The past few months have been so packed with drama and horror, from the Orlando shootings, the Nice attack, the political rise and very real prospects of Donald Trump as president, the continued issues between the police and the society they purportedly serve, that there is almost too much to choose from in blogging about current matters. Since I like to put some distance betwixt myself and the events I opine on in my blog and the on-going events are still too recent for me to have a proper perspective, I decided that rather to retreat instead to a space of peace and calm, the land of Arda or as it is often called, Middle Earth. Middle Earth was not exactly peaceful, but the defeat of the darkness helps cast a rosy glow over its entire history. And sitting at ease far removed from that fictional world, I can sip on my coffee and offer my criticisms on one of the great works of fiction.
It is, it goes without saying though I am saying it here, an act of incredible arrogance on my part to offer up criticism on Tolkien's universe. But not only do I have both the freedom and the chance to criticize what I could not create myself, this is less a criticism and more a musing on some aspects of his work that specially fascinate me and some ideas that I would see differently, were that power available to me. Tolkien created his universe and it was his natural prerogative to shape it and its characters as he wished. But he dreamed up Middle Earth a century ago and the world has changed quite dramatically in its attitudes. My own perspective shaped around the turn of the century is so very different from that of a young English soldier in the trenches of France in the war to end all wars that is quite amazing and a testament to the greatness of Tolkien's work that Middle Earth calls to me in much the same way as it has to generation after generation from every corner of the world.
From my first reading of The Lord of the Ring, I wished that Tolkien had treated Eowyn slightly different. She was, despite her relatively minor role, one of my favorites along with Meriadoc Brandybuck. Tolkien gave her a great role in the Battle of Pelinnor Fields when she stood by her king when all other fled in terror of the Witch King and then delivered the death blow to first the Fel Beast and then its rider, and was thus the only person in Middle Earth to destroy a Nazgul. Glorfindel drove off the Witch King at an earlier date, Legolas unseated one of the Nazgul from a long distance on the banks of the Anduin while Gandalf even only pushed them back enough to shield the retreat of Faramir and his men while suffering a bad defeat later in a one-on-one battle. In that sense, Tolkien's statement is odd that Eowyn abandoned her dreams of glory in battle in favor of healing and a domestic life; Eowyn had already achieved great glory, at least equal if not surpassing Aragon and there was no act in Middle Earth that could equal hers.
But even sadder for me is her unrequited love for Aragon, for she comes across as an infatuated schoolgirl. That she idolized him when he first rode into Edoras was perhaps natural, given her seclusion and suffering at the hands of Grima Wormtongue but I would have wished that she followed him and loved him in the same way that Gimli and Legolas did. Sadly Tolkien suggests that her infatuation did not really end when they parted and there is at least a suggestion that she rode secretly beside her king to the Battle of Pelinor Fields seeking death as an answer for a hopeless love; to a modern reader, her desperation would make more sense as a story of a strong warrior continually passed over in a patriarchal society. Her continued infatuation casts a pall over her subsequent love for Faramir and it reads too much like she was settling for him when she could not get her actual choice. That is a pity, for though it is a minor chapter in the lives of two relatively minor characters, it lessens them unnecessarily and both of them appealed strongly to me. Their love could and should have been a wonderful thing - Eowyn as a strong and independent woman striving to be accepted an an equal and definitely able and willing to kick ass when needed, while Faramir was a great foil as the accomplished warrior who preferred learning and nurturing to fighting. No other characters in Middle Earth were better suited to be joined, but that unfortunate infatuation continues to loom large over them and Tolkien's attempt to then re-gild their relationship after Eowyn states that she wished for Aragon's love reads as rather clumsy and contrived to modern eyes.
