David Brin On LOTR

hprotagonist0 writes "Salon has posted an article by sci-fi author, scientist, and essayist David Brin (The two Uplift trilogies, The Transparent Society) with his thoughts about LotR. A technophillic optimist, he warns against waxing too Romantic about feudal, good vs. evil fantasy. Instead, he says, we should look ahead to the future. Thought-provoking."

Comments

I think it's silly...

[levik]

Look at the latest crop of articles knocking LotRas "backwards looking" and "anti progress". Come on people. It's a FAIRY TALE. An engrossing one, and rich with detail, history and colorful characters, but a fairy tale non the less... Tolkien himself cautioned his readers not to take it as a work of social commentary.

Is it really a fairy tale's obligation to address the wrongs in society, and to ensure that humanity continues its technological progress? Must a story really be "forward thinking" in order to have any redeeming values?

Re:I think it's silly...

[Dannon]

Hear, hear. It's a story, and a good one. And I don't think everything must be "forward-thinking" to have value.

I vaguely remember a C.S. Lewis quote on the issue of whether or not to raise children on fairy tales and fiction. At the time, it was considered "forward-thinking" to raise children on reality rather than fantasy. (Still is, for some parents.)

I can't find the exact words right now, but in effect, he said that he would rather a child hearing a mysterious bump in the night think of a monster under the bed than a burglar. And yes, there are witches and monsters to frighten, but there are also heroes and knights to look up to, with timeless values such as courage and honesty.

In another much more recent bit of creative fantasy, one main character points out that humans need the little stories and lies in childhood as practice. Practice for believing in the big, important things. Things like Honor and Justice.

Re:I think it's silly...

[DecoDragon]

I started thinking the article was pretty out there, ridiculous, and taking what is basically a good story far to seriously, until I got to the end. I don't think a fairy tale has a lot of obligations (if any). I changed my mind on the ridiculousness of the article when I got to the end. The part that starts "Am I pulling your leg? You bet!" and basically asks for people to think critically about what they see. And I like to imagine the point of that exercise isn't just to rip apart LOTR, but to get some practice in looking at the other stories of good vs. evil in similar light. Who's telling the story? Why are they telling the story? Kind of pulls you back to English Lit. or creative writing classes.

Re:I think it's silly...

[autopr0n]

one main character points out that humans need the little stories and lies in childhood as practice. Practice for believing in the big, important things. Things like Honor and Justice.

Don't forget Faith. It's really important that people still belive all the big lies throughout their whole lives.

Re:I think it's silly...

[protohiro1]

I think you may have missed the point as well. This article isn't "knocking" LOTR, it's playing with it. Having fun with the greater implications of the story. Just a fascinating read. Isn't it fun to explore stories? Or must we just watch or read while turning our brains off? I am certain that Tolkein would have prefered the critical view.

Re:I think it's silly...

[protohiro1]

Settle down people! Did you read this (fascinating) article? He doesn't think we should disregard them at all. Instead, he was doing some literary criticism and looking at the work from a different angle. This article was more of a thought experiment than a proscriptive essay. So interesting to read, and, if anything, reverent towards Tolkein and his works.

And yet . . .

[jd142]

Many times the dwarves lament the fact that they have lost their knowledge of how to make something or create a technology. It seems that their longing for the past is a longing to a return to technology.

Excellent article...

[Noryungi]

David Brin explains very well what makes LOTR so great, and I tend to agree with his conclusions. One of the very first thing that you learn in Political Science 101 is that, in any group of people, leaders will appear pretty quickly.

In fact, this leadership mechanism, as well as the (very human) desire to be able to identify to groups or characters that are 100% good, is probably the undercurrent to 99.9% of all novels.

I do have a couple of gripes:

• not every country has a large, educated middle-class. As a matter of fact, the lack of a middle-class is one of the most serious problems in thrid-world countries today.
• Brin goes over how JRR Tolkien was a snobby, romantic anglo-saxon elitist, writing about WII. OK... Now tell me something I don't know!

Overall, interesting article. Not his best, though.

Just my US$ 0.02, of course...

Re:Excellent article...

[guacamolefoo]

Brin goes over how JRR Tolkien was a snobby, romantic anglo-saxon elitist, writing about WII. OK... Now tell me something I don't know!


Tolkien himself rejected this notion many times during his lifetime. The story was not a cipher for WWII or the atom bomb. It was just a story. If Brin did something more than simply topical reading/viewing, he would know this. The perpetuation of this myth is just out and out intellectual laziness.

Remember, "Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."

GF

One small complaint on his arguments....

[Dark Paladin]

I like Mr. Brin's writing - most of his books have been pretty good, and Earth is still one of my favorites. But I thoguht this was a little silly:

Naturally, I enjoyed the "Lord of the Rings" (LOTR) trilogy as a kid, during its first big boom in the 1960s. I mean, what was there not to like?

Now, who can tell me the one logical flaw here? Yes, you in the back? That's right - here's a sucker.

I was not even borth in the 1960. I was barely conscious in the 1970s - so I missed out on the whole "culture changing" event of those decades.

So for me, the LoTR movies is partly about telling a story (a rather good one in condensed format), as well as the friendship of watching the movies with those who "get it" (reasons why I'm seeing the movie tonight at 12:01 AM - not because I really want to see the movie that badly, but because I'll hang around with all of my friends and people who "get it").

Now, once all the hoopla is over, and a whole new generation is introduced to the fairy tale and wonder of Tolkien, then I'll have no problem with people looking to make their own things, or people inspired to mix and match the future with Tolkein's view.

