Paganism, worship, Amazon, and the Films

While Christian Imagery and its ethic are omni-present throughout both Tolkien's work and methodology, there remains a great deal to be said regarding his relationship with pagan work and practice. Shippey’s inroads in this regard are clear, and when engaged with C.S Louis’ understanding of religion as being intertwined and contained within the context of the world around it, Tolkien's project and belief become clarified. Furthermore, in the essence of his mothmaking, Tolkien also reveals a philosophy of language and history beneath his mythos, and an understanding of the development of faith through a concrete and linguistically based understanding of pre-christian and pagan traditions. Furthermore, Lewis’ lack of faith in external objectivity as opposed to his embrace of lived experience provides a base upon which Tolkien might build faith worship and mythos. For both Lewis and Tolkien, worship is an action rather than simply a belief or an experience of the intellectual kind. Look no further than Tolkien's own understanding of the act of subcreation. Essentially, Tolkien's entanglement with the pre-christian mythos stems from his understanding of norse myth and the process of naming. In particular, I wrote a blog post several weeks ago detailing how Tolkien's process of naming and use of language, as well as subcreation itself interact with his concept of worship as a force of good rather than of evil, as this word, as was pointed out in a previous post under this section, is a word often left to antagonists relationship to Sauron. In addition, we have to understand what differentiates Tolkien’s understanding of both language and faith distinctly. If we treat subcreation as Tolkien’s expression of divinity, we can understand further actions, as well as the process of creation within his context as either sufficiently faithful and expressive of creation. For Tolkien, engagement with the context around words and the world is the essence of subcreation, to find stories and spirit within the essence of the world and its ideas in order to join the music and experience the light through the metaphor of the Silmarillion. 

In exploring the notion of worship in tolkien as a practice executed through Language, legacy and subcreation we can not only explore Tolkien's notions of divinity, but also the work that can be done with Lord of the Rings that acts as “noble and faithful worship” of the series and work which does not fall under this category. The clearest two examples to contrast in this regard are the Peter Jackson Lord of The Rings films as opposed to the Amazon Rings of Power series. While at the beginning of such a sentence the reader might already decide which of the two was a faithful interpretation and which failed, but the exact details of this process can only be elucidated when the implications of Tolkien’s process are taken to their conclusions. In beginning with the characters names, Tolkien’s starting point for the origins of mythology becomes language, a cultural heartbeat which he felt through the mythos and literature of England both in his contemporary and through his study of History and in particular Beowulf and its associated mythology. Beowulf becomes an interesting case due to the fact that despite being an “Anglo-Saxon” story it describes nordic peoples far from home. For Tolkien, this interconnected mythos is equally as important as “high literature”. For Tolkien such a story provides a format for sub-creation. Within its language, its meter, and the essence of this piece, Beowulf and other works of myth provide loose ends upon which to construct, implications through which to engage in the music and share the light of their sacred trees. Returning to the two cases of subcreation with which we are confronted, while neither exist as perfect efforts, the Film adaptions by Peter Jackson are inherently more successfully because of the process in which they were made. They attempted in essence to capture the spirit entangled in the words of Tolkien, with the aim of bringing its joy and features into a breathing world in a new medium, respecting the essence of each story, rather than attempting to package and sell “never before seen” elements of it. Despite its failures in the understanding of evil, and even at times the cycles of History Tolkien attempted to document, they retain its essential features, and explore the world on the basis of its own limitations. Amazon, however, perceived the series as a group of elements to which audiences were attracted(interest in orcs, interest, in elves, etc)  rather than a holistic body of languages and relationships which in their singular essence create a spirit. This approach evidently failed. 

The space between linguistic relationships (in terms of one word relating to another word, or groups of words) and the transcendent singular human experience of them in relation to the world, the gap that Tolkien fills through repetition and verbal experience, is the same space that amazon ignored. For Tolkien, worship and subcreation exist in the revelling of this moment, and thus such an act must come from intimate experience with and reverence for such an area. Here arrives the inclusion of pre-christian Mythos within Tolkien’s work. 

The liturgy as well as all notions of Christian faith did not emerge into a vacuum, particularly not within England. Instead, as is argued by Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown, it emerged through the psalms, upon pre-existing traditions of riddles, jokes and singing within mead halls and gathering places. In such an environment, Tolkien’s mythological understanding and methodology would not retain its luster, as well as its legitimacy if it was not respectful of the presence of pre-christian tradition in its relationship with the mythos of England. For Tolkien if language and faith are a transcendent experience, of course it would be sensible to place that experience within the context that it was born. Furthermore, such an understanding would yield itself compatible with reverence to pre-christian tradition rather than ignorance to it, or abstracting these practices under the vague blanket of “Paganism”.