Sadly, Tolkien's genius did not extend to the details of personal feelings or character shading and he worked mostly in broad strokes rather than fine detail when it came to love - witness the description of the love between Aragon and Arwen Eveningstar, or the even greater love affairs of Thingol and Melian or Luthien Tinuviel and Beren. The love of Galadriel and Celeborn is described in but one short phrase and Celeborn's character is rarely developed to explain how he won the love of one of the greatest of the Eldar and possibly the greatest living Elf in Middle Earth during the events of the War of the Ring. Even Samwise Gamgee's romance is but slightly touched upon. Perhaps Tolkien preferred the light touch in describing these events since the love and marriage of individual characters seems of minor importance when weighed against the great events of the Third Age when the glory of the elves was waning and the shadow of Mordor hung over all. But to me, it is precisely the lives and hopes and dreams of the most ordinary people that make the great events of the story important. In his own way Tolkien understood this and embraced it, for it was Sam's devotion to Frodo and his love for the Shire and its people that gave him the strength to carry them to Mount Doom, it was the unexpected and improbable comradeship that sprang up between Gimli and Legolas that spurred them to great actions and it was Gandlaf's love for and interest in the "unimportant" hobbits that eventually gave him the key to overthrowing Sauron and finally banishing the darkness from Middle Earth. But all these relationships are but hinted at with the lightest of brush strokes and that is genius on Tolkien's part for it allows our imagination and personal perspectives to fill in the blanks. Unfortunately for Eowyn and Faramir and I, their story was the one time Tolkien did abandon the broad strokes in favor of greater detail. A warrior of her accomplishment, Eowyn assuredly deserved a better love story; at the very least, she most definitely deserved better dialogue!
I mentioned above the one enduring thread in the tale of the Hobbits, their love for each other and for the Shire and for "all things green and beautiful". At the climax of the story, Frodo faces the final test as he stands above the fires of Mount Doom and prepares to throw the One Ring to its destruction. But the power of Sauron and the siren song of power prove too much and to Sam's horror he claims the Ring for his own. All that they had sought and suffered for was for naught and the end of Middle Earth seemed nigh when Gollum sprang forth and seized the ring for himself and in his celebration took the One Ring back to its infernal furnace and finally unmade it. Reading this from a modern perspective, I really wished that Frodo had withstood the power of the Ring, that where the kings of Men had proved weak, the love of simple things like a good meal (and many of them), a rosy apple, a green Shire and a good song would triumph over the dark and empty promises of Mordor. Now it goes without saying that Tolkien as author is the ultimate and only decider of how his story should go and his tale is very much a part of the greater picture he painted of both Middle Earth and the powers that created and shaped it. It is worth nothing Tolkien had a precedent for this idea - while the nine Kings of Men succumbed to the lure of power and became Ringwraiths, the seven Dwarf lords did not - the main book does not dwell on it, but Tolkien's background works indicate that the dwarves loved their work and wealth more than power and so even though they were hurt by the rings that Sauron gave them, they did not become his servants. Though the "gods" are rarely mentioned in the Lord of the Rings books - even the journey of the Elfs to the Undying Lands is merely mentioned and never explained at length - the larger Tolkien universe fills in most of the gaps and provides the theological underpinning of the story. The Fellowship was never going to win or lose on its own merits, the combined power of Men, Elfs, Dawarves, a Wizard and twice as many Hobbits as were originally intended was clearly not enough to stand against, much less overthrow the power of Mordor. Tolkien's use of the word "doom" (destiny or Fate in modern parlance, one suspects) indicates a hidden power at play throughout the story. Manwe is never named, far less credited, except for a hint that Gandalf the Maia was "sent back" to finish the task after dying in his victory over the Balrog of Moria. And interestingly when he returns with greater power and transformed (Thorondir remarked as to Gandalf being as light as a feather and on his return he seems uncertain and disoriented at first) that power is still never brought to bear conclusively against the Nazgul. Gandalf does aid the retreat of Faramir's ill-fated mission to retake Orthanc but he never engages the Nazgul in direct combat. The one time that it seems the confrontation is looming, he is distracted and needed to save Faramir's life and the Nazgul break off their assault on the town to deal with the arriving Rohirrim. Perhaps Tolkien never decided even in his own mind if Gandalf would be able to face and defeat the Nazgul and in the end, the pivotal action is worked by the most unlikely of heroes. (In the movie, when face to face with the Witch King, Gandalf is thrown down and the Nazgul gloats that the wizard cannot defeat him - only the arrival of the Rohirrim distracts the Witch King and saves Gandalf.) This, more than any other, illuminates Tolkien's world view for Middle Earth - the fate of the world is shaped by unseen players beyond the frame of the story and small events that seemed to have no importance come back to decide the final battle.
