Frodo was given a Christ like task that he failed to personally accomplish. The task was only accomplished through grace of evil tripping itself up. The good guys have Christian ethics and morals and the bad guy is a devil figure who wants to control people out of malice. Yeah, I picked up on all that the first time I read it in high school. I had read Lewis’ Narnia and Space Trilogy first, and thought that LOTR was far superior because it didn’t hit people over the head with religion. It was some years before I found out the two authors were close friends while writing these books.
I disagree. Frodo’s job was not to destroy the Ring; his job was to get the Ring to Orodruin so it could be destroyed. Willing its destruction was beyond any mortal.
Of course, Till We Have Faces is better than any of the others.
I have no doubt Faramir could have destroyed it, and probably with gladness, had it been his task to perform. Sam may well have been able to, and it very nearly did become his task, but it’s unlikely he could have done so in practice without having to kill Frodo. That he would not have done.
I’ve said it before (though perhaps not to you; who would keep track of such a thing?), but I think you’re going Faramir too much credit, and Frodo too little. Faramir was able to resist the Ring’s lure for a few hours and without it in his physical possession. The Ring had months to work on Frodo.
Given that Aragorn, Galadriel, and Gandalf all feared to take on the task of bearing the Ring, I just can’t believe that Faramir would have been up to it. In fact I think his statement that he would leave it on the side of the road if he saw it was his own vanity speaking. Saying that Faramir was more resistant to the Ring is sort of like saying that Turin was a more dangerous fighter than Beren after the latter got his hand bitten off, and so would have been more suited to the Hunting of the Wolf.
Likewise Sam. He was stubborn but not all that wise, and his ability to overcome the Ring’s call and give it back to Frodo) was, again, in no small part because the Ring wasn’t working on him for months and months.
FWIW, the main message that comes through to me when reading LOTR is the ability of simple, decent people to rise up and confront the worst of evils. I generally see that message as being based on the World Wars, rather than anything biblical.
I’m sorry, but I believe you are mistaken here. Neither Faramir nor Sam could have withstood the Ring at Oroduin. No one, not Man, not Hobbit, not Dwarf, not Elf, not Maia could have withstood the Ring at that point. Probably not even most Valar could have withstood it there. I don’t think any of them could have resisted claiming the Ring there; they certainly none of them could have destroyed it. That was the problem. It could only have been destroyed in the way it was destroyed - without volition or intent.
Yes! Faramir took pride in being humble, the way his father Denethor took pride in being Steward, not King. Don’t get me wrong; Faramir was an honorable man, and I think not particularly interested in personal power. I believe that he did not seek the Ring and would not have been tempted as Boromir was. But he couldn’t resist that little boast of just how humble he was.
Perhaps that was Tolkein’s ultimate point: It’s not the job of mortal men to “destroy evil”, because we can’t. As we can see in real-world history, men deciding on their own to go out and vanquish evil in the name of God (whichever god they might follow) usually just breeds more evil. I’m reminded of a wonderful line I read in, of all places, a Dungeons & Dragons supplement book called “The Book of Exalted Deeds”, which was a guide for creating “beyond Good” characters:
“Whether or not good ends can justify evil means, they certainly cannot make evil means any less evil.”
That it is.
I agree that it is Christian values rather than beliefs at work in Tolkien’s novels. Certainly, it is not allegorical in any sense. That the most critical examples of true heroism in LOTR are accomplished by some of the story’s most humble characters when many of the very powerful falter (or fail) is very Christian. Others have brought up the Christian notion of Grace … that salvation–ultimate victory–is impossible for mortals and can only be granted through divine grace.
As for C.S.Lewis, I would suggest his response to George MacDonald’s Phantastes is relevant: Lewis didn’t find anything overtly religious or Christian in that novel, but rather that it opened his imagination to what he called “holiness.” Similarly, Tolkien’s work is a myth told honestly, without a contrived design in the sense of allegory, but is throughout imbued with Christian values.
As to whether I noticed this when I first read LOTR or not: who knows. I was young and it was a long time ago. But probably not. Nonetheless I think it is part of what makes Tolkien’s work so compelling and rewarding to revisit.
Nicely said. I would add that Tolkien’s Christian values are an integral part of his Christian beliefs. I first read LotR when I was 12 or 13, had recently gone through a fairly tradition religious phase, and I think I did notice the Christian themes, but did not spend any time pondering them. I just loved the story and the characters so much. I did have to stop reading it when Gandalf fell in Moria – he was always the character I loved the most – and couldn’t go back to it until I peeked ahead and got some hints that he reappeared.
I was and continue to be grateful that Tolkien used subtle metaphor rather than allegory. I think C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet trilogy is terrible fiction, mostly because it is heavy-handed allegory, and I’ve never been able to read the Narnia books, although I’ve tried more than once. Though I do enjoy enjoy Lewis works like The Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce. But they are meant to be theological rather than fiction, and so many of the people whose behavior he deplores are so very recognizble.
I don’t know how tolerant or ecumenical Tolkien’s beliefs were in his real life, but LotR seems to show tolerance for all paths of living and being good and welcoming the Divine, whereas Lewis shows his limits and his intolerance (a few pointed digs at meditation and, thus, Hinduism and Buddhism come to mind. Though the true targets may have been English fad adoptors of the practices, eg Blavatsky followers, just as some frivolous New Age practices would be easy targets, too.)
Yes, to both Oy and Mister Rik.