-PR

“Here ends the Silmarillion”

As we have finished up the quarter with this inspiring class, I’d like to discuss the endings of a story with the last chapter of Quenta Silmarillion in this last post.

The very famous last words Tolkien said in the Quenta Silmarillion are: “Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.” (QS 244) One can not analyze the ending of the QS without taking into account those comments. I will be analyzing a few essential concepts within this, as the significance of the ending lies precisely in examining their relationships with each other.

First of all, we have the contrast between “the high and the beautiful” to “darkness and ruin”. It may seem that the distinction is almost too simplistic, as what is “high and beautiful” is undoubtedly implying the Age of Trees in Valinor before the Darkness and loss of the Silmarili, while the “darkness and ruin” must point to the destructions occurred due to the Oath of Feanor and the malice of Morgoth. However, from another perspective, it is also possible to claim that, considering the discussion on the right of Free Will, despite depicting the fate of Arda in the First Age, Tolkien also indicates that the storyline of QS is a process in which the Free Will of beings in Arda being gradually self-exploited and self-deprived. Indeed, Free Will is the power of sub-creation endowed upon the free folks by Eru; yet, it operates in the plot of QS as a rather neutral force, simultaneously motivating the characters to transcend themselves and allowing them to fall to their worst indiscriminately. In this case, what is “high and beautiful”, such as the creation of the Silmarili, and “darkness and ruin”, such as the pursuit of the Oath, can be understood as dual expressions of Free Will within the mythological structure.

Moving on from this, we get to the idea of the “Marring” or “Arda Marred”. In the published version of QS, Tolkien has never explained deliberately what exactly the idea of being Marred implies in his world, yet it is deductible from other evidence. Also in the last chapter, it is described that “...and thence in many a fleet the Eldar set sail into the West, and came never back to the lands of weeping and of war,” and “...they knew that those jewels could not be found or brought together again unless the world be broken and remade.” (QS 243) In this case, the departure of the elves and the eternal loss of the Silmarili are both indications of the idea of Marring, with Beleriand becoming the land of “weeping and war” instead of the original hope of finding freedom through sorrow, and the continent even sinks to the ocean at the end. On the other hand, Tolkien mentions that even though Morgoth is thrown into the Door of Night forever as a banishment, “Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.” (QS 244) Considering the deeds of Sauron in the Second and Third Ages, it seems that from the very beginning of the tale, when Morgoth (still Melkor by then) attempts to put Feanor and Fingolfin into hating each other, til the War of the Ring, the seed (i.e. the desire to deprive others of their Free Will) has always been growing and prospering among all races in Arda. 

At this point, it seems that we can draw this as the conclusion that Arda is meant to be Marred and has to be Marred in this narrative, just as the Silmarili are destined to be lost to all and never retrievable. One might ask, based on this, does this reflect that the voyage of Earendil or the War of Wrath is not in fact meaningful, if the inherent “high and beautiful” vision cannot be repaired? Again, from the point of view of the Free Will and the transcendental nature of the Silmarili, it is also possible to argue that the final resting places of the Silmarili are the ultimate manifestation of their nature of being the sacred gems/products of transcendence. Just imagine, if the Silmarili eventually return to Valinor, who, if not Feanor himself, is capable of breaking them and giving the light of the Trees back to where it belongs? If they are unbreakable, how are the elves going to keep them? Will they become artifacts or are they going to be worshipped as sacred relics? If, as Tolkien indicates, the Silmarili are alive and filled with consciousness, then they are neither museum exhibitions nor ritual objects, but the embodiment of the sacredness itself. In that case, no one, including the Valar, has the right to utilize or wield them. Therefore, becoming Gil-Estel in the sky and being hidden in the heart of the earth and deep ocean all reflect the idea that they become part of Arda, or the creation of Eru, and so is their fate, which does transcend all fate of the living beings.

 

—YW

Love is Walking, Talking, and Refusing

“So much of the action isn't in fighting, it's the stamina of the relationships they need to be faithful to,” said RFB. This was the conclusion of a discussion on what love is and how it is demonstrated. As we have humorously noted in class, Tolkien doesn’t write battle scenes. It’s true: the substance of The Lord of the Rings is walking, talking, and refusing. So, why is this series a love story, and why do fathers pass it down?

