Pro-war and anti-war tendencies in literature and movies

[Ann]

In a post in another thread that I thought I was not going to add to, Art wrote:

My conclusion from a great deal of study is that the Great Books of the Western World have basically been a propaganda tool for an underground liberal antiwar humanist movement... a movement which I, myself, in fact applaud

Fascinating. The Great Books of the Western World have been pushing a hidden antiwar agenda. Like Art, I applaud that. However, this statement of Art's left me with the question: How do you know if a book (or a movie) is trying to tell you that war is bad? How does that show? And how, by contrast, can you see that a work of literature (or a movie) is telling you that war is good? I'm not going to discuss documentaries or propaganda pieces that discuss specific modern wars, like the Iraq war, because it is easy enough to figure out what their agenda is. I'm going to talk about literature that deals with war in a more abstract sense. The literary works that I'm going to discuss, at least briefly, are The Song of Roland, the oldest surviving major work of French literature, written in the eleventh or twelfth century, The Tragedy of Macbeth by Shakespeare (whoever he was) from the earliest years of the 17th century, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (whoever he was), written at about the same time as Macbeth, and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, written between 1937 and 1949. I'm also going to say something very brief about the movie character Rambo.

I'm going to argue that The Song of Roland, The Lord of the Rings and the Rambo movies can be seen as pro-war mouthpieces, whereas Macbeth and Don Quixote are antiwar works. What separates the pro-war from the anti-war pieces is how they describe they characters and what the war leads to. The critical question, I think, is how "good" and justified" the heroes are and how bad and utterly horrible their enemies are, and whether the loss of life in the war is "worth it".

Charlemagne.

Let's begin with the Song of Roland. I once read an abbreviated version of it, through which I gathered that while the hero of the Song of Roland is of course Roland himself, a noble knight, a still more important character in the story is king Charlemagne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne wrote about Charlemagne:

Charlemagne ( /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/, also /ˈʃɑrləmaɪn/; French pronunciation: [ʃaʁ.lə.maɲ]; Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great; (possibly 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.

So Charlemagne was a real person and a great king, certainly one of the most notable kings of European history. However, Charlemagne suffered one stinging defeat during his career:

Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain, to which he was invited by the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Charlemagne was promised several Iberian cities in return for giving military aid to the governor; however, the deal was withdrawn. Subsequently, Charlemagne's retreating army experienced its worst defeat at the hands of the Basques, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) (memorialised, although heavily fictionalised, in the Song of Roland).

Charlemagne was defeated in Spain by the Spanish Muslims, but that didn't stop him from being the king of much of Western and Central Europe.

A crusade.

Charlemagne died in 814. The Song of Roland, which deals with Charlemagne's defeat in Spain at the hands of Spanish Muslims, was written at least 200 years later, during the heyday of Christian Crusades against Muslims in Jerusalem. At this time, Charlemagne's defeat at the hand of Muslim enemies had probably become a problem to the Christian Europeans that they needed to address. How could their king have been defeated? How could he still be regarded as a great champion of Christianity? And how could the ignoble defeat be understood as a truly heroic battle?

According to the abbreviated version of The Song of Roland that I read, Charlemagne was 200 years old when this battle took place! That is of course impossible. By making the king so impossibly old, The Song of Roland tells us that Charlemagne was more than a mere human. He must have been chosen by God, and as such, he had been granted a life span that no other mortals can hope for.

And because Charlemagne must have been chosen by God to be the King, any war he chose to fight to defend his own rule must have been just. How do you know the war was just? Because it was fought by Charlemagne.

Scenes from The Song of Roland.

There is more. The Song of Roland tells us that the Christians lost against the Muslims because the Muslims used treachery against them. The Muslims, therefore, were no brave warriors. Through treachery, the Muslims could muster an army of 400,000 against Charlemagne's rearguard of 20,000 men, led by Charlemagne's nephew, Roland. Roland himself was incredibly brave as he fought the Muslims. He was too brave, actually, because he refused to blow his olifant horn to call for help until his army was utterly defeated. He did, in fact, eventually blow his horn to call for help, and then he blew so hard that he burst both his temples!

La Brèche de Roland.

He had to stop the infidels from stealing his holy sword, Durendal, which contained wonderful relics of highly important saints. Miraculously, therefore, he cut a large gap in the mountainside as he tried to destroy his sword.

One of the men who fought with Roland was the Archbishop Turpin. As an archbishop, Turpin could certainly be seen as an arbiter of what was right and wrong. The archbishop took a very active part of the battle himself and killed many Muslims. In this picture, you can see Charlemagne and Archbishop Turpin face off two Muslims enemies who look like devils.


How does The Song of Roland end? Well, Charlemagne is sort of successful. One of his most important enemies escapes, although Roland has managed to cut off his right hand in battle. But with the help of God, Charlemagne slays another important enemy. He takes the city of Saragossa and forces everyone there to convert to Christianity. The traitor Ganelon is drawn and quartered. So, by and large, Charlemagne is seen as defeating his infidel enemies in a holy war.

So we can see that the "good" characters here have miraculous characteristics and are extremely brave, and they defeat their satanic enemies thanks to their own wonderful bravery and the help of God. Their good fight leads to terrifying losses but also to the defeat of the horrible enemy. All of this means that The Song of Roland can be seen as a propaganda piece for war. Bear in mind, too, that this literary work was written during the heyday of the Crusades, and an important purpose of it may have been to persuade more European Christians to go to war against the Muslims in Jerusalem.

Because this post is long enough already, I will stop now and talk about the other literary works later.

Ann

[Ann]

I have never actually read more than excerpts of Cervantes' Don Quixote, written in the 17th century. But even in those excerpts it was clear that Don Quixote had been a normal and sane man, until he he had started reading too many books of chivalry. He believed that these books about knights and their noble quests to be true stories, and he decided to become a knight himself. He therefore became a knight-errant, a term which http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight-errant has described like this:

A knight-errant (plural: knights-errant) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. "Errant," meaning wandering or roving, indicates how the knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures to prove himself as a knight, such as in a pas d'armes.
...

