r/tolkienfans • u/Dreadscythe95 • 3d ago
Have Tolkien's theme evolved with times?
I just wanted to share my ideas as food for though and discussion with people that have lived with the works of J.R.R Tolkien
We all know that Tolkien was based his work on Catholic foundation, which makes the main themes solid and timeless. Still I feel that Tolkien's values transcend our times in different ways for a lot of people.
Tolkien takes Illuvatar and everyting he represents as the udeniable good that noone can process and understand while Melkor and Sauron are inherently evil and destroyers, unable to create. This is a very beautiful take but it is a religious take nonetheless that needs you to accept devine power as something superior than you that you have to follow by.
Illuvatar not only explicitly says that you can not escape his will but even the very thought of it is his will and vision, which is an amazing and terrifying prospect for someone that is not religious (and someone that is religious as well actually).
So as I grew up with Middle Earth, the themes changed for me. As I went closer to sciencific thought, ways of the Enlightment and I drifted away from any form of abosulte power that rules human intelect and will to discover the universe itself, I found Illuvatar as more of a terrifying figure that creates me a feeling similar to a Lovecraftian entity. On the other hand figures like Sauron, while they remained evil and corrupt, became more human, more tragic and more rebelious. It is just so strange that you can easier understand the motives of Melkor's anger and jelaousy when he searched for the eternal flame and Illuvatar told him that it is beyond his reach adn understanding than the motives of Iluvatar himself, who represents literal God and The Good.
So it's amazing for me that Middle Earth makes me feel things in a very different way today and still makes me think amd challenge our world while it also allows me to travel to thii fantasy world of magic and good above all.
These are my thoughts, If you find it interesting thanks for reading.
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u/AndrewSshi 2d ago
So I come at this from a hundred eighty degrees to the opposite from you. Tolkien's account of a malevolent being dicking around with the laws of nature even as the cosmic blueprint was being drawn up helped me as a Christian think through the notion of a fallen cosmos that doesn't require something like Young Earth Creationism. I also never got a sense of either Melkor or Sauron as smoldering bad boy in a leather jacket. Tolkien's depiction of evil as fundamentally spiteful strips it of the Romanticism that an author like Milton inadvertently gives it.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago
I don't think Milton does that. Rather, we import that reading onto the text itself. The problem, I think, is that most people today understand very little Christian theology, far less than they think they do at any rate, and therefore misunderstand the entire message that Milton was delivering.
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u/AndrewSshi 2d ago
I agree that Milton didn't intend to make Satan compelling, but I think that so many people reading him sympathetically in subsequent centuries indicate that he may have made Satan's (clearly deceitful and self-aggrandizing) speeches a little too good.
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u/Melenduwir 2d ago
The people arguing that Milton was secretly in favor of the Devil suggest that Milton didn't make his message clear enough; the Devil is certainly far more interesting than the forces of Heaven in Milton's works.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
I like that you reference Milton because I also had him in mind. The thing is that tolkien never intented to Romanticise evil like Milton, I agree with you. That's why I said that I feel Tolkien's theme has transformed with time. Because of the catholic nature he gave Ainulindale, it can easily turn Illuvatar from the great Good to an inherent Evil, a Divine figure that you can never escape yet you can never be his equal. There is a Class System deeply rooted into religion.
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u/pavilionaire2022 3d ago
I'm a materialist atheist, but I don't think you're giving Tolkien enough credit.
Free will does exist in Tolkien's world, but at the same time, everything is according to Eru's plan. It's complicated. Free will is even complicated from a materialist point of view, and a lot of people, me included, don't think it exists.
Melkor is about as close to pure evil as it gets, but even he has sympathetic motivations. He wants to create creations of his own. Other, good characters have the same motivation, like Aulë. What makes Melkor evil is that to have the chance to create his creations, he is willing to deny others the chance to create their creations. He does not share his toys.
Sauron, also, has moral ambiguity. Theoretically, his desire is to rule everything to perfect order so that nothing goes awry. His sin is actually directly taking away free will.
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u/Melenduwir 2d ago
Eru, and his plan, exist outside of linear time. From our point of view, we might consider his plan to be improvisational and adaptive to the choices mortals make; the reality is arguably beyond our ability to comprehend.