Thus, it was Frodo's compassion for Gollum in the early chapters of their meeting (and his continued pity almost all the way through, especially when contrasted to the naked and well-deserved distrust of Samwise Gamgee) that spared that unfortunate creature's life - Frodo even actively intervened to keep Faramir and his men from killing Gollum - and ensured that he would live to play a crucial part in the story. Frodo's compassion saving Middle Earth is a fine concept - pity and compassion proved more important than all the military and magical skills of Gandalf, Aragon, Legolas and all the rest - but not even Gandalf knew its importance and it plays a part in shaping the tale seemingly despite rather than because of everyone's actions. Other minor events also are shown to have exceptional importance in retrospect - Merry and Pippin were not supposed to even leave the Shire, per Frodo's original plan. They then insisted on being a part of the Fellowship when no one imagined they'd be of any importance, and Pippin especially appears to doom the task when he alerts the orcs in Moria of their presence - it seemed till then that they would be able to slip through undetected - and Gandalf seemingly dies in a heroic rearguard action. But a couple of days later, the two of them bravely sacrifice their own freedom and safety to spring Frodo from the Orc ambush near Amon Hen. After their escape and delivery from the orcs, they befriend Treebeard - the only members of the party who could gain the trust of an Ent, one imagines - and are the key agents in rousing the Ents and bringing the war to Isengard, defeating Saruman before the Rohirrim arrive. Merry then joins with Eowyn - crucially the only other warrior of Rohan to not flee in terror - to slay the Witch King while Pippin (in a much less heroic role) plays a role in saving Faramir from being accidentally killed by his demented father. That these two almost forgotten agents combined to influence some of the key events of the war is another testament to the idea that the Valar or even Eru Illuvatar himself were moving the pieces in a giant chess game. Tolkien paints a riveting and coherently consistent tale - I just wish a simpler, more mortal power had defeated Sauron.
It is, it goes without saying though I am saying it here, an act of incredible arrogance on my part to offer up criticism on Tolkien's universe. But not only do I have both the freedom and the chance to criticize what I could not create myself, this is less a criticism and more a musing on some aspects of his work that specially fascinate me and some ideas that I would see differently, were that power available to me. Tolkien created his universe and it was his natural prerogative to shape it and its characters as he wished. But he dreamed up Middle Earth a century ago and the world has changed quite dramatically in its attitudes. My own perspective shaped around the turn of the century is so very different from that of a young English soldier in the trenches of France in the war to end all wars that is quite amazing and a testament to the greatness of Tolkien's work that Middle Earth calls to me in much the same way as it has to generation after generation from every corner of the world.
From my first reading of The Lord of the Ring, I wished that Tolkien had treated Eowyn slightly different. She was, despite her relatively minor role, one of my favorites along with Meriadoc Brandybuck. Tolkien gave her a great role in the Battle of Pelinnor Fields when she stood by her king when all other fled in terror of the Witch King and then delivered the death blow to first the Fel Beast and then its rider, and was thus the only person in Middle Earth to destroy a Nazgul. Glorfindel drove off the Witch King at an earlier date, Legolas unseated one of the Nazgul from a long distance on the banks of the Anduin while Gandalf even only pushed them back enough to shield the retreat of Faramir and his men while suffering a bad defeat later in a one-on-one battle. In that sense, Tolkien's statement is odd that Eowyn abandoned her dreams of glory in battle in favor of healing and a domestic life; Eowyn had already achieved great glory, at least equal if not surpassing Aragon and there was no act in Middle Earth that could equal hers.
