days that the most popular book of the twentieth century, and the most popular movie of the new century, draw their power and their glory from the light of the Gospel.
Joseph Pearce is Writer in Residence at Ave Maria University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and author of Tolkien: Man and Myth (Ignatius Press).
I am modern (but not post-modern) when interpreting literature to the extent that I want to read the text. I distrust all statements made outside the text. Often they are self-serving, deliberately mis-leading, or just wrong. This includes statements by the authors themselves. "No man is a good judge in his own case."
My approach is, "What does a careful examination of the actual words really say?" Many times one is astounded by the discrepancy between the generally-accepted meaning and the message of the actual text. I believe this is necessary in order to show respect to the reality of the existing work, rather than an collection of beliefs which has gathered around it.
I disagree here. Perhaps the elves are an exception, but for the most part ALL the mortal characters struggle within themselves to choose good over evil. Even Sam, who is perhaps the purest of the mortal characters, has his faults - his treatment of Smeagol, for example.
You're welcome. Inviting me to a party is a sure way of getting a good donnybrook going. It helps to break up the monotony (or to break up the monogamy as Archie Bunker would say).
Thanks. I wrote that research paper in 1977...;-)
But, as a Christian, I believe the struggle between good and evil is the Christian Gospel. And gnosticism, Hinduism, etc. etc. is merely a poor reflection of that same struggle of good and evil.
Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life." Any other retelling of the struggle between good and evil, even LOTR, is a mere shadow of the Gospel story.
As was discussed in a couple of other posts, I'm considering the Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion was neither completed by Tolkien nor published during his lifetime. Much of the "metaphysics" in The Silmarillion never occurs anywhere in the Lord of the Rings. When they make a movie of the Silmarillion, we can discuss that work.
If I am not mistaken (another geek will correct me), the Humans have souls, it was the nature of their choice and a gift that was given them, the Gift of Men, mortality, with the knowledge that their souls live on, the Elves don't have that, they are immortal, are bound to Middle Earth and when they die, they are gone.
I'm pretty certain that even in the Silmarillion your discussion of the souls of men and elves never occurs. And what sort of strange beings would elves be if they had no souls? Immortal but without souls -- sounds more like vampires. What about the hobbits, the dwarves, the ents, and even the orcs -- do they have souls? With such a simple yet fundamental element missing from the story, one cannot really consider it "Christian" in any way.
Geek here.
The Elves have spirits (although perhaps not souls as we would define them) that proceed to the Halls Of Mandos upon death. The Halls are within the circle of Ea (Earth) and therefore are not precisely analogous to heaven. Elvish spirits may be rebodied by the will of the Valar, but with one exception (Luthien) may not return to Middle Earth. Elves are bound to Ea, and likely even thier spirits will perish with it were it to perish, although this is not explictly stated in the texts. Based on the statements of Galadriel, the Ents may share a common fate with the Elves.
Human souls proceed through the Halls Of Mandos upon death, not stopping until they have breached the Door of Night and attained the void where Eru dwells outside the circles of the world. From thence, no one knows what becomes of them, and none have yet returned who passed the Door.
It is not written that Dwarves or Orcs have any immortal parts. The fact that they are lesser orders of creation, having been created by the works of the Valar rather than Eru, seems to reinforce this notion.
Geek out.
Glorfindel was an exception as well. Tolkien wrote that the Glorfindel who died killing a balrog in the fall of the elves' hidden city (the name of which escapes me at the moment) was the same Glorfindel as met Aragorn and the hobbits at the Ford of Rivendell.
Hmmmm....would be an interesting "twist" if Haldir would show up at the end of the ROTK to escort the party to the Grey Havens.
I forgot about him...maybe because he wasn't in the movie. ;-)
I recall reading somewhere that Tolkien produced this resurrection inadvertantly by using the same character in different roles, apparently without forethought. He then invoked the Valar to explain the contradiction. After all, Glorfindel was certainly a special guy. Now why he got a better deal than Luthien (who had to die a second time) I can't say. Luthien should try to get her money back.
The city was Gondolin. It gets a quick mention in the Hobbit.
Ereinion Gil-galad was the last High Elven King's name. He was Turgon's son, if I remember correctly. Turgon being the king of Gondolin.
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