I think Mr. Brin is right in some respects - new things are always a good idea, to look at both sides of the equation rather than just lumping "good vs evil" arguments. But I'd hardly call the new movies "backwards looking" - just retelling of a story for those old enough to remember it when it was fresh and new, and for a whole new generation for whom these stories are new to their minds and can experience it with their friends.

Like me.

Enough with the optimism

[mr_luc]

After 100 or so years of reckless optimism, we're finally starting to realize that the future can suck, even when great technology comes along. Compare the view that science fiction has of our future NOW to the view expressed in 1930, 1940, 1950.

One of the things I love most about Tolkien's work are the recurring themes of loss, of how the best has passed us by already, how everything degrades. I don't think one should fashion their worldview around that kind of pessimism, but the point is that after a century of reckless optimism that has spawned all manner of recklessly misused technology, maybe a little negativity will make us think twice about the consequences of our actions.

The future isn't the silver bullet it once was.

Re:Enough with the optimism

[Daemosthenes]

I don't think I agree with your reading of Tolkien. Tolkien's writing ends with the dawn of the age of man - the end of the mystical Third Age marks the close both the Silmarillion and the LotR saga.

I find a central theme in Tolkien to be the passing of the mystical third age into the fourth age of man, and with it a passing of all that has come before. No longer will there be mystical eternal elves; the world is broken and round, and magic is passing from the world. We enter now into the unknown, the age of man. In man, Tolkien sees not the dichotomy of good and evil, the old heroic notions of old that are so present in his talks of past ages. Tolkien sees an unpredictable free will, no disposition to heroics, good or evil. Man is the great enigma, in both his complete unpredictability and his untethered potential.

Tolkien, in this writing, is much like C.S. Lewis - Lewis believed that the world had become devoid of the certain magic and mysticism of being alive. With the decline of religion and morality, the world had lost its spark of charm and character. While Lewis took it as his mission to "re-enchant" the world, I feel that Tolkien did not take so much of a reconstructionist attitude; rather, he recognized the passing and change, and put his faith, albeit haltingly, in the self-creation and free will of mankind. He was not optimistic. He was not pessimistic. He was truly unsure of the future to come, and merely hoped for the best. It is this unpredictability, this certainty in nothing but change, this is what Tolkien was truly attempting to express.

The Lord of the Rings is Tolkein's last hurrah of heroism. It is the final shout of classical myths and larger than life heroes, one last tale to remind us of the fading magic of being alive. Just as we all must eventually lay down the books themselves, eventually we too must emerge from this classical perspective into our own contemporary worldview. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't still lessons to be learned from the tales of our enchanted past, the middle-earth.

Re:Enough with the optimism

[guacamolefoo]

The elves seemed fixated on stasis, and even the things that they built (Rivendell, Lothlorien) were in part the products of the power of Sauron and were held together by the rings he created for the elves and which he vested with their power.

Sorry -- I blew it with the above statement. The elven rings were not made by Sauron, but were made by elves -- what follows is a pretty good summary of the history of the various rings.

Who made the Rings of Power?
It was the Elves of Eregion who made all the rings, except for the One which Sauron forged by himself in Mount Doom.

After the defeat of Morgoth in the First Age, some of the remaining Noldorin Elves settled in Eregion and built a city called Ost-in-Edhil around the year 750 in the Second Age close to the west gate of the dwarven kingdom of Moria. About the year 1200, Sauron came among the Elves in a fair form using the name Annatar (Lord of Gifts), but with a dark plan to ensnare them. Sauron greatly desired to "persuade the Elves to his service, for he knew that the Firstborn had the greater power [Silm]." He taught them secret lore, and with this knowledge their craftsmen (a guild called the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, the People of the Jewel-smiths) created the Rings of Power which included the Seven and the Nine. But Sauron had a part in the creation of these rings and he guided the Elves in their making. However, the Three Elven Rings were conceived and made by the Elven-smith, Celebrimbor, alone, and Sauron never touched the Three.

Why were the Rings of Power Made, and what were their Powers?
The reason is tied to the regret the Elves had for the passage of time. The Elves were immortal and were fated to live as long as Middle-earth lasted. As such, the earth changed with the passage of time, and the Elves saw many things that were fair become destroyed and lost by the hurts of evil. Sauron, as tempter, awoke a desire in the hearts of Elves to heal the hurts of the earth and create a paradise on this side of the sea to compare to Valinor - and to be its rulers; whereas in Valinor they were only subjects and below the Valar. The Rings of Power were primarily made to slow the passage of time and preserve their creations of beauty. Yet they had other powers as well.

Tolkien provides a revealing insight on to the nature of the Rings and their powers in one of his letters:

"The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. `change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance - this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor - thus approaching `magic', a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron...such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible." [Letters #131)
The Rings were not made as instruments of war or domination; they could not create lightning bolts or hail storms. Yet, they conferred powers commensurate with that of the user; a Great Ring in the hands of a weak and lesser person could not work effects to the extent of the wise or great. Notice Galadriel's words to Frodo in Lothlórien:

"Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others." [FR]
The Elves used the Three Rings to create "islands of timeless beauty" and guard them against the passage of time and evil. Their use can be seen at work at various points :

Elrond used the power of his ring, Vilya, to cause the flood of the river Bruinen when the Nazgûl tried to capture Frodo.
Galadriel used the power of her ring, Nenya, to keep a guard on Lothlórien so that none could enter without her leave.
Gandalf used the power of his ring, Narya, to kindle the hearts and spirits of the enemies of Sauron to do great deeds.
But the use of the Elven Rings was possible only after Sauron was defeated in the Second Age and his Ring taken and assumed lost. If Sauron regained the One, then all the works of the Elves and the use of their Rings would be subject to the evil will of Sauron.


