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Although I suspect this will not be a popular comment, I hope the Amazon series will remain faithful to the Catholic/Christian sense that Tolkien deliberately i
by olivierestsage 6y ago
Although I suspect this will not be a popular comment, I hope the Amazon series will remain faithful to the Catholic/Christian sense that Tolkien deliberately infused into these novels. Peter Jackson did a notably good job with that, all things considered.
To be clear, I don't think that you should have to be a Christian to like Lord of the Rings -- quite the contrary. But given the lack of compelling Christian art in general the past 50 or 60 years, I sometimes find it a bit painful as a believer that such a notable counter-example is so often treated as if it can be separated from its author's profound religious convictions.
- ycombinete 6y agoI’ve heard good things about Colm Toibins books, if you’re looking for good art with a Christian foundation.
- SilasX 6y agoWell, I have some bad news. It’s looking like they’re going to ape Game of Thrones, nudity and all. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/lord-rings-sex-amazon-series-lotr-tolkien-game-thrones-b838613.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/lor...
- swarnie_ 6y agoGreat, that seems more compelling then 2000 year old Palestinian fairy tales.
- crtasm 6y agoLet's click through to their source as all the Independent has to offer is oversimplification and some social media posts: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2020/10/06/108573-sex-sensibility-amazons-nude-take-on-tolkien/ https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2020/10/06/108573-sex-sensi... So the intimacy coordinator who appears be working on the project, and might be working in that role or some other role, might be there for a sex scene, or perhaps only for some non-sexual nudity.
- cvhashim 6y agoOof that’s sad. They should have kept it PG13. You don’t need nudity to tell a story. I’ll have to pass up on this series.
- Covzire 6y agoI've read that Tolkien shunned allegory, but the books and movies do have strong undercurrents in my opinion at least in their overall plots though they're far less overt than your average CS Lewis work of fiction.
- celebrimbor7 6y agoThat's fair, although, if it could be said that Tolkien's book Lord of the Rings is a bit inspired by the heroism of Christ, the best analogy for the story of Numenor is it's the fall of man, Noah's Ark, and Atlantis combined, and it will inevitably be dark.
- assface 6y ago> the lack of compelling Christian art in general the past 50 or 60 years What about all those Mel Gibson movies that you guys have?
- ForrestN 6y agoI’m not sure we can ascribe religious purpose to works that borrow from popular stories that happen to be religious. The books/movies are also profoundly pagan, and lay out their own religious system for eg the elves which is not especially Christian. As I understand it there is a whole pantheon of god-like figures in the LOTR universe. If the author says it’s not an allegory, and it doesn’t work as an allegory, maybe their identifying as Christian isn’t enough to make it an allegory?
- olivierestsage 6y agoI agree that LotR is not a straightforward allegory, but I'm also going off more than the author's religious identity. In Tolkien's words: "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."
- eCa 6y agoI think that's an interesting point, that a book can both be a religious work but at the same time not contain anything overtly religious. As a non-believer, I quite enjoy the lack of anything overtly religious in his works.
- jfengel 6y agoThe covert religiosity is perhaps more insidious. The books are drenched in his particular religious world-view: not just Catholic, but a medieval kind of Christianity. The world he's created is deliberately pre-Christian, but the characters and overarching story arc think about the trajectory of the world in a way familiar to medieval Christians. That comes through in a fascinating sense of alien-ness. The books feel both realistic and unfamiliar because he's capturing a sense from the past as a very foreign country. That's a sense available to you as a non-believer because it's not gussied up in the specific trappings of any belief system you've been exposed to (and probably put off by). The highest virtue in The Lord of the Rings is a very Christian kind of hope -- hope for the next world rather than this one. And the key virtue of humans, rather than Elves, is that they get to go there, while the immortals are trapped here. It's easy to miss all that in The Lord of the Rings because it does ultimately depend on hope in this world -- they win and evil loses. But look at the sadness of the Elves, who know that they will ultimately lose and the world will decline. Think of that from the point of view of somebody living among Roman ruins that they cannot repair. And the only hope comes from a far-off entity promising a better afterlife. It's not propaganda, but it's a very real demonstration of the virtues of his outlook.
- frostburg 6y agoWell, you had Chagall and Vedova and a few great architects, but indeed after the Eighties it hasn't been ideal.
