Tolkien’s Ring of Truth

Tolkien’s Ring of Truth

Set Tolkien’ own mythical Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings thrillingly contrasts the ageless desire for freedom and peace with the unquenchable lust for power and control

Once upon a time, in a far-off land long ago, a simple farmer found a golden ring inside a cave.  He found to his delight that the ring had the power to make him invisible when he was wearing it.  After the farmer discovered the golden ring’s magical property, he realized that he could use the power of invisibility to acquire anything he wanted.  He became a messenger to the king, and took advantage of his visit to the palace to seduce the queen.  Subsequently, the pair plotted against the king, murdered him, and took his kingdom.

No, the protagonist of this story isn’t Gollum or Isildur or Bilbo or Frodo, and the ring in question wasn’t forged by the Dark Lord Sauron.  Yet there is little doubt that this ancient legend – of Gyges and his magic ring – was part of the inspiration for the dominant theme in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic masterpiece The Lord of the Rings.

Plato’s The Republic recounts the story of the Ring of Gyges, as it was told by Glaucon to Socrates.  Glaucon argues that men are inherently unjust, and are only restrained from unjust behavior by the fetters of law and society.  In Glaucon’s view, unlimited power blurs the difference between just and unjust men.  “Suppose there were two such magic rings,” he tells Socrates, “and the just [man] put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast injustice.  No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.  Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, in focusing his tale on a magic ring like Gyges’, wrote perhaps the most brilliant and richly rendered portrayal of power and corruptibility ever conceived.  Tolkien’s ring, like Gyges’, corrupts and enslaves, even as it offers its owner invisibility and the temptation of unlimited powers.  In both tales, the ring may be viewed as a metaphor for power and its corrupting influence, and the point may be summed up by Lord Acton’s famous dictum “Power tends to corrupt and absolute  power corrupts absolutely.”

Roots of the Ring

One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, forward to The Lord of the Rings This essay takes a speculative look at how J.R.R. Tolkien’s service in the British Army during World War I may have influenced his fiction, particularly The Lord of the Rings. I first read The Lord of the Rings as an adult; at the time, I didn’t look beyond the surface of the story. What struck me later was how

This essay takes a speculative look at how J.R.R. Tolkien’s service in the British Army during World War I may have influenced his fiction, particularly The Lord of the Rings. I first read The Lord of the Rings as an adult; at the time, I didn’t look beyond the surface of the story. What struck me later was how much of it sounded like accounts of World War I. While The Lord of the Rings is clearly not an allegory of World War I, there are a number of similarities between it and the war that hint at a connection between them.

It is dangerous to assume that an author’s life experiences are directly reflected in his or her fiction. Tolkien is not a World War I writer in the sense that, say, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, or Ernest Hemingway are.  These writers directly portrayed their war experience in their stories and poetry.  Instead, Tolkien’s war experiences are sublimated in his fiction. They surface in the sense of loss that suffuses the story, in the ghastly landscapes of places like Mordor, in the sense of gathering darkness, and in the fates of his Hobbit protagonists.

Tolkien himself stated that the war had only a limited influence on his writing, he insisted, the book was a myth and an epic incorporating universal themes of good and evil. However, it is also true that people are shaped by times in which they live. I think it is likely that Tolkien drew on his memories of fighting on the Western Front while writing The Lord of the Rings – perhaps because at the time he was writing it, England was again engaged in total war with Germany, a war that in many ways was the continuation of the one in which he had served. Even though Tolkien denied that his writing was based on his life, he once wrote to his son Christopher regarding his war experiences:

… I took to ‘escapism’: or really transforming experience into another form and symbol with Morgoth and Orcs and the Eldalie (representing beauty and grace of life and artefact) and so on; and it has stood me in good stead in many hard years since and I still draw on the conceptions then hammered out.

Letter 73, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

World War I represented everything Tolkien hated: the destruction of nature, the deadly application of technology, the abuse and corruption of authority, and the triumph of industrialization. It interrupted his career, separated him from his wife, and damaged his health. Yet at the same time it gave him an appreciation for the virtues of ordinary people, for friendships, and for what beauty he could find amidst ugliness.

Tolkien’s initial foray into full length book writing, the straightforward fairy tale The Hobbit, grew out of words doodled on a page margin one day, which became the first line of his first novel: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” The hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, is one of a race of diminutive, furry-footed folk who live in underground dwellings in a blissful, agrarian land known as the Shire.  At one point in the story, Bilbo, lost in labyrinthine cavern and pursued by an evil recluse named Gollum, discovers a golden ring.  Just as, Gollum is about to overtake him, Bilbo accidentally slips the ring on his finger and Gollum rushes past without seeing him.  Realizing that the ring makes its wearer invisible, Bilbo uses it to escape from goblins who guard exits from the caves.  Later, he also uses the ring’s magical property to fool his friends, who have given him up for lost, and to rescue his companions from various predicaments.

The Ring Trilogy

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, set 60 years after the events in The Hobbit, opens similarly to the first novel, with a brief, sunny snapshot of life in the idyllic Shire – modeled after Anglo-Saxon England where hobbits live in peace and virtually without government.  As Tolkien explains in the prologue, “the Shire at this time had hardly any government”. Families for the most part managed their own affairs.  Growing food and eating itoccupied most of their time…. [T]here had been no king— for nearly a thousand years…. [But] they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules…. both ancient and just.” The Shire possesses only a mayor, with mostly ceremonial authority, and a force of 12 “shirriffs” who spend most of their time rounding up stray animals.

But the outside world, with its passions and power struggles, can’t be kept out forever.  Before long, the benign wizard Gandalf reveals to Frodo, Bilbo Baggins’ nephew and heir to his estate and his magic ring, that the ring is the property of Sauron, the Dark Lord of the distant and evil land of Mordor.  Sauron forged a number of magic rings in ancient times, and gave some of them to elves, dwarves, and mortal men “who desire power most of all”, with the aim of enslaving them all. The One Ring, wielded by Sauron himself, controls all of the others, and may only be properly used for the purpose of domination.  This ring, which Bilbo took from Gollum, was long ago taken from Sauron in battle.  But the mortal man who took it refused to destroy it when he had the opportunity.  Since that time it passed through various hands, always corrupting and betraying the bearer.  Even Bilbo has been affected: He flies into a demonic rage when Gandalf tries to persuade him to give the ring to Frodo, at last giving up the ring reluctantly.

The Dark Lord is now gathering his forces in another bid to enslave all of Middle-Earth, and is also searching for his lost ring, which he knows a hobbit possesses.  Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck flee the Shire one jump ahead of Sauron’s fearsome Ringwraiths, cloaked riders on black horses, who once were mortal kings to whom Sauron had given rings of power, and who had become his servants.

The “ring” cannot be used for its intended purpose except by its maker, Sauron.  As long as the ring exists, it allows Sauron to amass power, even when he is prevented from recovering it.  Middle-Earth’s free peoples have no hope except to destroy the ring, and this can only be achieved by casting it into the volcanic fires of Mount Doom, in the land of Mordor where it was originally forged.

Frodo, together formed the fellowship of nine, including Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck, Gandalf the Grey, and two mortal men, Aragorn, Dunedain Chieftain of Arnor, and Boromir son of Denethor II, the dwarf, Gimli, son of Glóin Treebeard, guardian of Fangorn, and Legolas, Silvan elf from Mirkwood embarks on a quest to take the ring to Mordor and destroy it.

Under the fellowship, they experience death of a friend, betrayal, and honor reborn.

Boromir

What have I done?
Forgive me ring bearer,
Power blinded and corrupted me.
I have failed.
I did not see. Katrina Nelson © January 2002

“But this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.” Galadriel to the Fellowship upon their arrival to Caras Galadhon.

The first book, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” ends with a chapter entitled, “The Breaking of the Fellowship.” The chapter opens with the Company trying to decide where next they should go. The original nine, reduced to eight with the loss of Gandalf the Grey in the Mines of Moria, have arrived at the end of their river journey. After camping on the west bank of the Anduin, they are rested but indecisive about their direction.

Frodo seems intent on heading east to Mordor, to destroy the One Ring in the fire in which it was made. But others in the Company would like to head west to the walled city of Minas Tirith. The decision sits heavily on Frodo’s shoulders, as the ring bearer. He asks for an hour to think before rendering his decision, and goes off for a walk. Meanwhile, the others stay by the bank of the river, discussing the matter. No one notices right away that Boromir has slipped off, following Frodo.

Boromir has been tempted by the power of the Ring. He attempts to persuade Frodo to bring the Ring to Minas Tirith. When that fails, he tries to seize the Ring by force. Frodo slips on the Ring and runs away, invisible. Boromir’s will returns, and he is overcome with grief at what he has done, yelling after Frodo, “What have I done? Frodo, Frodo! Come back! A madness took me, but it has passed. Come back!”

No where in the books does it tell of Boromir’s death even in the  “The Two Towers” only in the discovery of Boromir almost lifeless body by Aragorn slump against a tree with sword broken and Orc’s arrows in his body. But it is important to remember that he gave his life to protect the Hobbits.