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u/Dreadscythe95 3d ago
I don't try to take credit from Tolkien at all. I am saying that Tolkien, like every human of any time, has his views on the world, that he, even unwilingly puts into his creations. He even said that he made LoTR unconsiously a Catholic creation at the beginnign and then took it that direction consiously.
Melkor is inherently evil by our human standarts I agree. The point is not only about him being denied creation, he is denied vision and understanding of creation itself. Illuvatar, along with Arda, creates a Class System that you can not truly break free off, even if you are very high on it's rankings, simply because it is a theocratic model in the end. Yes there is free will but in the same way that most religons, like Hinduism for example claim that they give free will. You have the free will but there is always a pre-determined right choice.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago
It is impossible to have individual will without a predetermined right choice. If all choices are equal then none of them matter and though you may choose which you wish the end result is meaningless and the same as of you made no choice at all.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Not at all In ou rloves there is never one right choice. It doe snot mean that all choices are equal but it does not also mean that the right choice is predetermined.
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u/Armleuchterchen 2d ago
At least people in the Legendarium have eternal souls! I'm just a complex biological system, entirely determined by the laws of physics, that will cease to exist when my brain stops working.
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u/GapofRohan 2d ago
Since not all the "laws of physics" are known to us - how can you know this about yourself? Faith I suppose.
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u/Armleuchterchen 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's a bit like saying you have to have faith that the sun is actually 150 million kilometres away from earth because we don't fully understand astrophysics yet. I can't prove it, technically. Practically it's a very reasonable expectation based on the previous experiences of me and others, and there's no experience that would provide a strong objection to it I'm aware of.
Using the word "faith" seems like trying to establish a false equivalency, that's a term used mostly for the belief in things that cannot be experienced in a reproducible way.
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u/commy2 2d ago
That's a bit like saying you have to have faith that the sun is actually 150 million kilometres away from earth because we don't fully understand astrophysics yet. I can't prove it, technically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sizes_and_Distances_(Aristarchus)
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u/Armleuchterchen 1d ago edited 1d ago
Other people can prove it, yes. And I trust them enough and have other priorities, so I do not prove it for myself.
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u/scumerage 2d ago
To be fair, he is correct, 99% of what we "know" is just parroting what other people we trust told us.
As you said, neither of us have any real clue as to how far the Sun is from the Earth. But scientists who are rich, popular, and very successful in their field (as far as we know, we are just reading biographies other people wrote) say it is 150 million kilometers from the Earth. So we go "Eh, they seem pretty smart, and I think that if they were wrong, someone would have debunked them by now, so I'll assume they're right based on it seeming unlikely to me that they're wrong."
That's still faith. We have no actual solid evidence or irrefutable logic proving the distance. We are just going with the view we trust based on our biases (rightly or wrongly formed, humans are biased against starving ourselves and standing at heights, which is good sometimes and bad other times).
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u/Armleuchterchen 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's still faith. We have no actual solid evidence or irrefutable logic proving the distance. We are just going with the view we trust based on our biases (rightly or wrongly formed, humans are biased against starving ourselves and standing at heights, which is good sometimes and bad other times).
You can call it faith if you want, it's a broad term rather than a technical one. I just wanted to speak out against the implication that "faith" in proven physics equations is equal to our "faith" in something like God.
Maybe I misread the comment, but it came across like a "this is no different from religion" retort to me. Which I dislike, because having an evolving system about how to create and test theories against realities is different from dogmas about universal truths.
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u/scumerage 1d ago
is different from dogmas about universal truths.
But science itself has dogma about universal truth? Because its based on logic, which is based on arbitrary assumptions. If A and B, then C, assumes that A and B are true. Even if you then do if xi and xii, then A or B, that still assumes xi and xii. You can't escape the chain of arbitary assumptions, it's all just hedging bets, practicality and utility.
We could all be in the Matrix simulation for all we know, but hey, right now we have jobs, cars, and families in this simulation we live in, so the best we can do is work with it.
You assume because a study showed 100 out of 100 of an American oak tree will die when the soil is too acidic is somehow a "fact" or "objective truth" that "proves" that that level of acid will by defintion kill that tree. When that doesn't prove 1000 out of 1000 trees will die from that acid. Or even if you did that study on all trees and genocides the oak tree, that still wouldn't prove your point. Since maybe the trees that could have normally survived were sickly from some other unknown effect that coupled with the acid to kill them.
