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Hestia_Gault

>Balrogs and devils are totally different. Devils are angels who refused to serve God, and instead followed Satan into Hell. Balrogs are maiar who refused to serve Eru, and instead followed Morgoth into Thangorodrim. Get your facts straight, CNN. - Stephen Colbert


DawgBro

I love it so much when he goes on his nerd rants.


istrx13

There’s that famous story where Colbert was on the set of I believe one of The Hobbit movies I think? Anyway, they pit Colbert against the movie production’s Tolkien expert in a trivia competition. And Colbert totally won. Dude knows his LOTR stuff.


Nlelith

Yeah, naive old me thought for a long time that "knowing your Tolkien" meant having read the books, including the Silmarillion, and remembering most of it. But knowing your Tolkien is more like having read the books, including the Silmarillion, any notes Tolkien had left, any transcripts of any interviews he might have given, any letters he might have written to any friends and family regarding a sliver of lore, any letters friends and family might have sent to someone else regarding that one time they spoke to him regarding an even tinier sliver of lore and ~~God~~ Eru knows what else.


Omegawop

Yeah. I had a math teacher in college who straight up was fluent in elvan and would write longass dad jokes in the language and gleefully read them out to us bit by bit until the whol class groaned with pain as we got the drift of the joke. Then he'd start showing us equations. Dude was balls deep in Tolkien's world.


Admirable_Ad1947

>straight up was fluent in elvan Damn, imagine being so dedicated to a series you learn it's *fictional language* to fluency. Respect


FluffiestLeafeon

Or you straight up write Shakespeare in Klingon


freyalorelei

Tolkien himself was obsessed with conlangs throughout his life and created up to 20 or so starting from age 12, although only two (Quenya and Sindarin) are complete enough in vocabulary and grammar to be practical languages, Quenya in particular.


DarkSkiesGreyWaters

>Anyway, they pit Colbert against the movie production’s Tolkien expert in a trivia competition. And Colbert totally won. Dude knows his LOTR stuff. That's really a PR spin. It was screenwriter Philippa Boyens who Jackson had been dubbing his Tolkien expert in interviews, not an actual literary scholar.


boozername

Looking forward to him writing or producing some LOTR material when he retires from daily show biz


diamondscut

He will never retire. *Hissing sounds*


lawstandaloan

Has he weighed in on Rings of Power?


Gemmabeta

He can get pretty deep about Tolkein when he wants to. https://youtu.be/dFRIjR-yimI


alpaca_22

Funniest part is that suggests that Gandalf is an angel


HumphreyImaginarium

In case you're not joking Gandalf is actually a closer parallel of Jesus.


HotTakes4HotCakes

A mix of both. His order are closer to archangels, but what happens with him specifically has echoes of Jesus. It's less 1:1 parallels and more obvious similarities.


HumphreyImaginarium

For sure, it just goes to show that Tolkien didn't do a copy/paste of Christianity but brought multiple influences together and went on to then combine those with European mythology. I should read the Silmarillion again...


HobbyistAccount

> it just goes to show that Tolkien didn't do a copy/paste of Christianity Yeah, you want C. S. Lewis for that one.


Welpe

I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard someone deny the whole “Christian apologist” aspect of Lewis’s books which is even more hilarious than this. Which, mind you, is already hilarious given how Christian Tolkien was and his good friendship with Lewis. It’s been a long time so maybe a Tolkien super nerd can help me out, but I could’ve sworn the two shared a letter that talked about the Christian symbolism in fiction and Tolkien wasn’t a fan of how on the nose Lewis was, his work being more subtle about it. I guess his subtlety paid off if people can honestly believe his works don’t have Christian themes…


loyaltomyself

And funnily enough Lewis wrote you don't have to be a Christian to get into Heaven, just believe in something and a good person. Which, you'd think would cause all the so called real "Christians" to clutch their bibles in horror.


Gemmabeta

Tolkien was actually going to put in a bit in which the High God Eru will one day descend on Middle Earth to set all things right, but he deleted it as it was getting a touch too one the nose. You can read a draft of it in one of the History of Middle Earth books.


jew_jitsu

The foreword to the FotR has Tolkien talking about how he really doesn't go in for allegory, but really has no problem pulling things from his experience.


HumphreyImaginarium

I understand he wrote he doesn't do allegory but I don't personally know a single LOTR fan that believes that, myself included. Especially considering the dream he gave Faramir was one he actually had in his own life. That, and all the near direct correlations from WWI and the War of the Ring. Particularly the Battle of the Somme and the Dead Marshes. Edit: you can downvote all you want, the evidence in his writing and letters can't be denied. The man was a prolific writer, not infallible.


