True Heroes: Pictures of Christ in the Fellowship

Professor Fulton- Brown brought up a point in class about Christ being everywhere in the story (of Lord of the Rings) but not being literally apparent. I have often noted this about the story, whenever someone tries to tell me that so-and-so character is an allegory for Christ, I think of another one that is equally but differently demonstrative of Christ’s role and attributes in what Tolkien views as the real story. Looking especially at the fellowship of the ring, I believe that several of its members reflect aspects of Christ throughout Tolkien’s story. This is not of course to say that Tolkien placed these there as intended allegories, but rather a natural tendency for Truth to be integrated in the creation of these characters as they formed from his subconscious. Of course, the heroes of Tolkien’s work would reflect the hero of the actual story, but it is important to note that no one character is able to reflect all the attributes of the Christ. But that does not stop the aspects from leaking into the story and expressing themselves through several characters. For the sake of time, I am going to focus briefly, mainly on three members of the fellowship which I think all display differing aspects of the Christ story: Aragorn, Gandalf, and Frodo.

First of all, Aragorn. The chosen King from a great lineage whose coming marks the beginning of a new era: Aragorn is the most obvious messianic figure in the texts with his otherworldly wisdom, goodness, and power. He even looks the part in Peter Jackson’s adaptations. But is not quite that simple. Aragorn reflects the perfect anointed King, the one who can and will defend his own and will uplift it but most importantly the one who is king because he can heal. In the chapter “In the Houses of Healing” Ioreth recognizes her future king, not by his great sword or his Kingly demeanor, but by his power to heal and restore: “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known” (Lord of the Rings Book V Ch. VIII). Aragorn mirrors the kingly authority that Christ is said to have not only because he is the great warrior but because, and more importantly, he is the great healer.

 He also has the genealogy that reaches back to great men of the past such as Elendil and beyond to Numenor and then to the Elves themselves. This is a standard trope of the great Romantic hero, but Tolkien would point out that the trope itself reflects a Truth of our reality, namely that the greatest romantic hero ever has his own great genealogy with great kings and sires. Jeremiah 23:5 speaks of a branch of David being raised up to Kingship just as Aragorn, Isildur’s heir is foretold to come and restore the kingdom. This epic story of the great hero winning his kingdom and his bride reminds of the victory of Christ as he gains his everlasting kingdom and is own spotless bride (the Church) as a result of his deeds: “And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:14). Aragorn reflects the King facet of Christ: the victorious conqueror and the steadfast protector and King but also the healer and provider.

Gandalf also reflects a different aspect of Christ, one that Tolkien is very aware of and places great importance in. Tolkien speaks of the Eucatastrophe, the moment of incarnation of divine spirit into a mortal body, as the crucial moment in the true story, the one around which all other things must revolve to make sense. This great mystery is also present in the character of Gandalf who is a great and powerful spirit somehow confined and made vulnerable by a mortal frame. He too must endure the mortal experience while still being a thing alien to the restraints it brings. Echoes of Christ as the Risen savior can be found in Gandalf as well when he returns greater than ever as Gandalf the White after a great sacrifice and struggle. Jesus is described in Revelation 3:5 as “he who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments” which only strengthens this notion of Gandalf also reflecting that sacrificial overcoming of evil only to emerge greater than before. Also, Gandalf’s nickname as the white rider has incredible significance. Look at the passage from Helm’s deep (or recall that epic scene from the end of the Two Towers movie) where he appears with the dawn to save the day: “There suddenly appeared upon a ridge a rider, clad in white, shining in the rising sun” (The Lord of the Rings Book III Ch. VII). Revelation paints the same image of Christ: “And I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11). This beautiful and terrible description of both shows how Gandalf reflects not only the hidden glory of the incarnate Christ but also the terror and splendor of the fully revealed Christ. 

Frodo is an altogether different reflection of Christ. The best way to show this is to look at these two pictures: the first Sam holding a weary and nearly spent Frodo and the second: Mary holding her dead son in her arms.

Frodo’s journey of self-sacrifice being poured out and emptied as it were for the good of his fellow hobbits, men, dwarves, and elves is a picture in its small and humble way of the suffering of Christ as the sacrifice for the good of his fellow man. Of course, it is not in any way of the same magnitude but Frodo’s selfless journey to Mount Doom is why he succeeds, for he is not honored for destroying the ring but for sacrificing himself so that is might be destroyed. It is a beautiful reflection of the deep Truth that is the real story.

Professor Fulton-Brown was right Christ is everywhere in the story.  But it is not in an allegorical sense in that this part of the story stands for this, or this character represents Christ because of this, but in the most organic, and in my opinion beautiful, way possible. Tolkien, in setting out to make a mythology that would be able to convey Truth, naturally included the deepest truths of what he believed was the great True story. He strives for realism in his story because he wants that believability and that also applies to his themes and attributes. He creates his characters with Christ-like traits not because they are allegories for him but because these traits are fundamental truths of what constitutes a great aspirational character.

—Abe West

Éowyn: Feminist or Medievalist?

There is a contentious debate among fans and critics of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, over whether or not the ‘sheildmaiden’, Éowyn, is a feminist symbol or not. Éowyn is often used as a defense of Tolkien when critics call his work ‘sexist’ or ‘misogynistic’ because Éowyn is a strong female character. She asserts strength and independence when she dresses as a man, rides into battle, and kills the Witch-king. Opponents of this defense argue she only fought out of anguish after Aragorn rejected her love. In other words, her actions were a desperate suicide mission, not a feminist flex. Additionally, she never fights again after she kills the Witch-king, instead vowing to become a ‘healer’, which critics argue is a dated female stereotype that Tolkien is pushing on one of the few female characters who seems to have countered the status quo for women in Middle Earth. 

In truth, Éowyn is not a feminist character at all. She is the manifestation of one of Tolkien’s most important and deeply Christian lessons within The Lord of the Rings. Éowyn’s story is about changing for the better and understanding the value of life. True leaders are healers not killers, and war is good only when it is just and waged for the right reasons. Those who fight out of love and duty, like the hobbits, are the real heroes.   