On Walking

Boromir’s meme of “one does not simply walk into Mordor” got more than just laughs. Just as the Eagles are not a plothole, the story Tolkien chose to tell, vocalized by Boromir’s line, puts meaning into walking. The Fellowship walks from Rivendell to Lothlórien to the Anduin. Sam and Frodo walk across the Dead Marshes to Mount Doom. Even travel modes more profound, like horseback riding, are at a walking pace: Theoden’s march to Helms Deep. Tolkien gave us pages of terrain, hunger, and yet another day of walking.

Importantly, no one walks alone– in landslides, in deathly pursuits and retreats, in one-slip-and-you’re-in-the-Dead-Marshes. This reaches one of its highest expressions in the ascent of Mount Doom. At the end, Frodo claims that he cannot continue. Sam responds that while he can’t carry the Ring, he can carry Frodo. The readers do not automatically feel Sam’s love for Frodo through a vow, kiss, or even his carrying him. We feel Sam’s love for Frodo because we have read every mile of it.

On Talking

Aragorn's speech is an example of Tolkien demonstrating love through language. The following was said in class: "For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing," which is a valuable teaser that sets up the discussion of Tolkien’s dialogue writing. His characters neither sound the same nor do the same characters always sound the same. Aragorn, in particular, is a master of code switching. When he first meets the hobbits at the Prancing Pony as Strider, he speaks plainly. With Théoden, he shifts into a high, formal address, the diction of a king meeting a king. In the Houses of Healing, he speaks softly, calling the wounded by name. Aragorn’s list continues, but even more so, he is just one character demonstrating fluency in multiple registers. It is the same man knowing, each time, who he is talking to and what that person needs to hear.

To address someone in their register is to recognize who they truly are, and that recognition is itself a form of love. This is what Dana Gioia’s poem describes. The world doesn’t need words to articulate itself. Gioia says that the world does not need our language to be real just as “the daylight needs no praise.”  The kiss is fully itself, though no words are spoken. Yet, "we praise it always." In accordance with Aragorn and his fluent code switching, the hobbits would still be hobbits without his warmth in tone, just as Theoden would still be a king without his formal address. But the words honor what and who already is. To name is to know, and to name correctly is to honor the thing or person being named. Aragorn's code-switching is the magic of genuine naming, and the magic is love.

On Refusing

Aragorn refuses the Ring and Eowyn's love. Sam, when Frodo tries to slip away to Mordor, refuses to leave him. Pippin refuses to abandon Denethor as he unravels. Tolkien's characters are baited by temptation; some say no, some say yes. Boromir is tempted by the Ring and tries to take it by force from Frodo; he repents only after he has failed. Saruman, sent to refuse Sauron, failed to do so. Almost everyone is offered power, affection, or status, which makes the refusals matter even more. Tolkien writes to his son in Letter 43 that “No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.” There are three ideas to highlight. First, it denies that love is enough to sustain love at the start. Second, it claims that fidelity is not a feeling but a deliberate, repeated exercise of the will. Third, this exercise of will is a form of self-denial. The aforementioned refusals line up exactly with this structure. Aragorn refuses the Ring from the Council of Elrond onward and continues the quest without ever attempting to claim it. Sam refuses to leave Frodo not only at the end of The Fellowship, but every step of the way. Just as Aragorn could have attempted the Ring like Boromir, he did not. For all of these characters, the idea that they could have it— whether “it” was power, affection, status– and that they chose otherwise, not once, but consciously every time, is what Tolkien describes as love to his son and through this series.

On Why

This series spends more pages on walking than fighting. Walking, talking, and refusing are not three arguments but one, repeated in three forms: love is what is sustained, not what is declared. Love in Middle Earth is not a kiss, sex, or marriage, but rather the continued right choice in testing circumstances. It certainly has romantic love: Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie. This is not an argument that renders these relationships moot, but rather a demonstration of how they are only part of the greater love story that is The Lord of the Rings.

At the start of this course, the students were asked how they came to read The Lord of the Rings. Most students who spoke in class mentioned their father, and most discussion posts did as well. Why this series, and why from fathers particularly? The story is not just an adventure to Mordor. It is a long, patient demonstration of what love is. To give a child this book is to give them a curriculum in stamina, in the kind of love that does not announce itself but shows up every day, in the unspectacular work of keeping faith. Letter 43 was Tolkien’s advice to his son, and Lord of the Rings is a letter for each father to pass down. This series tells an impressionable child that the love they will feel is not the achievement, the love they sustain is the achievement, and that the sustaining love comes from walking, talking, and refusing.