GF

Re:Enough with the optimism

[shut_up_man]

Tolkien's themes of loss always seemed a little weird to me - everyone was always lamenting for the mighty heroes of old, and marvelling at the power of lost crafts and magics. I mean, did the Elves make Glamdring and Sting and Orcrist and then FORGET what they just did? If things worked like our world, the very next year some smart-assed Elf would hammer out Super-Glamdring, then Hyper-Glamdring, then Ultra-Glamdring, and continue to improve until Frodo's day when the Elves would be producing toothpicks that would cause every Orc in the land to explode if waved even slightly.

The idea that there was a quota of beauty and power in the world and time passing used it up was really depressing... it kinda reminded me of that Monty Python skit with the Yorkeshiremen, except going forward in time:

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

anti-industrialist

[flyingdisc]

J. R. Tolkien was certainly anti-industrialist. The whole piece about Isengard basically refers to industrailisation taking place in rural britain. Felling trees and building factories. He makes no bones about not liking the effects of the introduction of heavy industry in the uk.

The theme at the end of the last book when they return to the shire covers the same ground - battle between rural idyll and mechanisation.

Just because tolkien has an axe to grind doesn't make it any less of a good story (plenty of other authers have also had underlying messages that they want to put over eg CS Lewis and Pullman's Nothern Lights. You can take it or leave it and just enjoy the yarn)

The Rightful King

[cgreuter]

There's actually a very good reason for this idea of putting The Rightful King on the throne.

In a medieval society, the absolute worst tyrant on the throne was still better for the common people than a war of succession. If you put the King's son on the throne, there's at least a reasonable chance of stability, but if the line of succession is unclear, you often end up with a long, bloody war.

WRT Brin, I think he worries too much. Sure, we like the trappings of royalty, but I think most people would start getting upset the moment some King declared that he was better than them. Monarchy is a product of the whole medieval world view, with a heirarchal view of society. We don't have that anymore. Today's royalty have exactly the same status as movie stars.

Canada still has the Queen of England as its official leader and this hasn't stopped it from being a democratic nation. Aside from appearing on TV a couple of times a year and visiting once in a while, the Monarchy has no real-world affect on us.

He talks about the 'dogma of nostalga'

[teamhasnoi]

How can you *not* look back at your childhood and miss the innocence, and the feeling that your parents could save you from any evil? Sure, in the 70's we had the Soviet 'Menace', but it didn't seem so close to home as the twin towers.

It would be great to be forward looking and excited about what techonology can do for the world, but all I see is petty warmongers, and a fear driven society too scared to make intellegent choices, using technology to distance people from each other, be it bombs, or toys that preclude any use of the imagination.

Imagine a beowulf cluster of hopeful people! When fear(of terrorists, government, future) is no longer dominating people, perhaps we can get something done.

But maybe that's the point.

why this fantasy?

[urbazewski]

People who say it's "just a fantasy --- lighten up" are missing the point of Brin's article, which asks "why this fantasy?" In particular, why a fantasy that embraces ideas like belief in the divine right of kings (or elves, or any elite) which were pushed aside for good reasons? I also thought his point about how Romanticism started out opposed to feudalism but ended up embracing the rule of mythical elites was also worth making.

I, of course, am planning on going to the opening of the two towers dressed as an elf anyway.

And for those of you who haven't read it: the article is funny, which makes up for a lot. for example Brin writes: "Witness the most amazing accomplishment of NASA -- managing to turn the exploration of space into a huge snore."

annmariabell.com

DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!?

[IshanCaspian]

Go read the article. Read the last page.


*sigh*
OK, for those of you who still didn't read it, the point was to get you to examine the story from a different perspective, to get you to consider for a moment the possibility that the "good guys" were really the "bad guys." It's an exercise in not being such a MTV-loving couch-potato consumer who just takes everything at face value... "oooh shiny objects and hot women, must deactivate brain while watching movie." The article did NOT knock LOTR. Save your canned responses for whenever Micro$oft does anything. :)

Re:DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!?

[1u3hr]

Not to mention its 'pleasance,' not pleasaunce.. but then, its fantasy.

That was from a quote by JRRT. And it's a real word, listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a variant of "pleasance". He did, recall, have a day job as a professor of mediaeval languages, and was an expert in old English and Norse languages. Be very sure before you try to correct him.

Re:DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!?

[guacamolefoo]

OK, for those of you who still didn't read it, the point was to get you to examine the story from a different perspective, to get you to consider for a moment the possibility that the "good guys" were really the "bad guys." It's an exercise in not being such a MTV-loving couch-potato consumer who just takes everything at face value... "oooh shiny objects and hot women, must deactivate brain while watching movie."

Brin did the same thing with Star Wars a while back -- consider the Empire as a force of good and Yoda as an arrogant turd, or some such thing. I vaguely remember the review...

This guy evidently has a drum to beat, namely to turn over various media interpretations of literature to look at them from different perspectives. Basically, he didn't need four "pages" to do this -- he could write this in a couple of paragraphs. The review seems to be mostly an exercise in being a smarty-pants who is trying call Tolkien an elitist, sexist, racist while being too cute by half. Any point he may have been trying to make was muted by his overbearing, prickly style. Classic "Salon" writing for you.