Théoden, Éowyn’s uncle and the King of Rohan, planned to ride into battle against Mordor, and he appointed Éowyn to be the leader of Rohan and watch over the people. Éowyn, feeling pained, rejected, and angry because her romantic feelings toward Aragorn were not reciprocated, abandoned her post. She disguised herself as a man, and rode to Minas Tirith. In battle, she challenged the Witch-King, who boasted that "no living man may hinder me". She famously removed her helmet, exposing her long blond hair, and declared, "No living man am I! You look upon a woman! Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. Begone if you be not deathless!" To my knowledge, these are the most assertive words to come from a woman in all of the legendarium. After her declaration, Éowyn stabbed her sword through the Witch-king's head, killing him. This was to be her last battle. 

In the House of Healing she meets Faramir, who helps her to realize how she truly felt about Aragorn, “You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth.” Faramir articulates the internal battle within Éowyn that possessed her to disobey Théoden and ride off into war. Éowyn was infatuated with Aragron. She did not love him; she loved what he represented: glory, bravery, and freedom. After Faramir helps her understand herself, she trades her idealism of death and war and replaces it with love and respect for herself and the value of life. Faramir says, “Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.” Ewoyn herself resolves to be a healer, “I want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” Glory, war, bloodshed, and pride do not make someone leader. She recognizes that being a healer makes someone a true leader. 

Does Éowyn’s shift from shieldmaiden to healer represent an archaic trope that women are ‘gentle’ healers? Does the shift within Éowyn mean she is learning to be a ‘real’ woman who now understands that her feminine role is to nurture life and not to ride off bravely into battle? The answer is no. Healer is not exclusively Éowyn’s role. The king in Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, who is the rightful heir of Isildur, is very infrequently shown in battle. Instead, Aragorn is shown from the very beginning of the story to have an ability to heal and renew through his skill and knowledge of herbs. When he heals Éowyn, Faramir, and Merry, Old Wife Ioreth proclaims to everyone, “The hands of the King are the hands of a healer!” Éowyn isn’t asserting a feminist trope by being a sheildmaiden. Tolkien maintains gender equality in Middle Earth by not making Éowyn’s story about feminism. Both men and women have the ability to kill, to engage in battle, and to seek out glory. The question is not can she, it is should she. Should anyone fight for the sake of fighting? Additionally the role of leader is not exclusive to men. A leader is a healer and both Aragron and Éowyn, male and female, are healers.

Of course, this is not to say that war is always wrong. The Catholic Church teaches that although we should avoid war, there is such a thing as a ‘just war’. A war is just once all attempts of peace have been exhausted. Just wars are never waged for the sake of glory. They are only utilized when one's community and/or nation is in great danger and one is trying to eliminate a grave evil. Tolkien understood the horror of war, having served in World War I and having had several friends die in it. He also understood that while war is horrific, it can be necessary. Faramir said in The Two Towers,“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

The true heroes are the hobbits who were thrust into conflict. Hobbits are unexpected protagonists in this epic, magical, and dark world. They are so small that they are mostly unknown, even in the Elves’ records. They live peacefully in the Shire removed from most of Middle Earth. They are not in the great legends of the days of valor. There are no songs sung about them in the great halls of Rohan or Gondor. However, there is no mistake on the part of J.R.R. Tolkien when he made these tiny men the true essence of courage and honor in The Lord of the Rings. The hobbits didn’t seek out power or honor in battle. They are simple halflings -  totally loveable, relatable, and unsuspecting. Frodo accepted the ring because no one else would. He knew the risks, but accepted the burden out of the goodness of his heart. Merry, Pippin, and Sam join Frodo out of love for him. Tolkien once said, “We are here surviving because of the courage of small people against impossible odds.”

Even though Tolkien did not make allegories he couldn’t help but reveal greater truths about life and humanity through the prism of his Catholic faith. In letter 131 he writes, “I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional.” He admits in letter 142 that The Lord of the Rings, “is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision” and the “religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism”. Truly the Church’s teachings on war are ingrained in The Lord of the Rings. When war is necessary people must use it, but it should never be waged for the sake of personal glory. This is why the story is centered around the hobbits who are perfect little heroes. They didn’t choose to go on the journey because they were seeking out honor. Frodo does it because no one else will, and his friends join him out of love for him. Éowyn is not a feminist icon, but a broken person. She goes from being prideful, unsatisfied, impulsive, and reckless, to a person who loves and values life and her duty as a princess and leader. As a woman she is capable of fighting, just like a man, but she realizes in the end that she should be a healer to her people. Just as Aragorn the king in The Lord if the Rings is a healer not a killer, so too is the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

~Evita 

Lest we despair, Tolkien

It is tempting to dwell on Tolkien’s medieval side and go down the hobbit hole of his work and of what he would have read - Kalevala, Beowulf, Sir Orfeo and the list goes on – to try to get a glimpse, hoping for more of course, of that lost odd world where man wrote and passed on these grand stories of impossible quests, dragons and curses, and bejeweled the bones of saints and wrought rich monstrances for the Body of Christ who himself protagonized the eucatastrophe of a story. But that might lead one to miss an important aspect of Tolkien’s work, how well he bridges the gap between the medieval tradition he is drawing from and his modern readers, and how aware he is of modern sensibilities. Indeed, through this bridging of the old traditions to our time and his awareness of the struggles of modern men, Tolkien gives us a great gift: a reflection on suffering, death and, ultimately, hope. Starting with the story we all know, The Lord of the Rings, I will show how Tolkien’s awareness of modern sentiment informs his tale and invites the reader to reflect on suffering and death. 