The following was sent to me as an addition to the final chapter of “Fellowship of the Ring”. May you enjoy.

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“Frodo, come back-I’m sorry! COME BACK!”

The shouted words echoed endlessly along the ancient trees of Amon Hen, the grief and desperation behind them still evident even as their form faded away. In the moments which followed, the forest fell silent once more, save for the muted sobbing of the richly clad form sprawled beneath its wide, sheltering branches.

The men who had once followed Boromir, eldest son of the ruler of Gondor, heir to its stewardship and its most renowned and respected warrior, would have been startled to see the honored leader in his current disheveled condition. His wild shoulder-length honey-colored hair was strewn with tattered fragments of dry autumn leaves; his costly clothes were covered with the dirt and debris of the dusty forest floor. The rich green Elvish cloak which covered his sturdy frame was draped askew, tangled in with his travel-stained ankle-length leather vest. Even Boromir, ordinarily, would have been shocked at his present appearance.

On this warm fall afternoon, however, events were far from ordinary.

As Boromir wept with heartbreaking sobs into his gloved hands, his anguished mind replayed the horrifying moments just passed, as if to punish himself for the horrendous sin he had almost committed. The Fellowship had stopped to rest before continuing its journey into the hellish region of Mordor, where they hoped to destroy the Ring created by the dark lord Sauron. An object of unspeakable power, it was being carried by the stalwart Hobbit Frodo, who was its bearer and guardian. Ever since discovering that the long-lost Ring had been found, Boromir had been arguing for its use against Sauron rather than its destruction. Gondor had long been battling the dark forces of its neighbor

Mordor; here was the chance to end the bloody fighting and save his beloved kingdom and its crown city, Minas Tirith. Why not use the power of the enemy against him?

It seemed so clear, so logical, that he had turned aside all protestations against his idea. The Ring was a tool of the Dark Lord alone, he was told; it had the power to corrupt even the strongest heart, and anything done with it, no matter how good, would ultimately turn to evil. Boromir had brushed such talk aside, however, convinced it sprang from cowardice and folly. The frustration had mounted with every passing mile of their long journey, through mountains and snow and the depths of the earth, through fire and stone and bottomless grief, until today…

He choked back another sob, unwilling to remember what he had almost done. Surely, surely he had not tried to take the Ring from Frodo by force, throwing him to the ground as a killing rage consumed him. He had only wanted to talk to the Hobbit, persuade him through reason that the journey to Mordor was madness, that greater good could be done by preserving the Ring and lending it to him to defend Gondor. Boromir had never intended to harm him; he only wanted to make him *see*…

An icy sweat chilled his skin as he recalled what happened next. A furious rage unlike anything he had ever felt before had grasped his mind when Frodo had refused his request, and attacking the Hobbit to take the Ring suddenly seemed perfectly reasonable. His admiration of Frodo’s strength and bravery, his vow to protect the Ringbearer, all were forgotten. Only his blinding desire for the Ring, and the knowledge that little stood between him and the Ring except for a small, insignificant Hobbit, remained. And he had lunged at Frodo, willing to do anything if it meant that the Ring would be his.

Trembling, Boromir blinked and lifted himself a little from the cold woodland floor, his vision swimming through the bitter tears. How long had he lay there, weeping? Fear seized his heart; he had to find Frodo, to convince him that the madness was gone, to express as much as a human tongue possibly could the depths of his contrition. If something happened to the lad because of his folly…

Boromir climbed to his feet as quickly as the wearisome sorrow would allow, his wet gray eyes glancing in all directions. All around him towered the tall trees, falling yellow leaves fluttering through the sunlit air on their journey to rebirth on the ground below. There was no sign of another living being.

He swallowed, trying to collect himself, and wiped at his tear-soaked face as he looked around. Taking a deep breath, he glanced over his clothes and frowned with self-disgust at his disheveled state. More in an effort to order his thoughts through acivity than out of concern for his appearance, Boromir quickly brushed off his garments and drew his fingers through his long fair hair, pulling out the last few bits of dry leaves. His mind settled but his heart still heavy, he lifted his gray eyes and once more searched for his missing companion. “Frodo!” he called again, his voice rough, as he took a few steps forward. When no reply reached his ears, he paused and took a breath to shout again, but a thought stopped the sound in his throat. Even if the Halfling heard him, what chance was there that he would answer, given Boromir’s treatment of him? Shame swept over him, and the shout passed his lips as a melancholy sigh, but he walked on, too restless from guilt to stop. Perhaps Frodo would see that he was no longer in danger, and show himself.

His warrior’s mind began to form a strategy for his next course of action, should the Hobbit remain elusive. Should he go back to the others and confess what had happened? The idea caused him to shudder; he would almost rather march into Mordor alone than face the anger and accusations of his companions, once they found out what he had done.

Merry and Pippin! Boromir’s lips tightened as a burning sadness rolled over him. The two Halflings had earned a special place in the jaded warrior’s heart; during the course of their journey he had taken them under his wing, tutoring them in the arts of swordplay and seeing to their protection in times of danger. Their childlike exuberance had eased the burdens of his war-weary soul and reminded him fondly of his own little brother, Faramir, when they were both young and still unknowing of the evils of the world. What would they say when they learned he had attacked their cousin? His shoulders drooped a bit at the thought of their wide, bewildered eyes, full of astonishment at his betrayal. Would they ever forgive him? Bitter grief choked his heart; few punishments would be as hard to bear as the loss of their trust and friendship.

Aragorn, too, would be enraged and suspicious; he had seen Boromir’s behavior on Caradhras, had witnessed the Ring’s enticement of his heart. But he would also understand that it had all been for Gondor, that Boromir had only wanted to save their people. He hadn’t meant what happened, but once it had started…

Boromir shivered and wrapped his arms about himself, his eyes no longer seeing the bright fall afternoon shimmering around him. He hadn’t even noticed the madness invading his mind at the time, it had crept upon him so slowly, but now he could remember vividly how its cold fingers had so gripped his soul. One moment he had been quietly trying to persuade Frodo to help him; the next, a strange iciness had taken hold, and all concern for the Halfling’s well-being was simply gone. All that remained was the Ring, and his desire to possess it by any means possible.

He walked on, his thoughts still turned inward, his booted feet plodding dully along the leaf-strewn forest floor. It had been such an odd feeling, like being submerged in a frozen lake full of black water. He trembled at the searing memory of the emptiness which had brushed his heart. There had been no light there, not even the light of hope for Gondor; the driving desire for the Ring had blotted even that from his mind. But at the time, the blindness had not seemed noticeable; it was only now, in the brightness of reason, that he could see how closely the corruption had come to consuming him.

Boromir stopped, blinking as the sunlit forest around him swam back into his sight. He gulped the warm air for a moment, grateful to return from even the memory of the horrific darkness. The black sorcery of Sauron had almost claimed him; he would never be able to purge the recollection of its terrible touch from his mind. He had battled Mordor’s legions all of his life, but now, it seemed, he understood for the first time the true depths of its evil. The thought of that evil swallowing Gondor, and all of Middle Earth, caused his heart to nearly break with horror. For an instant the memory of the madness overwhelmed him, and he reeled at its power. All thoughts of trying to take the ring to use in defense of his beloved city fled; another attempt would only bring the madness upon him again, and he felt as if he would rather face a million Orcs than endure even one more moment of such torture. He would prefer to fall as Boromir than be victorious as a mere shell of himself, his every action twisted to fulfill the cruel intentions of the Dark Lord. No, Aragorn had been right; the only way to truly save his city would be to destroy the Ring, and end Sauron’s reign forever.

And to do that, they had to find Frodo.

Boromir took a few deep breaths, fully returning to himself, and gathered his thoughts. He should rejoin the others now; together, surely, they would be able to find Frodo. He would confess what had happened; it would be painful to face their anger, but far less painful than seeing Frodo fall to some harm if such an action was not taken. Aragorn might even order Boromir to depart from the Fellowship. This idea caused a twinge of regret, but Boromir could see the wisdom of it. It might be a relief, after all, to get as far away from the Ring’s evil grasp as possible; he knew it would always call to him, having once caressed his mind. Perhaps he could go back to Minas Tirith and aid in its defense…

Now resolved, Boromir shook his head to clear it of the few remaining shadows, and began to hasten back to camp, every crunching step increasing in speed. He was unsure how long he had been wandering in thought, and there was so little time to waste.

Suddenly a new sound fell on his ears, and he slowed his pace to listen, his brow knit in confusion. There! In the near distance-the noise of howls and grunting, and the thunder of steel-shod feet pounding on the forest floor. He froze, his gray eyes wide: Orcs!

Cursing himself, he drew his sword and began to run. How long had they been in danger, and he completely oblivious as he wandered about in self-pity! A frantic fear gripped his heart: Had they found Frodo? Was the Ring safe? Or had his folly damned them all to darkness?

