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Comment by simplesleeper | Hacker News Reader

I recently went to a Tolkien expert's lecture (author of the latest biography https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolkien-Raymond-Edwards/dp/07198098... ). He was very adamant that Tolkien didn't like allegories and instead filled his books with his moral values in a more subtle way. It is easy for us to project our own allegories on someone else's books, but anything you may see in LOTR was only made for good storytelling and not with an intention of allegory.

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""The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work," he wrote, "unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism" - JRR Tolkien

I think you should not always take an authors word at face value. Just because he said he didn't like allegory doesn't mean it is not present all over the work - come on, is Eru, the Ainur and Melkor not an allegory for God, the angel and the fall of Satan? Did it just happen to closely parallel the Christian mythology purely by coincidence?

Tolkien and Lewis had some bizarro theories about universals myths which meant that to them, blatant Christian allegory was not actually allegory but just a retelling of eternal truths in the form of myths. But as a reader, we don't have to accept those theories. We can enjoy their stories as stories.

I think a lot of fantasy readers dislike allegory because it kind of turns reading into work and takes the escapism out of it, so it is nice when Tolkien in person validates this aversion. But be careful - you can enjoy Tolkien without caring about the underlying worldview, but that emphatically does not mean it is not there.

(Of course to me Christian mythology is just as much fantasy as Middle Earth, but it certainly was not like that for Tolkien)

The story of Eru and the fall of Melkior is interesting in that it blends the Christian creation myth with that of pagan religions - take for example the fact that each ainur has his own "domain". This is in fact typical of the genre of fairy stories or myth, which is what Tolkien was trying to mirror. If anything, the creation story is the one that has the most allegory and even Tolkien would find it hard to deny that. But applying the same to LOTR is harder - the people who could be allegories of Jesus couod be multitude (Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn). People like to see allegories in things and that is great, no one can tell you you are reading something wrong, and if that is how you get more meaning out of a book, then good for you.

Gandalf falling, fighting demons in the underworld for three days, dies, then resurrected and sent back as Gandalf the White - at first not recognized even by his friends. Will you seriously argue this is not an intentional parallel to the resurrection of Jesus?

Note I’m not criticizing Tolkien for this, I believe his power very much stem from the deliberate fusing of pre-Christian myths with a Christian worldview which leads it to a more straightforward engaging “good vs evil” narrative. I just find it hilarious when Tolkien fans uncritically buy the “there are no allegories” quip.

I'm gonna be honest and say that despite reading the books god knows how many times I never even considered the parallel. Now you point it out I can't disagree that there are some similarities and it feels like you are probably right. At the same time there are differences. He's more reborn than ressurected, he has changed, his memory and status and so on have all been heavily impacted. He, like a tool, has been fixed because it is still required. There are some tonal differences which seem non trivial.

I guess my question is this. In some ways storytellers are trapped in that if you want to do good vs evil - you're going to reuse themes. Whether it's a single "abrahamic" God/Devil, or pantheons and aspects, you're going to step on some toes and parallels can be drawn. If you try and avoid that you're warping the story you want to tell for the fear of readers assuming intent etc and that strikes me as far worse than accepting that mythology is always going to have got there first.

I don't know, I've never really thought about this before or seen the allegory arguments he made.

Simply put, Jesus is not an abstract concept, so by the definition I find at wiktionary, there can't be no allegory of the Jesus. It's not "the jesus". Abstract nouns require the definite articles, I learned in school.

So back to Tolkin. He was a linguist, so I guess he preferred to say things directly. If there are nebulous, abstract allegories to be seen, then because the concepts were intentionally not defined.

Rebirth is not an allegory for rebirth. What would the allegory be. Being chosen? Well, yeah, by the author.

By that definition, not even Animal Farm is an allegory since Stalin and Trotsky are not abstract concepts.

Indeed it isn't, it's an "alternative retelling" of communism. It's the wording I take issue with.

Even Encyclopædia Brittanica uses Animal Farm as an example of Allegory: https://www.britannica.com/art/allegory-art-and-literature.

Yes, I meant "Indeed, they are not; It is not (the case that ...)". They being Stalin etc. The Stalin is not an abstract concept, communism is. And to liken communists to pigs is a metaphor.

Who's Saruman's equivalent in the Bible?

Yes, there are some similarities but the entire story is markedly different. Jesus didn't die to come back as a more powerful Jesus 2.0 in order to defeat his former boss.

Gandalf's death had nothing to do with absolving the sins or saving the souls of humans. That's a fundamental aspect of Jesus' death and ressurection.

There are many more fundamental differences than there are similarities.

Sure there are many - differences otherwise it wouldn't be an original work! Christian mythology is just one source of inspiration. But are you disputing there is some amount of Christian allegory in LotR?

Pretty much. There's no overarching theme to the LOTR that can be readily matched to a Christian one. Tolkein clearly borrowed a lot from various mythologies in weaving his story. Certainly Christianity was part of that. But it was inspiration and not allegory.

The point is not that there are differences. The point is that the differences are far more numerous and significant than the similarities.

I will not try to convince you otherwise then. It may however interest you that Tolkien himself said "'The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/s...) - but the statements of an author about their own work should of course not always be taken at face values.

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