Fuck 'im. He's wrong anyway. The story isn't black and white. Saruman was good, but was corrupted and turned to evil. The King of Rohan and Denethor were good people corrupted by evil, with different results. Gollum is a mixture of good and evil, or at least evil and less evil. Butterbur is good tempered by stupidity. The "good" allies have divisions - the elves vs. dwarves. The humans vs. elves, the men of Minas Tirith and Rohan have little/no love for Galadriel and the Ents, the Steward of Gondor vs. Aragorn, etc.

I think Brin gave a simplistic reading of the book and then looked for another way to repackage his review of Star Wars in order to make some change from Salon. Coming from someone whose apparent point is to look at the "standard" tale and turn it over before making judgments, he seems to ignore much of what is in there that doesn't comport with his interpretation of the book.

GF.

Re:DID YOU EVEN READ THE ARTICLE!?

[IPFreely]

My Lit/Crit Wife did read the article, and says:

Yes, I did read the whole article. And yes, it is an attack on Tolkein, just as his attack on the philosophy underlying the Star Wars movies was both an intellectual excercise and a genuine attack on attitudes that profoundly trouble Mr Brin.

In fact, both articles attack all fantasy as inherently bad, promoting anti-egalitarian ideas, and he claims in both articles that this inherent evilness comes from (a) oral story-telling, (b) Homeric poetry (the Iliad specifically) and (c) the Romantic movement.

Mr Brin is a science fiction writer but for this argument he seems to have left scientific method somewhere out around Pluto. There is not one shred of truth to his claims, and yet he has been printed three time now in Salon promoting this baloney.

For instance, Brin claims that in the Iliad Achilles kills "10,000" people who are "nameless minions," and that this is typical of how Homer promotes the elite over the masses. Actually, Achilles does not kill that many and EVERY SINGLE PERSON KILLED in the Iliad is named. Not only named, but their whole genealogy and many of their hopes and ambitions are detailed. Even the women are named, treated as real and individual people, and Homer lived in a heavily misogynistic society. Over and over, the supposed "elite" in Homer are trashed -- Agamemnon, for instance, is drawn as an arrogant asshole. Odysseus is admired for being clever, not for being a king. Demigods and god alike are not treated with "reverent awe" as Brin claimed, but treated with contempt when they behave badly, and respect when (which is seldom) they behave well -- such as taking care of the wounded or slaves.

Brin bases his claims against oral storytelling solely on his understanding of Joseph Campbell, a man despised amongst people who actually come out of recent oral traditions and responsible scholars of the topic. Any real study of oral story-telling, including things the feed into Western culture, puts the lie to Mr Brin's claims about oral stories promoting subservience to leaders. Read almost any Native American story, for instance, though their cultures are widely different from each other. Or, read early versions of western fairy-tales, NOT Disney-ified versions, but the real thing involving such topics as cannibalism, incest, and murder. Oral story-telling often involves the tension between the need and drives of the individual versus the needs and drives of the community in which the individual lives. But a mindless adoration of "superior" people does not appear, nor a passive acceptance of the status quo. Oral tales are usually the response to and promoters of questioning society. Questioning is considered good in them.

Romanticism started out as a remarkable egalitarian movement, and despite Mr Brin's claims to the contrary, continued that way. Unlike Mr Brin, I HAVE read Bryon, including soem of his speeches to Parliament, as an MP, promoting the welfare of the impoverished people of Britain, and his poetry promoting the same, and I am aware he DIED fighting with ordinary Greeks who were trying to throw off the tyranny of the Ottoman oligarchy and restore some sort of democracy. Percy Shelley GAVE UP his title to also promote the cause of the ordinary person. Using them to claim Romanticism is elitist is like using Trent Lott to promote good race relations.

Later Romantics were not, as Mr Brin claims, anti-technology because of mindless nostalgia. Rather, they saw firsthand the sheer unrelenting brutality of the technologies of the day -- factories and mills, and the arrogant inhumanity with which the owners and purveyors of this technology brutalized and regarded as un-human the people who powered these technologies.

There are certainly troubling things in Tolkein, his racism for instance. But I dislike the way in which Mr Brin is untruthful, or at least doesn't bother to check his facts, in his attack, and the way in which Mr Brin attacks Tolkein and then tries to evade the consequences of his attack by claiming, "but hey! I just want you to look at things differently."

Mr Brin should look at his own assumptions differently.

He's missed the point

[3141]

I can't help but feel that he has totally missed the point. JRR Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and Christianity was a very important influence on his philosophy. Good, evil, and humans living up to their ability or failing at the test is very relevant in terms of religion.

He seems to be attacking the form rather than the underlying messages, and as has already been mentioned, it's a fairy story. There's just so many ways of looking at Tolkien's work that some of Brin's essay seems just petty. "The paramount importance ... of the indomitable Romantic hero"? He's just got no idea. Tell me who the hero of the Lord of the Rings is? I think Sam is as much the hero as anyone, and who would put him as their first choice?

The Ring is Authoritarianism

[Shuh]

It's not a fairy tale. And it is relevent to all ages. The entire story is a metaphor for the internal (and possible social) struggle to resist the allure of unlimited power.

Brin's having fun and making a point

[Badgerman]

I'd read Brin's articles on Star Wars (available at Salon) before passing judgement. His take on Star Wars is far more negative than his take on LoTR. There he's angry.