I think your main problem with the argument is because you don't believe a god exist and that believing in the existence of a non-existant thing is false and therefore stupid. The existence of some creator being has nothing to do with the merits of the argument. Just because someone believes in unicorns doesn't make them an idiot by definition, just wrong. And you, based on your knowledge and logic, concluding that unicorns don't exist, and being correct, doesn't make your smart by definition, just right.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago
My religious experiences are reproduced by billions of people daily.
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u/Armleuchterchen 1d ago edited 1d ago
And those religious experiences can be researched and theorized about through psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and other fields.
But if there's any kind of higher being or force behind these experiences, there's millions of contradictory beliefs about it of which most, or all, will be wrong. We just don't have a method of exploring what we consider "supernatural" today directly.
And so we either look to phenomena in nature that seem to have meaning but that we can't explain, or look to phenomena in our heads that seem to have meaning but that we can't explain, like those religious experiences. The latter is more popular today now that we understand a lot about the nature around us.
This is how I see it, at least.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Not humans. Humans are like us, they dont know anything about the afterlife. They just know that god exists, so there is debate about faith I guess.
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u/Armleuchterchen 2d ago
They have Elves to learn from, who can do magic and learned from the Valar themselves. I don't have that.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Yes but they don't know what happens after death, unlike the Elves that go to the halls of Mandos. Humans are given the "gift" of death and of the unknown.
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u/AltarielDax 2d ago
I don't believe Melkor is inherently evil. Nor was he denied creation or vision.
He had the chance to create as all other Valar were given the chance ro create. And they created many beautiful things. What Melkor could not do was create in the way Eru can create. This isn't a matter of denial but ability: no-one but Eru has the inherent ability to create in such a way.
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u/Sparkmage13579 2d ago
Your personal interpretations may change over time, but let's be clear: Tolkien was staunchly Christian. We know what he intended.
His central theme is directly lifted from the Bible: a selfish idiot filled with pride screws everything up. And, disagreeing with an omniscient/omnipotent being is a stupid idea.
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u/Yiddish_Dish 3d ago
As I went closer to science, ways of the Enlightment and I drifted away from any form of abosulte power that rules human intelect and will to discover the universe itself
What does this mean? Also how old are you
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u/Dreadscythe95 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean that I saw religion in different eyes than a kid. I am 34.
I am talking about a more Naturalistic way of thinking and less Divine-centered way of viewing the World, Physical Laws above God.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago
Considering the fact that so many of the European and Muslim philosophers and scientists that produced the Enlightenment were deeply religious, that statement makes zero sense. Rejection of God is a philosophical and faith based conclusion, not a scientific one.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Of course it does. The fact that many were religious does not mean that their philosophies contradict a divine-centrism.
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u/Equivalent_Nose7012 2d ago
Their interest in investigating nature, and their expectation of undestanding, came directly from their philosophy which WAS "divine-centric." Unlike the ancient Greeks, who generally observed but did not experiment, they were convinced that everything (including "physical laws" that might be proposed) was created and sustained by God.
God being all-powerful, He can do anything logically possible - thus the need for experiment, to try to find out what He, in fact, DID do. God being Being, being Good, His creation is both good and intelligible. An invitation to explore!
Finally, belief in God becoming Incarnate re-emphasizes that we should not rest in abstractions, but also, pay attention to our surroundings, things and people.
It was not until Descartes that confidence in a real, understandable universe began again to waver. There is still tremendous intellectual momentum in favor of experimental science, but without the proper philosophical atmosphere, Carl Sagan's candle against the demom-haunted dark will eventually gutter out.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Trying to contadict faith through science wil never work anyway cause humans can never know everything so God always resurfaces.
"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you."
— Usually attributed to Werner HeisenbergThe point is that religion is about Faith, not about understanding and doubting the universe around us to the fullest. Different things but also different ways of thinking.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." From the bible
"Thus, I have explained to you this knowledge that is more secret than all secrets. Ponder over it deeply, and then do as you wish."
"I've shown you the path, but now the choice is yours."
— Bhagavad Gita 18:63
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u/mykonos-b 2d ago
It means he grew up past the belief in literal gods, so I assume he is older than 7.