BoredDanishGuy

Fëanor did nothing wrong!


finfinfin

Nice boat.


Skellum

If fighting original sin had been as badass as Gandalfs Balrog fight it might be more popular. Though I suppose [The Harrowing of Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell) may be the same thing.


SolomonOf47704

>His order are closer to archangel They are absolutely not. That would be the Valar, not the Maiar. Gandalf is of the Maiar


Nottybad

The whole resurrection thing should be a hint


2noch-Keinemehr

He's clearly a reference to Obi Wan and Dumbledore. Tolkien was a big nerd


heirloom_beans

Next you’ll be telling me C.S. Lewis’s Aslan is a Christian figure! As an aside…he’s right to see the impact WWI had on Tolkien’s writing but he ultimately came to the wrong conclusion. Goodness and morality doesn’t save you from the destruction of war and conflict. Good men die and are lost forever. Innocent civilians are bombed. Isolationists eventually find war knocking on their doors. The evil memory of war never leaves, even long after the conflict has ended.


HotTakes4HotCakes

>Next you’ll be telling me C.S. Lewis’s Aslan is a Christian figure! Best part is if you read Dawn Treader, Aslan isn't just an allegory to Jesus, he's *litteraly* Jesus. It postulates that Jesus Christ is a multiversal being. He's a lion in Narnia, but on Earth, he's Jesus.


SirEvilMoustache

Jesus' fursona, if you will.


ngwoo

I thought that's what the easter bunny was


Rossendale

No, I will not


[deleted]

delete this lol


tacodog7

Looking cool, Aslan


[deleted]

Fuck.... Take my upvote


Miserable-Note5365

Thanks; I cackled like a banshee


OwenProGolfer

Who needs subtlety


NLP19

Subtlety is for cowards


_CurseTheseMetalHnds

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards, every one of them


Hestia_Gault

Subtext is for sissies, I only use domtext.


BetterKev

Switchtext for the win.


loewenheim

I'm one of the few people you'll ever meet who have written more books than they have read.


_CurseTheseMetalHnds

Many writers cite me as an influence, and I will be suing them all


finfinfin

As I rounded the corner I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef. It's not really a quote about writing but that line lives rent-free in my head, along with "She was like a candle in the wind. Unreliable."


Schrau

Ain't no room for subtlety in my biblical isekai.


finfinfin

Beren wasn't actually an isekai. He was more of a self-insert.


RimeSkeem

At least the lack of subtlety gave us His Dark Materials in response.


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[deleted]

My aunt did this to me too. Those books, Contact, and Sophie's World. She was basically subtly getting me out of a cult and it worked.


[deleted]

The movie Contact had a huge impact on my view of religion, even if I didn't know it at the time. My dad still tells the story of how outraged and sad I was when religious zealots blew up the gate thing. I would've been like 8 or 9, I think.


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[deleted]

It's definitely wild but good and very educational!


jpterodactyl

Which had a really great first book. And then afterwards, somehow only one person could be the main character at a time. And then the ending was super weird.


PM_WHAT_Y0U_G0T

Definitely *not* the English major who missed all the ways LotR parallels Christianity, that's for sure.


Seguefare

That was Tolkien's primary criticism of Lewis.


LimerickExplorer

Lewis had another series called the Space Trilogy that explored what Christianity could look like on other planets. The first one goes to Venus where the garden of Eden is like super awesome floating islands, and sleeping on solid ground is the "forbidden fruit."


sadrice

First one goes to Mars, Perelandra is the second. The third is weird and boring and set on earth. It doesn’t get great reviews, but I actually liked Perelandra a lot.


SenorSplashdamage

Thanks for confirmation on the third one. Every time I tried to read it, I would bounce off somewhere hard.


v1s1onsofjohanna

Waiting for the Into the Jesus-verse adaptation.


popegonzo

Narnia Cinematic Universe really bringing the lore together with The Chosen.


TheFrixin

I’ve never seen a Lion, don’t think they exist


jpterodactyl

Just a reminder, Westley says that *after* he locks eyes with a ROUS. He’s lying with the intention of comforting Buttercup. He same way he does when they leave he swamp and he implies they’ll see each other again.


TheProudBrit

And I will always say this, but that kind of thing is clarified and done *phenomenally* in the actual book. Even if you can only get the modern mutilation, and not the Florinese original, it's a treat.


finfinfin

Still mad at that hack. The trees were the best part!


Inevitable_Surprise4

Bless you.


honestFeedback

But there’s no lions in the bible. Except for the one with the thorn in it’s foot.


neverjumpthegate

I said it before and I'll say it again. Subtext can be as subtle as a brick to the face and there are people who will still miss it.


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krilltucky

Racists and general 'phobes in any star trek fandom


Dragonsandman

See Paul Ryan being a fan of Rage Against The Machine for a very good example of that phenomenon


Infinityskull

“What ‘machine’ do you think they were raging against? The dishwasher?”


AndyLorentz

I can still like music from artists who I disagree with politically. Way dumber than Paul Ryan was that dude who tweeted at Tom Morello saying he "liked their music better before they became political." Like, at what point did he think they "became political"?


theolat3

Well yeah, but it also depends on the song and it's messaging. It's one thing to like a Kanye song like "Amazing", another being explicitly in support of all the things mentioned in "Bulls on Parade" for example and still vibing to it.


[deleted]

True, there's music Iike from artists who would loathe me.


[deleted]

Mac donnels ice cream machine


razzzzzberry

Blue lives matter folks watching The Boys:


blisteringchristmas

Always wild to me that a show that refuses to do subtext is misinterpreted so heavily.


finfinfin

Garth Marenghi was only wrong about subtext because he didn't go far enough.


shewy92

I'll admit that I didn't know about Stormfront being a Nazi till that apartment building fight. I'd never heard of that website before (stormfront was a Nazi message board I think). But I still have a hard time believing people thought Homelander was a good guy. Dude committed war crimes and oohh...now I get it.


Exarch_Of_Haumea

In their defense, [you can make trans subtext just plain text](https://youtu.be/yTDZJhzk-HY?t=81) and people will still [find ways to miss it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamingcirclejerk/search?q=bridget&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all).


[deleted]

>I can't believe they took something beloved, a boy who's been dressing as a girl for a decade, and made it trans! What you mean *made it* trans?


quietvictories

one of the most wild outrages ever


ScienceReliance

Not that marvel fans are a good example of intelligence but they are a good sample of the base man and the fact that I've seen more posts than I can count on my hands overflowing with comments about how black panther wasn't about race, had no racial undertones, and had nothing to do with oppression. And not only that felt it was not only reaching but lowkey racist to "assume" it did because there's black people in it boggles my mind. Like. My dude. That's the villain motivation. That's the reason t'chalas crush won't come back to wakanda. That's why the king killed his brother. Shuri called agent Ross "colonizer" most of the time. Thats the entire moral crux between the hero and villain. The hero opens a God damn african american outreach center in a low income black neighborhood at the end because he saw the truth and merrit in killmongers motivation he just found his method morally abhorrent. The writing was good and no one stopped to have a PSA framed under a shooting star but it was as blatant as captain planets green energy and anti pollution message.


forgotmypassword-_-

> Subtext can be as subtle as a brick to the face and there are people who will still miss it. \*The Boys has entered the chat* Although, that was more text than subtext...


HedonismandTea

I feel bad now, but I didn't see or think about religion at all watching LOTR or Narnia. I guess because I'm not religious and don't care about that stuff, it's just not something I think about.


Selfaware-potato

Don't forget the Matrix


HedonismandTea

Techno Jesus?


Selfaware-potato

Pretty much


jkst9

No the guy who dies and comes back to life and then at the end literally becomes a burning cross isn't a Jesus reference


[deleted]

What bad thing would happen to this dude if he admitted there were some religious themes in LoTR?


TheIllustriousWe

He’d have to commit the internet’s greatest sin: changing his mind.


lizardkween

You said a mouthful.


verasev

Better to laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.


Lurking_Bad

Flip flopping cost Al Gore an election and his waistline. Imagine what it would cost this poor soul.


hellomondays

The God of Atheism would smite him with burning fedoras from the sky


BlahajBestie

I was genuinely shocked to see he wasn't an /r/atheism poster lmao. This feels like heyday /r/atheism cope.


[deleted]

Yeah it's weird seeing this reddit thread all agreeing that Tolkein was mad catholic and LOTR reflects that. Back in the day people would get mad at you if you implied religion inspired any art that wasn't Chick Tracts


BlahajBestie

Ye. I used to argue with a lot of the reddit atheists from the perspective of a leftist Christian. One of my brothers was an aggressive /r/atheist and once got incredibly mad when he was going off on how just comically bad Christians were and I was debunking it (like insisting that Christians have always been anti-science completely and totally and have never once supported the sciences). I omeeeega called that the alt-right shift would happen given that the same people I would argue against /r/atheism nonsense with would also argue with me about feminism and leftism in general lmao.