Many knights-errant fit the ideal of the "knight in shining armor". To modern day readers, the figure of the knight-errant suggests a sort of lawful or righteous vigilante. A knight-errant typically performed all his deeds in the name of a lady, and invoked her name before performing an exploit. In more sublimated forms of knight-errantry, pure metaphysical idealism rather than romantic inspiration motivated the knight-errant (as in the case of Sir Galahad). Such a knight might well be outside the structure of feudalism, wandering solely to perform noble exploits (and perhaps to find a lord to give his service to), but might also be in service to a king or lord, traveling either in pursuit of a specific duty that his overlord charged him with, or to put down evildoers in general. This quest sends a knight on adventures much like the ones of a knight in search of them, as he happens on the same marvels.

I should point out that the illustration of the knight in the Wikipedia text above wasn't part of the original Wikipedia page. I put it there to underscore that when the knight-errant was looking for adventure, he was usually looking for foes to kill. He was looking for a dangerous enemy that he could righteously kill with his sword, thus proving his bravery.

As I googled for images of knights, I came across many images glorifying violence and war. Here you can see a modern image of a knight with a very long spear, and the text Medieval II: Total War.

So the knights were heroes of violence and war, and, having read too many books about knights, Don Quixote wanted to be one himself and went in search of adventure. Here you can see Don Quixote accompanied by his uneducated peasant squire, Sancho Panza.

What makes Don Quixote such a hopeless and ridiculous knight is that he is seeing enemies where there are none. His need to be a hero is much greater than his ability to see reality as it is.

Here you can see Don Quixote attacking his most ridiculous enemy, a windmill. Why did he attack it? It was because he needed an enemy to attack, preferably a superhuman monster, like a dragon or a giant. He found none, but his deranged mind told him that the windmill was a giant.



Don Quixote can be described as an anti-war propaganda piece for several reasons. In the beginning and in the end, the author describes the protagonist of his novel as a normal and rational man.

Click to view full size image

Don Quixote going mad from reading too many books about knights.

But when this man starts reading books about chivalrous knights, he starts to believe in their stories. He therefore wants to become a brave knight himself. But because he himself is so fallible, particularly when he has lost his sense of reality because of the influence of the books, his attempts to use violence to prove his own chivalry backfire badly. He saves no one, but he injures himself and others.

The message of Don Quixote can be summarized like this: It is dangerous to believe in uplifting stories about war and violence. Human beings are fallible. They can't see reality as it is, particularly not when they compare themselves with fictional heroes, or when they look for enemies where there are none. Therefore their own use of violence will lead to grief and misery.

The Song of Roland.
Was this one of the books that Don Quixote read?

Miguel de Cervantes (whoever he was), tells us that Don Quixote read very many books about chivalry. One of these books might have been the Song of Roland, the book which might possibly have been written to persuade young men to join the Crusades, the "holy war" against Muslims. Many people heeded the call to war during the age of the Crusades, but the Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful.





Ann

[Beyond]

I'm looking at all your pictures, Ann, and to me it seems like there is one-heck-of-a-lot of 'horseing' around going on.

[Ann]

I'm looking at all your pictures, Ann, and to me it seems like there is one-heck-of-a-lot of 'horseing' around going on.

Right you are, Beyond.

Ann

[Ann]

It is very presumptuous of me to write a comment about Macbeth, given the fact that we have an expert like Art on Starship Asterisk*. Nevertheless, I'll say a few words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth wrote:

The first act of the play opens amidst thunder and lightning with the Three Witches deciding that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals — Macbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquo — have just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitor Macdonwald. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess.

So Macbeth is brave. This is a quality that has traditionally been seen as characteristic of a good man. The same wikipedia page wrote:

Shakespeare's source for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. However, the story of Macbeth as told by Shakespeare bears little relation to real events in Scottish history, as Macbeth was an admired and able monarch.

Macbeth seeing the ghost of Banquo, whom he has just murdered.

Again, Macbeth is seen as good. But Shakespeare takes this story of a good man and a brave warrior and corrupts him. It is the description of this relentless, inevitable corruption of Macbeth, as he sacrifices everything is his quest to be the King, that makes the tragedy of Macbeth so absolutely gripping.




If you are going to write a pro-war piece, you have to make sure that the most outstanding soldiers and generals are very virtuous people. They must be trusted with the awesome task awaiting them. Their motivations must be pure and selfless. The tragedy of Macbeth is a ruthless reminder of human frailty, of how good intentions can be corrupted. Or as Hamlet says in Act 2:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!

How ironic! In the works of Shakespeare, kings and powerful men are seen again and again to make unwise decisions, which lead to catastrophic results. They are not noble in reason or infinite in faculties, rather the opposite. So how can you trust them to make war in the name of their God or their people? Must their wars not lead to tragedy rather than to triumph?

Macbeth, a man with blood on his hands.

This is the antiwar message of Shakespeare, as far as I understand it. Man is not noble in reason, certainly not noble enough to be trusted with the grave responsibility of war.















Ann

[Ann]

Personally I consider Tolkien's masterful fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, to have disturbing similarities to the old pro-war propaganda piece, the Song of Roland.

When I was in my late teens, I loved the Lord of the Rings. I loved the sheer beauty of the wonderful fantasy world, and I loved many of the characters. Gandalf was my favorite. I was also touched by the suffering of the "little people", the hobbits, and could see it as an allegory of the suffering of ordinary people during World War II. While I didn't much like the many battle scenes in Tolkien's trilogy, I could see them as a metaphor for the heroic fighting during World War II and the quest to defeat Nazism.

But.

There was one thing, one man, that I didn't like much at all in the Lord of the Rings. And that was Aragorn.

Aragorn healing Eowyn with the help of the athelas plant.

I remember very well when I first felt queasy about Aragorn. It was when Faramir, one of the good warriors, and Lady Eowyn, a brave female warrior, lay dying, and Aragorn healed them with the help of a certain plant or herb, called athelas or kingsfoil. But Faramir and Eowyn were already under the care of doctors. Why hadn't they healed Faramir and Eowyn with the help of the magical plant?

