Freedom for the other guy


Surprising links between Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and freedom
This one is an oldie, but goodie. A decidedly different way of looking at Tolkein.

But The Lord of the Rings is not about restoring the metaphoric Ring of Power to the rightful king. Rather, we see Frodo the ringbearer – an open-faced hobbit in homespun making the most seemingly unlikely champion, except for the fact that hobbits are the creatures in all Middle Earth least likely to be seduced by the promise of power – offer the ring to each of the good wizards and elf queens and royal heirs of his world, in turn.

Those who succumb to temptation come to bad ends. The test of goodness and worth – in this film as in the book – is the ability to say "No" to the offer of unlimited power, to declare, as does Gandalf the Gray (Ian McKellen), "Oh, I would use this ring in an attempt to do good. But through me, it would wield a terrible power. ..."

Frodo’s quest is not to deliver the One Ring to the right king, but rather to haul it back to the mountain of fire where it was forged in darkness, and destroy it.

What’s that? Not merely to reassign government power to its rightful heirs, but to reduce and limit it for all time? To declare that the solution is not merely to make sure "the right party" manipulates the existing levers of power, but rather that such unrestricted power is to be banished from the globe for good, setting men free to seek their own mortal (albeit often misguided) destinies?\

This is the conclusion Prof. Tolkien drew after watching Europe wracked by 30 years of (briefly interrupted) total war between the struggling factions of fascism and collectivism.

It’s also – coincidentally enough – what America’s founders attempted 215 years ago, when they set about constructing a government "of limited powers, sharply defined."

One of my pet peeves about the films is that they skipped the scourging of the Shire and the aftermath. The real hero isn't usually the guy with the flashy sword or the most popular kid in school. Sometimes it is the everyman who is determined to do things right, even if he has to try again and again.

I've great faith in the best of the everyman. More faith than I do in the worst of the elite.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - November 27, 2006 at 02:26 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved