'Lord of the Rings' a fairy tale but can teach lessons of life

SLC Tribune ^ | December 28, 2003 | Ed Firmage Jr.

[Chi-townChief]

The final installment of Peter Jackson's magisterial adaptation of The Lord of the Rings has sparked a lot of discussion about the meaning of J.R.R. Tolkien's story.

Incredulous that an Oxford don would devote the better part of his life to thinking and writing about an imaginary world filled with elves, dragons, sorcerers and the like, many readers suppose that in the guise of a fairy story, Tolkien is talking allegorically about something more "serious," something such as World War II (where Sauron is Hitler), nuclear weapons (where the ring is the atom bomb), or the like.

Tolkien, never an admirer of allegory, even in the writing of friends such as C.S. Lewis, flatly rejected any allegorical interpretation.

The value of a fairy story, in Tolkien's view, lies in the fact that it helps us to create and then participate in the life of an alternative world. We become creators, as well as heroic participants. In a good story, and The Lord of the Rings is about as good as fairy stories get, the sense of being part of that other world is complete.

And yet, paradoxically, the more complete the illusion of that world -- the more real it feels to people of this world -- the more the story speaks to us as part of this world. That's the essential power of myth. That is also why allegorical (mis)interpretations sometimes seem plausible.

As an imaginative (as opposed to didactic or allegorical) exercise, a good fairy story has no point, no moral. It is not reducible to a sermon. (When was the last time, for example, you were inclined to sit through a 3 1/2-hour sermon?)

In this respect, too, it seems real, for that's how life is. Life is more complicated and more interesting than any of the platitudes to which moralists and theologians are inclined to reduce it. This does not mean that one cannot derive lessons from a fairy story. One can, and they may even be good lessons.

Our present administration might do well to heed Gandalf's caution that there is no way to defeat evil militarily. Good lesson. What makes that lesson meaningful, however, in Tolkien as in life is coming to such a realization not through preachment but through experience, even if the latter is only vicarious in the case of stories.

Hopefully, we emerge from our experience in fairy land not armed with ready sermonettes, but, like the hobbits on their return to the Shire, wiser for having had an adventure and returning to tell about it.

Ed Firmage Jr. is a fine-art photographer based in Salt Lake City.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

A letter from Tolkien once revealed that the Elvish language is really an obscure ancient language for Finno-Ugric peoples (that historians literally have no idea where they came from). The Princes of Rohan also date back to the 11th-12th centuries in Brittany. It's clear where Mr. Tolkien was looking to pick up some of the characters and language -- way back when...

Here's a clip from a site on European heraldry...

PRINCES OF ROHAN, HEIRS OF THE DUCHY OF BOUILLON
Descendants of the ancient sovereign rulers, later Dukes of Brittanny, founded by Conan, ruling in 384. Guetenoch, Viscount of Porhoët living 1026 built castle of Joscelin and was grt-grandfather of Alain, Viscount of Rohan (Morbihan) ca 1128; Jean I, Viscount of Rohan (d 1395) m 1st Jeanne of Leon (d 1372), who brought the Lordship of Leon to the Rohans, giving them first place in the Parlement and Estate of Brittanny, and m 2ndly 1377 Jeanne

[spacewarp]

THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!!!!!

[EFirmage]

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

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

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

[EFirmage]

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

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

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

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

If anything was needed to prove Jackson's genius and win him Best Director, the Charge of Faramir (complete with Denethor's gorging and Pippin's song) is one of the most cinematically beautiful scenes ever filmed. It may not be as moving or as dramatic as some of the other parts (though I might argue even that), but as sheer beautiful film-making, it is very hard to top...

[EFirmage]

Actually, it was Tolkien himself who referred to his work as a fairy tale or fairy story (in his essay "On Fairy Stories"). In his usage, the phrase is an honorable one.