Ah, now. They hadn't healed Faramir and Eowyn because they couldn't. They couldn't, because none of them was born to be the rightful king. Aragorn, on the other hand, was indeed born to be king. And when the plant "felt" the "rightful kingliness" of the hands of Aragorn, it responded by giving itself magical properties, so that it could heal Faramir and Eowyn.

Of course the plant shut off its magical properties the moment it felt the unworthy hands of anyone but Aragorn touching it.

Gaaaah. Even as a kid, I hated it.

Please note that Aragorn has magical qualities that are his because he is the rightful king. Only because of that. Do you remember Charlemagne in the Song of Roland? He was the rightful king, too. And he had magical qualities, too, and he had them just because he was the rightful king.

Charlemagne.

Aragorn.

Remember that the Song of Roland claimed that Charlemagne was 200 years old? Well, see here what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragorn wrote about Aragorn:

He died at the age of 210, after 120 years as king.

Seriously, can you believe it? The rightful king Charlemagne was supposedly 200 years old. The rightful king Aragorn lived to be 210, according to Tolkien. A coincidence? I think not.

And what about Aragorn having been king for 120 years? I said before that The Lord of the Rings might be understood as an allegory of the battles of World War II. But what about Aragorn?

Aragorn.

Roosevelt.

Can you imagine an "Aragorn" being made the absolute monarch over most of the world after World War II? Can you imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt or Winston Churchill having their life spans magically extended so that one of them could be the absolute monarch over most of the world from 1945 to 2065? Can you imagine democracy being abolished, so that we could all benefit from decades after decades of perfectly wise rule by the King?

Anti-war literature says that people are fallible and can't be really trusted with the large-scale killing that we call war. Pro-war literature says that some people are absolutely good and perfect, and not only do they have every right to make war, but they were born or chosen to rule over us forever. Hallelujah.

Gaaah.

Ann

[neufer]

• _____ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 4, Scene 4
  
  HAMLET: Witness this army of such mass and charge
  • Led by a delicate and tender prince,
    Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
    Makes mouths at the invisible event,
    Exposing what is mortal and unsure
    To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
    Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
    Is not to stir without great argument,
    But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
    When honour's at the stake.

<<Lilliput and Blefuscu were intended as, and understood to be, satirical portraits of the kingdom of Great Britain and the kingdom of France, respectively, as they were in the early 18th century. Only the internal politics of Lilliput are described in detail; these are parodies of British politics, in which the great central issues of the day are belittled and reduced to unimportance.

The novel describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs. Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to "six rebellions... wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown".

The Big-Endian/Little-Endian controversy reflects, in a much simplified form, British quarrels over religion. England had been, less than 200 years previously, a Catholic (Big-Endian) country; but a series of reforms beginning in the 1530s under King Henry VIII (ruled 1509-1547), Edward VI (1547–1553), and Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) had converted most of the country to Protestantism (Little-Endianism), in the episcopalian form of the Church of England. At the same time, revolution and reform in Scotland (1560) had also converted that country to Presbyterian Protestantism, which led to fresh difficulties when England and Scotland were united under one ruler, James I (1603–1625).

Religiously inspired revolts and rebellions followed, in which, indeed, one king, Charles I (1625–1649) lost his life, and his son James II lost his crown and fled to France (1685–1688). Some of these conflicts were between Protestants and Catholics; others were between different branches of Protestantism. Swift does not clearly distinguish between these different kinds of religious strife.

Swift has his Lilliputian informant blame the "civil commotions" on the propaganda of the Emperor of Blefuscu, i.e. the King of France; this primarily reflects the encouragement given by King Louis XIV of France to James II in pursuit of his policies to advance the toleration of Catholicism in Great Britain. He adds that "when (the commotions) were quelled, the (Big-Endian) exiles always fled for refuge to that empire (Blefuscu/France)". This partially reflects the exile of King Charles II on the Continent (in France, Germany, the Spanish Netherlands, and the Dutch Republic) from 1651 to 1660, but more particularly the exile of the Catholic King James II from 1688-1701. James II was dead by the time Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, but his heir James Francis Edward Stuart, also Catholic, maintained his pretensions to the British throne from a court in France (primarily at Saint-Germain-en-Laye) until 1717, and both Jameses were regarded as a serious threat to the stability of the British monarchy until the end of the reign of George II. The court of the Pretender attracted those Jacobites, and their Tory sympathizers, whose political activity precluded them staying safely in Great Britain; notable among them was Swift's friend, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester Francis Atterbury, who was exiled to France in 1722.

Swift's Lilliputian claims that the machinations of "Big-Endian exiles" at the court of the Emperor of Blefuscu have brought about a continuous war between Lilliput and Blefuscu for "six and thirty moons" (Lilliputians calculate time in 'moons', not years; their time-scale is apparently also one-twelfth the size of normal humans.) This is an allusion to the wars fought under King William III and Queen Anne against France under Louis XIV, the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713). In both cases, the claims of the exiled House of Stuart were marginal to other causes of war, but were an important propaganda point in Great Britain itself, as both James II and James Francis Edward were accused of allying with foreigners to force Catholicism on the British people.

In the novel, Gulliver washes up on the shore of Lilliput and is captured by the inhabitants while asleep. He offers his services to the Emperor of Lilliput in his war against Blefuscu, and succeeds in capturing the (one-twelfth sized) Blefuscudian fleet. Despite a triumphant welcome, he soon finds himself at odds with the Emperor of Lilliput, as he declines to conquer the rest of Blefuscu for him and to force the Blefuscudians to adopt Little-Endianism.

This position of Gulliver's reflects the decision of the Tory government of to withdraw from the War of the Spanish Succession, despite the opposition of Britain's allies, on the grounds that the important objects of the war had been met, and that the larger claims which Whig members of Parliament claimed on behalf of Britain were excessive. This withdrawal was seen by the Whigs as a betrayal of British interests; Swift, a Tory, is here engaged in an apology on behalf of the policy.