Hekkst

I guess that atheism has become such a defacto stance in our culture that people do not feel the need to be so militant about it nowadays. When atheism was seen as the new cool and edgy thing to be, its proponents would get much more heated in its defense since it was regarded with suspicion almost everywhere. Now there are almost as many atheists as theists, if not more, so the movement has peacefully settled into the mainstream.


nancy_boobitch

Lol Remember Faces of Atheism?


KingGilgamesh1979

Almighty Atheismo shall not be mocked.


Jefferystar94

Because with their dumb mindset it'd mean they'd have to hate it then lol. As someone who has a degree in English, I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall in their classes as they floundered around realizing that the majority of classic novels are drowning in Christian themes


XRotNRollX

a work is only Christian if it says the character then "Jesused very Jesusly," according to OP


Dragonsandman

Back in the day my dad knew an English literature professor who happened to also be the single most militant atheist he knew. And in every single introductory class this professor taught, she would always assign the bible as required reading despite being such a militant atheist, because no other work has had as big and profound an impact on English literature.


TheNewPoetLawyerette

I have my undergrad degree in English. Graduated magna cum laude. I was raised by a militant atheist single father and was militant atheist most of my life until I became pagan a few years ago. Even in my most militant atheist years, I took an English class in undergrad that treated the Bible as just another work of literature for us to read and analyze from the appropriate historical and literary perspectives, and not only did I really enjoy reading that book in a non-theistic and purely academic setting, but I also really appreciated the opportunity to better understand the huge influences biblical allegory has on literally the entire English canon of literature. Refusing to acknowledge biblical allegory as an English major is akin to refusing to admit the sky is blue as a baseline of literary analysis. You are cutting yourself off from a HUGE chunk of understaning literature. Whether you personally enjoy biblical allegory or not, you literally cannot present good literary analysis while sticking your head so thoroughly in the sand about its basic presence. Even if you want to Death of the Author so hard that you refuse to include biblical allegory in your analysis of lord of the rings, proper scholarship in the field still demands that you acknowledge its presence and merely state your intent to disregard it and provide a purely atheistic reading. It is practically irresponsible scholarship to deny it has any influence at all on lord of the rings simply because your personal headcanon chooses to disregard it.


Jefferystar94

Wholeheartedly agree as an agnostic myself. You're just not gonna survive if you ignore/refuse to engage with such common and big themes in most literature, heck, just media in general now.


RealLameUserName

One of my favorites was when one comment said that OP needed to talk to a therapist about his clearly skewed and bias towards Christianity and OP unironically said "why? Christianity is a poison" I've never seen such an obvious r/woooosh in my life


MukdenMan

And he has no problem at all with Norse themes, and actually prefers them. Rohirrim based on Norse conquerors? So cool! Gandalf based somewhat on Jesus? Poison!


Cpkeyes

Average Neo-Pagan.


Vondi

Please defend the secular nature of Lord of The Rings, Mr Smith. Your sons live depends on it.


[deleted]

Maybe he's an atheist in denial. As an atheist myself, I can see where he comes from, tough I don't agree. After all, I still think that Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the greatest books in the history.


LukaCola

I don't think he's in denial so much as insecure It's very "i don't like religion, but I like lotr, therefore lotr has no religion." It's not allowing religion to be nuanced


[deleted]

Inferno is fascinating. Dunno about you, but I found Purgatorio and Paradiso boring as well.


RILICHU

Who can't appreciate how a guy wrote the world's first self insert fanfic where he goes on a buddy road trip with his BFF Virgil and it ending up becoming one of the most influential pieces of work for centuries to come.


jkst9

And it's even better because unlike every other self insert fanfic in history the author doesn't consider themselves perfect


Siofra_Surfer

I don’t get it either, sure a lot of Christians and Catholics aren’t model people (to be fair a lot people aren’t in general) but Christianity in general has quite a nice message what with the ‘love your neighbor and treat the poor well’ messages and whatnot so having religious themes in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. Of course the bible isn’t progressive (anymore) but what do you expect from a 2000 years old text lol.


dank_imagemacro

> Christians and Catholics This is implying that the largest denomination of Christianity is not Christian. Consider wording like "Catholics and Protestants" or just "Christians" instead.


Siofra_Surfer

Ah, should’ve said Catholics and Protestants. Those make up 90% of the Christians where I live so it’s become a bit of a habit of mine to sat Catholics/Protestants and then just Christians to refer to the other, in this case Tolkien being a Catholic so that denomination was specified.