You might want to try reading more Tolkien ;)

[HairOfTheDog]

That was pretty INTENSE! I might have to agree! - There were a few really excellent bits of cinematography and editing in this set of movies. My other favorite is the cuts of the kids arming up/sword sharpening/approaching orcs scenes during Theoden's poem... While he was being dressed for battle at Helm's deep. That was another pretty montage... felt like a packaged trailer.

[EFirmage]

Nope. The ring symbolizes nothing. There is no allegory. That was the whole point of my article. Any secondary meanings derived from the story (like the whole power issue that has sparked a lot of the debate in this thread) are purely rhetorical exercises on our part.

As for political correctness, f--- it!

[AnAmericanMother]

Luis, I thought I was the only one who really thought that scene one of the best in the movie. I have never, ever, gotten chills in a theatre before, but when King Theoden gave his brief speech and the Rohirrim rode, I was charged too. It was awesome. (and I mean awesome) Aragorn had the words for the best speech, but Theoden had the emotion.

My kids are big LOTR fans. We were riding our horses in Kennesaw Battlefield Park on New Year's Day, and my daughter stood up in her stirrups and repeated King Theoden's speech word for word. Then all of us charged over the hill, stirrup to stirrup.

The hikers on the path looked at us like we were nuts. (Maybe we were, but we were happy nuts. :-D )

[nutmeg]

ping

[Chi-townChief]

Welcome aboard - we obviously draw different conclusions and lessons from LOTR but that's the idea.

[keri]

It wasn't a fool's errand. Gandalf called it a fool's hope. There's a big difference.

It is foolishness in the eyes of a military power such as Sauron's to take a weapon of power and destroy it rather than trying to use it against the enemy.

So Denethor and Boromir also thought, and why the quest to unmake the ring stood some chance of success. Gandalf understand that Sauron would never be defeated as long as the ring existed; for part of its power lay in its ability to corrupt good intention. Ultimately to destroy Sauron's evil, the personification of that evil - the ring - must also be destroyed. But that doesn't mean that Sauron's armies could still live. Someone, somewhere, had to fight the "slaves" of Sauron and defeat them. IOW, there was evil that had to be fought militarily. Frodo and Sam had another errand, but that doesn't lessen the duty that lay upon Aragorn and others.

What many readers of the Lord of the Rings miss is the element of tragedy and futility that surrounds the heroic bits.

I don't think most of us miss that all. In fact, that is probably a big reason why we love the books and movies. One goes on doing right in the face of insurmountable obstacles and hopeless odds.

With Tolkien, applicability is everything. We take from him what applies, according to our own personalities.

[keri]

Your post made me smile.

I sat next to three teen-age boys my second trip to see ROTK. I knew, of course, what was coming when the Rohirrim appeared on the hill. These boys were whispering on the edge of their seats and I didn't mind at all. During the charge, all three boys were still on the edge of their seats leaning forward and one was pumping his fist in the air:-)

Maybe young people, (at least some of them) are closer to these emotions than adults.

Continue to have fun. Your daughter has heart.

[AnAmericanMother]

The kids are all right. Tolkien lifts them up to see the significance of things they wouldn't ordinarily see. It's good for my son and daughter to see the glory of fighting in a good cause (that's just as true as the blood and the suffering, as Tolkien well knew from his own experience.)

When I was my daughter's age, I was similarly hooked on Narnia. I can still quote you whole paragraphs from the books without looking. I didn't discover LOTR until I was a senior in high school.

The Rohirrim are tailor-made for all the horse-crazy kids, too. I prefer the lighter, finer Thoroughbreds, but my daughter likes the BIG horses, so she thinks the drafty-looking critters the Rohirrim ride are the best! Her favorite horse is a half-Percheron, half-God-knows-what named Shade. She looks like a baby perched way up on his big back.

The Rohirrim's horses actually make sense, the knights of old rode the Great Horse of Flanders and similar large weight-carrying breeds that were the ancestors of the draft horses. Crossing in the hot-blooded Arabs, Barbs and Turks gave us the Thoroughbred. Crossing the drafts back into the T'bred gives us the warmbloods.