With LoTR, Brin's having fun in the article while making a point. Much as he notes LoTR can only be taken so seriously, its obvious from his humor (especially the hilarious end with reviewing Sauron) that he's not taking himself 100% seriously either. He's tweaking people's noses and making them think.

Do I think Brin has a point? In general, yes. I've seen a lot of media taken far far too seriously - my favorite was seeing a person very seriously analyze the Star Wars universe and the Federation, and decide the Star Wars universe was more pleasant to live in. It was exactly like Brin's analyses - his choice was pure romanticism - and the assumption that in such a universe he'd be a hero, as opposed to say, Rebel cannon fodder or a Storm Trooper in Remedial Shooting Things Class.

There's only so seriously one can take any "classic" and all bear the stamp of the times and the author, and deeper interpretation needs to keep this in mind. Brin should too be a bit more aware himself, as I feel he misses various kinds of classic heros to focus on a few types.

Do I think LoTR is a classic? Yes, undoubtedly. It's an amazing effort from a man I can only christen a genius. But such men are products of time and place, and why their works are read is a stamp of the reader's time and place. Brin's just analyzing that.

In the end he suggests keeping things in context and their proper places. Not a bad piece of advice at all, even if you don't exactly agree with him.

Re:Why I never cared much for LOTR

[jgerman]

5) Racism
Percentage of protagonists in Fellowship who are white: 100. Meanwhile the black antagonists and their black crow spies and their black glass seeing ball inhabit their black towers and perform black magic. Gosh, I wonder if there's some symbolism there?

I know this whole comment was a joke.. unlike some of the replies apparently so I'll bite ;)

Star Wars, white farm boy rebels and destroys the life's work of a successful black man. Black leader of Cloud City, not only a smuggler, but an untrustworth asshole who betrays his friend. Is there symbolism there?

Of course I'm kidding too, though I get a little incensed when someone seriously makes these claims.

Re:Ooooh boy...

[tony_gardner]

What the ancient Greeks called democracy, and what we call democracy are two different beasts. It's all in what you define as a citizen. In ancient Greece, you could vote so long as you were male, greek, and rich. That sounds more like an aristocracy than a democracy to me.
Your assumption that all democracies are equal is ill-founded.

Not so bad...

[MenTaLguY]

Hmm, despite what many say, I think it's a pretty good article, really. Brin's trying more to provoke thought than advance a point.

But I don't think Brin gives Tolkien enough credit at all -- as far as sentient peoples in Sauron's service having been coerced into service or duped by Sauron's propaganda -- Tolkien actually proposes that possibility explicitly in the book.

For example, think of the scene (near the end of the Two Towers) where Sam encounters a fallen Easterling and starts thinking about his life and motivations.

Sam himself is a model of the non-aristocratic everyman-hero, and as Brin points out the most heroic figures in Tolkien always ally themselves with the common man, whatever their background.

As far as peoples allied with Mordor in the south, the implication was that once hostilities ended they were indeed offered peace and help in reconstruction. They were simply treated as human beings like everyone else; they were not inherently evil.

Orcs and related creatures were something of a different affair ... they weren't actually sentient, per se. Their apparent intelligence was largely an extension of Sauron's will; they lost it when he was destroyed.

The ringwraiths simply dissipated, as not only their individual wills but their very beings had been subsumed and essentially replaced by Sauron's own.

That is something I think Brin misses; the great evil of Sauron was that he would, in the end, permit no independent will or existence outside his own.

Re:Frodo often seen as ``everyman''

[Jason Earl]

This is where Brin's criticism of LOTR breaks down. Frodo might have been well-to-do, but he didn't have any idea that his armor was worth that much. Nor did he, or Bilbo, for that matter, realize that they had the "One Ring" on their mantelpiece. Sure, Frodo was comfortable, but he wasn't some sort of political power, even in the Shire.

As much as Brin wants to concentrate on Elrond, Galadriel, and the rest of the High Elves the story was really about a 4 foot tall hero from the middle of nowhere, and a pile of his diminuitive friends. Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry are the folks that really make the difference, and I could probably throw any one of them across the room. Comparing those folks with "kings" is absolutely ridiculous. Especially since when their adventure was done they went back to the Shire as if nothing had happened.

Brin also misses the point that TLOTR is about the end of an era. The new era is ruled not by elves, but by the son of a woodsman. Aragorn may have been descended from "noble" blood, but his people spent generations as woodsmen protecting a people that mistrusted them. Aragorn starts the story as a nomad with a broken sword. He can hardly be considered a king. In fact, of the original fellowship only Boromir can really be considered as nobility, and look what happened to him.

The rest of the fellowship just happened to be the best that could be assembled at the time. Gandalf wasn't the chief of the wizards (Saruman was), but he was the best that was to be had. Legolas wasn't a High Elf, but he was willing to go, and Gimli went to represent the dwarves.

Speaking of Gimli and Legolas, Brin makes a big deal out of the fact that JRRT is some sort of a closet racist because he allows for the total destruction of the Orcs, but he forgets to mention the very important subplot where Gimli and Legolas face their racial prejudices and become friends.

In short, Brin is stretching. He has an axe to grind and he is trying to get the story to fit his preconceived notions.

Think about it.

[autopr0n]

Why should I have to? Its exactly as the original poster said, it isn't a social commentary its a fairy tale

Yeah, god forbid we should ever think about anything. Talking about a book couldn't possibly be enjoyable for its own sake

Later when Frodo is shown the future by the Lady of the Wood, the Dark Lord burns down people's houses and enslaves them.