Gulliver is, after further adventures, condemned as a traitor by the Council of Lilliput, and condemned to be blinded; he escapes his punishment by fleeing to Blefuscu. This condemnation parallels that issued to the chief ministers of the Tory government that had made peace with France, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (second creation) and Mortimer, who was impeached and imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1715 to 1717; and Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, who, after his political fall, received vague threats of capital punishment and fled to France in 1715, where he remained until 1723.>>

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<<Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was a strong believer in religious freedom. He spent a few years publishing pamphlets protesting James' policies. James was a Catholic, who was strongly anti-Protestant. Defoe favored the Glorious Revolution and supported William and Mary. In 1702 Defoe wrote his famous pamphlet THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS. Himself a Dissenter he mimicked the extreme attitudes of High Anglican Tories and pretented to argue for the extermination of all Dissenters. Nobody was amused, Defoe was arrested in May 1703, but released in return for services as a pamphleter and intelligence agent to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of OXFORD (second creation), and the Tories. While in prison Defoe wrote a mock ode, HYMN TO THE PILLORY (1703). When the Tories fell from power Defoe continued to carry out intelligence work for the Whig government.>>
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<<In middle age Alexander Pope was 4ft 6in tall and wore a stiffened canvas bodice to support his spine. Pope associating with anti-Catholic Whig friends, but by 1713 he moved towards the Tories, becaming one of the members of Scriblerus Club. His friends among Tory intellectuals included Swift, Gay, Congreve and Robert HARLEY, 1st Earl of Oxford (second creation). During his last years Pope designed a romantic 'grot' in a tunnel which linked the waterfront with his back garden. It was walled with shells and pieces of MIRROR. [Poisoned from eating potted eels] Pope died on May 30, 1744.>>

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_Was Oxford's Portrait Shakespeare's?_ by Richard Whalen

[img3="In the George Vertue's 1737 sketch
of the Shakespeare Stratford monument
the sketched in word "wife" near the base
of the monument and the feet of the
2nd Earl of Oxford (second creation) refers
*NOT* to Shakespeare's wife but rather to
the wife of the 2nd Earl of Oxford"]http://www.hollowaypages.com/images/VERTUES1.JPG[/img3]

<<About a decade after the Shakespeare Jubilee occurred a third indication that someone may have believed that Oxford was Shakespeare. This clue was in a portrait inventory that seemed to imply that a portrait of Oxford was thought to be that of Shakespeare.
.
Derran Charlton, an archival researcher of South Yorkshire, England, made the discovery at Wentworth Woodhouse and published his finding in the De Vere Society Newsletter last May 1995..
.
The inventory of portraits, dated 1782, lists all the heirloom portraits mentioned in the 1696 will of William, Earl of Wentworth --except one. Missing from the inventory list is a portrait of Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford. Where did that portrait go?
.
Scanning the inventory, Derran Charlton also noted that a portrait of the same dimensions was described simply as "Shakespeare". No portrait of Shakespeare was mentioned in the will, nor has any been found, nor has the inventory reference been linked to any of the other purported portraits of Shakespeare the Stratford man.
.
Furthermore, the listing of the Shakespeare portrait was alongside listings of portraits of Oxford's cousin, Lord Horace Vere, and his grandson, James Stanley. Since Oxford's portrait is omitted from the list and one called "Shakespeare" turns up among Oxford's relatives, it seems quite possible that whoever drew up the inventory called the Oxford portrait "Shakespeare". Otherwise the disappearance of the one and emergence of the other, as described by Derran Charlton, is quite unaccountable.
.
Finally, a convergence of pictures of "Shakspeare" and of Oxford in the 18th century may someday fit the pattern. At the point of convergence is Edward Harley, whose library became the Harleian Collection. In 1737 Harley took the engraver George Vertue with him to see Stratford and the monument in Trinity Church. Vertue sketched the monument but declined to show the face of the monument's "Shakspeare" in his sketch. Instead, he substituted a likeness based on the so-called Chandos portrait of Shakespeare. He also put Harley into his sketch, as a lone spectator of this bust with a substitute face. As it happens, Harley was the 2nd earl of Oxford (second creation), while his wife had connections to the 17th earl of Oxford (first creation). She was the great-great-granddaughter of Oxford's favorite cousin, the famous Horace de Vere. Also, she had inherited the so-called Welbeck portrait of the 17th Earl of Oxford, now at the National Portrait Gallery.>>

[Ann]

So I was going to say a very little something about the Rambo movies. And all I have to say, really, is this image.

I think this image looks like the ultimate pictorial glorification of violence. Sylvester Stallone looks so perfect and so heroic here. Look at his chiseled chest and arms. Look at his tense expression, reminiscent of (religious) suffering. Look at how he is totally concentrated on delivering a cornucopia of death in the name of, I guess, justice.

Ann

[neufer]

Look at his chiseled torso. Look at his tense expression, reminiscent of (religious) suffering.
Look at how he is totally concentrated on delivering a cornucopia of death in the name of, I guess, justice.

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 44#p160859 .

[Ann]

Look at his chiseled torso. Look at his tense expression, reminiscent of (religious) suffering.
Look at how he is totally concentrated on delivering a cornucopia of death in the name of, I guess, justice.

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 44#p160859 .

Ann

[neufer]

Look at his chiseled torso. Look at his tense expression, reminiscent of (religious) suffering.
Look at how he is totally concentrated on delivering a cornucopia of death in the name of, I guess, justice.

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 44#p160859 .

Whatta ya mean

[Beyond]

Look at his chiseled torso. Look at his tense expression, reminiscent of (religious) suffering.
Look at how he is totally concentrated on delivering a cornucopia of death in the name of, I guess, justice.

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 44#p160859 .

When i first clicked on your -viewtopic link-, neufer, i got a fish eye view of meteorites. So i thought
After i got down to your last post-- Whatta ya mean i clicked on view topic again, and got you and your 20x100 binoculars, and again thought +5. So now I can say Whatta ya mean +5

[Chris Peterson]

Personally I consider Tolkien's masterful fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, to have disturbing similarities to the old pro-war propaganda piece, the Song of Roland...

I think you can (and do) read too much into LOTR... and perhaps into the Song of Roland, as well.