- AquinasCoder 6y agoIt's refreshing to hear this perspective. There have been a lot of authors and producers trying to capitalize on the success of the LOTR films and recreate the magic of middle earth with varying levels of success, but it's harder said than done. At the end of the day, Tolkien's philosophical and theological views do not get in the way of a really great story. I think that's at least in part what Tolkien's reservation with allegory was. There's a temptation to make a story to fit a narrative. History and narrative are crucial elements to making something compelling and this is where it's hard to compete with Tolkien.
- cannabis_sam 6y agoWho’s the pope figure in the middle-earth context?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- brundolf 6y agoTolkien was famously against the idea of allegory in fiction (in stark contrast with his friend C.S. Lewis). All parts of an author's life are going to influence his creative works - that's just inevitable - so I'm sure you could find some things that might be traced back to his religion. But you could say the same thing about his experience fighting in WWI, for example. I highly doubt there were any intentional references or parallels. I recommend reading his essay On Fairy-stories to get a window into the role he sees fantasy as having. Interestingly he does tie it in with his faith at a meta-level: he sees it as a sub-creation within the larger creation; himself a sub-creator. But the hallmark of that sub-creation is for things to be different and separate in key ways. I don't think he would reduce his work to being a mere echo of his beliefs, even partially, beyond abstract themes like good and evil and hope.
- olivierestsage 6y agoI wouldn't want to think of LotR as a "mere echo of his beliefs." However, when Tolkien criticized allegory, he wasn't criticizing the idea that a work could be infused with deliberate meaning; the key difference is that he felt it should be "infused" -- digested, not a solid block of meaning that pounds readers over the head. Regarding his intentionality in putting that kind of meaning in, other comments in this thread quote him explicitly discussing this aspect.
- brundolf 6y agoSure, I just think it's overly narrow to call that meaning a "Catholic/Christian sense". When I left the church, in fact, The Lord of the Rings remained a source of great meaning for me specifically because it enshrined that meaning in a non-religious context. Obviously for Tolkien, personally, those themes would have been rooted in his religious life. But I think it's a strength, and not a weakness, that they can transcend it. (Not that I expect Amazon to do a good job of preserving them either way, for the record :P)
- olivierestsage 6y agoPoint taken, and in my original comment, I wasn't expressing the hope that hobbits would turn toward the camera and recite the Apostles' Creed or something. I was just hoping that the underlying spirit and values of Christian belief, which I believe suffuse the work, would not be contradicted or trampled on by the new treatment.
- staticman2 6y agoThere are religious themes in The Silmarilion but there are virtually none in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit from what I recall. Whatever Tolkien may have said privately- virtually every character comes across as not having a religion. None of them prey to God when in danger. People are responding to the books Tolkien wrote, not what he said he wrote.
- olivierestsage 6y agoI hope you won't mind my responding in detail with what I think about this; I am passionate about this topic. Tolkien deliberately removed references to prayer and religion in his fantasy world to avoid two potential traps: by showing a fictional religion, he would risk contradicting his faith; by explicitly loading scenes of Christian prayer into his fantasy, he would undermine the quality of the fiction with "allegory," thus undermining his own message by making it unpalatable to audiences. What I am referring to when I talk about the spirit of Christianity that infuses LotR is not any explicitly allegorical meaning, but -- following Tolkien's own quotes to this effect -- different pieces that are left here and there in the text. For example, for Christian readers of Tolkien, different aspects of Christ are typically understood to be found spread across the figures of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn. Other Christian elements in the text include Gandalf's advice to Frodo to spare Gollum, and the fact that his mercy is ultimately what saves the quest; Gandalf's return from the dead, reborn and cloaked in the kingly majesty of white; the lore of Sauron as a fallen elf, tying him to the devil, who is also referred to as "the enemy" in Christianity; the way the ring gives earthly power but drains the soul, whereas sacrifice and hardship seem hopeless at the time, but have true power in the end, etc. If you want a pretty good idea of a believer's perspective on this, there's a fairly good article by Ignatius Insight [1], but I don't know how persuasive it will be to someone who rejects the underlying premises. [1] http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/pkreeft_christlotr_nov05.asp http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/pkreeft_christlo...
- greedo 6y agoSauron was never an elf; he was a Maier, just like Gandalf.