—EGA

No Orc Would Say That

When Sam needs a password to announce his return to Frodo in the orc tower, he does not call upon a Westron word or a hobbit phrase but the name of Elbereth. “Elbereth I'll call,” is what he tells himself. “What the Elves say. No orc would say that.” His logic in this moment is tactical, not spiritual. The name works as a ward because evil cannot bear to say it. Sam is not choosing to use the most sacred name in the book in a moment of devotion or to reach for anything beyond himself but for security and confirmation of identity.

This is stranger than it first looks. The Lord of the Rings contains several explicit invocations of Elbereth, and they often seem to be Tolkien’s version of prayer or a call for protection. The name of Elbereth most commonly occurs when characters have been pushed to their limits and are reaching for something transcendent. The password scene goes against that reading by removing the act of reaching for a power beyond oneself. Sam’s relationship with Elbereth is marginal at best. He is a gardener from the Shire using sacred language the way a soldier uses a countersign during war to confirm their identity. And yet it still serves its purpose and works for what Sam is trying to accomplish. The name carries some power that does not depend on the faith, intention, or even understanding of the person speaking it. That pattern is not unique to this scene. The moments where the sacred actually does something in the book are not the moments where someone is most explicitly trying to worship. Tracing those moments shows where Tolkien actually located the sacred in his world

Faramir is the opposite case of Sam’s use of Elbereth as a password. In Henneth Annûn, before the meal, Faramir and his men turn west and stand for a moment in silence, looking, as Faramir explains, toward Númenor, beyond it to Elvenhome, and to “that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.” Frodo, hearing this, feels “strangely rustic and untutored,” as though he has no practice of worship beside these men who have a form and discipline to their practices. There is a lot of irony here as Frodo has already cried Elbereth’s name against the Witch-king at Weathertop, and he will do it again at the Ford. He has more contact with the sacred than almost anyone in the book, but Faramir’s habits and practices make him feel like a beginner. This version of saying grace before the meal is beautiful and it does nothing in the narrative. The invocations that do seem to work by repelling Nazgûl, breaking Shelob’s assault, shattering the will of the Watchers at the gate are those that arise without intention or form.

The most interesting of these to me is Sam at Shelob’s lair, where Tolkien writes that his voice cried out “in a language which he did not know.” In his “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C.S. Lewis argues that there are two ways of knowing an experience. One can look at it from the outside, as an anthropologist would observe a ritual, or look at it from within, as a person experiences it. His point is that modernity often wrongly dismisses the view from within which can help us understand the importance of the worshiper’s knowledge of what their own worship means. But the Shelob scene goes somewhere Lewis does not. Sam does not seem to be looking externally or internally. The words surface in him from somewhere he cannot name or access. The question of which perspective is more valid does not arise, because there is no perspective. There is only the language breaking through Sam.

This is what Tolkien means, in his letter to Robert Murray, when he writes that the religious element in The Lord of the Rings has been “absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” His characters, he notes elsewhere, have “little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship,” and invoking Elbereth is, at best, like what a Catholic does when calling on a saint. But the password scene pushes past that analogy. Prayer to a saint implies some form of a relationship because the person praying most often knows the name of the saint and has an intention for the appeal they are making. Sam brings neither. In a letter responding to W.H. Auden, Tolkien writes that the book is “about God, and His sole right to divine honour.” The password implies that divine honour is not produced by devotion but exists in the name the way light exists in the phial. An orc cannot say Elbereth’s name for the same reason it cannot face the phial. Not because it chooses not to, but because the name and the corrupt are ontologically incompatible.

Mount Doom tests this idea and somewhat clarifies its limits. Inside the Sammath Naur, Sam draws out the phial of Galadriel and it is “pale and cold” in his hand, casting no light into the dark. He does not call on Elbereth. The text seems to say this is because “all other powers were here subdued.” Her reach, which is real everywhere else in Middle-earth, does not extend to the heart of Sauron’s domain. But the Ring is destroyed anyway, and not by her name or her light. It is destroyed by the long chain of mercy that runs through the story from Bilbo sparing Gollum, to Frodo sparing him at Emyn Muil, to Sam sparing him on the slopes of the mountain. In his letters Tolkien describes this as Providence working through what looks like accident. Elbereth is a Vala, powerful within the world’s structure but not its deepest foundation. Underneath her, something else moves. Providence. Not a name one can speak but a current running through choices so small they look like accidents at the time.