But even sadder for me is her unrequited love for Aragon, for she comes across as an infatuated schoolgirl. That she idolized him when he first rode into Edoras was perhaps natural, given her seclusion and suffering at the hands of Grima Wormtongue but I would have wished that she followed him and loved him in the same way that Gimli and Legolas did. Sadly Tolkien suggests that her infatuation did not really end when they parted and there is at least a suggestion that she rode secretly beside her king to the Battle of Pelinor Fields seeking death as an answer for a hopeless love; to a modern reader, her desperation would make more sense as a story of a strong warrior continually passed over in a patriarchal society. Her continued infatuation casts a pall over her subsequent love for Faramir and it reads too much like she was settling for him when she could not get her actual choice. That is a pity, for though it is a minor chapter in the lives of two relatively minor characters, it lessens them unnecessarily and both of them appealed strongly to me. Their love could and should have been a wonderful thing - Eowyn as a strong and independent woman striving to be accepted an an equal and definitely able and willing to kick ass when needed, while Faramir was a great foil as the accomplished warrior who preferred learning and nurturing to fighting. No other characters in Middle Earth were better suited to be joined, but that unfortunate infatuation continues to loom large over them and Tolkien's attempt to then re-gild their relationship after Eowyn states that she wished for Aragon's love reads as rather clumsy and contrived to modern eyes.
Sadly, Tolkien's genius did not extend to the details of personal feelings or character shading and he worked mostly in broad strokes rather than fine detail when it came to love - witness the description of the love between Aragon and Arwen Eveningstar, or the even greater love affairs of Thingol and Melian or Luthien Tinuviel and Beren. The love of Galadriel and Celeborn is described in but one short phrase and Celeborn's character is rarely developed to explain how he won the love of one of the greatest of the Eldar and possibly the greatest living Elf in Middle Earth during the events of the War of the Ring. Even Samwise Gamgee's romance is but slightly touched upon. Perhaps Tolkien preferred the light touch in describing these events since the love and marriage of individual characters seems of minor importance when weighed against the great events of the Third Age when the glory of the elves was waning and the shadow of Mordor hung over all. But to me, it is precisely the lives and hopes and dreams of the most ordinary people that make the great events of the story important. In his own way Tolkien understood this and embraced it, for it was Sam's devotion to Frodo and his love for the Shire and its people that gave him the strength to carry them to Mount Doom, it was the unexpected and improbable comradeship that sprang up between Gimli and Legolas that spurred them to great actions and it was Gandlaf's love for and interest in the "unimportant" hobbits that eventually gave him the key to overthrowing Sauron and finally banishing the darkness from Middle Earth. But all these relationships are but hinted at with the lightest of brush strokes and that is genius on Tolkien's part for it allows our imagination and personal perspectives to fill in the blanks. Unfortunately for Eowyn and Faramir and I, their story was the one time Tolkien did abandon the broad strokes in favor of greater detail. A warrior of her accomplishment, Eowyn assuredly deserved a better love story; at the very least, she most definitely deserved better dialogue!