We first consider Aragorn and Frodo, two heroes in their own right. Aragorn is the hero that stands tall above, quite literally, both hobbit and regular man. Coming from the shadows and with his half-elven ancestry, Aragorn is foreign. On the other hand, Frodo is not foreign to us. Frodo is the little man ‘alive in the films of Chaplin as he is in Chaucer’ that we can identify with. (T.C, p.124) What Tolkien does to these two heroes accommodates his tale for an age that can no longer stomach the supernatural and mythological very well. On one hand, although Aragorn reminds us of many earlier larger-than-life heroes via divers motifs – for example, from his superhuman ancestry, the likes of Sigurd fathered by Odin; from his time in obscurity and from his relationship with Narsil, Beowulf – Tolkien takes care that modern readers are not pushed away. He provides more realistic basis for Aragorn’s ancestry than that of his predecessors, for example Sigurd, who were fathered by gods. Aragorn’s ancestry is thus still noble and ‘immortal’, but ‘no god’s intervention, no magic, … or supernatural event’ are behind it; it’s rather that he is half-elven through the union of two natural races. (T.C, p.126) Creating Aragorn in a great lineage of heroes larger than oneself, Tolkien doesn’t forget to bridge the gap between our modern minds and the mythological where that divide would be too detrimental to his goal, ‘the realization of imagined wonder.’ (F.S, p.14) On the other hand, although Frodo is closer to us, Tolkien doesn’t leave it at that and ennobles him by linking him to mythological motifs. One of these is seen in Frodo’s relationship to Bilbo, the nephew-uncle motif present in Beowulf, where the nephew takes to conclusion something initiated by the uncle. And, perhaps more importantly, Frodo’s orphancy echoes that mysterious child motif seen in splendor in the story of Scyld, a.k.a Frodi, who brings prosperity. Creating Frodo as a common man, Tolkien ennobles both Frodo and the common man through the mythological associations and, specially, in his role as bringer of prosperity, although he himself doesn’t share in this prosperity. By giving mythological importance to Frodo, Tolkien thus raises us closer to Aragorn's greatness, who on his own was already made more believable. Also worth of notice is Tolkien’s modernization of the battle ‘against the offspring of the dark which ends for all in defeat.’ (Monsters, p.29) As Flieger describes it as it happens in TheLord of The Rings, ‘fighting those dark elements within himself which Gollum externalizes, Frodo fights the most insidious monster of all - and loses.’ (T.C, p.144) Rather than choosing a too-much-to-swallow of a dragon, Tolkien chose a struggle his modern audience would accept without a struggle. Frodo’s struggle and subsequent failure is all too much familiar, which together with the successful ‘realization of imagined wonder’ around him and his mythological importance as bringer of prosperity begs the practical-minded modern man to reconsider whether sacrifice is worthless after all. But how does Frodo bring prosperity if not by failing? It is not fair that Frodo should suffer! one could answer. Tolkien might well agree with this, but he would then point us to the gift of death.

In Tolkien’s legendarium death is central to both its stories and philosophy. It’s but through death and successive generations that the stories take place. Death is Eru’s gift to man. It’s malice that leads man to think otherwise. While elves are bound to this world to its end, man can escape the pains found here on earth by accepting death. Although it’s without guarantees, death releases man from his bondage to earth. In Numenor, those who didn’t willingly accept their deaths when the time came and postponed it were seen as doing wrong. The epitome of not accepting death can be seen in Ar Pharazon’s foolish search for immortality that led to the Downfall of Numenor. On the other hand, Aragorn accepts death. Indeed, his death recalls us of the Ars Moriendi, the instructions for a good Christian to die well. He rejects despair and gives away his earthly riches, in the crown of Gondor, to Eldarion. Tolkien’s thus illustrates the necessity to die well, to accept ‘hope without guarantees.’ (Letters, 237) To further this point, we look at the great philosophical debate of the Legendarium: Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth. Finrod, discussing the place of man’s mortality in Eru’s creation with Andreth, raises the point that man is in a constant restlessness in Arda: they ‘look at no thing for itself’ … Where are these other things?’ In further discussion, they reach that man has in this way a sort of vision of Eru’s plan. And questioned by Andreth whereto man should now go, ‘'What then is to be done now? … darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain,’ Finrod proposes hope, and again, without guarantees. Tolkien expounds on the preciousness of dying well, without relinquishing hope. For man, death is in his nature, it’s foolish and perilous to fight it, all he can have is hope: hope in the One who gave man the gift of death.

Although we might be no Aragorn, hope is found in the fact that small hands can and do turn the wheels of the world as Elrond reminds us. In Frodo, Tolkien raises our littleness and our sacrifice to great worth. Suffering exists and one might incur in it even if ‘unfair’, but it’s far from pointless: Frodo’s breaking down gained great prosperity for Middle Earth. What Tolkien offers is not a remedy for our earthly sorrows, but hope. Indeed, hope without guarantees, but nonetheless: as our restlessness in Arda points us ever to an unreasonable joy beyond the confines of Ëa, may we delight in the ‘thought of regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness’ and hope that one day we are

                                        ‘Over death, over dread, over doom lifted

                                        Out of loss, out of life, unto long glory.’ (LOTR, Many Partings)

PT

Cited Work:
Zimbardo, Rose A., and Neil D. Isaacs. Understanding The lord of the rings : the best of Tolkien criticism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004

Tolkien, J. R. R., Humphrey Carpenter, and Christopher Tolkien. The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

Tolkien, J. R. R., Verlyn Flieger, and Douglas A. Anderson. Tolkien on fairy-stories. London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014.

Tolkien, J. R. R., and Christopher Tolkien. The monsters and the critics, and other essays. London: HarperCollins, 1997.

Love Thy Neighbor

            An undeniable main theme of The Lord of the Rings is love. In Tolkien’s work, we see a multitude of types of love. There is romantic love, best seen between Aragorn and Arwen, but also as Eowyn’s unrequited love of Aragorn transitions into loving Faramir. There is familial love, best depicted by Frodo and Bilbo. But there is also the love of nature, embodied by Yavanna in The Silmarillion as well as Treebeard, and the love of things in addition to the love of the self through Gollum: “[Gollum] hated [The Ring] and loved it, as he hated and loved himself”(Fellowship of the Ring). I think, however, that the primary form of love in The Lord of the Rings is the love that exists between Frodo and Sam, or at the very least the love that Sam has for Frodo. At the simplest level, Tolkien uses Sam to depict a thoughtful and incredibly kind friend as well as an exemplary servant. Sam would do quite literally anything in his power for Frodo because, depending on your reading of Mordor, he actually goes through hell and back for his master. Anyone would incredibly fortunate to be on the receiving end of this type of friendship, but like with everything that Tolkien writes, I believe it is a little more nuanced than just a plain, touching friendship.

            When Frodo begins his journey, Sam definitely accompanies him out of love, but also maybe due to some feeling of responsibility. Sam’s entry into the story comes directly from his role as the Baggins’ gardener, but when he hears that Frodo will be leaving, he choked, telling Gandalf “I tried not to sir, but it burst out of me: I was so upset”(FoTR). As the son of the Baggins’s gardener, and then serving in that role himself, Sam undoubtedly was able to grow close to Frodo, and it’s exactly the mixing of his friendship with Frodo and his role as a servant that can be seen in his entry into the quest. I do believe that any sort of responsibility Sam feels is directly related to his love of his master, because there is also a responsibility placed on him as a friend. He is expected to help and love his friend to the best of his ability.