He topped a small rise and skidded to a halt, horror rising in his throat. Before him was a valley; on one side streamed dozens of armored Orcs-although they were much larger and more heavily armed than any Orcs he had ever seen. But whatever they were, they were an enemy to fight, and his warrior’s mind quickly put aside all questions and prepared for the battle.

The creatures seemed to be pursuing something. Boromir quickly turned his gaze to the other side of the valley; two small forms were dashing ahead of the creatures, dodging trees and jumping rocks, nearly out of view now, but he could almost see-

His breath caught in his throat as his eyes grew wide; for an instant he could not move, his blood turning to ice with shock. Merry and Pippin!

Then he was running, his heart pounding as he flew over the forest floor as fast as his legs would carry him. Frodo’s fate was beyond him now, but he could do this, protect the Hobbit’s cousins and his dear friends as well as he was able to, to the death if necessary. The tears on his face dried as he ran, his earlier anguish now forgotten as concern for the Hobbits’ welfare filled his mind. He crested another rise. The ground before him was strewn with the toppled remains of broken statues and fallen buildings, the ancient ruins of Amon Hen. But in a sunlit clearing beyond their moss-covered forms he could see the two Hobbits-so small in the looming forest around them- stopped now, surrounded by the vile creatures, clutching each other as death closed in from all sides.

Boromir gripped his sword and began running again, his long legs churning madly as he tore around the ruins and up the hill towards the clearing, his green Elven cloak billowing behind him. They had not seen him, there was still a chance, still a hope to drive back the darkness.

He grasped at that hope to give him strength, and plunged into the light.

The Two Towers / Free Will

Frodo and his inseperable Sam sneak away towards Mordor, while Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas have to change their plans when they discover that Pippin and Merry have been kidnapped by orcs. These decisions that they make, take each character on its own path and the events that take place in this book really help in developing the complete tale.

Only through life comes death, and only through death comes life.

-Thiesen

Free Will and the Demands of Conscience

Frodo had a choice. He took the trial of the Ring freely, or under obligation to his own conscience, which amounts to the same thing. His friends aided him as much as they could on the journey, and, when he struck out on his own, allowed him to go, knowing that they did so for a greater good. With only his faithful Sam he journeyed into the dark lands to rid himself of his darker burden.

What kept him upon the Road?

I know that I–and I’m hoping I’m not alone in this–have had many times when my will was not sufficient to the demands of my conscience. They are primarily little things that tend to add up alarmingly afterward, such as playing a computer game when I know I should be working on a project, procrastinating work around the house that I know I should be doing now, not preparing sales programs for the morrow so that I don’t wind up looking like a doltish adult in front of my customer; that sort of thing is common, all simply because “what I feel like doing” at the moment consists of sleeping, watching TV, or web-surfing.

Veteran coach Dean Smith’s said “If you treat everything as a life-or-death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.” Those things I described above are truly, for the most part, little things, in that they may not matter in five years, one year, or, in most cases, even in two weeks, that I didn’t do those things exactly when my conscience was telling me to. That saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff . . . and it’s all small stuff” is so popular now. It relieves a great many from the pressures of their own conscience and keeps them from living in a state of continuous anxiety and depression resulting from the feeling of not having measured up to their own yardstick.

But what if there comes a time when it is no longer small stuff? When it is literally a matter of life or death?

Have you ever been in a life-or-death situation? More specifically, have you ever been in a life-or-death situation that required not quick-thinking, decisive action, but rather, a slow grind, an endless monotony of wearying tasks that instead of becoming easier, seem only to grow heavier and harder with each step down the Road? A series of days melding into a mind- and soul-numbing existence, where each day is the same as the day before it, and if anything, slightly worse?

I have. Therefore I can speak with authority. For those too young and in trying to determine an Earthly comparison to Frodo’s Middle-earth journey, the only analogous experience that comes to mind is the care of an aging loved one, whether their ailment is age alone or age added to other, more serious, debilitating medical conditions. Thank God I have never been in this position, but I have family members who have and are going through similar situations. To my mind, the similarities are strong. Frodo, on the hopeless journey that gets harder with every step and who, with every day, longs for nothing more ardently than to be able to lay down his burden and rest without fear of the future. A son or daughter, caring for his or her aging, perhaps ill, parent, a task that gets harder with each day for both of them, never knowing when some worse news might be brought by doctors with excellent intentions, does this on top of the business of their daily life which consumes much of their energy and will before they ever make it to their parent’s bedside. All the while, I would imagine, they, too, both hope for and dread the day when they can lay down their worries and rest without fear of the future.

Without fear of the future.

What kept Frodo upon the Road?

What keeps us going in times of near-despair?

A simple question: What will happen either to myself or to ones that I love if I do not continue this task?

A small side trip.

Have you ever laid in bed the night before you know you had to do something that scared the socks off you and that would impact your future? Give a large presentation? Take a huge examination? Teach your first day of school? Your big interview for your dream job? You might think of every possibility of getting out of it that you can possibly fathom, but in the end, you’re still going to go through with it.

C. S. Lewis’ character Elwin Ransom, in his insightful book Perelandra, is set a task: to fight a very devil, dwelling within a human body. He argues with it upon all the philosophical grounds that exist, with all the debating tools he can devise–and these are formidable. The demon, however, is wily, and it has other tricks at his disposal every time Ransom must sleep, which is something the demon does not necessarily do. At stake are the soul of a woman and the innocence of an entire race. Then comes the night when Ransom knows he can no longer continue his course of argument and debate. It is not working; moreover, the woman’s defenses are crumbling a little more with each passing day. Ransom’s brain tumbles through a myriad of arguments with himself, trying to excuse himself from any further duty in the matter, saying that he has done his best and that is all that can be expected of him, until a new thought occurs to him that takes his breath away. A physical struggle and a fight to the death might be what is called for; the death of the body that the creature inhabits would effectively put an end to its temptation of the woman. Once Ransom has decided upon this course of action, knowing that his own conscience will not allow it to be left alone otherwise, he can rest, but it is only the rest of a man who knows that tomorrow comes the day he has dreaded for weeks, the day of the major examination, or the court trial, or the interview, or whatever other incidents there are that try the soul. What gets us through these times?

The knowledge that, as Lewis puts it, “At this time tomorrow I will have done the impossible,” is what pulls us on. Whatever you think impossible or unlikely that you can pull off, yet it is something that simply must be done, there comes a time when you say to yourself, “By this time tomorrow, it will be over, for better or for worse.” And for some of us, that is the only way we can make it through. Frodo knew that to give up his journey was to doom himself and the whole of the world of his existence to a horrifying domination at the hands of an evil spirit. He had set himself upon the Road, and what kept him there was this knowledge that to give up meant death, not only for him, but for people and places whom he loved. He had not the comfort of a person who has only one day’s unsettling or even

terrifying business to conduct; he had only the cold comfort of knowing that when his burden was past, then one way or another he would rest, whether it was in his hobbit-hole or in an unmarked ash heap at the foot of the Mountain of Fire.

I think it can get even a little more personal than that. Frodo’s own death and the death of his loved ones, of his homeland, perhaps of that entire world are heavy concerns, it is true. But in the end, it was Frodo’s own conscience that would not allow him to write this journey off as “small stuff.” I said earlier that when my will does not support my conscience as far as finishing necessary tasks, they are little things. When it comes to big things, I groan and grumble, but I get the job done. I have to. The consequences are too great otherwise. Frodo, like Lewis’ Ransom, groaned and grumbled, but he got the job done. His conscience would not allow his will to slide out of this one. Frodo held fast his faith that what he was doing was necessary, good, and indeed the last recourse.

“Comparisons to War”

The parallels between the landscapes of No-Man’s Land of World War 1 and Tolkien’s landscapes of nightmare are striking. Mordor is a dry, gasping land pocked by pits that are very much like shell craters of war. Sam Gamgee and Frodo Baggins even hide in one of these pits when escaping from an Orc band, much as a soldier might have hidden in a shell hole while trying to evade an enemy patrol. Like No-Man’s Land, Mordor is empty of all life except the soldiers of the Enemy. Almost nothing grows there or lives there. The natural world has been almost annihilated by Sauron’s power, much as modern weaponry almost annihilated the natural world on the Western Front.

The desolation before the gates of Mordor is another savage landscape inspired by the Western Front. It is full of pits and heaps of torn earth and ash, some with an oily sump at the bottom. It is the product of centuries of destructive activity by Sauron’s slaves, a destruction that Tolkien stated would endure long after Sauron was vanquished.

Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Noman-lands, more loathsome by far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes. … Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails on the lands about.

– The Two Towers, Book IV, Chapter 2: “The Passage of the Marshes”

The sickly white and grey mud mentioned in this passage is very like the terrain of No-Man’s Land on the Somme, where the underlying chalk bedrock was churned up by artillery bombardment and turned the ground grey and white.Even today, the old trench lines of the Somme can be seen from the air as bands of white among the green fields. The whitest areas mark where the fiercest fighting occurred in 1916.