I find that the password scene contains this whole theology within it. What Sam grasps instinctively, that no orc would say that, works because the name does not require him to mean anything by it. The same principle runs through the book. Frodo cries the name at Weathertop before he has time to think. Sam at Shelob speaks a language he cannot understand. At Mount Doom, the Ring is destroyed not by name or light but by mercies whose givers could not have known what they were giving. The sacred in Middle-earth is not something the worshiper produces. It is already there, woven into what names can be spoken, what light can be carried, and what survives at the Cracks of Doom when every other power has been subdued. When Tolkien writes that the religious element has been absorbed into the story, this is what he means. It does not arrive through the believer. It is the structure the believer is moving through.

- Z.S.K.

(The Consequences of) Free and Good Will

Note: This was written for the April 30th class "Creativity & Free Will III"

After a first read, The Lord of the Rings looks like a story about free will triumphing over domination. This is technically true, but Mount Doom makes the answer messier. Frodo freely chooses to bear the Ring at the Council of Elrond, freely chooses to leave the Fellowship, and chooses again and again to keep moving toward Mordor; yet when he finally reaches the Crack of Doom, he cannot destroy it. Tolkien admits in Letter 246 that this failure was real but not exactly moral: at the Ring’s maximum pressure, no one could have resisted. As Shippey argues in “Interlacements and the Ring,” the Ring’s fate depends not only on Frodo’s final act but on earlier decisions by Bilbo, Sam, Gollum, and Gandalf (Road to Middle-earth, 153–98). In other words, free will matters constantly in the story, but it cannot close the story by itself.

“I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right.”—Elrond to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring, bk. II, ch. 2

Frodo is not dragged into the quest. Tolkien knew that his choice had to be his own, or it would have no moral weight. But characters in his story almost never choose with the whole map in front of them. They choose with limited information under pressure, without knowing how their choices will land. That is where Shippey’s point about interlacement becomes useful. Bilbo’s pity for Gollum seems almost incidental when Gandalf first explains it, but it becomes a hidden precondition for the Ring’s destruction. Frodo’s pity works the same way. He does not spare Gollum because he somehow knows Gollum will matter at the end. He spares him because killing him would mean accepting the Ring’s own logic: mastery, judgment, possession. That free choice, made without guarantee, is what saves the quest after Frodo himself cannot.

“Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” —Gandalf to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring, bk. I, ch. 2 

Frodo doesn't spare Gollum because he knows he will be the deciding factor in the quest to destroy the ring, The Ring tempts by promising to end that uncertainty. It offers the fantasy that if someone had enough power, outcomes could finally be controlled. Boromir wants it to save Gondor; Gandalf and Galadriel both know they would want it for ends they would call good. Letter 246 is especially sharp here: Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have remained "righteous," but self-righteous, arranging the world for its own benefit according to his wisdom. Sauron’s evil at least makes the battle lines clear. Gandalf’s version would be worse because it would make tyranny look like goodness. That is the Ring’s most dangerous temptation: not crude selfishness, but the belief that your own goodness gives you the right to rule other wills.

When Sam takes the Ring because he thinks Frodo is dead, he briefly imagines turning Mordor into a garden, but the vision doesn’t really take hold because Sam is attached to Frodo, not to the world the Ring says he could build. He and Gollum mirror each other well here. Both call someone "master." Both structure their lives around another will. But Gollum’s loyalty is finally to the Ring, while Sam’s is to a person.

In this regard we cannot brush aside one of Tolkien's defining traits: His religion. Tolkien was a Catholic working in an Augustinian tradition where the will is truly free and truly insufficient, where grace is not a prize for effort but the thing that makes effort matter at all. Mount Doom dramatizes that doctrine. Grace destroys the Ring through Gollum’s fall. Grace heals Frodo through the gift of the West. Neither outcome is earned in the clean, heroic sense. Free will gets Frodo to the crack of Mount Doom, and when he falls short at the end, it's the consequences of his free and good willed actions that destroy the ring when he cannot.

Which brings us back to Mount Doom. Frodo chooses the road, spares Gollum, trusts Sam, and carries the Ring farther than any other bearer could have, and then succumbs to it literally steps away from triumph. The will that got him there cannot finish the job. But his earlier choices outlive that final failure. Because Bilbo pitied Gollum, because Frodo pitied Gollum, because Sam stayed, the “accident” at the Crack of Doom becomes possible. Frodo’s failure is not free of consequence, either. He comes home to the Shire and cannot really enjoy what he saved. Tolkien describes this in Letter 246 as "unreasoning self-reproach": Frodo sees himself as broken and guilty, even though he did everything that could have been asked of him. By the end, he tells Sam plainly: "I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me." The only remedy is passage over the Sea, which is not something Frodo can force into being. It is given.

-LR