As the quest begins, Sam falls perfectly into his already established roll as Frodo’s servant, which perpetuates the inequality in their statuses. He carries more than his fair share and is quick to try and ease Frodo’s physical burden: “’I could take a lot more yet, sir. My packet is quite light,’ said Sam stoutly and untruthfully”(FoTR). And indeed throughout the entire journey, Sam continues to serve Mr. Frodo. However, the journey that Frodo and Sam take is surely transformative, if only in the relationship that they have between them. The love that they have between them transforms from the conventional servant-master relationship to become a more brotherly love.

            I think what makes their relationship so touching is the deep, intimate male bonding that occurs because of the quest. The difficulty of their journey, having to journey through literal hell towards the end, is an intense bonding experience that builds on their already existing close relationship. There is a scene in The Return of the King that exemplifies this really well. After rescuing Frodo from the orc-tower, Sam and Frodo divest themselves of all the items they would not need on the rest of the journey to Mount Doom. Unsurprisingly, Sam has a difficult time parting with everything that he had packed. Even though they were just common items that he had brought from the Shire, “each of them had become dear to him, if only because he had borne them so far with so much toil… Tears welled in his eyes at the thought of casting it away” (RoTK). Throughout the story, Sam has been sentimental and emotional, so forming an attachment to inanimate objects fits right in line with his character. But this is only more telling of how the journey has intensified his feelings for Frodo. And in the end, Sam adopts an almost motherly role towards Frodo. After rescuing Frodo, Sam “half lifted his master and hugged him to his breast”(RoTK), he let Frodo “lay back in [his] gentle arms, closing his eyes, like a child at rest when night-fears are driven away by some loved voice”(RoTK), and he even kisses Frodo’s forehead. When he brings Frodo orc garments, Sam in some sense dresses Frodo, and even has Frodo sleep on his lap.

            What I mean to say is that their servant-master relationship develops into something deeply intimate, and could be read in some ways as romantic. However, I do think that Tolkien points to differences between romantic love and the intense brotherly love between Sam and Frodo by including Rosie. While Sam has very deep love for Frodo, it is not a romantic love because Sam eventually marries Rosie. This, however, doesn’t dampen the relationship between Sam and Frodo in anyway whatsoever. In fact, I think that what makes their relationship so notable is that I don’t think it’s very common to see a portrayal of a close male friendship without anything frivolous. There are no obscene jokes to undercut the relationship to make it more palatable for audiences, just two men who really care for each other. What makes it even more powerful is Sam’s apparent lack of expectations from Frodo. It doesn’t seem like there is any expectation on Sam’s part for this tender treatment to be reciprocated. Granted, this might be due to Sam’s status as Frodo’s servant, so Frodo is not expected to care for Sam like Sam cares for him. Nonetheless, Sam is continues to be devoted and loving, even after Frodo’s treatment of him on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.

            Additionally, something that’s interesting about Frodo and Sam is that they really embody a deeply Christian sentiment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”(King James Bible, Matthew 22:39). Sam sacrifices his own safety and is prepared to spend his life to save his master and friend. Indeed, Sam regularly demonstrates that he isn’t concerned with recognition for himself as he repeats how famous Frodo will become after the quest to destroy The Ring. But it’s in his meekness that Sam shines, for “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth” ”(King James Bible, Matthew 5:5). And Sam does go on to inherit the Earth, in some sense. He inherits what used to be his whole world: he becomes mayor of the Shire. If we were ever to look for an example besides Jesus of how to truly be selfless, I argue we should look to Sam. I’m not trying to argue that Sam is perfect, for he is mortal, but he repeatedly puts others before himself.

- NP

Constant Reminders of Death

            In Tolkien’s world there are many traditions and roles that men and hobbits participate and play in their respective societies that serve as constant reminders that death looms right around the corner. Hobbits and men share many similarities, and this should be unsurprising as Hobbits potentially are descended from men as it appears that no Valar took part in their direct creation and Tolkien does not provide any other strong basis for their emergence in Arda. Both of these mortal races have their members play pivotal roles in the events of the Tolkien’s trilogy, making mortals play the parts of heroes that would shape the Fourth Age rather than the immortal elves. The prevalence of birthdays in the world of men and hobbits and the ubiquitous need for healers in the world of men serve as constant reminders of death for both the reader and the world of Tolkien. Tolkien interweaves death as a constant threat for the mortal races, where even the Hobbits experience pain and affliction leading to their torment and possible deaths under Sharkey.

            The characterization of birthdays as constant reminders of death can even be seen in our modern world and throughout history in various cultures. In times when infant and childhood mortality rates were much higher, the first to first few birthdays would be considered very important, signs of a healthy child who was able to survive the beginning trials of life. Birthdays such as these are often thought of as great celebrations of life; however, they are also reminders of those who did not make it to through those beginning years. The Lord of the Rings begins with Bilbo’s 111^th birthday, a symbol of unnaturally youthful long life, as shown through Bilbo’s physical description at the time. Bilbo’s birthday exhibits the traditional aspects of a Hobbit’s birthday, just on a much larger scale. For Hobbits, birthdays serve as a way of bringing the community and/or family together, where with each coming birthday, gifts and tokens of appreciation are given to and from the Hobbit whose birth is being celebrated. Birthdays serve as a mechanism to strengthen the family and communities of Hobbits, a mechanism that could potentially help combat the threat of death by keeping Hobbits close to each other or at least in contact with one another. The inclusion of birthdays as being such an important part of Hobbit culture and traditions shows that while it may not be a conscious reminder of death, the mortality of hobbits is readily apparent through this simple idea. A race such as the Elves or the Ents have no real use of the concept of birthdays as time isn’t always on their mind like men and hobbits. Mortality is something that every hobbit and man faces, a reason why adventure is so tempting to some, yet also so frightening. Everyone wants to make the most of their time in Arda, and birthdays serve as a reminder to the limited time one has.