The horror of these landscapes is that they are not naturally produced but are a product of man’s destructive misuse of technology. Battlefields like this simply did not exist before World War I. In earlier wars, armies arrived on the battlefield, fought, and left. However the development of new, more destructive weapons (in particular, artillery) and the static nature of the war changed this. The battlefields of World War I experienced constant shelling and digging. It is not surprising that Tolkien’s imagination should seize on these images of destruction as the embodiment of power and evil. These landscapes are similarly unnatural: a product of Sauron’s destructiveness and his misuse of his power.

Frodo and Sam are aghast at this destruction of the natural world and feel physically sick as they journey through this blasted landscape. It all seems like a hideous dream. Later in the story, some of the soldiers of Gondor cannot bear even to pass though this area. They too feel that the desolation of Mordor is a hideous dream; many show signs of what sounds suspiciously like shell shock.

On the fourth day from the cross-roads, they came at last to the end of the living lands and began to pass into the desolation that lay before the gates of the Pass of Cirith Gorgor; and they could descry the marshes and the desert that stretched north and west to the Emyn Muil. So desolate were these places and so deep the horror that lay upon them that some of the host were unmanned, and could neither walk nor ride further north.

Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes, for these were young man from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.

“The Black Gate Opens”, The Return of the King

In contrast to how shell shocked men were often treated in World War I, Aragorn has compassion for his stricken troops. He does not force them to cross the desolation of Mordor, but instead sets them to an alternative task of recapturing the island of Cair Andros.

The landscape of the Dead Marshes is also inspired by the Western Front. As Frodo, Sam, and their guide Gollum cross the Marshes, they see the ghostly, rotting forms of the dead soldiers of a war that had swept across the region thousands of years before. As Frodo tells Sam and Gollum,

“They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, with weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead.”

– “The Passage of the Marshes”, The Two Towers

The dead lying in pools of mud is a powerful image of trench warfare on the Western Front, and is something that Tolkien would have undoubtably seen during his wartime service. As the autumn rains fell, the battlefield of the Somme turned into a stinking mire seeded with the rotting corpses of men and animals. The dead men that Frodo and Sam see are not physically present – only their ghostly shapes have been preserved –but their forms inspire horror and pity.

The landscape of Ithilien is in some ways like the landscape of rural France in the area behind the front lines. Although there is evidence of the nearby conflic – a few damaged buildings, some shell craters, and the general debris of war – the landscape is otherwise natural and unspoiled. It has not fallen fully under the dominion of war. So too is Ithilien, the deserted province of Gondor that had recently fallen under the dominion of Sauron. Although Sauron’s Orcs have been at work, Ithilien retains some of its natural beauty. Sam and Frodo’s feelings rise when they reach Ithilien, much as the spirits of soldiers rose when they were relieved of their tours in the trenches and could return to the comforts of the rear areas.

Another similarity between Ithilien and the rear areas in France is their close proximity to areas of deadly danger – either to the front or to the frontiers of Mordor. Behind the lines, the sounds of the bombardment were never far off. On the horizon the flashes of gunfire and the smoke and dust thrown up by the explosions might appear like a mountainous wall – similar to how Sam and Frodo see Mount Doom erupting in the lands beyond the Mountains of Shadow.

The Enemy

Submitted by Kevin Roger Black

“For thy hope is but ignorance. Go then and labour in healing! Go forth and fight! Vanity. For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day. But against the Power that now arises there is no victory.” (III: 157)

The enemies of The Lord of the Rings are what we most remember from reading the work–they are terrifying. Enough that Tolkien thought that the book would be unsuitable for children, and told his publisher so. The imaginative depth invested in the opponents of the West is surely one of the keys to the work’s success. The enemies can be split into two groups–the demonic, fairy-tale monsters that (mainly) pursue Frodo and the Ring, and the more “realistic” monsters and men that actually fight the war against the armies of the West. Looking closely at these groups (and here we murder to dissect), we find that the first is symbolic of the potential for evil that exists in men’s hearts, and the second represents the effects of the corruption by that evil: effects that could already be seen in twentieth century Europe.

The first set includes creatures that are specially attuned to the power of the Ring, and attempt to wrest it from the Ringbearer, Frodo. Frodo’s Quest–to journey with the Ring of Power into the Land of Evil, and destroy it in the fires where it was made–after all strongly suggests an internal battle, in which Frodo, standing in for the human race, must resist the corruptive temptation of using a machine–the Ring–to raise war and destruction on the land. The enemies that hunt for the Ring have equal psychic significance. First, there are the nine Ringwraiths, hissing black shadows, remnants of men who were themselves enslaved Rings of Power during the Second Age. Their appearance as they are first seen, riding through the Shire on black horses, obscured by black cloaks and hoods, exactly reflects their nature. They are the incarnation of nightmares–phantoms of the imagination, ghoulish as any Halloween spirit. Instead of pursuing the hobbits systematically, and taking advantage of their numbers, they merely fade in and out of the scene whenever the hobbits feel insecurity or doubt. Appropriately, the Wraiths, also called Nazgûl or Black Riders, rarely do anything physical, but attack the heroes’ minds–producing incapacitating terror in most, and in Frodo an intense temptation to put on the Ring, betraying himself to its power. The “attack” of the riders on Aragorn and the hobbits on Weathertop hill, for instance, involves little actual fighting:

Terror overcame Pippin and Merry, and they threw themselves flat on the ground. Sam shrank to Frodo’s side. Frodo was hardly less terrified than his companions; he was quaking as if he was bitter cold, but his terror was swallowed up in a sudden temptation to put on the Ring… he could think of nothing else…. something seemed to be compelling him to disregard all warnings, and he longed to yield. (I: 262) Frodo gives into the temptation and puts the Ring on his finger, and receives a wound from the Nazgûl’s knife. But the wound is really only a brand of his failure to resist temptation–the effect of the wound is a spiritual sickness, not a physical hurt. Had the Nazgûl been a realistic enemy, it could have slain him and taken the Ring instead of merely pricking him on the arm. The Ringwraiths are a literalization of dread, weakness, and incapacitating lack of confidence–terrors that live in the secret hearts of the heroes. In their shadowy physical forms they dare the heroes, and especially the Ringbearer, to master those specters in themselves, or fail in their quest.

The “boss” of the Ringwraiths, and instigator of the crisis in Middle-earth, is, of course, Sauron. Sauron never physically appears in the work, and thereby operates almost entirely a symbol–for Evil, denuded, without human conscience or dignity. Since Sauron remains hidden, in his tower, Barad-dûr, the only Evil that is ever seen is reflected in his fallible and corrupt servants. Sauron’s emblem, by which he is often referred, is an “Eye”: the red Eye, the lidless Eye–the Eye in the Dark Tower that never sleeps, scanning the countryside in search of his lost Ring. Frodo sees the Eye occasionally in his dreams. It also comes to him in his greatest moment of indecision, just before the breaking of the Fellowship, when he must choose between going on with the Ring to Mordor or turning aside to Minas Tirith. At this time he is wearing the Ring, which he put on to escape from his companion Boromir, who tried to seize it from him by force. Alone now with his awesome responsibility, Frodo has climbed up the hill of Amon-Hen, to a stone monument left there by the old Númenoreans. He sits on the chair he finds there  “like a lost child that had clambered upon the throne of mountain kings” (I: 518).

Using the power of the Ring to scan the countryside, and he “sees” the Eye of the enemy doing exactly the same, ever-vigilant for his moment of weakness. Frodo takes off the Ring just in time to avoid the Eye’s gaze, and, shaken, resolves to continue on to Mordor, alone if necessary, to destroy the Ring and the Eye.

The gaze of the Eye is always trained outward, so that anyone who looks into it will find that they, in turn, are being watched: the subject of Evil becomes themselves. Those peering into the mask of Evil–even with the intention of defeating it–are shaped by the return gaze of the Eye, molded by its malice. Evil is within; to imagine that is has an outside source is a trick, an “optical” illusion, a distraction from the real battle against corruption in ourselves. Hence both Denethor and Gandalf repeat the warning: “against the power that has now arisen there is no victory” (III: 157, 189).

They see what their compatriots do not, that any conquest over Sauron on the battlefield will be in vain, because the spirit of the Enemy is inside them, and as they raise their armies to fight Sauron, they come to resemble him more closely. Their righteousness soon falls into vengeance and anger, and their people degenerate into barbarity–already Minas Tirith is little more than a military garrison.

Gandalf realizes that the greatest threat to Middle-earth is not the military one, for it is no good for the people to resist an enemy only to find that they have in the process become the enemy themselves. It is appropriate that, during the siege of Minas Tirith, Gandalf’s greatest deed is not done in the battle, but within the heart of the city, where he prevents the mad Denethor from killing himself and his heir. Alerted to the jeopardy by Pippin, and coming across the body of a murdered guard, Gandalf cries out:

“Work of the Enemy!” said Gandalf. “Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts.” (III: 154-5).

Gandalf could not have meant that he believes that Sauron was personally involved; rather it is an act that Sauron would approve, because it comes from the inner Enemy–the destructive, sometimes self-destructive, impulses that intertwine with the good in human nature.