Or, maybe she just showed him what she though would happen... or lied to him to get him to carry the ring to mt doom she was to scared and lazy to trasport herself.

Besides, if you buy consider Brin's hypothis that the book is a work of propaganda after the war was won, then of course it is going to portray him as a "bad" person.

Democracies, and speaking of debunking

[lordpixel]

>>Brin
>>This yearning makes sense if you remember that >>arbitrary lords and chiefs did rule us for 99.44 >>percent of human existence. It's only been 200 >>years or so -- an eye blink -- that "scientific >>enlightenment" began waging its rebellion against >>the nearly universal pattern called feudalism

>pVoid
>Not to break it to you Einstein, but democracy was >invented in ancient Greece. That's not a couple of >hundred years, it's a couple of thousand years... >just about as old as christianity itself.

Well, while we're busy being irratated....

Many people have already pointed out Greek democracy was hardly the same thing that we have now. I'll point out that you've seriously missed the point:

Brin is saying that for 200 years some reasonable proportion of the world has lived in a democracy. The fact a few Greeks had something like it before the birth of Christ is irrelevant - it was almost forgotten and certainly never much practised in the next 2000 years or so. He didn't say it hadn't been INVENTED, only that it wasn't USED.

>>Timidly at first, guilds and townsfolk rallied >>together and lent their support to kings, thereby >>easing oppression by local lords.

>Does he actually have proof of this, or is he >using the LoTR as a template?

I'll refer you to the history of mainland Europe, in particular you might like to read about what's now Belgium for a start.

>This guy hasn't read the Silmarillion probably.

I have. And the first 10 volumes of the History of Middle Earth, including the poetry (eek!) There's some merit in what you say, but its much more complex.

> It seems to me he's the typical Hollywoodist he >criticizes in his own essay: trying to attract >attention by shock value.

Actually, he's a widely respected sci fi author. He's been writing on these themes for several years. If he's using shock value its to needle you into thinking about the ideas he presents. You can disagree, of course, but that seems to be his motive to me.

Provocative

[kmellis]

There's quite a bit I agree with in Brin's article, and I certainly do appreciate his intent. It should be recognized that he clearly intended to be provocative (in the best sense of the word), not authoritative or exhaustive.

My one response to Brin's article would be that it is possible to take pleasure in archetypical fantasies like LotR without it indicating a regressive Romantic yearning. This is complex and his chief complaint is persuasive. But the idea he describes--the conservative tendency to idealize the past, to imagine that the present represents perhaps the worst of all worlds, a world where the forces of evil have conspired to makes one's life miserable--is not the only incredibly dangerous idea implied in fantasy. The other dangerous idea is the related fantasy of stark and immediately identifiable divisions and affiliations between Good and Evil. These two ideas which have a deep affinity for each other are, in my opinion, the chief intellectual facades (and I mean "intellectual" in the broadest sense) behind which the most common and yet most virulent human evil hides. Brin mentions that the Nazis were deeply Romantic, and he's right.

Still, though, I take pleasure--both emotional and intellectual--in the "Lord of the Rings", and I believe that I do so with no great danger to my soul. That's because I, in short, know better.

Art is not Reality; reality is Reality. Art's job is not to perfectly represent reality--past, future, or possible. Its job is to abstract essences of the human experience of reality in a way that is pleasurable or increases comprehension--or, hopefully, both. Thus, what the art means, what it is doing, may be quite unlike its superficial appearance. In particular, Brin fails to acknowledge that an essential element of narrative art is the identification the reader has with the piece's protagonists. And so even if we have Kings, Elven Lords and elite, ancient Wizards, nevertheless they are common because we are common. In them we are not so much imagining a world ordered where others, or even ourselves, are at the top of the pyramid--we are imagining the expression of the best within each of ourselves. In this way our great stories have always served both great powers, always at war--the proclamation of the divine right of Kings and the inevitability of xenophobia intertwined with the individualism, egalitarianism, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, a peasant boy will seize the sword from the stone. It could be me. Or you.

In truth I wonder if this paradoxical clash of ideals is not one of the driving forces of narrative motion. Just what is it we really want? The thing of it is that we don't quite know. That's what's interesting.

Ugh, god damnit

[autopr0n]

Tolkien himself rejected this notion many times during his lifetime. The story was not a cipher for WWII or the atom bomb. It was just a story. If Brin did something more than simply topical reading/viewing, he would know this.

Brin DIDN'T say that LOTR was an alagory for WWII. That's just something the poster threw in. Brin just said that Tolken was writing the books at a time when the 'failure' of the scientific enlightenment was aperant.

Re:What a maroon... what a ta-ra-ra-boom-deeyay!

[lumpenprole]

1. Of course this is a backward-looking tale - it was modeled after ancient Scandinavian mythologies.
Uh, it was also written after WWI and into WWII. If you think that didn't have an effect on somebody living throught it....

2. It's also about a world in transition, and the dawn of Man's dominance, so in that sense it is forward-looking.
Okay, but that's streching a point compared to the idealization of the country folk vs. the users of engines and technology. That's not reading something into it. It's more or less stated.