I mentioned above the one enduring thread in the tale of the Hobbits, their love for each other and for the Shire and for "all things green and beautiful". At the climax of the story, Frodo faces the final test as he stands above the fires of Mount Doom and prepares to throw the One Ring to its destruction. But the power of Sauron and the siren song of power prove too much and to Sam's horror he claims the Ring for his own. All that they had sought and suffered for was for naught and the end of Middle Earth seemed nigh when Gollum sprang forth and seized the ring for himself and in his celebration took the One Ring back to its infernal furnace and finally unmade it. Reading this from a modern perspective, I really wished that Frodo had withstood the power of the Ring, that where the kings of Men had proved weak, the love of simple things like a good meal (and many of them), a rosy apple, a green Shire and a good song would triumph over the dark and empty promises of Mordor. Now it goes without saying that Tolkien as author is the ultimate and only decider of how his story should go and his tale is very much a part of the greater picture he painted of both Middle Earth and the powers that created and shaped it. It is worth nothing Tolkien had a precedent for this idea - while the nine Kings of Men succumbed to the lure of power and became Ringwraiths, the seven Dwarf lords did not - the main book does not dwell on it, but Tolkien's background works indicate that the dwarves loved their work and wealth more than power and so even though they were hurt by the rings that Sauron gave them, they did not become his servants. Though the "gods" are rarely mentioned in the Lord of the Rings books - even the journey of the Elfs to the Undying Lands is merely mentioned and never explained at length - the larger Tolkien universe fills in most of the gaps and provides the theological underpinning of the story. The Fellowship was never going to win or lose on its own merits, the combined power of Men, Elfs, Dawarves, a Wizard and twice as many Hobbits as were originally intended was clearly not enough to stand against, much less overthrow the power of Mordor. Tolkien's use of the word "doom" (destiny or Fate in modern parlance, one suspects) indicates a hidden power at play throughout the story. Manwe is never named, far less credited, except for a hint that Gandalf the Maia was "sent back" to finish the task after dying in his victory over the Balrog of Moria. And interestingly when he returns with greater power and transformed (Thorondir remarked as to Gandalf being as light as a feather and on his return he seems uncertain and disoriented at first) that power is still never brought to bear conclusively against the Nazgul. Gandalf does aid the retreat of Faramir's ill-fated mission to retake Orthanc but he never engages the Nazgul in direct combat. The one time that it seems the confrontation is looming, he is distracted and needed to save Faramir's life and the Nazgul break off their assault on the town to deal with the arriving Rohirrim. Perhaps Tolkien never decided even in his own mind if Gandalf would be able to face and defeat the Nazgul and in the end, the pivotal action is worked by the most unlikely of heroes. (In the movie, when face to face with the Witch King, Gandalf is thrown down and the Nazgul gloats that the wizard cannot defeat him - only the arrival of the Rohirrim distracts the Witch King and saves Gandalf.) This, more than any other, illuminates Tolkien's world view for Middle Earth - the fate of the world is shaped by unseen players beyond the frame of the story and small events that seemed to have no importance come back to decide the final battle.
Thus, it was Frodo's compassion for Gollum in the early chapters of their meeting (and his continued pity almost all the way through, especially when contrasted to the naked and well-deserved distrust of Samwise Gamgee) that spared that unfortunate creature's life - Frodo even actively intervened to keep Faramir and his men from killing Gollum - and ensured that he would live to play a crucial part in the story. Frodo's compassion saving Middle Earth is a fine concept - pity and compassion proved more important than all the military and magical skills of Gandalf, Aragon, Legolas and all the rest - but not even Gandalf knew its importance and it plays a part in shaping the tale seemingly despite rather than because of everyone's actions. Other minor events also are shown to have exceptional importance in retrospect - Merry and Pippin were not supposed to even leave the Shire, per Frodo's original plan. They then insisted on being a part of the Fellowship when no one imagined they'd be of any importance, and Pippin especially appears to doom the task when he alerts the orcs in Moria of their presence - it seemed till then that they would be able to slip through undetected - and Gandalf seemingly dies in a heroic rearguard action. But a couple of days later, the two of them bravely sacrifice their own freedom and safety to spring Frodo from the Orc ambush near Amon Hen. After their escape and delivery from the orcs, they befriend Treebeard - the only members of the party who could gain the trust of an Ent, one imagines - and are the key agents in rousing the Ents and bringing the war to Isengard, defeating Saruman before the Rohirrim arrive. Merry then joins with Eowyn - crucially the only other warrior of Rohan to not flee in terror - to slay the Witch King while Pippin (in a much less heroic role) plays a role in saving Faramir from being accidentally killed by his demented father. That these two almost forgotten agents combined to influence some of the key events of the war is another testament to the idea that the Valar or even Eru Illuvatar himself were moving the pieces in a giant chess game. Tolkien paints a riveting and coherently consistent tale - I just wish a simpler, more mortal power had defeated Sauron.