I read the trilogy when I was around 10-13 or so, and I didn’t recognize any christian subtext at the time. I did recognize it in the Narnia books when I read them around the same age, though, but they were really obvious about it.
Yes…if there IS a Christian subtext in LOTR, it’s well below the surface and very subtle. Whereas there is no Christian subtext in Narnia. It’s just TEXT…lying right on the surface with lots of colorful lights attached.
Not too far from what Tolkein meant, but you also have to consider why evil keeps making these mistakes. The Ring is more powerful than the will of any lesser being. It still screws up. Sauron’s intelligence exceeds anyone who ever lived. He plans on a scale of centuries. Morgoth plans on a scale of eternity.
It’s the mortals who are shortsighted, yet they still win. Evil does devour itself, but it does so because there is something real, and really Good, of which evil is is a denial and therefore a self-negation.
Only if you make the mistake of thinking it was random. Frodo and Sam didn’t have to destroy the Ring. That wasn’t their task. They were bade to take it Mount Doom and they did that. Gollum’s task was the destroy it, and that he did. Either way, it was to cost him his life.
And there you make the mistake. In Lord of the Rings, the characters will to follow, even in darkness and doubt, is critical to the victory of Good over evil. They choose Good, even when it seems hopeless. They would not have been saved otherwise. Aside from which, that’s not exactly an inaccurate description, but it’s the 2-cent version. Tolkein presents a subtle but extremely accurate version of the complicated Catholic relationship between human effort and Divine Will.
You are wrong. He didn’t conceal it at all. He simply didn’t beat you over the head with it. But it’s all through the book, from beginning to end. I would refer you most blatantly to Gandalf’s brief but definite explanations of powers other than that of evil.
Ha! I don’t mean it to be cruel, but you strike me as being very silly about it. You loved the story until someone told what it was really all about, and now you dislike it, or at least like it less, simply because it offers a fuller picture?
I didn’t recognise any Christian subtext at the time (I was, what, 11? And not raised Christian,), it doesn’t lessen my enjoyment and no, it isn’t really evident to me even now - not a specifically Christian subtext, at any rate. There’s nothing uniquely Christian about themes of sacrifice and redemption, even if Tolkien thought there was.
**Tolkienites: Did you recognize the Christian subtext in LotR when first you read it? **
There isn’t a Christian subtext in LotR. The only similarities are that LotR and the Jesus myth are both a Hero’s Journey story and as such share many common concepts.
If Frodo and Gollum had dropped the ring during a fight, Sam would have picked it up and chucked it in the fire and Gollum would have gone after it. Had Pippin been there, he would have somehow clumsily and accidentally tripped Frodo, who would have gone into the fire with the ring. Fool of a Took.
I didn’t notice any particular Christian subtext at the time.
Perhaps because I read LOTR the same year I read the Space Trilogy–where Lewis hits you over the head with a big Anglican stick. (With lashings of The Matter of Britain. I read The Once & Future King that same year; once again, Lewis suffered by comparison.) Of course, Lewis was new to that Jesus stuff–& wrote faster than Tolkien. Who had inspired Lewis’s renewal of faith–although Lewis was too much of a Northern Irish Protestant at root to go all the way over to Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism. (Lewis did adapt some of Tolkien’s Elvish–which hadn’t seen print yet.)
Reading Tolkien’s letters, he did try to work Christian themes into the vast story he’d begun in the trenches, rooted in the Northern myth & legend he’d loved since boyhood. (I just began reading The Vikings & The Victorians–after finishing The Hobbit. (Which doesn’t have much subtext but a shitload of scary adventures & a huge, bloody battle; not “just a kiddy book.”))
Or maybe it’s just more of that hero’s journey (See Campbell, J)…
Yup, it’s possible to discern some Christianity in LOTR–but Tolkien was too smart to create a huge allegory & was not trying to convert his readers.
Right, what’s perceived as a Christian subtext is in the eyes of the readers, not the author.
I (now former Catholic) saw Christian elements in LOTR the first time I read it. “Subtext”? I guess it depends on what you mean by that word. There are a few specifically Catholic elements that Tolkien used in parts of LOTR, in addition to the overall concept of grace.
I think that particular one could have been based on the English kings supposedly being able to cure scrofula, aka “The King’s Evil”.
True. But consider its quality of being more sustaining the more you depended on it alone. Tolkien based that on what is sometimes attributed to the Eucharist in a spiritual (not food) sense.
Which was only possible because Bilbo and Sam (and many others) did not kill Gollum because they pitied him.
But Eru Iluvatar and the Valar are the only “gods” in LOTR. They alone are shown respect as “gods” (by those who show any such respect). I believe that Tolkien, as a Catholic of his era and whose mother was actually a convert, would have much more restricted beliefs than even Lewis.
The difference is that Tolkien believed that the story of Jesus was a indeed a myth, with all its transformative and emotional power, but a myth that really was true. If you believe Tolkien is wrong, then of course you’re right.
Only partly true. For example, Gandalf sacrificed himself for his friends, died and was resurrected, but other than that he obviously was not intended as a complete analogy to Christ. But there really are Christian ideas in LOTR. And again, it depends what you mean by “subtext”.
What Sam would have done is unknown. But after reading Tolkien’s letter 246, I think Tolkien might say that Sam would not have been able to relinquish the Ring any more than Frodo, but he would have thrown himself into the fire out of love and devotion to Frodo.