Tolkien stated explicitly that LOTR was not about the events of WW2, and not inspired by them (although he admitted that, by participating in that piece of history, he couldn't say with certainty that he wasn't influenced by actual events).

Tolkien was a linguist, fascinated by the development of language and by the progression of cultural symbols. LOTR was his approach to exploring these things, to creating new languages, and to inventing a mythos which was clearly derived from the mythos of the European peoples. This includes such ideas as the divinity of kings, conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, matters of personal honor, and the glory of war. This is the reality of our history and culture; to say that a work that reflects our culture glorifies war, however, goes too far. It almost certainly doesn't reflect the intent of the author.

I think there is literature that, by design, glorifies war. I think there is literature that, by design, is anti-war. And I think there is literature (the majority of literature) that does neither... but into which readers will project their own biases on these matters.

[neufer]

Personally I consider Tolkien's masterful fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, to have disturbing similarities to the old pro-war propaganda piece, the Song of Roland...

I think you can (and do) read too much into LOTR... and perhaps into the Song of Roland, as well.

Tolkien stated explicitly that LOTR was not about the events of WW2, and not inspired by them (although he admitted that, by participating in that piece of history, he couldn't say with certainty that he wasn't influenced by actual events).

Tolkien was a linguist, fascinated by the development of language and by the progression of cultural symbols. LOTR was his approach to exploring these things, to creating new languages, and to inventing a mythos which was clearly derived from the mythos of the European peoples. This includes such ideas as the divinity of kings, conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, matters of personal honor, and the glory of war. This is the reality of our history and culture; to say that a work that reflects our culture glorifies war, however, goes too far. It almost certainly doesn't reflect the intent of the author.

I think there is literature that, by design, glorifies war. I think there is literature that, by design, is anti-war. And I think there is literature (the majority of literature) that does neither... but into which readers will project their own biases on these matters.

<<In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn ("the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams").

In 1914, the United Kingdom entered World War I. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to immediately volunteer for the British Army. Instead, Tolkien entered a programme wherein he delayed enlisting until completing his degree in July 1915. He was then commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained, "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed."

[b][color=#FF0000][size=150]J.R.R. Tolkien: Signal Corp[/size][/color][/b] :!:

---

Tolkien served as a signals officer at the Somme, participating in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge and the subsequent assault on the Schwaben Redoubt. According to John Garth, however: "Although Kitchener's army enshrined old social boundaries, it also chipped away at the class divide by throwing men from all walks of life into a desperate situation together. Tolkien wrote that the experience taught him, 'a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties.' He remained profoundly grateful for the lesson."

In order to get around the British Army's postal censorship, the Tolkiens had developed a secret code which accompanied his letters home. By using the code, Edith was able to track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front.

On 27 October 1916 Tolkien came down with trench fever, a disease carried by the lice. According to the memoirs of Anglican chaplain Mervyn S. Evers: "On one occasion I spent the night with the Brigade Machine Gun Officer and the Signals Officer in one of the captured German dugouts ... We dossed down for the night in the hopes of getting some sleep, but it was not to be. We no sooner lay down than hordes of lice got up. So we went round to the Medical Officer, who was also in the dugout with his equipment, and he gave us some ointment which he assured us would keep the little brutes away. We anointed ourselves all over with the stuff and again lay down in great hopes, but it was not to be, because instead of discouraging them it seemed to act like a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour."

Tolkien was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends, including Gilson and Smith of the T.C.B.S., were killed in the war. In later years, Tolkien indignantly declared that those who searched his works for parallels to the Second World War were entirely mistaken: "One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."

Tolkien's 1936 lecture, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources," and this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.

According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien had an ingenious means of beginning his series of lectures on Beowulf: "He would come silently into the room, fix the audience with his gaze, and suddenly begin to declaim in a resounding voice the opening lines of the poem in the original Anglo-Saxon, commencing with a great cry of Hwæt! (The first word of this and several other Old English poems), which some undergraduates took to be 'Quiet!' It was not so much a recitation as a dramatic performance, an impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it impressed generations of students because it brought home to them that Beowulf was not just a set text to be read for the purposes of examination, but a powerful piece of dramatic poetry."

Decades later, W.H. Auden wrote to his former professor, "I don't think that I have ever told you what an unforgettable experience it was for me as an undergraduate, hearing you recite Beowulf. The voice was the voice of Gandalf."

In the run-up to World War II, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked whether he would be prepared to serve in the cryptographical department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. He replied in the affirmative and, beginning on 27 March, took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. Ultimately he never served as one.

Although Tolkien detested Adolf Hitler and Nazism, he was also appalled by Allied total war tactics against German civilians. In a 1945 letter to his son Christopher, Tolkien wrote: "We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well, — you and I can do nothing about it. And that should be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter—leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines."

Tolkien was further horrified by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, referring to the scientists of the Manhattan Project as "these lunatic physicists" and "Babel-builders".

Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and in his religious and political views he was mostly conservative, in the sense of favouring established conventions and orthodoxies over innovation and modernization; in 1943 he wrote, "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy."

Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of industrialization, which he considered to be devouring the English countryside. For most of his adult life, he was disdainful of cars, preferring to ride a bicycle. This attitude can be seen in his work, most famously in the portrayal of the forced "industrialization" of the Shire in The Lord of the Rings.

Many commentators have remarked on a number of potential parallels between the Middle-earth saga and events in Tolkien's lifetime. The Lord of the Rings is often thought to represent England during and immediately after World War II. Tolkien ardently rejected this opinion in the foreword to the second edition of the novel, stating he preferred applicability to allegory. This theme is taken up at greater length in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", where he argues that fairy-stories are so apt because they are consistent both within themselves and with some truths about reality. He concludes that Christianity itself follows this pattern of inner consistency and external truth. Tolkien objected strongly to C. S. Lewis's use of religious references in his stories, which were often overtly allegorical. However, Tolkien wrote that the Mount Doom scene exemplified lines from the Lord's Prayer.

His love of myths and his devout faith came together in his assertion that he believed mythology to be the divine echo of "the Truth". Tolkien's devout Catholic faith was a significant factor in the conversion of C. S. Lewis from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England.

