They are (or at least, claim to be) Christian, although a very oddball sect which I don’t particularly recognize. But they’re not exactly common in Europe. Or in America, even.
As far as the comparisons between the “Mormon Temple” and Minas Tirith, well, no.
I buy it, at least the notion that it’s a fundamentally Christian work; I don’t think the Christian elements are unique to Catholicism. But it’s in the subtext, not the text.
To me, LOTR has always been about providence, about faith in God’s benevolence even when his hand* is invisible. Frodo and Aragorn are both Christ-types, albeit in different ways, and that’s not all they are (and I don’t mean to imply that either is morally perfect). Frodo’s willing submission of his own will and well-being for the greater good, his mortification and suffering, his near-deaths & resurrections, even his seeming failure and corruption, all bespeak a world-view that is very Christian.
*Ordinarily I refuse to call God “he,” but I will do so in this context.
I was cryptically implying that Tolkien and the Mormon book were both influenced by the Bible. Not that Tolkien had a clue about the Mormons. Sorry for the confusion.
Jim
Interesting, Skald. I’ve always thought of LoTR in terms of the weak overcoming the strong through humility, which is very Christian, and very Catholic.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
I wouldn’t get too caught up trying to find specific allegorical references in LOTR to the Christian story. As pointed out before Tolkien felt that allegory was an inferior story telling method, though he didn’t believe it was entirely without merit. He certainly didn’t write LOTR as Christian allegory, but that doesn’t mean he did not believe LOTR to be a thoroughly Christian work.
We have to look at Tolkien’s beliefs concerning myth to really understand how the LOTR myth could have related to Christianity in his mind. Though his thoughts about myth underwent some changes over his career and there can be found some contradictions in his works, his basic belief was that myth is a conduit to truth. He believed that all lasting myths hold their staying power in the fact that they relate some essential truth to humanity about life, the universe, and everything. The story form itself helped this revelation of truth as well, as opposed to say philosophical dissertation. One could write a dissertation or field a psychological study on human longing and anticipation, but the results could never be as relevant and moving as a good telling of the story of Orpheus leading Eurydice out of Hades and not being able to keep from looking back. His beliefs concerning myth were bolstered by the fact that so many myths around the world and throughout time contained similar characters and characteristics.
Tolkien went further than and suggested that Christianity is the uber-myth, the myth that all other myths were reflecting, were aspiring to be, because the Christian myth was the one myth that was literally true, historically, emotionally, philosophically. Thus he could believe that any myth, especially those that reflected the themes and characters in the Christian myth, were in a roundabout way a reflection of Christianity itself, myth being the way God reveals truth to humanity.
We can see reflections of Christian myth throughout LOTR. The title of book three should stand out immediately, as well as the archetype it is named after. I’m sure that Tolkien would believe that the last chapter of the Christian myth, which has yet to be written, will be similarly titled. We could write a book about the other Christian “reflections” found in LOTR, here a mere few:
The story of fall of man including Adam and Eve (Tom/Goldberry), and the redemption of mankind by a half-man/half supreme being.
The holy Eucharist, lembas bread’s healing properties, drinking from the common cup in Lothlorien.
The changing of history by God’s direct and divine interference in the world, causing the ring to find Frodo, sending Gandalf back from the dead until his job is done, etc.
Elbereth Gilthoniel, the queen of heaven, from whom the elves and other heroes of the book constantly ask for help is obviously a reflection of the Catholic beliefs and calls for supplication from Mary. (Some of the Elven and Catholic prayers are nearly identical).
We could go on and on but it is important again to say that he didn’t mean LOTR to be Christian allegory and therefore with all of its reflections of the Christian myth Tolkien still intended LOTR to be a story of its own and the Christian mirror was only one of many that he used to shine light on the creation of his story. Though he believed that in a roundabout way any good myth is a message from God, one myth in particular being God’s best story.
Welcome to the Dope and with a great insightful post like the one above I sincerely hope you stay around and join.
Minor nitpick. It was not Tolkien who decided that the Lord of the Rings would be a trilogy of three books but rather the Publishers. The Lord of the Rings as written was either one huge tome or six books. I mention this as a caution not to read too much into the names of the individual books.
Again, I most humbly welcome you to the Straight Dope, I hope you enjoy your visit and stick around.
Jim
The two elements in which Tolkien’s Catholicism came through were both “intentional echoes” of elements of Catholic belief: 1. Varda Elbereth as Queen of Heaven, the honored and compassionate who is under God but over all else of Creation, on which she looks with loving compassion. This is of course supposed to echo the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary, though their roles and how they got there are otherwise highly dissimilar. 2.Lembas, the near-miraculous and spirit-lifting waybread of the Elves, reprsenting the Host in Holy Communion.
The “Theology of Arda” is monotheistic and nearly non-religious. In a sort of Six Degrees of Glorfindel, it was quite possible for any random Elf, Dwrf, or Man of Middle-Earth to talk with someone who talked with Someone who talked with God. Eru Iluvatar is not a flashy part-the-waters-of-Anduin sort of God, and works through His agents the Valar, Maiar, and faithful Elves and Men. But He is also not the evidence-with-low-credibility deity that is typically fulminated against: Manwe is in regular touch with Him, and presumably the other Powers as well. And the Valar and Maiar, His agents, are not mythical except in the strict Campbellian sense of the word: a number of Elves knew the Valar personally. And there are Maiar active on both sides of the battle throughout the LOTR, some in leading roles. (Remember that Elrond, Arwen, and Aragorn also have a small tinge of Maia blood: when Elrond says, “My great-grandmother was an angel,” he’s not just remembering her fondly.