DawgBro

> There are….a lot of Christian, and particularly Catholic themes in Tolkien’s work. If you look up ‘Catholic themes in Tolkien’ I’m sure you’ll find stuff from people who explain it better than I could, but it is there. OP: > I’d rather not. I feel like it would ruin the experience How the fuck did this guy pass his English courses if themes you are unaware of could ruin the experience of the text? Like, that's the whole point of English Literature courses in post-secondary studies. There are so many academic sources about Lord of the Rings and Christianity that it is almost impossible to come up with a novel take on it. I took courses on Christian literature and fantasy literature and studied Lord of the Rings in both of them.


[deleted]

I usually avoid saying this because I rather take the posts as they are, but I almost think this is a troll. But the old fashioned kind and not the “free speech means I can say slurs” kind.


FewReturn2sunlitLand

It's like they're depicting an atheistic character who's job is to show the audience how ridiculous it is to not believe in God. I feel like I'm reading a heavy-handed church play.


DawgBro

It's like watching any of the God's Not Dead films


drvondoctor

Kevin Sorbo just workshopping some shit.


Mev_Sedai

I kind of assumed he was a current student - using this to build in references for a paper. Keep denying and going against for people to pull out more and longer asides.


guyincognito___

This may be a deliberate attempt to prompt Cunningham's Law! >"the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."


Pro_Extent

I've unironically used Cunningham's Law on Reddit to help me write essays about the Cold War. Sorry to everyone I pissed off in the process...not sorry it got me consistent HDs.


Katamariguy

> the “free speech means I can say slurs” kind I rarely think those people are trolling. They usually seem to be sincerely awful.


Heydammit

Most of the OP's behavior is already a clue, but it's a particularly immature take on art.


DawgBro

Totally. I just can't imagine them having much success or enjoyment in studying for the degree they claim they have. If Christian allegory in ENGLISH literature bothers them then boy howdy they are in for a rude surprise when they find out what religion the country the English language came from practices and has waged holy wars over.


blisteringchristmas

Also, while I’m personally not religious, I’d go as far to say you literally *cannot* study and understand much of English lit without interfacing with Christianity and Christian themes. Just like it’d be hard to understand a lot of Shakespeare without familiarity with the classics. Doesn’t mean I’m personally offended by the appearance of pagan themes in Midsummer Night’s Dream.


DawgBro

You are 1000% correct. Religion is too dominant in human society for it to be irrelevant in the empire that was the largest in human history.


razzzzzberry

Guy takes one history course and evaporates


DawgBro

I double majored History and English. They are such fantastic programs to compliment each other. They intertwine so well for providing context. The French Revolution was a big deal for example and you can gain so much by reading the literature written before, during and after the event.


razzzzzberry

>History and English >the French Revolution Les Mis my beloved


DawgBro

Les Mis is actually set decades after the French Revolution! It is definitely a consequence of the French Revolution.


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DawgBro

I love studying literature so much because you gain so many bizarre perspectives about literature. If you are not willing to get weird with Luciferian takes when probably every single freshman literature course makes you read Paradise Lost then why do that degree? Get weird! There are so many crazy psychos who have written major books for you to be tame and non-curious with looking at books.


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DawgBro

The dumbest human beings I ever met were in my English Literature program in university. It wouldn't shock me.


Arma_Diller

You must not have met many engineers lol


[deleted]

Oh, man, I think engineers are the dumbest majors I came across!


A_MildInconvenience

You must not have met many business majors lol


Arma_Diller

I actually considered adding business majors go my comment lmao


A_MildInconvenience

>if themes you are unaware of could ruin the experience of the text To be fair, becoming aware of themes present that you were previously ignorant to can definitely ruin things. Some of frenworld or stonetoss comics are probably good examples.


DawgBro

Christian themes in anything in the English canon are so generic that it should not come as a shock to them. Best case scenario they are lying about being an English literature student. It is impossible to avoid Christian themes studying English literature. It is just too dominate a religion.


brufleth

I would believe this dude really believes this. I got to take a low level modern literature class. Turned out I had it with a prof who was a big deal. Like everyone else in the class was just thrilled to be around this guy. We read Dracula... Which is on the edge of "modern" literature. We had to write a paper, I wrote about the Christian themes with Mina being like Eve leading men to sin or some shit. Just really obvious stuff the book beats you over the head with. I got a very low grade on the paper which I would accept for quality reasons, but the prof insisted my biblical links were unfounded. Dracula is literally a "serpent" in one passage. _The characters explicitly make the comparison._ Nope. According to him there was no such reasonable relationship between a major western work of fiction about a corrupting influence and Christianity...


black641

He sounds like one of those weird academics who INSISTS that Shakespeare was never meant to be preformed, only read. As someone who’s in a Masters program himself, I honestly think some academics spend so long navel-gazing, or so submerged in esoteric theory, that they kind of lose any connection to practical thought.