            Men, a race with a long history of conflict has need for healers and houses of healing probably more than any other race in Tolkien’s world. Men are the most susceptible to ailments, thus increasing their need in the knowledge of remedies and cures for diseases and wounds. As seen with the downfall and legacy of the Numenoreans, there is a constant obsession with death, and with their once friendship with the elves, the knowledge of healing and cures allowed them to pass on this information and instill a natural ability for healing into their descendants. One of these descendants, Aragorn, becomes the larger than life heroic figure that complements the other hero, Frodo. The need for one of the heroes and savior of men to possess the ability to heal serves two main purposes. This shows that there is a constant need for men to have the ability to endure the blows that come their way; the king, their leader and savior, has the knowledge and ability to provide and heal his people in their times of need. This is demonstrated after Strider is able to slow the damage from the wound Frodo suffered at Amon Sul. Men and hobbits are bound to Middle Earth during their time on Arda, they are unable to venture to the Undying Lands like the Elves, so for these two races there needs to be the ability to preserve and prolong their lives within their own kind. I suppose that healing and healing houses are only major parts of the societies of men as hobbits possess natural resistances to disease and they do not have a history that is as full of conflict and violence as men.  

            Although these two features of hobbit and human societies might appear to be minor aspects and details, I think that these combine to show just how pressing the idea of death is to the mortal races of Middle Earth. Even though these constantly remind us of death, they also serve as avenues to keep death at bay or to keep a community’s spirits up in the defiance of death’s gaze.

-AS

“It is a gift!” -Boromir

 J.R.R. Tolkien heart-wrenchingly wrote this about the death of his own wife, his Luthien, “But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos” (Letter 340). As he so often does, Tolkien captures several of the core lamentations about the human condition: the loss of a loved one, the finitude and suffering of life, and the sometimes seemingly cruel apathy of the universe. In a phrase, fear of death. While Edith's may have been among the worst losses Tolkien endured in life, it certainly was not his first. He had been well acquainted with the barbs of the human condition long before he penned The Lord of the Rings and even before the first rough conceptions of The Silmarillion took root. Indeed, the following could be said of Tolkien and his legendarium: “So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began.” And so Tolkien wrestled with his conception of mortality, or expressed his understanding of it, by putting it in dialogue with immortality throughout his works. A theme which he explores from the first pages of The Silmarillion to the Akallabêth to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Yet, it is in the final story of Arwen and Aragorn in Appendix A where his findings are condensed. In the end, we find Tolkien provides an argument more so than final answers to the great debate, which is all anyone can do. 

When Aragorn reaches the end of his time on earth, Arwen is distraught. “She was not yet weary of her days, and thus she tasted the bitterness of the mortality that she had taken upon her” (Appendix A). Interestingly enough, Aragorn himself seems long reconciled with the notion of death, saying, “To me has been given not only a span of thrice that of Men of Middle-Earth, but also the grace to go at my will, and give back the gift. Now, therefore, I will sleep” (Appendix A). The inversion of the usual roles here is certainly not unintentional by Tolkien. 

Prior to this interaction, it is Men who label their mortality as the Doom of Man, and it is the Elves who label it the Gift of Men. In every letter he discusses the topic, Tolkien reminds and reasserts it is the Elves who call it the Gift of Men because that is how they perceive it as immortals. Tolkien writes, even if mortality is a product of the Fall, the Elves can only see it as a positive gift: “It should be regarded as an Elvish perception of what death — not being tied to the 'circles of the world' – should now become for Men, however it arose” (Letter 208). Arwen herself admits she used to scorn the wicked, foolish men who resented the great gift that "as Time wears even the Powers shall envy" (Silmarillion). That is precisely Tolkien’s way of wrestling with morality. So very many of us succumb to the fears of Ar-Pharazon and dread the prospect of death and dream ever after immortality. Tolkien points out, quite simply, that immortality may not be as an exciting prospect as all that. “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view,” and the very thing we see as our doom is seen to be a gift by others (Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). The reverse is also true: Men throughout Tolkien's legendarium cling to life and envy the Elves for their unending ones. As Tolkien describes it, “The 'Elves' are 'immortal', at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death” (Letter 131). Meanwhile, “The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world. Since the point of view of the whole cycle is the Elvish, mortality is not explained mythically: it is a mystery of God of which no more is known than that 'what God has purposed for Men is hidden': a grief and an envy to the immortal Elves” (Letter 131). The debate can be summarized as such, “Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete” (Letter 186). 

One man's view of death, perhaps one we could all adopt, at least relative to the unfortunate fate of the Elves.

Thus the inversion in the final chapter of the story of Arwen and Aragorn is stunning. Even an Elf comes to lament and bitterly resent the cruel fate of Men. But Aragorn is King, he is a wise and studied man. He seems to have realized the following truth long ago, and passes it along to Arwen in their last moments when her grief is culminating, “I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world” (Appendix A). Certainly not a coincidence by Tolkien, Aragorn encapsulates one of the key arguments for why death ought to be seen as a Gift rather than a Doom: the Elves are condemned to wallow in the misery and regret of lost things till the end of days, and there will be no comfort or escape from the misery, loss, and fading of things to be found on earth, but in death there may yet prove some release from this fate. He reminds her of the options in front of her, “The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall be there evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men” (Appendix A). And here is where Tolkien enters as close to an answer on life after death as he will, Aragorn says in closing, “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory” (Appendix A). Though none, not even the Elves, know what lies beyond Death, it is perhaps better than being bound to eternity. To continue to live after loss maintains only the memory of what once was. Death brings the possibility of something more, something beyond, something, Tolkien believes, more than mere memory. Perhaps even many meetings and reunions await, just as Luthien and Beren passed together "beyond the confines of the world," for it is written, "and yet at last they met once more, and long ago they passed away in the forest singing sorrowless" (A Knife in the Dark).