Lewis seems High Church Anglican. But he was from Northeast Ulster & had been Protestant before he turned Atheist.
JRRT helped “cure” his Atheism. But “bogtrotter” was in Lewis’s vocabulary & he didn’t Go Over To Rome.
Indeed LOTR is a deeply religious, yes, Catholic, work. But developed in such a way that a reader can enjoy it as “just” an adventure story if they choose, unlike overt allegories. (Speaking of Lewis, it was Tolkien who helped to sell Lewis on Christianity, but Lewis was definitely Episcopalian and Tolkien Catholic. A difference which means a lot in England, unfortunately).
There are so many religious overtones in the work I wouldn’t know where to start - but perhaps the most meaningful to me are the concepts of grace and forgiveness interwoven through Frodo and Gollum’s stories. It has always struck me as so imp. to the story that Frodo fails - he is mortal, after all, & in Catholic theology fallen. Frodo succeeds only because of Grace granted to him because he pitied and cared for Gollum. (I’m not explaining very well, I know). So all mortals must carry on, do their best and do the right thing, whether they can succeed or no. In the very end we must trust to God, and that our good efforts will work themselves out through divine providence, whether we understand its workings or not.
Whew. How long winded. And so much more interesting as a great adventure story.
I thought Tolkien said the threw in Tom Bombadil as a sort of an afterthought to please his kids who had a doll of the same name when they were younger.
There is this though, which I never thought about before. It is odd that Tolkien is never the omnipotent narrator with Bombadil.
[QUOTE=astro]
I thought Tolkien said the threw in Tom Bombadil as a sort of an afterthought to please his kids who had a doll of the same name when they were younger.QUOTE]
He may have done so, nevertheless he included Tom Bombadil as an Adam figure. He is older than anything in Middle Earth and had apparently always lived in an unspoiled garden that can’t be intruded on by evil, disease, or decay. He lives with relative ease off of what the land provides him. He is described as being fatherless and being the first of his kind and as being present when middle earth was populated by water, plants, and animals for the first time. He has total control and power over the plants and animals where he lives though he is described as not owning or being the master of any of those things. Clearly this is reminiscent of the Bible’s Adam before the fall.
Tom is the only character in the book who is not at all effected by the power of the ring in any way (even when he puts it on), and doesn’t even seem capable of comprehending what it means. These things suggest his unfallen state, being incapable of temptation and impervious to evil since his very nature makes evil and temptation impossible in Tom. Since he neither goes invisible when he puts the ring on nor loses sight Frodo when Frodo wears the ring it suggests that Tom is the relic of a time so old that even the physical and magical rules of the day simply don’t apply to him.
I personally believe that Tom is an Adam figure and that Goldberry represents Mother Nature. Though again LOTR isn’t allegory so while Tom is obviously (to me at least) partially based on the concept of Adam there are still many differences and many other equally valid interpretations of the character. And even if one agrees that Tom is an Adam figure that doesn’t mean he is only an Adam figure, he is developed beyond that.
Oh, a new LotR Great Debate to rival a certain other question (which I dare not say, but involving wings): Does Tom Bombadil have a belly-button?
There is little doubt he had no belly-button. But one never knows. Maybe those crazy dutch put belly buttons on their strange little dolls back in the late 20s.
Let us remain out of the wing debate, that one is older than the SDMB.
Jim
Sorry, you’re quite right. This is what comes of posting at half past midnight when I should be asleep. I meant “Christian” and typed “Catholic”. Well they both begin with a C…
With a few isolated exceptions, Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings is omniscient only with respect to the hobbits. Most of the action takes place with a hobbit present, and what little doesn’t, we only learn of from reports heard by the hobbits. In fact, to my memory, the only non-hobbit whose thoughts we see is a fox near the edge of the Shire, for about a paragraph.
Not quite true: you’re forgetting the scenes with Gandalf & the Three Hunters in Meduseld. That scene is told mostly as if someone were watching a videotape of it, with a brief lapse into Aragorn’s thoughts when he sees Eowyn.
And somehow doesn’t fall in love with her. What the fuck is wrong with that guy?
He’d feel like a paedophile. And he is already committed to Arwen. Just because we don’t see her doing anything flashy on camera doesn’t mean Arwen’s shallow. Eowyn on the other hand knows diddly-squat about Aragorn other than he’s a mover and shaker from somewhere out of Rohan who could be her ticket out of the cage she’s in watching her uncle go senile and Wormtongue plotting to get his hands on her. She ain’t in love with him. She’s got a crush, that’s all.
Not a good comparison, as Tolkien was dead well before the film, and had no hand in its art direction.
You want a source of inspiration for Minas Tirith? Go dig out your old copy of Herodotus’ Histories and read the description of the city of Ecbatana.
OK, I’m not remembering that one. I’ll have to look it up when I get home. Still, though, there are enough people whose thoughts Tolkien doesn’t enter, that it hardly seems remarkable that Bombadil is one of them. And even if it were significant, all it would show is that Tom is enigmatic, which I don’t think anyone needs to be told.
And we don’t see much of Arwen, but if the comparisons to Luthien are accurate, I don’t think we need to question Aragorn’s taste. Besides, he couldn’t have any woman, elf or human, until his coronation, anyway.
You may be right. If so, you have more insight into Bombadil’s nature than JRRT claimed to have. He wrote more than once afterwards that he didn’t know where Bombadil came from, he just sort of popped into the story.
BTW, welcome to the SDMB from another JRRT student (not literally, sadly)! Nás mára!