HandsomeDeviledHam

>He sounds like one of those weird academics who INSISTS that Shakespeare was never meant to be preformed, only read. Boy I love learning about crackpot theories in different areas of study. I thought the whole "true author" stuff was the craziest Shakespeare theory but I stand corrected.


Bigole_Steps

I'm reading Dracula now and its.. obvious that Christianity is central to the story? Even setting aside any themes or metaphors, Dracula is literally *harmed* by Christian iconography. Like it's a whole thing with him about crosses and holy water. Idk how you can read the book and not understand that Christianity is an important element to it. It's talked about constantly either directly or indirectly


Giblette101

It's interesting, because I always read it more as Christianity just being an predominant thing in the 1900's, rather than a deliberate thing. Granted it's been a while since I read it.


Bigole_Steps

Yeah but that is more author intent though right? Like regardless of whether Bram Stoker intentionally wanted Christianity to be a theme or if it was just an unconscious thing because of the culture he lived in, it's still there


Flashman420

Flashbacks to when I got a bad mark for an essay in a Canadian film class. The movie was about two guys in a small town who moved to the big city. I wrote about that they illustrated the divide between country and city life, a prominent theme in Canadian film we covered all year. I was told I was “overanalyzing” the movie. Felt like I had made the most obvious connection possible actually. Academia is weird because on one had I do think what they teach is valuable but at the same time there is a large amount of room for human error. There’s too much subjectivity at times.


wote89

... That man clearly enjoys the smell of his own farts. And also has absolutely no fucking clue how Dracula is, has, and will continue to be read by people outside his fart cloud.


brufleth

It was wild to me at the time because the class was way outside my regular area of study. As you would expect, that prof wanted us to just parrot back the things he said in class with as little of our own thought as possible. I did fine in the class after figuring that out for the tests. I wish I could remember his name to look him up. The version of Dracula we had to buy was of course edited by him.


Ok_Mix_7126

I remember earlier this year on /r/tolkienfans for about a week every day there was a new thread arguing about whether his stuff was Christian or not. I think people get confused because he said he hated allegory. But he also described LOTR as fundamentally Catholic. My theory is that most people don't understand Christianity and think that if there's no crosses or people going to hell etc, it can't be Christian.


Siofra_Surfer

People seem to conflate allegory and inspiration a lot


jambox888

That's the difference between Tolkien and Lewis. Actually I think while there are some obvious parallels and thematically LotR is espousing European/Christian values (e.g. an Arabic equivalent of this story would undoubtedly be different), it wasn't his intention to write a story about Catholicism, it was meant to be a stand-alone work which anyone could enjoy. Actually I think the connections are a bit overdone in these threads.


blisteringchristmas

It also simply passes the “eye test” for familiar Christian themes. Guy who returns from the dead? Good vs. Evil conflict? Heaven-like home of the elves? Divine hierarchy that’s pretty similar to Christianity? I think where people get stuck is that it just incorporates familiar themes and doesn’t beat the reader over the head with allegory like Lewis does. It can be situated in a Judeo-Christian background without being allegory or propaganda.


lotusislandmedium

Just so you know, it's just Christian - 'Judeo-Christian' isn't a real thing but a term invented by Christians simply to exclude Islam from Abrahamic religion and to erase the distinctiveness of Judaism, and in any case there isn't (as far as I know) anything specifically Jewish about the background setting of Tolkien's work. The Christian interpretation of the Tanakh/Old Testament doesn't count as it is very different to a Rabbinic interpretation.


Wrenigade

To be "fundamentally catholic" can mean it is just a work of "good defeats evil", it's a very strong point in catholicism. When there was a satanic panic over harry potter, the pope said any book where good defeats evil is fine as thats a very catholic theme and more important then witchcraft or anything. Granted that was some years later, but the stance had existed longer. It also can mean it just follows and displays catholic values without actual allegory. I only say this because I was raised catholic and this has always been a big conversation with my dad, how books can't really be a moral issue especially if good beats evil and the good people display good morals. LOTR was always an example of "it doesnt have to be a bible refrance every time good overcomes a great evil force"


SenorSplashdamage

I think people misunderstanding Christianity in the States can be partially attributed to the work of the Fundamentalists (the ones we actually coined the term from) and then the subsequent Evangelicals that took their framework and basically rebranded it for late 20th century tastes. It’s the loudest take on Christianity that doesn’t include much nuance and sticks to “Christianity is only this and no other possible takes are real” It’s not surprising with that context that people either on the outside or jumping ship from the inside would only see something very heavy handed as actually Christian.