Moreover, Tolkien again comments on if Death is a consequence of the Fall of Man, then “A divine 'punishment' is also a divine 'gift', if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments' (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained: a 'mortal' Man has probably (an Elf would say) a higher if unrevealed destiny than a longeval one” (Letter 212). And it is perhaps only with this understanding can we understand that death is a gift of God and should be treated and respected as such. There are few things more heinous than rejecting a gift from God, especially since the very act is impossible: “To attempt by device or 'magic' to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of 'mortals'. Longevity or counterfeit 'immortality' (true immortality is beyond Ea) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith” (Letter 212). Not only is it offensive to God, it is an impossible undertaking to deny the gift and will of the Creator, the very attempt of which can lead to, in a particularly egregious case, the intervention of God himself in the Numenoreans revolt against mortality.  Indeed, Tolkien summarizes his findings as such, “Death is not an Enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with a Ringwraith” (Letter 208). Moreover, “The attempt to escape it is wicked because 'unnatural', and silly because Death in that sense is the Gift of God (envied by the Elves), release from the weariness of Time. Death, in the penal sense, is viewed as a change in attitude to it: fear, reluctance. A good Númenórean died of free will when he felt it to be time to do so” (Letter 156). There is, perhaps, no one better to come to this understanding, as well as espouse and exemplify this view than Aragorn son of Arathorn, both because of his relationship with Arwen, as well as because his ancestry fell from grace so spectacularly precisely by being consumed by this fear and the confusion over "immortality" (more aptly, eternal memories- and nothing more- than things that once were and have been lost) and "mortality" (escape from the loss and the opportunity for more than despairing memories). 

When we realize immortality is hardly, if at all, a better gift, and in some ways is more obviously worse than the unknown potentialities of Death, and pair that with the acceptance and reverence of gifts of a good Creator, as well as acknowledging it is an unescapable aspect of the human condition, we can at least see an argument on why we ought to accept Death, maybe even as a gift, even if we are still left clueless as to what lies beyond the horizon. Tolkien writes his concern was with, “Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees.” Perhaps death is a fool's hope, but there is at least hope in it, nonetheless. And so Tolkien once again has gotten the better of himself, transmuting the greatest sorrow of Man into wisdom. We can, and perhaps should be sorrowful that things come to an end and loved ones (at least temporarily) abandon us in their escape from Time. Tolkien’s mourning of Edith as well as Arwen’s mourning of Aragorn are justified, it is a testament to the quality of time they had together, only enhanced by its fleeting nature. Grief is the price we pay for love. Both should heed Gandalf’s parting words, “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” Their grief is expected, but they are not justified to despair. The rules are already set, perhaps in our favor, and so we cannot "plead to the inexorable Mandos" anymore than we can stop the sun from setting. We should grieve, but remember to appreciate that while the inexorable Mandos taketh, it also giveth all the things we so fear to lose. "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. .... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires” (Letter 43). As Pippin says in the face of certain doom, "That's got to count for something."

To Hope without guarantees,

Tom B(ombadil)

The Key-spring of The Lord of the Rings

“Death, the inevitability of death,” Tolkien once remarked, is the theme central to “practically all” large stories that hold the interest of human beings. He believed that a central aspect of what it means to be human is our relationship to our own mortality. In his seminal essay “On Fairy-stories,” he had this to say in much the same vein: “the oldest and deepest desire [is] the Great Escape: the Escape from Death,” which appears throughout fairy-stories, their “scientifically inspired” counterparts, and “other studies.”

That Tolkien was heavily focused on humanity’s mortal condition is apparent even in The Lord of the Rings, which is ostensibly more about the nature of Power and Domination. He said as much on numerous occasions in his letters, but perhaps most fascinatingly in a 1968 interview conducted by the BBC, from which the opening quotation of this blog post is also cited. At the end of the interview, Tolkien was asked about his own view of life and how it relates to his fictional world. He responded by pulling a newspaper clipping from his jacket pocket and from it quoting Simone de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death:

There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.

“Well,” he continues, “you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key-spring of The Lord of the Rings.” That Tolkien would so strongly state the most powerful theme he sees in his book is of course significant, but as mentioned before, it is by no means a unique occurrence of such a statement (cf. Letters 186, 203, 208, etc.). But the de Beauvoir quotation is significant in its explicit exemplification of this idea.

The importance of the quotation is that it expresses man’s fear of death in Tolkienian terms while being utterly distinct from his mythology. This shows the universalizability of Tolkien’s central theme. The ever-present resentment of humanity for its mortality and its suffocating fear of death is a powerful and ubiquitous feeling. Death is the most universal experience for our species. And de Beauvoir sums up the roiling emotions behind it in A Very Easy Death.

But Tolkien does not of course mean to say that her statement is the correct way to view death. It is the “key-spring” in that it is the primary driving force for the events of Tolkien’s mythology. In his world, the desire to cheat death, to remain embodied within the bounds of the physical world for as long as possible, is found throughout the race of Men. Perhaps the clearest and most direct expression of this idea comes from Andreth, the Wise-woman of the House of Bëor, who laments the unjust fate of her kind in the “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.” She believes that Man was not always meant to be short of life, to die and leave the world, but that such was the contrivance of Morgoth. He, so it was said among her people, had corrupted the destiny of the Edain, and thus had their lives been cut short and their futures doomed. To her mind, Men were meant to be as elves, to reside within the Circles of the World for all time.

This is the same belief that was held by the corrupted later kings of Númenor. In the days of their people’s glory, the rulers of the island held the view “that a ‘good’ Man would or should die voluntarily by surrender with trust before being compelled” (Note to Letter 212). They laid down their scepter before being taken by age and becoming dotard. But the thirteenth king Tar-Atanamir, refused to do so, clinging to life until he was taken against his will. It was he who had scoffed at the elves of Valinor, openly declaring his resentment for the mortality he viewed as having cursed him. He and his people had grown envious of the elves, whom they called “the least of the deathless.”

In both of these cases, it is seen that Men are desirous of the fate of the Eldar. Andreth is revealed to be bitter at her old age in large part because of her love of an immortal elf. But this is of course not as it was meant to be in the beginning. Death is the “Gift of Ilúvatar” to the race of Men, unique to them, which the elves say “as Time wears even the Powers shall envy” (The Silmarillion, Chapter 1). It was Morgoth, the prime mover of evil who began it. He alone is responsible for the introduction of fear into the world, which dates even to the birth of the elves themselves. (Cf. Tom Bombadil’s words that he “knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside” (The Lord of the Rings, Chapter 7)). And from his work the fear of death spread among men. The “Athrabeth” explains further that Morgoth even made Men to worship the darkness and to turn utterly from the light for a time.

The history of Men was therefore plagued through time with their dread of death, so that by the time of Sauron’s rule as the “Dark Lord,” he was further able to pervert the Gift into a twisted lie. The clearest example in this case is that of the Nazgûl. The rings that Sauron gave to them were able to confer longer life. But this was of course no true immortality. The Men who received them became wraiths, shadows of the Shadow, wasted and weary as the centuries came and went.

In all of the cases presented, the role of de Beauvoir’s passage is clear: Tolkien’s Men are fearful of the unknown that awaits them upon their deaths, and so they resent their mortality and seek for any means they can to circumvent it, with disastrous results. Perverting the will of Ilúvatar is utterly hopeless. And thus, the “Great Escape” from death into immortality sought throughout fairy-stories is the most pernicious of lies. Man is not meant for immortality. Once “achieved,” it is revealed to be merely some horrible kind of “endless serial living” (On Fairy-stories), like that of the Nazgûl.

A final and summarizing illustration of this concept is found in the Narn I Chîn Húrin, the Tale of the Children of Húrin. Húrin, a Man, is chained to a chair on the slopes of Thangorodrim as punishment for his role in resisting Morgoth. Still defiant, Húrin declares to Morgoth that “though all Arda and Menel fall in [his] dominion,” he would still never be Lord of Men, for he could not pursue them beyond the Circles of the World. Morgoth declares that “beyond the Circles of the World there is Nothing” and that within them, none could escape him. Morgoth’s lie is the same he has told forever, and Húrin’s statement of faith is the pure manifestation of his belief in the Gift of Ilúvatar. And after all of Húrin’s family is killed through the horrible works of Morgoth, this glimmer of hope remains to us who read of it. Though the lives of these fallen Men in Arda were made into a misery by the forces of evil, they did escape beyond the Circles of the World in the end, departing the physical world for one utterly beyond the grasp of Morgoth. In doing so, they realized the True Great Escape: not one away from death and into false immortality, but into the embrace of the Gift of Ilúvatar.

          – Andrew Stump

On Death

By far the most interesting Tolkien reading we’ve done this quarter was The Debate of Finrod and Andreth(Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth), further referred to as The Debate. This blog post, unlike my previous ones, isn’t going to just make a single argument about some aspect of the Legendarium, but is more a consolidation of some reactions from this week’s readings in a loosely connected way.

The first reason I find this week’s reading particularly interesting is that they show how integral the legendarium was to Tolkien’s way of life. He grappled with the questions of Death and the desire for eternal life not in some real-world way, but rather by writing philosophical conversations with his characters in his books. He dealt with grief about his wife by drawing parallels to her as Luthien. Only on reading Letter 340 did I truly understand how much this story meant to JRR Tolkien. He particularly points out that this name isn’t just a ‘sentimental fallacy' and is ‘not comparable to quoting of pet names’. He laments that he cannot plead with Mandos, which just goes to show how much he truly believed in his Legendarium’s myths. This letter showed me that to Tolkien, the Legendarium wasn’t just a hobby, or an academic interest. It was the framework through which he understood his personal life and how he comprehended even Love. His sources weren’t just academic Old English words but also his very life and loved ones. I find this level of dedication to subcreation incredible, and I think Letter 340 is the best argument I have yet seen for taking this course: to study the depths of a brilliant and utterly singly-focused man’s life’s work.

The Debate again shows us Tolkien grappling with real-life questions of mortality through his fiction. This is my favourite reading, because it shows a side of the Legendarium that I never even knew existed: a part which questions the very nature of evil. Never before had I seen such candid descriptions of why Men were more susceptible to Melkor’s words. Never before had I heard such a clear and honest conversation between Elf and Man about what exactly makes them different. It fills in a lot of the philosophical questions the Legendarium raises. The Debate is honest about how being seduced by Melkor isn’t something that can happen only to ‘weak’ Men, but shows how Melkor’s words are convincing to even the strongest of Men. This is a level of honesty about evil that we don’t really see in much of the Legendarium: the honesty to discuss Evil in a non-antagonistic, but rather academic sense. One thing that I would like to note is that the argument for Melkor’s evil nature is always tautological, even in the Debate: the fact that he acted against the Creator Eru is all that makes him Evil, not his actions or anything else. This feels annoying to me, but is ultimately consistent with Tolkien’s view of a monotheist, Christian God.

The final(in more than one sense) question that needs to be answered then, is the question of the Gift of Men. Why is Death a gift to us, in Tolkien’s worldview? Tolkien isn’t particularly fond of death: he puts the immortal Elves at the centre of his stories and considers them the greatest (non-Ainur) beings on Middle-Earth. This attitude of the Eldar being ‘greater’ than Men was common among even the Elves, as noted by Finrod. Death is the cause of tragedy for every single romance between Elves and Men in Middle-Earth. It seems as though Men are cursed with Death! Tolkien acknowledges this bitterness with Arwen’s last words to Aragorn: ‘if this is the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive.’ Death is difficult. The death of a loved one is possibly the most difficult thing someone ever has to do in their life. Tolkien is painfully aware of this himself, and even Aragorn acknowledges the sorrow of death on his deathbed. Tolkien had seen enough death in his life, as a war veteran, and was certainly not naive enough to claim that this cause of sorrow and pain was somehow an unquestionable Gift.

Yet, it is the Gift of Men. I have but one reasoning for this, and the argument is somewhat as follows. Our fea exist in Arda when we are alive, as do the Elves. The Elves are forever bound to Arda, for their fea can’t leave. This means that Elves fundamentally never face uncertainty in their lives. The Valar protect them, and their destinies are safe and predictable. The only uncertainty they face is that of Dagor Dagorath, and what happens after the End of the World. This is solved for them, by their concept of Estel. Estel is an unquestioning Hope(or trust), that, no matter what, because they are the Children of Illuvatar, they will be taken care of. It’s an optimism based on trust in the Lord and nothing else. (Note how, on replacing ‘Eru’ with ‘the Lord’ in the previous sentence, how similar I made it sound to the Christian trust in Jesus and God.) However, Men cannot have this same level of trust and certainty in their future. Death is a fundamental unknown. Unlike the known unknown that is the future, the afterlife is an unknowable unknown, that cannot be deduced even in part from the current state of the world. This unknowable unknown is scary, and sad, because Melkor made it so. Melkor associated it with Darkness and hardship and misery. This is what Tolkien meant when he said that Men are more susceptible to corruption than the Elves: because the Elves lack this unknown unknown, it is impossible for Melkor to turn this uncertainty into fear.