In the last years of his life, Tolkien became greatly disappointed by the reforms and changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, as his grandson Simon Tolkien recalls: "I vividly remember going to church with him in Bournemouth. He was a devout Roman Catholic and it was soon after the Church had changed the liturgy from Latin to English. My grandfather obviously didn't agree with this and made all the responses very loudly in Latin while the rest of the congregation answered in English. I found the whole experience quite excruciating, but my grandfather was oblivious. He simply had to do what he believed to be right."

In a 1943 letter to his son Christopher, Tolkien wrote: "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good."

Tolkien voiced support for the Nationalists (eventually led by Franco during the Spanish Civil War) upon hearing that Republicans were destroying churches and killing priests and nuns. Tolkien was contemptuous of Josef Stalin. During World War II, Tolkien referred to Stalin as "that bloodthirsty old murderer." Tolkien also expressed hope that the United States would overthrow both Stalin and the CPSU after Hitler's defeat..

However, in 1961, Tolkien sharply criticized a Swedish commentator who suggested that The Lord of the Rings was an anti-communist parable and identified the Dark Lord with Stalin. Tolkien retorted, "I utterly repudiate any such 'reading', which angers me. The situation was conceived long before the Russian revolution. Such allegory is entirely foreign to my thought."

Tolkien expressed disgust at what he acknowledged as racism and once wrote of racial segregation in South Africa, "The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain."

In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, he expressed his resentment at the distortion of Germanic history in "Nordicism": "You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil. But no one ever calls on me to 'broadcast' or do a postscript. Yet I suppose I know better than most what is the truth about this 'Nordic' nonsense. Anyway, I have in this war a burning private grudge... against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler ... Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light. Nowhere, incidentally, was it nobler than in England, nor more early sanctified and Christianized.">>

[Ann]

Chris wrote:

Tolkien was a linguist, fascinated by the development of language and by the progression of cultural symbols. LOTR was his approach to exploring these things, to creating new languages, and to inventing a mythos which was clearly derived from the mythos of the European peoples. This includes such ideas as the divinity of kings, conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, matters of personal honor, and the glory of war. This is the reality of our history and culture; to say that a work that reflects our culture glorifies war, however, goes too far. It almost certainly doesn't reflect the intent of the author.

I certainly agree that Tolkien didn't write his epic fantasy so that he could turn it into a propaganda piece for war. It is certain that Tolkien wasn't asking for more war after seeing the ravages of World War I and II. Thanks, Art, for describing what World War I meant to Tolkien.

But concepts like the divinity of kings, conflict between absolute good and absolute evil and the glory of war are all bad ideas, in my opinion. Tolkien chose to honour these ideas. Actually, when I read The Lord of the Rings, I didn't think that he glorified the battles all that much. He did to some extent, but not unambiguously. He always made me feel the sadness and loss of the ravages of war. And while the orcs were unspeakably evil (and I didn't enjoy reading about them for that reason), the good characters were not flawless. I enjoyed them as characters, though I liked Aragorn less and less.

Anyway, the idea that some people represent absolute good and others represent absolute evil is a dangerous one. I agree that an ideology like Nazism was incredibly evil, but there is no way all Germans who fought for Hitler can have been bad through and through. I realize that it it is tempting to talk about evil by personifying it, but doing so is risky, especially when you describe a whole group of people as faceless bearers of this absolute evil.

But perhaps I'm wrong about bringing up World War II again? All right. But then who are the orcs? Should they be understood as supernatural demons, sent out by a sort of Devil (Sauron)? If so, I don't think they should be seen as soldiers at all, not some sort of beings that can be killed in battle. I think this borders on the Don Quixote folly. If the enemy soldiers that you meet and have to kill are really demons, then perhaps that windmill over there is really a giant?

To me it was the ending of this trilogy that was really disappointing, the "reward" that Middle Earth and its heroes got for their brave battles. The "reward" that all of Middle Earth got was to have Aragorn foisted on it as the absolute monarch to rule over it for 120 years. I felt truly queasy about that idea, and the way I see it, Tolkien couldn't give us such an ending without admitting that he saw it as at least somewhat desirable. Tolkien had to subscribe to the idea that a human being can be "perfect" and thus entrusted with the responsibility of being judge, jury and possibly executioner for a whole world. That, I admit, is not the same thing as being a war-mongerer.

But while all of Middle Earth got the "reward" of having Aragorn as its absolute monarch, Aragorn himself got his private reward too, as did Sam. Their rewards were getting themselves a trophy wife each, or perhaps we should describe their wives as the ideal concept of submissive wives, fertile and silent. When I read The Lord of the Rings, it never bothered me that the story was an all-boys' adventure, but seeing how the men got women handed over to them in the end as prizes won for bravery in war made me quite upset. When I first read, toward the very end of The Return of the King, that "Arwen" was waiting for Aragorn, I just kept asking myself, "Arwen? Who's Arwen?" Typically, we never saw Aragorn speak to Arwen, and we never heard Arwen utter a single word. Woman, be silent! As for Rose Cotton, Sam's wife, she remained equally silent, although she spoke with another part of her body: she bore Sam thirteen children. Good woman, that.

Yes, you can honour old ideas by working them into your own glorious and meticulously crafted fantasy-world. You can't do so without taking some responsibility for the ideas that underpin your story.

But you are right, Chris, that Tolkien certainly wasn't asking for more war in the real world when he wrote The Lord of the Rings.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

But concepts like the divinity of kings, conflict between absolute good and absolute evil and the glory of war are all bad ideas, in my opinion.

I agree.

Tolkien chose to honour these ideas.

That's what I disagree about. I think Tolkien was utilizing a mythos that runs deep in our culture. That isn't the same as honoring the ideas. One thing that makes for enduring literature (and I consider LOTR to be amongst the greatest literature of the the English language) is its ability to mirror the ethos of a society- for better or worse.

And while the orcs were unspeakably evil (and I didn't enjoy reading about them for that reason), the good characters were not flawless. I enjoyed them as characters, though I liked Aragorn less and less.