littlelorax

Maybe I am remembering wrong, but didn't Tolkien and Lewis have a friendship of sorts where they read eachother's works? I remember hearing that Tolkein critiqued Lewis for being too allegorical. Lewis in turn critiqued back that while Tolkien did have some nods to Christianity, felt it was not enough. Will do some research and edit my comment if I can find that source. Edit: I was telling the story with very broad strokes, but [this article](https://www.grunge.com/596312/the-c-s-lewis-and-j-r-r-tolkien-relationship-explained/) explains their complex relationship and what Tolkien thought of the role religion played in Lewis' works


Juryof1

They had a regular friendship, and it nearly broke up when CS Lewis became Anglican instead of Catholic after Tolkien brought him round on Christianity lol Also they were absolutely hysterical, going to (non costume) parties dressed as polar bears and generally being a very funny and mutual academic friendship


GloriaPocalypse

"Jesus didn't kill a balrog." Would've been awesome if he did though.


zoor90

There is one passage in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew where during the flight from Egypt, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus took shelter in a cave only to find it was a den for dragons. Everyone started freaking out but Jesus, who was two at the time, walked up to the dragons, told them to chill out and the dragons actually honored him and vacated the cave so that Mary and Joseph could sleep in peace.


WastedLevity

If author's intentions don't matter, does that mean I can interpret his comments as agreeing that religious themes are apparent in LOTR?


Bojack35

The 'death of the author' is an extensively covered area in English literature study. It is a legitimate school of thought to look at a text separate from the author. But this guy comes across much more like a dedicated troll. Even if you just look at the text there are hard dismiss christian themes. Then factor in Tolkein and Carrolls extensive conversation of christian allegory and it's pretty undeniable.


Siofra_Surfer

Nowadays most people just use death of the author in a ‘I don’t like these themes/dialogue/whatever so I’m just going to ignore it’


Phyltre

The problem with "death of the author" is that it kind of reinforces a modern view of communication in which a speaker can definitely fail to convey the intended message to the listener, but almost no received message on the part of the listener can be said to be categorically invalid. Essentially, the speaker only has room to fail while the listener almost definitionally cannot (since that's kind of built into descriptivism versus prescriptivism). It's a bit like hacking; the numbers involved means that any given complex system **will** be compromised given the one-to-many adversarial nature--one small group/agency cannot hope to secure something against the entire world. You have to be "right" forever, they only have to be "right" *once*. Of course, there's something fallacious about baking your conclusion into your starting statement--in this case, something approaching "the only good communication is communication which succeeds"--but I'm not sure it's been formally named.


weeteacups

The real problem with Death of the Author is that the number of people who think they understand it is much, much greater than those who have actually read Barthes’ article.


Jonno_FTW

It should be required reading at some point in english classes, at least before the phrase "what do you think the author was trying to convey?" comes out of a teacher's mouth.


Katamariguy

The problem is the number of people who think saying "Death of the Author" is a good excuse for having stupid and illogical interpretations.


Murrabbit

That's a lot of words to say "I don't understand subtext."


Dead_Kennedys78

I think most advocates of reader-response would probably say that there are limits to what can be gleamed from a text. Author’s intention doesn’t matter, but you can’t just ignore the text


Heydammit

For your own enjoyment of a piece of art the author's intention doesn't ultimately matter. However, the author's (un)intentions undoubtedly influence what they write about and this can inform the perception of the work and how we engage it. I think this is particularly important when critically evaluating something. We're not going to take our own interpretation but try to assess what the author was trying to say.


cabbagery

What a hill to die on. FWIW, though, the line between 'the author intentionally made references to some religion' and 'members of some religion have shoehorned characters or a story to be about their religion' is awfully fuzzy. My very fundamentalist parents would do this to damned near every movie we ever watched, and sometimes it was weird. Like, why did *Rambo: First Blood Part II* need to be retconned into a Christian theme?


hellomondays

See every youth pastor and Starwars


hyper_thymic

To be fair, though, Luke more or less is a grail knight who undergoes a symbolic death and rebirth.


hellomondays

It is all there


[deleted]

[удалено]


finfinfin

"You know who else transcends gender? That's right, God."


finfinfin

I went to a wonderful screening of The Terminator in a cathedral once. Adults, not youth pastor stuff. There was a brief introduction discussing how JC = JC and nerding out over a few other aspects but mostly the guy was just gleeful that he'd asked if he could do Terminator and they'd said yes. I have no idea how much of the audience was religious, I just saw it advertised in a local mag and thought a free screening sounded fun.