Thus Sauron and the Ringwraiths, who hunt for Frodo, are not so much realistic beings as embodiments of the shadows of Evil and nightmares that live in the heart. But Frodo, Sam and the Ring are separated from their companions at the end of the first volume, and the symbolic nature of their journey into Mordor is paralleled by the relatively realistic and practical task faced by the other companions–to marshal the nations of the West to combat the coming onslaught of Sauron’s armies. In this endeavor they face a different class of enemy–that is, real flesh and blood enemies, not fairy-tale monsters. For our purposes, these enemies are the most interesting of all, for they show the way Tolkien believed that evil manifests itself in “real” people. And here are to be found several veiled references to the problems of modernity in Europe.

There are actually two enemies to be considered here–the Orcs, as a class, and Saruman, the traitor Wizard. Orcs are the basic soldiers of the Dark Lord, bred by him as beasts of war.  They come in many different tribes and types, but in general they are short, squat, and fierce, with long fangs and short tempers, and they would just as soon kill each other as do anything else. The orcs supply the trilogy with an enemy that is ferocious and unambiguously wicked, in plentiful numbers, which is a great convenience. But Tolkien does not use the orcs carelessly, as we shall see; in fact, their sheer numbers become their most ingenious and horrifying characteristic.

The orcish hordes are brutishly ignorant of the reasons or motives for the war they are fighting, and their resignation, combined with their confusion over ambiguous and contradictory orders, puts them in the pitiable plight of modern soldiers, like those English soldiers romanticized (with irony) by Tennyson in “The Charge of the Light Brigade“:

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

The orcs, mercifully, have temperaments that match their work, but in them we nevertheless see the degradation of modern warfare. The first battle the orcs fight, the battle of Helm’s Deep, presents a stark contrast between two styles of portraying war: a heroic battle romance, on one side, and the nightmarish reality of modern mass warfare on the other. The fighting of the forces of the

West celebrates individual heroism–we always know who is the first to spot each breach in the defense, and marshal the troops to the response. There are men leading charges on white horses and living to tell about it, and there is the memorable contest between Gimli and Legolas to see which of them can slay more of the orcs, won by Gimli with a score of 41-42. None of the great heroes on the front line are killed: this is the safe and grand style of battles from the epic tradition that used to make young boys yearn to go off to war themselves to share in the imagined glory.

Tolkien knew what he was doing here, for he studied old great battle romances such as “The Battle of Maldon” and “The Battle of Brunanburh,” and himself enlisted with the hordes of other young men at the start of World War I. But fighting in the trenches taught him the difference between fictional war and the impersonal reality of mass slaughter, the true story of modern warfare. The Orcs fight in the latter tradition: their masses swarm forward like “a great field of dark corn” and they die in unacknowledged and anonymous droves: slow to react, mindless, and persistent. They gain the advantage through sheer bloody-mindedness and vast loss of life:

They wavered, broke, and fled back; and then charged again, broke and charged again; and each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. (II: 175)

The soldiers on the front lines are unnamed, killed and replaced, and there is no honor accorded to the living or the dead.

The orcs, in their ignorant masses, resemble a (slight) exaggeration of a negative stereotype of the working class: Marx’s famous proletariat, that sent so many of its members off to war. The orcs speak a debased, jocular English which is a stylized form of Cockney–they even refer to each other as “lads” and use the exclamation “Garn!” Like the image of downtrodden workers, they are exploited, low-paid (in horse-flesh), uneducated, angry, and rebellious. And they continue to breed in huge numbers, as Frodo sees from his vantage atop Amon-Hen:

“The Misty Mountains were crawling like anthills: orcs were issuing out of a thousand holes” (I: 518).

 I do not mean to suggest that, like orcs or termites, Tolkien thought that the English poor were an unredeemable scourge, ripe for extermination. But, in their masses, the orcs lead a grim, anonymous, and inescapable existence that compares to the worst stories told about English laborers. Their great “spawning,” orchestrated by Sauron, is described in factory-like terms of the mass production of war machinery. And the description of the great siege engine that they bring to the attack on Minas Tirith tips Tolkien’s hand: Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains…. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls…. Grond crawled on… now and again some great beast that hauled it would go mad and spread stamping ruin among the orcs innumerable that guarded it, their bodies were cast aside from its path and other took their places. (III: 124)

Grond is a massive machine, and orcs swarm around it to keep it running, making it almost seem alive. But though it depends on orc labor to operate, the orcs are considered to be the most expendable parts of the mechanism, and are wasted and replaced without any consideration. The good of the machine is held as all-important, and the value of life is completely degraded in comparison. This is the great terror of the Industrial Age–labor has become increasingly unspecialized, replaceable, and distanced from management, which ensures that wages stay low and profits high. Consequently, labor grows to be dehumanized and alienated like the orcs, to the detriment of societal order and content. Tolkien certainly thought that it was wrong to value a machine higher than a living creature, even an orc, and this perversion of value is characteristic of the most devilish works ascribed to the Enemy.

Turning towards Isengard, the headquarters of Saruman, we find that it has been converted into a kind of factory in service of Saruman’s ambition for the Ring, to its great detriment. Though it was once beautiful, “no green things grew there in the latter days of Saruman:”

The plain… was bored and delved. Shafts were driven deep into the ground, their upper ends were covered by low mounds and domes of stone, so that in the moonlight the Ring of Isengard looked like a graveyard of unquiet dead. For the ground trembled. The shafts ran down by many slopes and spiral stairs to caverns far under; there Saruman had treasuries, store-houses, armouries, smithies, and great furnaces. Iron wheels revolved there endlessly, and hammers thudded. At night plumes of vapor steamed from the vents, lit from below with red light…. (II: 204)

“Graveyard of unquiet dead… plumes of vapor… red light”–Tolkien describes the factory as it might be seen by someone who didn’t understand its function, and divorced from the propaganda of production, it is shown to be a horror, purposely incongruous in its fantasy-world setting. Elsewhere it is said of Saruman that:

“He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment” (II: 96).

He follows the principles of capitalism without conscience: to give his armies an advantage he has even manufactured explosives and begun cross-breeding men and orcs. In the story, nature has its revenge: the Ents and Hurons of Fangorn Forest, living and walking trees, rise up against Saruman to take revenge for the chopping of the trees, by wrecking the walls of Isengard and rechanneling a river through its gates, to quench the fires in the underground furnaces, and halt the iron wheels forever. Of course, in real-life nature does not have this option, and Tolkien thought its wanton destruction was folly. The history of the world is in the forests, which have the strength of the “bones of the earth“–

Treebeard, the oldest of the Ents in Middle-earth, can remember the coming of the elves in the first days. Tolkien elsewhere lamented the world’s hostility to its trees, and its senselessness:

[A poplar tree] was suddenly lopped and mutilated by its owner, I do not know why. It is cut down now, a less barbarous punishment for any crimes it may have been accused of, such as being large and alive. I do not think it had any friends, or any mourners, except myself and a pair of owls. (T&L: 6)

Tolkien saw a spiritual dimension in the appreciation of nature, as can be seen in his allegorical short story, “Leaf By Niggle,” in which a painter, Niggle, trapped in purgatory, expiates his sins and escapes to Heaven through the creation of an imaginary forest. Tolkien, though a medievalist, would have taken these lines from Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” very much to heart:

Therefore I am still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,–both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being. (102-111)

This fragment stresses the interaction of nature and sense to “half create” the mighty world, in which nature inspires the mind with new thoughts–the seed of sub-creation and makings of Fantasy–that anchor the heart and the soul. Saruman’s factory is not consonant with the spirit of nature, and goes so far as to require the clearing of trees for its sustenance. Hence it is a corruption, an expression and imitation of Shadow:

Saruman… [was] deceived–for all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor; so that what he made was naught, only a little copy, a child’s model or a slave’s flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power, Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength. (II: 204)

The tranquility, reverence, and humility gleaned from the appreciation of nature by a sensitive soul is a bulwark against Mordor and the Enemy. The destruction of nature is the fulfillment of the curse Marx proclaimed for modernity: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.”

With the greedy depletion of natural resources, Tolkien saw the balance in men’s hearts shifting inevitably closer to Evil.

Another dangerous attribute of Saruman is the intoxicating sweetness of his voice, which survives the destruction of his army and the breaking of his magic staff. It is possible to read this as a reflection of the dangerous charisma of world leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini, who led many down the path of Evil with their rhetorical skill. But that would be to ignore Tolkien’s warning and confuse applicability for allegory. The music of Saruman’s voice simply mirrors the allure of the temptation to which he succumbed. As Elrond said, “nothing is evil in the beginning,” and, even as Saruman surrounded himself with Orcs and fire, he clung to the thought that his vision for Middle-earth’s future was the correct one, that he was embracing the inevitable, and that his efforts would make the world better.

Similar things have been said of laissez-faire capitalism. Tolkien regarded that logic as easy and empty: a sign that Saruman had relaxed his vigilance and blinded his imagination to the monstrosity of his actions. He would have asked all who follow the footsteps of Saruman to remember Aragorn’s words: “good and ill have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them.”