How then, does an unmarred Man, a Child of Illuvatar, deal with death? The answer is the same as that for the Elves, but much harder: Estel. Estel is difficult for Men: Men do not interact with the Valar on a daily basis. Men don’t have the fortune of having guidance from Eru, even through his Ainur. Men have a fundamental uncertainty in their near future, of death. This makes faith in Eru difficult, if not impossible. This makes Men susceptible to Melkor. But it is possible to not fear death. To believe, that, like the Elves, the uncertainty that awaits Men is Good, too. For if, after death, the fea of Men have no place on Earth, they must go out of this World, and be united with the Creator, Eru. This is what Estel means for Men: to have the faith that our afterlife is fundamentally Good, because it is ordained by Eru, our Creator, and because we are Children of Illuvatar. Thus, our fate is fundamentally the same as that of the Elves: to become one with Eru and a part of Arda Healed. The only difference is, that we do it quicker. This way, we do not have our experiences marred by memory and tragedy, like the Elves necessarily do.

The reason Death is a Gift, then, is because it unites us with the One.

-Rohan Kapoor

Remember Today, Little Brother

Elves, the Firstborn, the Elder Child. Strong, beautiful, wise. Waking under star and speaking with the gods; gazing upon the light that dwells in the West; falling in pride and yet saved by hope—that Men might do what they cannot and bring them back to the light.

Men, the Secondborn, the Younger Child. Followers, strangers, short-lived. Waking under Shadow yet with faces toward the sun; destined to inherit the world; falling in fear and yet saved by hope—trust in Eru that Arda will be restored, and that death is not the end but rather indicative of their freedom from and purpose within the world.

The primary relationship between Elves and Men is one of siblinghood. They are two halves of a family tree that intertwine with one another, the first enriching the second until only Men are left in Middle-Earth, carrying on the family line through the joining of both races. Though by the end of the Third Age, Men and Elves are mostly estranged (and by present day, they have faded away entirely) this was not always so. The conversation between Finrod and Andreth points to both the friendship between the two races as well as their underlying kinship. They learn much from one another, Finrod of the human tradition that immortality was their original lot until lost through some means of the Shadow, Andreth of Elvish death, and the final end that awaits the Elves once Arda fails. But even while they learn from each other, they also give each other insight that points them toward truth. When Finrod suggests that Arda is not humanity’s true home, Andreth is moved; something within her rises to that suggestion. When Andreth discusses Man’s interaction with Arda, Finrod sees a vision of healing that gives him joy and hope. Elf and woman are able to affect each other so deeply because they are ultimately brother and sister.

In Genesis, God establishes his covenant with the younger son, though everyone would expect the firstborn to receive the promise, and brother is momentarily (or permanently) estranged from brother. Ishmael is passed over for Isaac, Esau for Jacob. Even Abel pleases God more than his older brother Cain (and earns a premature demise for his troubles). This family that God chooses is one that he will use to bring his creation back to himself. As children of the promise, Israel is meant to bless the other nations; they are God’s chosen instrument for world renewal.

Men, the Secondborn, similarly become the children of the promise. Of course, the promise is never stated outright, and Eru, unlike the Judeo-Christian God, hardly bothers to speak to his creation, but it is Men, not Elves, who inherit Arda. And humans come into more than just an inheritance: Finrod’s vision presents a world that has been restored by men—through them, Arda Marred becomes Arda Remade. It suggests that Men are not at home in Arda because their hearts belong to this healed future, while the Elves love the world too much and remain firmly within it. Because Men have the gift of free will, they are able to act beyond the Music, which patterns Arda Marred, and can remake the world into something new. It is Men who are the ones said to join in the Second Music at the end, while the fate of Elves is unknown. It is Men who will perhaps save the Elves from their never-ending sorrow.

While this purpose of Man aligns with mankind’s gifts from Eru, what has actually taken place does not seem so hopeful. Just as younger siblings imitate the older, so Men follow in the footsteps of the Elves. The there-and-back motion of the Noldor who go to the light and then flee from it is mirrored in the path of the Númenóreans. Physically, both move West and then return East, but even in name, there are echoes of their parallel movements from light. Flieger notes the spectrum of light present in the naming of the elves—the High Elves, the Twilight Elves, and the Dark Elves (Splintered Light). Similarly, Faramir calls the descendents of the Númenóreans the High, while the Rohirrim are Men of the Twilight, and their enemies are the Men of the Darkness. Just as the Noldor, upon returning, become more and more like the Sindar, their Twilight brethren, so Faramir notes that the men of Gondor are becoming increasingly like the men of Rohan (LotR IV.5).

Yet, as the children of the promise, descent into darkness is not to be the fate of mankind. Flieger suggests that the interaction between Men and Elves is one of crossing paths—Elves are moving away from the light while Men move toward it, and their interactions mutually benefit each other: “Elves need Men just as much as Men need Elves. Elves, going toward darkness, will set Men’s feet on the path to the light. With that accomplished, Men—less visibly great than Elves but with immeasurably greater potential, may be able to turn back and assist Elves into the light” (Splintered Light 145). But how do Men return to the light having trod for so long beneath the Shadow?

The answer, it seems, lies in the union between Elves and Men, and here is where the biblical motif takes a turn. Instead of simply superseding the other, the younger brother can only gain the promise with the help of the elder, and he acts on behalf of them both. Through the “ennoblement of the Human Race” (Letter 153), a new light is found within humanity: “this indwelling light [...] is at last to replace the tangible, external light” (Splintered Light 145). In other words, this is the moment in which the metaphor made literal returns to being a metaphor. Humanity is the new light. The West, the (pen)ultimate source and symbol of light throughout the legendarium, is ultimately rejected by the Half-Elven—when Aragorn and Arwen agree to marry, they reject the West as well as the East: “And there upon that hill they looked east to the Shadow and west to the Twilight, and they plighted their troth and were glad.” Twilight, which once covered only Middle-Earth, now encompasses the West, the Blessed Realm itself. Hope will not come from the Valar. Hope comes from trust in Eru beyond Arda and his intent to use Men within Arda in order to bring about the renewal of the world.

KY