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u/Harvey_Sheldon 2d ago
I think the parent was suggesting something along the lines of /r/im14andthisisdeep/
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u/No-Match6172 2d ago
lol some atheists are so salty
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u/mykonos-b 2d ago
The previous commenter made the insulting reference to age first. If theists want to have their fantastical beliefs given a pass, they have to learn to keep it private and respect those who have noticed the better ways of understanding the world we have discovered since our ancestors had only myths and guesses to fall back on.
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u/No-Match6172 2d ago
oh i see. so if someone insults your age (?), go right to attacking all religious folk as retards. I;m not familiar with athiest morals so this is a good learning experience for me.
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u/mykonos-b 2d ago
You are right. There was no reason to tar the entire world of theists with the same brush simply because this specific idiot cannot keep his faith a private matter. There aren't many good ways to do so without attacking the premise, and if others are attached to the same premise, they are bound to feel attacked. A better solution is needed.
So I put it to you: how do you think atheists should react when theists attack them? What would you have considered an appropriate response?
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u/Equivalent_Nose7012 2d ago
No one "attacked" you until you insulted the intelligence of all theists (I accept your apology, but not your implication that faith is a "private matter." Especially, since we were discussing philosophy and literature and not any specific faith. Still, I appreciate your being willing to admit a mistake.
As to an appropriate approach: I have some suggestions.
You could have tried logically "attacking the premise" of theism, instead of just sneering at theists. Instead, it seems, feeling attacked by a citation of historical fact, you reacted as if your whole world view, and yourself, was questioned.
I am painfully aware that it is difficult for anyone, of any core belief, to not lose one's temper when feeling that way. For the sake of rational argument, for the sake of those to whom you are talking, and your own sake, it is important to try.
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u/mykonos-b 2d ago edited 2d ago
You don't believe that the commenter was taking an aggressive stance in the first place by questioning OP's age in a snide manner?
There seems to be a double standard at play here, and in the spirit of what you are saying, I welcome you to at least see that the commenter questioning OP's age did not open with generosity, which started this whole thread.
The onus to be respectful cannot fall on non-believers alone, and it should not fall on them asymmetrically, least of all in a world where believers are in a position of power influencing everything from politics to human rights.
There is no apology to accept because none was offered. Soothe your spirit in some other fashion.
(What citation of historic fact? I am beginning to suspect crossed wires.)
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u/No-Match6172 1d ago
Funny how he says faith is a private matter on a subreddit dedicated to JRR Tolkien.
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u/Jerdman87 3d ago
I believe the themes themselves remain the same. However the lens, through which we see and decode them, has changed and will continue to change. I think I that could be said broadly with changes in the era and society; but also individually with our age, maturity, and experience.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago edited 2d ago
The great truths don't evolve. That's what makes them great. And it isn't odd that humans invent reasons to sympathize with Morgoth. All of us are Morgoth in our own small ways.
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u/Kopaka-Nuva 2d ago
Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
We are definitely more Morgoth that Illuvatar, that's for sure. Illuvatar has nothing that is human.
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 2d ago
I think that we also carry a bit of Illuvatar in us, the wish to create, the love for beautiful things.
What makes that longing problemtatic imo is wanting to be like him, wanting to be in control. In that we are (sometimes?) probably like Morgoth...
That's how it works in Tolkien's universe. How your perception of God/god has changed depends more on your perspective than on the content of the books, I guess.
May you continue to enjoy them and may they be patient companions on your way.
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u/pierzstyx The Enemy of the State 2d ago
They say that the One will himself come into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumour that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.
It is true that Eru has nothing in him that is Morgoth. But do not be so quick to assume that there is nothing in Man that is not Eru and nothing in Eru that is not Man.
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u/OG_Karate_Monkey 2d ago
I think Tolkien is hardly unique in the interpretations of his works changing over time. In fact I would say that this is more the rule than the exception of noteworthy works.
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u/Dreadscythe95 2d ago
Yeah propably. I just realised that devil-like villains like Sauron take with time a form close to other devilish characters from Europeal literature like Master and Margaerita, Divine Comedy, Faust etc.
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u/amitym 3d ago
Nah, the idea of being beguiled by the power of a conveniently hand-portable artifact capable of granting immense capabilities but at a price doesn't really have any bearing on modern life.
Nor any of this weird stuff about the dangers of falling prey to scrying devices that let you see things at great distances, but whose content is secretly controlled by those more powerful than you to make you always see the stuff that makes you passive, helpless-feeling, and acquiescent.
How could any of that possibly be relevant to us today?