He was one of my favorite characters- in part because he was flawed, and had to grow into the role that was ordained for him. (And while I certainly don't believe that anybody in reality is ordained for any role, I can still appreciate the literary device in an obvious fantasy, which clearly takes place in a world where the rules are very different.)

Anyway, the idea that some people represent absolute good and others represent absolute evil is a dangerous one. I agree that an ideology like Nazism was incredibly evil, but there is no way all Germans who fought for Hitler can have been bad through and through. I realize that it it is tempting to talk about evil by personifying it, but doing so is risky, especially when you describe a whole group of people as faceless bearers of this absolute evil.

Again, I agree, especially as we now live in a world where conflicts are increasingly painted in terms of good versus evil- something which I don't buy into, but all too many people do- especially here in the U.S., where "terrorist" today carries the same sort of irrational sense of evil that "godless commie" did 50 years ago.

But perhaps I'm wrong about bringing up World War II again? All right. But then who are the orcs? Should they be understood as supernatural demons, sent out by a sort of Devil (Sauron)?

Something like that, I think. Orcs are unnatural constructs- either wholly artificial or corrupted elves. They take direction from Sauron; when he is distracted (or when he is killed) they are aimless. I don't think they are to be seen as "beings" at all, merely a sort of weapon.

To me it was the ending of this trilogy that was really disappointing, the "reward" that Middle Earth and its heroes got for their brave battles. The "reward" that all of Middle Earth got was to have Aragorn foisted on it as the absolute monarch to rule over it for 120 years.

This is where I think you are projecting. In that world, what greater reward could there be? The people were blessed with several generations of peace and prosperity, under a king who was the model of wisdom and fairness. Surely, this was the ideal of Middle Earth? What would you have... an elected government, with some sort of Parliament with Hobbit, Dwarf, Elfish, and Human contingents? Maybe even some surviving Orcs? That would make no sense in this particular world.

[Ann]

Chris wrote:

I think Tolkien was utilizing a mythos that runs deep in our culture. That isn't the same as honoring the ideas.

Here we must agree to disagree.

One thing that makes for enduring literature (and I consider LOTR to be amongst the greatest literature of the the English language) is its ability to mirror the ethos of a society- for better or worse.

I, too, think that LOTR is a great work of art, both stylistically and in the way it makes use of ideas and beliefs in Western culture.

He was one of my favorite characters- in part because he was flawed, and had to grow into the role that was ordained for him.

Hmmm. That reminds me of a man who belonged to some sort of sect and who claimed that his faith required him to rule over his wife, to the point that he needed to punish her, even beat her up, when she did something wrong. I remember what this man said in an interview: I humbly accept the task given to me to rule over my wife.

I guess Aragorn perhaps humbly accepted his ordained role to be king of the world. But I don't sympathize at all, certainly not with the man who humbly accepted that he had to beat his wife, and not with a man who humbly accepts that he has to make every person in the world obey him. Frankly, I don't for a moment believe that any man (or woman) has the wisdom to do such a thing. (As for the man beating his wife, there are just no excuses for it. Ruling the world does not have to be automatically bad. It's just that I don't like even the fantasy that somebody would be qualified to do it.)

This is where I think you are projecting. In that world, what greater reward could there be? The people were blessed with several generations of peace and prosperity, under a king who was the model of wisdom and fairness. Surely, this was the ideal of Middle Earth? What would you have... an elected government, with some sort of Parliament with Hobbit, Dwarf, Elfish, and Human contingents? Maybe even some surviving Orcs? That would make no sense in this particular world.

I would take the Parliament. Or, perhaps, I'd like to see some other form of shared leadership, and I would like to see a limited term of ruling the world for Aragorn. Or, at the very, very least, I would like to see some sort of acknowledgement that power corrupts. I believe in those who say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, or at the very, very least, that you are not going to remain as wise and idealistic as you used to be when no one has questioned a single decision you have made for the last fifty years.

Perhaps Aragorn could have spent his long reign getting the people of Middle Earth more and more involved in taking part in the general "management" of the land, in such a way that they were actually ready to embrace democracy when Aragorn died. That would have been a wonderful achievement!

Ann

[geckzilla]

Yeah, he should have thrown in some part about the hobbits protesting for equality in there, too. Maybe some gay hobbits.

Actually, I think it would suck to put real life issues into a fantasy story for the sake of teaching a lesson. You end up with a story that could have been amazing that gets overshadowed by the message it's trying to send. Avatar comes to mind... would have liked for that to just be a fantasy sci fi story but it ended up being something for the political activists to argue over. Not that on rare occasion those kind of stories aren't amazing, themselves. I don't know, it's kind of a difficult thing for me to pinpoint.

[neufer]

Yeah, he should have thrown in some part about the hobbits protesting for equality in there, too.

Maybe some gay hobbits.

You're not saying that gay hobbits are bad hobbits are you?

Actually, I think it would suck to put real life issues into a fantasy story for the sake of teaching a lesson. You end up with a story that could have been amazing that gets overshadowed by the message it's trying to send. Avatar comes to mind... would have liked for that to just be a fantasy sci fi story but it ended up being something for the political activists to argue over. Not that on rare occasion those kind of stories aren't amazing, themselves. I don't know, it's kind of a difficult thing for me to pinpoint.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The direct decendent of _Anonymous_'s villainous Cecils]
Lord David CECIL (9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986) railed in 1932:

• "Of course there are people who say that the caterpillar is a satire
  on Oxford logic and the Duchess a skit on Cambridge paradox.
  
  But they belong to the same tribe of pedantic lunatics
  who think that Macbeth is a topical hit at Essex
  and Cleopatra a satirical picture of Mary Queen of Scots."
  - Lord David CECIL
  
  (from Robert Phillips' _Aspects of Alice_)
  -------------------------------------------------------------------

Pedantic lunatic Art Neuendorffer

[Chris Peterson]

I guess Aragorn perhaps humbly accepted his ordained role to be king of the world. But I don't sympathize at all, certainly not with the man who humbly accepted that he had to beat his wife, and not with a man who humbly accepts that he has to make every person in the world obey him. Frankly, I don't for a moment believe that any man (or woman) has the wisdom to do such a thing.

Of course not. But Aragorn isn't really a man, is he? He is a god- at least, in terms of the literary role he is playing. He has been tested with the ultimate temptation, and passed that test. He is, in the end, purely good. He doesn't make anybody obey him, because everybody chooses to do that by their own free will. In this world, everybody has a natural place, and is content there. No hobbit wants to be a king. No elfish woman wants to rule the world.

LOTR is a religious story. I believe that all religion is fundamentally flawed, and contains little truth. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating a good story that draws on religious concepts. I can enjoy a well constructed fantasy without needing to read any deep truths into it!

[Chris Peterson]

Maybe some gay hobbits.

That was the movie version <g>.

Actually, I think it would suck to put real life issues into a fantasy story for the sake of teaching a lesson. You end up with a story that could have been amazing that gets overshadowed by the message it's trying to send. Avatar comes to mind... would have liked for that to just be a fantasy sci fi story but it ended up being something for the political activists to argue over.

Avatar is a good example of a movie that was intended from the beginning to carry a political message, however. The sort of movie referenced in the title of this discussion. LOTR, on the other hand, was not intended (IMO) to carry any such message. But when a work contains so many powerful cultural symbols, it's impossible for people to avoid reading into it all sorts of meaning that the author probably didn't intend.

[Ann]

Chris wrote:
Aragorn isn't really a man, is he? He is a god- at least, in terms of the literary role he is playing. He has been tested with the ultimate temptation, and passed that test.

I'd say you are right about Aragorn being a god, Chris. When I look at this picture of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn that I have posted several times before, it's hard for me not to be strongly reminded of an extremely well-known religious character that tends to be portrayed just like this.

But if we are to compare Aragorn with you-know-who, I want to point out that Mr "Who" was given the ultimate test in temptation a few times himself, and his answer was always the same: I will not rule this world. I will not claim Earthly power and privileges for myself. I will allow myself to be beaten and killed. I will do as my father bids.

To me, there is a very important difference between forswearing power and embracing it. Forswearing power takes greater moral strength and more humility than claiming power for yourself, or so I think anyway.

LOTR is a religious story.

Oh, yes! It's a pity we are not allowed to discuss it here. I hope I'm allowed to say that in my opinion, Aragorn, Frodo and Gandalf all have god-like characteristics. But Gandalf and Frodo ultimately leave Middle Earth for a soothing "paradise" in the West, whereas Aragorn stays in Middle Earth to rule it.

In a previous post, I wrote:

Ruling the world does not have to be automatically bad. It's just that I don't like even the fantasy that somebody would be qualified to do it.

The reason why even the fantasy of a perfect Earthly ruler turns me off is that I think that the very concept is as tempting as it is catastrophic.

Click to view full size image

I am anything but an expert on Nazi Germany, so what I'm going to say here may well be wrong. My impression, however, is that the German people generally did not oppose Hitler as much as they might have done, in view of the fact that most of them ought to have understood that Hitler had totalitarian ambitions. There are, of course, many reasons why they may have embraced him. Germany was ravaged after World War I, the country had been forced to pay "damages" to the allied forces, and hyper-inflation had brought the German monetary system to its knees. The Germans had many reasons to fear for their future. I would guess that a man like Hitler, who promised to fix things for his countrymen if he was given absolute power, might have seemed like a good deal to many Germans. (And many other Germans, I'm sure, kept quiet because they were afraid of the Nazi thugs.)

This is my point. I think that many people are tempted, deep down, by the concept of a strong and strict "father" who will rule the country and accept no transgressions. I think that stories like The Lord of the Rings might appeal to this possibly widespread suppressed longing for a quick-fix benevolent totalitarian ruler.

Or, to put it in simpler English: I think the godlike beautiful face of King Aragorn may tempt people to long for the next dictator. Do I know that Aragorn and the Lord of the Rings will have this effect on some people? Of course not. Do I fear that Aragorn and The Lord of the Rings could have this effect? Yes. Might I be wrong? Of course.

As a kid I loved Superman. I loved him for three reasons. I loved his powers, and I loved him for using his powers to help people. And I loved him for not using his powers to make himself the king of the world.











Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I'd say you are right about Aragorn being a god, Chris. When I look at this picture of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn that I have posted several times before, it's hard for me not to be strongly reminded of an extremely well-known religious character that tends to be portrayed just like this. :wink:

Yes... and I considered calling him a Christ figure (a well known literary device), but decided against it. Generally, a Christ figure ends up some sort of martyr, sacrificing himself (figuratively or literally) for some greater good. Aragorn does not do this- I do not think his mental anguish over the course of the story qualifies. So I'll just stick with seeing him as a generic god figure. Of course, that's just a literary concept. In the story, he wasn't quite a god, but more like a traditional European king- anointed by the real gods and granted some magical powers. But the idea is there.

[Beyond]

As a kid I loved Superman. I loved him for three reasons. I loved his powers, and I loved him for using his powers to help people. And I loved him for not using his powers to make himself the king of the world.

Reason #3 could also have to do with there being so much Kryptonite around.

[geckzilla]

Yeah, I agree with you, Chris, though I don't know much about Tolkien. I have a buddy who does, however, and I think she would have informed me about any political discoveries she made while reading LotR. I mean, she's read it many times so I don't see how she could repeatedly miss it. That, and The Chronicles of Narnia, which is a lot more overtly religious than LotR. I'm sure you guys know about the connections between the two authors already.

My favorite part about the two stories is that even though both are religious, neither one seems to try to force you into thinking in any particular way about anything. It's all about having an epic story and world to get absorbed into. Religion just seems to be a catalyst for creative thinking for them.

It seems you either have to be religious or partake in drugs to be creative.

Thanks for yet another anecdote I'm too lazy to figure out the connection of, neufer. On a side note, I recently read Alice in Wonderland and started on Through the Looking-Glass and just couldn't get into either one of them. I did think Alice would have been a much longer novel and that Disney watered it down a lot but was surprised it was fairly similar to the early animated movie.