The Rest of the Tale and It’s Universal Themes

Frodo and his trusted sidekick (and former gardener) Sam Gamgee find themselves separated from the rest of the fellowship, to find their own way across barren wastes, trackless marshlands, and impassable mountains to the land of Mordor.  Moreover, they are being relentlessly tracked by Gollum, the evil creature who once possessed the ring and is now trying to get it back.  But Frodo and Sam manage to capture Gollum and extract from him a promise, in the name of the ring itself (which Gollum calls his “Precious”), to be their guide.  Gollum, after all, has been in Mordor before, and knows the way.

Driven by desire to be near the ring, and hoping to somehow regain it, Gollum leads Frodo and Sam through many perils and into Mordor.  He eventually betrays them in hopes of getting back the ring,, but his plan backfires and, throuch a series of hair raisin- adventures, Frodo and Sam elude the forces of the enemy and finally reach Mount Doom with their burden.

In a final twist, Gollum attacks Frodo, who – overcome by the ring’s evil, addictive powers – decides not to destroy the ring but to claim it for his own.  As the two fight for the ring at the very brink of the lava pit where it must be cast, Gollum manages to rip the ring from Frodo but then, stepping too far in jubilation, falls into the fire with the ring.

Thus the villainous Gollum, one of Tolkien’s most intriguing creations, unwittingly helps the cause of the fellowship.  Without Gollum’s help, Frodo and Sam could never have reached Mordor.  Without his act of betrayal and Frodo’s capture and subsequent rescue by Sam, they never could have eluded the guards at the entrance to the evil land.  Once Frodo and Sam are in Mordor, Gollum, still desperately dogging their footsteps, helps them again by deliberately throwing Sauron’s trackers off their trail.  And at the bitter end, when the ring’s power proves too strong for Frodo to resist, it is, Gollum’s evil lust for the fing that brings about its destruction.

Because of the rings demise, Sauron’s forces, on the verge of conquering the armies of free men, scatter in panic and are defeated. In the glorious wake of victory, the remaining redoubts of Mordor are thrown down, the legitimate kingship restored among free men, and mercy shown to the defeated barbarians who allied themselves with Sauron.  The hobbits, who are occasionally ridiculed throughout the story because of their tiny stature and whimsical behavior, are recognized as the real heroes.

But there is still one obstacle to overcome.  The evil wizard Saruman, an ally of Sauron, has sent a band of ruffians back to the Shire to make trouble.  Returning to the Shire, Frodo and the other three hobbits from the fellowship discover that their idyllic homeland has been transformed into a police state.  A large number of hobbits have been forcibly enlisted as policemen and spies, and all over the Shire Saruman’s thugs have posted various rules and regulations, including curfew hours.  Frodo and his compaonions are ismayed to find that, ateer fighting for freedom in far away lands aginst seemingly impossible odds, they have returned home to find their own kinsmen in bondage.  With a confidence born of combat experience, they organize an uprising in the Shire and drive out the oppressors in a heroic denouement. 

Universal Themes 

Although the trilogy has often been reviled by literary sophisticates who deplore its unwieldy prose, its utter lack of irony, and its “old-fashioned,” un-20th -century treatment of good and evil, The Lord of the Rings has always enjoyed immense popularity.  In fact, many consider Tolkien’s magnum opus the best, and certainly the most original, work of fiction of the last century, because it combines masterful storytelling and overwhelming imaginative scope with the biggest of Big Themes.

The ring – the real protagonist – time and time again tempts the good and evil alike with the promise of absolute power.  Early in the narrative, for example, Frodo, overwhelmed by the burden of the ring, offers it to the good wizard Gandalf:

“You are wise and powerful.  Will you not take the Ring?” “No!” cried Gandalf, springin- to his feet.  “With that power I should have power too great and terrible.  And over me the Ring would gain a power still oreater and more deadly.” His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within.  “Do not tempt me!  For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself.  Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.  Do not tempt me!  I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused.  The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength.”

Later, Frodo unintentionally tests the elf queen Galadriel by offering her the ring.  She replies by admitting that she has been tempted by desire for it, but then points out that by taking and using it, she would become a Dark Queen “stronger than the foundations of the earth” who would simply take Sauron’s place.  Sam, Frodo’s companion, still not understanding, tries to persuade her to accept Frodo’s offer:

“I think [Frodol was right.  I wish you’d take his Ring.  You’d put things to rights. You’d make some folks pay for their dirty work,” “I would,” she said.  “That is how it would begin.  But it would not stop with that, alas!  We will not speak more of it.”

Unfortunately, not all can withstand the ring’s temptations.  The desire for it has corrupted Gandalf’s onetime friend, the wizard Saruman the White, and caused him to ally himself with Sauron, hoping to seize the ring first and with it overthrow the Dark Lord and take his place. And of course, the ring torments its former owner Gollum who is driven mad by simultaneous desire for and hatred of the ring. 

Besides the corrupting influence, of power, another major theme of Tolkien’s story is the preeminence of good over evil.  The conflict in the novel isn’t a Manichaean struggle between warring equivalents; good forever outflanks, anticipates, and exploits evil to achieve its ends.  The story reads like a series of hills and valleys: For every harrowing adventure and brush with disaster, there follows a haven of calm and peace where the heroes are protected, uplifted, and fortified. Evil, despite its potency and menace, is a mere twisted mockery and pale reflection of good.  Referring to the various monstrous races, such as orcs and trolls, that serve Sauron, Tolkien says:

The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to (them), it only ruined them and twisted them.

And elsewhere, one of Tolkien’s characters observes, concerning the ring’s power to twist and corrupt, that “nothing is evil in the beginning.  Even Sauron was not so.”

Overall, it is implied that a divine will, higher than any evil, is guiding the destiny of the ring and its bearer.  Gandalf tells Frodo at the outset that

“There was something else at work, beyond,any design of the Ring-maker.  I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.  In which case you also were meant to have it.  And that may be an encouraging thought.”

The story also embodies the timeless notion of the weak overcoming the mighty, as expressed in the words of Paul to the Corinthians:

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things, which are not, to bring to sought things that are.

Tolkien’s hobbits, when contrasted with the (literally!) towering, heroic figures Gandalf, Aragom, Boromir, Elrond, and many others – that surround them, appear weak, childishly naive, and more concerned about smoking their pipes and’ singing songs than carrying out heroic deeds.  Yet they rise magnificently to the demands of destiny, and by the end of the trilogy have been transformed into confident, heroic figures in their own right.

In a larger sense, though, the story is about valiance and fighting on even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.  Late in the tale, we learn that the heroism and valor of the assembled armies of free men is insignificant in comparison with the might Of Sauron’s empire.  So hopeless does their cause appear that one of their leaders, having seen the vastness of Sauron’s forces, despairs and commits suicide. Gandalf, in a speech to the leaders of remnant forces of free men, admits to them that their cause, by all appearances, is lost:

Hardly has our strength sufficed to beat off the first great assault.  The next will be greater.  This war then is without final hope…. Victory cannot be achieved by arms, whether you sit here to endure siege after siege, or march out to be overwhelmed…. You have only a choice of evils, and prudence would counsel you to strengthen such strong places as you have, and there await the onset; for so shall the time before your end be made a little longer.

Gandalf then explains that victory will only be achieved by destroying the ring, the source of Sauron’s power.  He then recommends a strategic deception: march forth against Sauron’s forces to distract his attention, and buy time for the Ringbearer to fulfill his quest: We must push Sauron to his last throw.  We must call out his hidden strength, so that he shall empty his land…. We must make ourselves the bait, though his jaws should close on us… We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but small hope for ourselves.  For, my lords, it may well prove that we ourselves shall perish utterly in a black battle far from the living lands; so that even if [Sauron’s citadel] be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age.  But this’ I deem, is our duty.  And better so than to perish nonetheless – as we surely shall, if we sit here – and know as we die that no new age shall be.

This is the same unselfish spirit of duty and sacrifice that has animated freedom fighters of all ages.

Mercy, that most vital of divine attributes upon which human salvation ultimately depends, is another crucial theme.  Early on Frodo learns that Bilbo, unlike all of the rinc,’s previous bearers, did not take the ring from another by force.  But because Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance many years earlier, the malevolent Gollum has alerted the enemy to the ring’s whereabouts in the Shire:

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!” “Pity?“[replied Gandalfl “It was Pity that stayed his hand.  Pity, and Mercy : not to strike without need.

And he has been well rewarded, Frodo.  Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so.  With Pity.” … [Frodo said] “[Golluml is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy.  He deserves death.” [Gandalf replied] “Deserves it!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the wise cannot see all ends…. [Golluml is 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.” 

Gandalf’s prophecy, of course, comes to pass, for it is Gollum – permitted to live, first by the mercy of Bilbo and then by that of Frodo and Sam on several different occasions near the end of the story – who causes the ring to be destroyed.  Ultimately mercy carries the day and allows good to triumph over evil.

“Spiritual Lessons in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.”