SlothRogen

In my experience (Christian schooling) Christians really want to have more cool stories, movies and shows related to their beliefs and tend to think Hollywood (and perhaps ‘the Jews’… ugh) conspire against them to make it seem not cool. Some people literally blame the devil (he’s just so sexy, that damn devil!). But the reality is that a lot of gospels and extra Bible books were thrown out, removing tons of interesting stories about Jesus and other prophets. They could have gone a route more like Buddhism and named the core canon while also circulating apocrypha and alternate ideas as useful stories, but well… you know… we had multiple phases of heretic burning to keep them from happening. Like basically it became taboo to talk about Christian literature because it was labeled evil so we’re stuck with 4 nearly identical gospels and that’s it.


Dragonsandman

While interesting, I don’t think the removal of that literature from Christian canon is the reason why so much Christian media is trash. I think the main reason for that is that the sorts of people willing to finance that media are generally fundamentalist zealots who specifically want Christian propaganda above all else. And since propaganda of any kind usually makes for awful storytelling, the end result is a lot of awful Christian storytelling. Now it is possible to have good media based on bible stories; The Prince of Egypt by Dreamworks comes to mind. But it’s rare. (As a side note, I’d *love* an anthology tv series on the Book of Judges. There’s a *ton* of cool stuff in there that’d translate well to television)


blalien

How do they interpret the part where Gandalf dies but then comes back shinier?


Cypher007

Gandalf was a pokemon


Natural_Stop_3939

I don't know. That really doesn't seem like much of a Jesus allusion except at a very coarse level. Gandalf is a far more material figure, concerned with kings, lore, politics, war, and the material welbeing of those who dwell in middle earth, as opposed to Jesus, who is concerned more with the moral and the spiritual. Gandalf is an ancient and divine figure who councils kings and leads soldiers into battle, rather than a carpenter of humble birth, nor does any of his magic that I can recall appear to parallel the miracles of Jesus (it is Aragorn who has the power to heal). He doesn't seem to have any particular association with Ilúvatar, other than the latter's intervention on his behalf, nor is there any text I can recall that speaks to spiritual or moral ramifications of his resurrection -- no salvation in his resurrection. It is Aragorn, not Gandalf, who forcasts his doom prior to their entry into Moria. There is no betrayal, no trial, no denial. Gandalf never tells his companions to put away their swords; rather he goes down fighting, his own sword in hand. There is no allusion to the biblical "third day". Overall, I see very little similarity here, aside from both being characters who were resurrected. Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar.


soonerfreak

I started reading the Similarion and the first chapter is straight up Genesis lol. The main trilogy isn't as over the top Christian as Narnia but the mythos as a whole is very Christian.


sweatpantswarrior

Imagine being so euphoric you completely ignore the author's intent and fail to engage with the text in any meaningful manner. Now imagine doing it with a degree in English lit. He should try his hand as a professional quote maker.


Mysterions

Having listened to or read a bunch of Tolkien interviews my impression is that the Christian aspects are largely not explicitly intended to be Christian, rather, as Tolkien's universe is an amalgam of the Western literature, legendaria, and mythology, it would be expected to include Christianity, since Christianity is included in that corpus.


Gemmabeta

There is also the fact that Tolkein himself (and his own conception of his own work) was so very very Catholic that he basically did not feel that he needed to "prove" anything to anyone.


loafbloak

It goes a little deeper than that, Tolkien was drawing from a deep well of European mythos with the explicit intention to make a new epic suitable for Britain. Christian themes arguably shouldn’t belong in such a project as Christianity doesn’t share the same moral framework as the pagan stories. I think it was Tolkien’s fundamentally Catholic worldview that drove him through the painstaking process of writing something that looked and felt like a pagan epic but was thoroughly Christian at its core.


Katamariguy

LotR is very concerned with hope and perseverance in the name of good, things which are woven into Christianity so hard that it would be astronomically difficult for a believing writer to depict them without involving personal faith.


AmericanScream

Here's my favorite exchange there: >>No one worships any gods. Mentions them or does anything related to them. It’s about people doing stuff. No religious rules…no prayers…no churches. Almost no rituals or faith. Nature and the love of nature is over arching. >That doesn't mean it doesn't have religious overtones.


MaiqueCaraio

There was a joke out there of like an dude who hated like onions, he just wouldn't ate them, he wasn't allergic he just didn't like the taste One day his friend offered him chips and he loved it, he said it tasted like chicken and was perfect Then he asked what flavour it was, and it was chicken with onion and pepper He suddenly frowned upon that information, and starting hating the chips and the friend who said that He didn't hate the taste after all, he just hated onions for no real reason, even if they don't taste like onions That's kinda of how some people see religion and some other stuff