3. Is anybody else sick to death of comparisons with Star Wars? Puh-lease...
Yeah, well maybe you shouldn't be reading articles about modern myths. Star Wars had a huge impact on the psyche of millions of Americans. It's going to mentioned in these discussions. Get over it

4. And while we're at it, is anybode else EXTRA sick of drawn out analogies to the real geopolitical world of the 20th century? Too many bozos waste too much time trying to play matchup in a self-congratulatory exercise.
Not half as much as I am of dismissive idiots who substitute scorn for thought. Look, parts of these books were written in the form of letters to his son in RAF. So, here's a guy. Lived through WWI. Living through WWII. Knows a lot about myths. Is generally in the position of an intellectual during a time that most intellectuals are convinced that the world is possibly ending. He's basing a tale on a body of knowledge he knows a lot about. He's also living throught one of the worst times for England in modern history. Both of these things are influencing him. Both of them.
Brin isn't asking you to dismiss the work, not like it, or deny it's other aspects. He's simply pointing out that there are more influences on this than how great it would be to be a Hobbit or an Elf or something.

Tolkient Anti-Progress???

[fizban]

Bah! Brin is out of his mind. Although he has a lot of good thoughts in that article, I think he has read too much into his analysis. In fact, he negates his own commentary at a few points by noting that Tolkien was the most critical of the "Romantic" portions of his world, i.e., the elves and their desire to keep the world as it is and not allow progress.

In fact, this is the whole point of the books! It may be regrettable that the elves have to journey across the sea and Middle-Earth loses a part of itself that it can never get back. But that is the price of progress. And according to Tolkien, it is *inevitable* that we move forward; that progress happens. We will keep tokens of that older time in our lives, so that we don't forget it, but we will still move forward.

Tolkien strives for the balance that we all wish for - between the romanticism of the past in the context of technological progress.

Examples:
1) Gimli keeps a lock of hair of Galadriel, in order to remember her beauty, with the plan to encase it in a construct of dwarvish metalworking. Nature in Technology.
2) Later in the story, Gimli shows his desire for progress as he laments the decay of Minis Tirith and the ability of dwarvish *technology* to bring it back to life. Again, technology will provide the solutions to the ills of the world.
3) Gimli's description of the Caves of Aglarond, where he comments on their beauty to Legolas. Legolas, being an elf (one of those romantics Brin so despises), laments that dwarves would ruin the beauty if they found out, but Gimli immediately scolds him, saying the no dwarf could ruin such beauty. They would use their technology to *improve* the natural beauty. Clearly, Gimli illustrates Tolkien's desire for the balance between nature and science, the romantic past vs. the technological future.
4) It is the elves who are leaving Middle Earth. If the stories were so full of Romanticism, the elves would have stayed and continued to affect the non-progress of Middle Earth.
5) Arwen, an elf, turns away from her birthright and chooses the path of mortality. That is Tolkien's clearest indication anywhere that the progress of men is desired more than the ways of the romantic elves.
6) When the party stays in Lothlorien, at the end Aragorn comments that time flows slowly in the land of the elves, but they must leave soon because events continue on the outside world. If they intend to fight evil, they must move forward. Again, the romantic elves are not the path to enlightenment and freedom.
7) Gandalf gives Aragorn a directive and a challenge at the end of the stories that it is now the time of men. Much that has been will now pass away, but that does not mean that Aragorn should neglect his future. He should hold in his thoughts and heart the beauty of the past and use it to guide his way as he makes progress into the future.

In my opinion, Brin is completely off the mark in his analysis of LotR. I think Tolkien had the essence of progress in his heart as he wrote the books. He laments that the beauty of the elves is fading, but knows that it was that same group who caused the sufferering in the world and it is best for them to leave and for the race of men to guide things toward a more prosperous future.

Brin conveniently forgets WWI

[Infonaut]

As we all know, for years critics have drawn conclusions about the Lord of the Rings based on the assumption that Tolkien was writing about WWII.

Was he an elitist? Yes, of course he was. He was the product of his place and time. But as such, he was also a first-hand victim of technology. It's amazing to me that Brin misses entirely the impact of the First World War on Tolkien and his writing.

Tolkien fought at the Battle of the Somme, which was a slaughter of unprecidented scale. On the first day of the British attack, 20,000 men were mowed down by German machine guns - this coming after the British bombarded the German positions with hour after hour of relentless artillery. Tolkien lost two of his best friends to the war, and himself was sent home with trench foot.

Relentless belief in "progress" was a defining factor of the prewar period, and it took years of staggeringly innefective and grotesque fighting to convince most Europeans that progress wasn't all it had been made out to be. The men who fought the war and lived to tell the tale certainly harbored no illusions about it.

It's no wonder that Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, a tale in which individual actions could make a difference. After seeing battlefields completely denuded of vegitation, turned to rotten, corpse-laden mud by machines of death, is it so surprising that he glorified the fields and trees and rivers? Perhaps the Dead Marshes aren't such a stretch when you've seen bodies littering the battlefield.

Tough to stay optimistic about the future when you've fought in one war that maimed you and killed your friends, and seen a second world conflagration that saw entire cities aflame and nations engulfed by mechanized armies.

Mr. Brin is right that we should look to the future. But in moving forward, let's not forget that there are things about the past that do bear preserving. Humanity, decency, individual responsibility, and mistrust of power seem like pretty damned useful concepts to me.

The Point of the LOTR

[archivis]

It's not about mythic heroes saving the day. Frodo bears the ring into Mordor - very heroically. Sam helps him, becoming a Ring Bearer as well. Togather they both become darker, and Frodo takes wounds that will haunt him - forever.

In the end it is NOT the mythic hero Frodo, favored heir of the richest man in the village, with his mithril coat and magic sword, who saves the day.

In the end Evil is defeated by squabbling against itself - as the corrupted Gollum seizes the ring and ends up getting cooked.