I think everyone has a few areas in life where they can claim to be really knowledgeable; and for me lore about Hobbits and Wizards and Elves and Dwarves is one of the more obscure areas. Let it not be said after today that it was never any use to anybody. Long before I wrote for websites or worked as a commercial printer, I was an Industrial Engineer (with a MBA in Architectural Engineering) in a fairly strait-laced company when my wife (dear Sally) introduced me to J.R.R. Tolkien. Like she, he was my deliverance. In The Lord of the Rings I had re-discovered a treasure, one that has inspired me in all the important choices I have made since that day.

For those who don’t know, The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel by John Ronald Reul Tolkien, which is set in the world of Middle Earth. The book is so long that it took Tolkien twelve years to write it, and when it was finished the publisher decided to split it up into three parts and release it as a trilogy, naming each part The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The trilogy tells the story of Frodo Baggins, who is a Hobbit, which is to say he is part of a race of beings who live in an agrarian society and stand between two and four feet tall. Otherwise, Hobbits are perfectly ORDINARY in every respect. Tolkien says about them, “they liked to have books filled with things they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.” (Fellowship,page 28.)

Hobbits know everything about each other’s business, but they know next to nothing about the outside world, which is just blank space on the borders of their maps. Frodo’s sedentary life is disrupted when he inherits a magic Ring from his uncle Bilbo, and his old family friend Gandalf who makes those beautiful fireworks at festivals and parties turns out to be a Wizard who tells Frodo that the Ring is a tool of an ancient Enemy. This Enemy, named Sauron, sunk half of his power into the Ring before losing it in a battle almost three thousand years before Frodo was born. Though once cast down, Sauron has risen again and is forming an army to challenge the kingdoms of Middle Earth, and with all of his power he is searching to recover the Ring which everyone agrees would ensure his success. Now Frodo must flee into the wild with his friends to stop the Ring from being captured and used for the destruction of the world.

What follows is a great yarn full of dangerous quests, strange creatures and desperate heroics. My story here is directed more to underlying themes behind these great adventures, but you should be aware that by doing this I am going against the author’s wishes, who announced in a Forward written ten years after the first publication, “As for any inner meaning or “message,” it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical.” (Fellowship, page 10.) Tolkien went on to say that instead of allegories, he “much prefer[s] history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.” (Id.)

One of the interesting things about Tolkien is that by profession he was never a writer; he was a Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford with a lifetime appointment which took care of all of his needs, one that he never abandoned until reaching retirement age. Included in his academic writings is an essay on the epic poem Beowulf in which he complains that the critics will go on endlessly attempting to dissect the life of the author, make linguistic analyses of the syntax, and make guesses about the historical period in which it was written, without mentioning once that it is a story about a Dragon, and sea monsters, and a murderous bogeyman that lurks in the poisonous atmosphere of the fens. I take his point, but I think that despite the great invention behind the Balrogs and Ringwraiths and Orcs in his own story, Tolkien would not mind me saying that this story, like Beowulf, is one with deep roots. Hear me now: notwithstanding anything different you might hear from ignorant critics, The Lord of the Rings is not an exuberant adventure, or a simple story of good versus evil, or story for children. It is sad, even elegiac; it is quite scary; and it speaks to deep conflicts, longings, and feelings of spiritual isolation within the human mind. If I could, like the protagonist in a poem by T.S. Eliot, squeeze the universe of Middle Earth into a ball, and roll it up into one overwhelming question that lingers in the shadows of every scene, it would be this: How are we to live on earth without God?

Now I need to back up. I should tell you that Tolkien himself was a devout Roman Catholic. He firmly believed in the evidence of his own salvation that was contained in scripture. It is a measure of his conviction that he was responsible for converting his friend C.S. Lewis from agnosticism to Christianity, which Lewis went on to defend eloquently in numerous essays and a few fantasy stories of his own. We know from scraps of letters and a long poem that Tolkien wrote about their debate that one thing they discussed Lewis’ contention that the stories of Christianity were myths, and that like all myths they were lies, although “lies breathed through silver.” (Humphrey Carter, Tolkien: A Biography page 147.) Tolkien responded this is not so, that human beings create myths because they are made in the image of a Creator; and by imitation may come to know more of the Creator’s mind.

Though Tolkien believed in the Gospels, professionally he was concerned in the study of works that pre-date them, and he wondered aloud at times how these earlier peoples and writers could have carried on, without the promise of salvation that was made by Jesus. In fact, he much admired the “spirit of doomed resistance,” as he called it, that these earlier pagan peoples showed, the will to strive and the heroic spirit, despite the certainty of their death without any promise of reward in an afterlife of eternal bliss. (See Tolkien, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”) So you might say that Tolkien’s imagination was centered in “pagan” times, before the invention of Christianity; in fact he described his aim in writing as an effort to create a pre-history of his beloved England; a body of myths to compensate for the lack of any purely English mythology that has been preserved through the ages. And I would point out that the times in which Tolkien lived and wrote were very pagan in spirit and imagination. Tolkien was born in 1892 and as a young man he fought in World War I. Trench fever put him in a hospital bed and took him away from the front lines; otherwise he would almost certainly have been killed along with most of his regiment. He wrote in the second Forward to The Lord of the Rings, “By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.” It is hard for me to imagine what it was like to live in those days, so comparatively soon after the Industrial Revolution with hearts and minds full of the horror produced by the first industrial Wars. It was a time of tremendous artistic upheaval, as the writers, artists and thinkers answered the call raised by Ezra Pound to “make it new“— to abandon the forms of yesterday which it was believed no longer had any relevance in the changed, “modern” world. Although the question had not yet been published on the cover of Time magazine, it was already whispered in some quarters that “God is dead.”

Soon it would be written on the walls of subway tunnels that “Frodo lives.” Tolkien was disdainful of the modern approach to literature, but like his countrymen he was horrified by the trajectory of technology and current events. He wrote in one letter:

The news today about “Atomic bombs” is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of those lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men’s hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope “this will ensure peace.”

(Humphrey Carpenter (ed.), Letters of Tolkien page 116.) Perhaps it was time for a cranky iconoclast Catholic medievalist to re-imagine moral life in a pagan world; one that could have been England before the dawn of recorded history; a world of rich culture in decline, threatened by war, a world which had never heard of Christ.

Whether for this reason or some other, there is no religion in The Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien later admitted was deliberate. There is no one for the characters to pray to for guidance when the evil Ring falls in their laps, forcing them to choose their way, no Holy Book to consult written by a divinely inspired hand. You might say that the Hobbits are early Unitarians—they rely primarily on rational means to navigate a course through evil to a more peaceful world. Which is not to say that Middle Earth lacks a spiritual life. Along their road the Hobbits encounter mysteries that raise theological questions, and although some of these questions have found answers in posthumous publications, Tolkien allowed them to go unexplained in The Lord of the Rings and throughout in his lifetime. Who is Gandalf really? Where do the immortal elves go when they tire of Middle Earth and sail beyond the sea? We encounter resignation by some of the principal characters that although they have free choice they are not the authors of their own destinies, and there is speculation that small actions may have consequences beyond what can be rationally foreseen. In one passage dear to my heart, Frodo asks why the powers that be did not execute Gollum, a corrupt character who was recently in prison, but has escaped and returned to cause mischief, for surely with his wretched nature Gollum deserves death. Gandalf responds:

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

(Fellowship, page 93.) Generally, however, the heroes cannot feel as if they have any outside source to guide or console them; no sense of safety to carry them through. The only glimpses they get of peace and beauty are fleeting, and seem to underscore rather than relieve their spiritual abandonment. In the city of Lothlórien live Elves who have contrived by magic to keep all evil influences out of their land; their realm is like paradise and some of the deathless Elves that live there can indeed remember what it was like to dwell in the Blessed Realm beyond the sea from whence they came in eons past. But no foreign travelers are welcome there, and during their short visit Frodo is told that the Elves themselves cannot survive the War of the Ring and will soon pass from Middle Earth. When Frodo’s company is forced to sail away from Lothlórien, never to return, Tolkien says that it is as if Lothlórien was sailing away from them, leaving them exiled in a grey and leafless world. One of Frodo’s companions, Gimli the dwarf, declares “I would not have come had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I go this night straight to the Dark Lord.” (Fellowship, 490.)

In this spiritually poor environment, the greatest struggle the heroes endure is against themselves. Can they stay the course and remain true to their ideals throughout all the strange unknown perils that lie before them? For, with the help of a Council of the Wise, they have decided on a course that is quite revolutionary. The Ring they have is, after all, a weapon. Just as Sauron wants to use it to enslave the world, the Hobbits and their allies could use it to defeat the Dark Lord. But the power of the Ring is corrupting, and whoever attempts to use it in imitation of Evil will, in the end, become evil himself. Rather than use Sauron’s weapon to defeat him, Frodo and his companions have decided instead to unmake the Ring by casting it into the fires in which it was forged–a giant volcano deep in Sauron’s own realm, in the midst of all his armies. In this fashion, they hope to catch Sauron unawares, and break the cycle of violence that has been repeating itself for centuries with all the apparent inevitability of doom.

