Welcome Guest 

Register

Forum Home » Books Discussion » Discuss the Books » Bashing LOTR for Black and White Morality and Simplistic Good VS Evil Plot
12
Author Topic:
pv
Council Member
Posts: 523
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: June 26, 2014 09:04


[Edited on 06/26/2014 by pv]
http://monstersandcritics.wordpress.com/
pv
Council Member
Posts: 523
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: June 26, 2014 09:06
Enjoyed reading this thread. Maybe I don't know enough to contribute, though. (About the genres, etc. that people here are talking about.)

Personally, Tolkien has never seemed to me to be black & white. I would say that his philosophy might be summed up in a line from his essay on monsters and critics - "the worth of defeated valour in this world is deeply felt." Gollum, Boromir & Thorin, for instance are shown in a sympathetic light.
http://monstersandcritics.wordpress.com/
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: July 17, 2014 05:25
pv said: "the worth of defeated valour in this world is deeply felt."


What does this mean, exactly?

Another thought occurred to my reading/writing group: Perhaps the bashers are the sort who just don't like stories about valiant, honourable people. It rubs them the wrong way to have a hero going out and doing good. It's always surprising, but I meet people like that all the time.
Gandolorin
Council Member
Posts: 24040
Send Message
Post
on: July 18, 2014 03:29
Hercynian said:
pv said: "the worth of defeated valour in this world is deeply felt."

What does this mean, exactly?

I quote "The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays", HarperCollins paperback edition 1997, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", page 21, JRRT quoting William Paton Ker, 1855-1923 (look him up in Wikipedia):
'The Northern Gods', Ker said, 'have an exultant extravagance in their warfare which makes them more like Titans than Olympians; only they are on the right side, though it is not the side that wins. The winning side is Chaos and Unreason' - mythologically, the monsters - 'but the gods, who are defeated, think that defeat no refutation'. And in their war men are their chosen allies, able when heroic to share in this 'absolute resistance, perfect because without hope'.

Personally, I don't know if Chaos or Unreason are winning, but they raise their ugly heads like a flock of hydras on steroids and crack!

And "resistance, perfect but without hope" - IMO THE central theme of LOTR (and The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, too), crystallized in the figure of Sam.
Image
tarcolan
Movies Moderator and General Dogsbody
Posts: 6046
Send Message
Post
on: August 01, 2014 04:31
Wasn't there a conversation between Arjuna and Krshna? Any thoughts?
Hangman Helper program
pv
Council Member
Posts: 523
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: August 03, 2014 08:52
I know what you're talking about, but I'm not sure how you would relate it to Tolkien... The Krishna and Arjuna thing is more like Luke and Darth Vader. When Luke looks at the "enemy," he sees his father. And when Arjuna looks at the army standing in battle array before him, he sees cousins, uncles, teachers, etc., and says "I will not fight." In Tolkien, Sauron is Sauron, if you know what I mean - if people threw away their weapons and refused to fight him, that would be disastrous for Middle Earth!

To my mind, Tolkien's whole view of evil is different - in his work, there are real evil things that you have to fight, which have the capacity to break you in the end. Stuff like time, circumstance, psychological warfare, etc. in Tolkien's work, the stuff you're fighting is not a relation who happened to go crazy. It's something more serious than that.

Coming back to Arjuna, he was when he was young a great warrior whom few could beat, but towards the end of his life he becomes old and ineffectual and is easily beaten by a group of bandits on a lonely road. In the end, he's defeated by time and old age. That would seem to be the kind of thing that Tolkien is talking about.

Would love to hear your thoughts, though!


[Edited on 08/03/2014 by pv]
http://monstersandcritics.wordpress.com/
tarcolan
Movies Moderator and General Dogsbody
Posts: 6046
Send Message
Post
on: August 03, 2014 02:16
Yes, well. I also would love to hear my thoughts. I wrote a few paragraphs before realising that it would take a book or two to say what I intended. It concerns concepts of destiny, dharma and righteousness, and how these manifest in different societies and in Tolkien's world. It will have to wait though.

For now I would say that Sam alone exhibits the idea of righteous action, of doing the right thing. He is often conflicted through his lack of understanding but in the end just does his best. Doing the right thing is very difficult and requires a state of being in which it comes naturally. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The circumstances in the LOTR are too clear cut to portray this, the enemy is absolute and the orcs are altogether evil. It is only when Sam wonders whether the Southron soldier would rather have stayed at home that we touch on morality as a moveable feast. There is a hint also in Faramir's decision to let them continue to Mordor, against his own better judgement and the laws of his land. Yet he was a commander and had the right to make such a decision so it is not so obvious an example.

Perhaps it is unfair of me to expect more of LOTR as it was firstly written to be entertaining and by no means meant to be a philosophical tract. It is not as simplistic as some claim, and perhaps there are those who do not understand the nature of story telling, or of its univerality. It is certainly not just a children's story.
Hangman Helper program
pv
Council Member
Posts: 523
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: August 09, 2014 09:41
We'll look forward to reading your book, then! (Though I'm sure everyone here would love to read those paragraphs you wrote - perhaps you could post them here or put them up on a blog?)

There is certainly a lot more to LotR than just the story!
http://monstersandcritics.wordpress.com/
cirdaneth
Books Admin & Books Forum Moderator
Posts: 2069
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: August 09, 2014 10:25
I agree about Sam, Tarcolan. I think Eomer also has some of these qualities too.
12
Members Online
Print Friendly, PDF & Email