Lets look at the Fellowship of the Ring - a gathering of mythic heroes all. A returned King, assorted adventurer-hobbits, a wizard with assorted elves, dwarves, and horses.

What happens to this Fellowship? Well...the leader is slaughtered (albeit to return - being Maia real death is tricky buisiness), there is blood and betrayal amongst them...and they are scattered to the four winds.

So now you have mythic heroes wandering the landscape... So what do they manage? They bring down Saruman... but that's bungled as he ends up corrupting the Shire.

These wandering heroes do manage other heroic feats - the dead rise, wormtongues are dewormed, and so forth. Of course what this amounts to is mostly the heroes gathering to defend Minas Tirith because the *real battle* is in Frodo and Sams hands.

Gandalf shows some of his power defending the city, but in the end it is a woman - female empowerment! - who dares to ignore the mythic prophecies and exert her will over presumed Fate - who takes down the Witch King. That's a powerful message - one can transform oneself form an unimportant marginzalized bystander by telling the mythic "truth" to stuff it and then *making it so*.

Now, by the time Frodo is at the end game he isn't really that bright and shining heir of the richest man in the village anymore. He's become a simple soldier - marching to what he believes will be his death, sick, disheartened, and motivated by his duty to do what must be done.

At the end of the books, when Frodo passes into the West, he's not that much different. He's haunted by what he has done, he has wounds that will not heal, and much of the light in his own heart has guttered out. He's a fairly realistic war vet, not a idolized shining hero - even while Strider has become the archetypal Rightful King. Note: Strider, Mr. Mythic Hero from beginning to end, doesn't do all that much in the grand scheme of things - he secures his kingdom but does not save the world.

There is a message here - that if one is determined enough fighting the unbeatable immortal darkness one might win - but the cost will be high and being on the right side is no guarentee.

Frodo is rewarded for his toils with immortality in the West, as a wounded and darkened man. Think carefully about being that, in a land of shining Gods and happy bright elves - many of whom have never left paradise - he's going to be one of the very few with inescapable darkness. Forever.

That's *not* the end of a mythic hero, that's the end of a soldier, returning home to try to build a normal life after experiencing direst horror.

Mythic Hero Boy -> becomes ordinary soldier -> Saves World -> pays realistic price for the rest of his days.

Brin doesn't know his Tolkien

[roca]

and that's the real problem with his article, whether you agree or disagree with his philosophical viewpoint.

First of all, the heroes of the story are clearly Frodo and Sam, and Tolkien explicitly portrays hobbits as "the commoners" of the story. Brin manages to completely ignore this.

> Did they all leave their homes and march to war
> thinking, "Oh, goody, let's go serve an evil
> Dark Lord"?
Tolkien explicitly states that the Easterlings were deceived and used by Sauron. There is no suggestion that they are inherently evil. Aragorn makes peace with the Easterling survivors after Sauron is destroyed. All the rants about how Tolkien considers the Easterlings subhuman are nonsense. You only have to read the scene where Sam discovers the dead Easterling to see this.

> count the number of powerful beings who are
> vastly uglier than anybody with that kind of
> power would allow themselves to be.
Brin needs to read the Silmarillion to see how Sauron made himself appear beautiful for hundreds of years in order to seduce the Numenoreans, and was afterwards cursed by the Valar and forced to appear ugly forever after.

> Consider the rings. Those man-made wonders are
> deemed cursed, damning anyone who dares to use
> them, especially those nine normal humans who
> tried to rise up, using tools to equalize and
> then usurp the rightful powers of their betters
> -- the High Elves.
This is nearly the exact opposite of what Tolkien describes. The rings were not made by men. They were made by Elves and Sauron and given to men in friendship.

Furthermore Tolkien repeatedly emphasises that the evil of the rings influenced by Sauron, especially the One Ring, can corrupt anyone. The whole point of the story --- the key to the plot --- is that his "everyman" characters, the hobbits, are the *least* corruptible. Brin seems to have missed that point completely. Or maybe he just ignored it because it didn't serve his agenda.

Re:Powers of Rings

[Dr. Manhattan]

Tolkien [...] in one of his letters:

"The chief power... was the prevention or slowing of decay... the preservation of what is desired or loved... also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor... rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible."

A buddy of mine pointed out that the chief way the rings seemed to work was by creating/enhancing telepathy in the wearer. The Ringwraiths, aside from any physical, martial prowess, acted by destroying the morale of their opposition. See, e.g., Boromir's report of the 'strange fear' that had descended upon their forces, or the depression and gloom when the Ringwraiths are above as the troops march to confront Sauron's troops at the gate.

Fits with Galadriel's talk of having "to train your will to the domination of others". Rivendell and Lothlorien are nice places to be because their rulers, who wear Rings, project the desire to be nice onto those within range. I'll have to look and see if it's actually clear that Elrond used the ring to cause the flood or not.

Even the invisibility effect can almost be interpreted as a desire on the part of Bilbo and Frodo to not be seen, which the Ring projects. Of course, being untrained in its use, their new, uncontrolled telepathy makes them highly visible to Sauron. One of the chief threats that the One Ring would pose in Sauron's hands would be revealing to him the thoughts and deeds of the wearers of the Three Rings... again, telepathy.

Obviously, it's not telepathy alone; unless life extension is a side-effect of amplifying someone's 'mental power'. But the ability of the Ring to tempt people, and twist them to be like Sauron, makes sense in that context, too. Perhaps it has an imprint of his personality, and aligns the wearer to it over time, like how steel in a strong magnetic field can be magnetized.