Whoa, right? They decide on this course, even though it has never been tried, and no one can honestly hold out much hope for its success. It isn’t a decision not to fight–preparations for war continue and warriors are sent with Frodo on his quest–but rather it is a decision how to fight. You might want to ask yourselves how this approach compares to decisions that have been made this century by contemporary leaders in global conflicts.

The most difficult business in The Lord of the Rings is unifying the people of the world around this goal; the goal of not only resisting the Dark Lord, but resisting everything that he represents. Gandalf’s fellow Wizard, Saruman, once the leader of the Wise, has already succumbed to the temptation of the Ring and is raising his own army in an effort to seize it. In the words of one character, “[I]n nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.” (Fellowship, page 451.)

As I suggested above, this is really a spiritual quest. The heroes must find for themselves the reasons which are worth sacrificing and dying for; they must hold fast to those reasons through all manner of adversity and temptation, and to succeed they must find an inner strength to accomplish feats beyond anything they could have previously imagined. Their choices are necessarily made from limited knowledge, and often require soul searching and a leap of faith, but the rightness of those choices is a tonic for those who struggle to see the moral and even spiritual ends of the choices they make in the “real” world.

I said I would talk about spiritual lessons. I will offer two points that I have carried away with me from my readings. One is the idea that while people themselves are not just good or evil, or as the Elvish loremaster Elrond says, “Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so” (Fellowship, page 351), there is a real distinction between right and wrong in the choices we make, and the distinction matters. One of the moral centers in the work is the character of Aragorn, the leader who ultimately rallies all the military the forces together to oppose Sauron. Someone asks him, you know Aragorn, these are strange days. How can a person judge what to do in times like these? Aragorn replies, “As he has ever judged . . .Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is [our] part to discern them[.]” (The Two Towers, page 50.)

Second, imagination helps. Finding your way these days can be a real thicket, and Tolkien himself observed in his own writing that very few things in the world today look similar to the way they would look if you encountered them in a fairy tale. In one of my favorite passages of an essay Tolkien wrote about Fairy Stories, he writes that “In Faërie[-land] one… cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose–an inn, a hostel for travelers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king–that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not–unless it was built before our time.”

(Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories” pages 64-65.) Tolkien also thought, however, that thinking about myths and legends could help restore clarity of sight and give strength to those who struggle to find meanings today. We’re used to thinking that truth is stranger than fiction, but Tolkien might have said that truth is not as complicated as we think it is, and fiction is one means we have of sorting things out. In the story, the Hobbits’ adventures in faraway places prepare them to find and confront evil doings in their homeland–small acts of tyranny and environmental devastation, in a place where nobody cares very much about magical quests or believes in Dragons. Tolkien thought that was the real purpose of escapism, to awaken the mind, uncloud the senses, and rouse the spirit. Earlier in the story, a skeptical character asks Aragorn “Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?” (Towers, page

45.) Tolkien’s answer was that it is possible to do both, if you find and explore the makings of legend in your own life.

Special thanks to Kevin Black

The End

Frodo did not know the outcome of his journey as he was making it. I would imagine that the first time most of us read Lord of the Rings, we were shocked and dismayed at the end of Frodo’s Road.

“I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!”

We almost want to weep. All that work wasted. All the weary trudging days, the sheer force of conscience and will that dragged him to the feet of Mount Doom and the patient efforts of Sam that dragged him up it. Ransom, too, knew that his efforts might be in vain, and might very well end in his own death, with the creature still on the loose to violate an innocent race. But neither God nor Iluvatar, in either story, allows the faithful work of an honest heart to go to waste. “Even Gollum may have something to do . . . But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring.” Iluvatar did not allow the evil power of the Ring or its maker to undo the months of toil by Our Hero and his Faithful Servant. God did not allow the sacrifice of Ransom to be in vain.

We do not know what the outcome of our own personal journeys of toil will be. We only know that we must make the trip. Our consciences will not allow us to do otherwise, at whatever cost to ourselves. Movie-makers love to write tag lines about “the triumph of the human spirit.” But movies can only show two or three hours of many different aspects of the human spirit. Only the human spirit who has walked that long Road, building his or her will to live up to the demands of his or her conscience, can truly understand what that trite saying means. Only when we have learned to say, “Whatever the outcome, this I must do,” and then to do it, will we truly have the freedom of choice in our lives, and not merely be living at the whims of “whatever we feel like doing.”

A Towering Achievement

A Review of “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers“

“Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”
(New Line), 179 minutes, PG-13
Directed by Peter Jackson; Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Elijah Wood: Frodo Baggins
Ian McKellen: Gandalf
Viggo Mortensen: Aragorn
Sean Astin: Sam Gamgee

Even with three films of nearly three hours each, it is impossible to adapt Lord of the Rings fully. It was inevitable that much of the charm of the slow-moving book would be lost in the fast-moving medium of film. Every devoted Tolkien reader can find things wrong with the first two installments (I have my own list), yet “Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers” succeed at the most important point — conveying Tolkien’s explicit moral understanding. In a few respects, they have even improved upon its presentation, showing that on occasion actors and filmmakers can give added dimension to a writer’s vision.

I remarked the Ashbrook Center’s No Left Turns blog that my measure of success for “The Two Towers” would be whether the filmmakers preserved an important speech by Aragorn that occurs near the beginning of the book. Eomer, captain of the riders of Rohan, in despair of the ruin of his kingdom, asks: “How shall a man judge what to do in such times?” Aragorn replies: “As he has ever judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear, not are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.” This can be taken as Tolkien’s statement against moral relativism.

The line is not in the early scene with Eomer and the Rohirrim, and it made me grumpy when the scene passed without it.

Instead, the filmmakers expanded the speech, moved it to the end of the film, and put it in the mouth of Sam Gamgee, who bolsters Frodo at a low moment with an impassioned argument about why it is necessary and right to fight with courage against evil and on behalf of what’s good in the world. At first this may seem one of many casual liberties with the story line, but it serves the worthy purpose of making more explicit an overlooked aspect of the book: the democratic virtues of the Hobbits.

The Shire is the only democratic regime in Middle Earth (indeed, Sam is elected mayor of the Shire upon his return from the quest); all of the other regimes of Elves and Men are monarchies or formal aristocracies of some kind. The Shire is in many respects like Tocqueville’s America of 1835: stolid and pure, but without great philosophy, magnificent architecture, or martial virtues of, say, Rivendell or Minas Tirith.

In a scene cut from the theatrical release of “Fellowship of the Ring” that is restored in the extended version available on DVD, Sam Gamgee’s father, “the Gaffer,” says at the pub: “It’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble will come to you.” This is a typical view of democratic citizens, which makes it all the more significant that it is Sam who offers the rebuttal to his own father amidst the despair of the failing defenses of Osgiliath at the end of “The Two Towers.”

An important subtext of both the book and the film is the waning strength of Men, and the question of whether the race of Men have the courage and strength to fight, and the moral clarity to resist the corrupt temptations of the ring of power. When Frodo learns of the evil of the ring and the peril that the ring poses in other hands, he exhibits the quality of democratic virtue in asking directly: “What must I do?” (In the book, when Gandalf tells Frodo that he must summon strength and courage, Frodo gives a typical democratic reply: “But I have so little of any of these things!” Like democratic citizens at their best, he would soon find them within him.) Nor is Frodo, the most aristocratic of the Hobbits we meet in the story (Bag End is surely the Hobbit equivalent of a Beverly Hills estate), alone in summoning democratic virtue in the hour of trial; his three simpler Hobbit companions come quickly to understand the path of duty, even if that path takes them to their likely death.

While the filmmakers took too many liberties with the story line in “The Two Towers,” one aspect they improved upon was the creature Gollum, who “steals the show” in the ordinary sense. A combination of justice and pity leads Frodo to spare Gollum’s life, linking back to the most important speech in Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo tells Gandalf that it was a pity Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance.

“Pity!” Gandalf replies. “It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. . . Before this is over, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.”

In the book this speech comes early in the tale, in the quiet of Frodo’s Bag End. The filmmakers moved the speech to the darkest place of the story, deep in the mines of Moria. The placement of Gandalf’s speech works more effectively as drama and instruction in the difficulty of perfect justice. Tolkien was not a political philosopher, and as his frequent protestations against interpreting Lord of the Rings as any kind of allegory remind us, it was no part of his purpose to reflect directly on the character of men in different kinds of regimes, or to suggest that it is the virtue peculiar to democracies that is central to saving Middle Earth.

Yet as the differences in human excellence and sources of Tolkien was not a political philosopher, and as his frequent protestations against interpreting Lord of the Rings as any kind of allegory remind us, it was no part of his purpose to reflect directly on the character of men in different kinds of regimes, or to suggest that it is the virtue peculiar to democracies that is central to saving Middle Earth. Yet as the differences in human excellence and sources of corruption are sewn into the nature of different types of regimes, it is impossible to tell a large tale of war and virtue, corruption and ruin, without opening a window onto these matters.