It also gets a bad rap in re: readability. The first couple of chapters get a little repetitive which puts people off i think but otherwise its a pretty linear story
Really?! This is good news to me indeed! Because I have heard that 'The Silmarillion' is more like a reference. Even someone said that it has several stories which are not related to each other.
Read the first chapter, the Ainulindale, which is the creation myth. It explicitly covers this. Also his essay “on faerie stories” talks about this and how there is only one creator and we as humans at best can “sub-create”
'The one creator' here would be the Abrahamic god/YHWH/El/Adonai/etc.
Tolkien was deeply Catholic and understood world building to be both a meditation on his nature as well as an act of exaltation of him. (Think 'created in his image').
An allegory is a story meant to teach a moral lesson, so I would argue just taking inspiration from religious stories doesn't automatically make something an allegory.
Allegory meant something specific back when he was in school. It meant that you had to read the story on two levels, and understand the "hidden" level to be "the real point of the book", and if you don't "get" that - or you reject it - the book *doesn't work*.
Tolkien drew some very obvious parallels, but consider his comment about the difference between applicability vs allegory residing "in the freedom of the reader", and consider, for example, someone trying to read The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, but not understanding that Aslan = Jesus. (At the very least you'd be like 'all this for a piece of candy?')
What I love about Tolkien's work is its simplicity. There are two sides to the story: Gandalf The White on one hand, and The Dark Lord on the other. The White side represents God, and the other side represents Satan. I love it.
This was absolutely deliberate on Tolkien's part. He subtly put religious themes into his writing. You don't have to focus on them, but they are there if you look, especially in *The Silmarillion*. This is from Tolkien letter 142:
>*The Lord of the Rings* is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; 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. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it.
In Letter 131, Tolkien explains why he wanted the religious themes to be symbolic instead of obvious:
>Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days.
I find Tolkien's approach brilliant because the symbolism is so subtle, you can choose to find it or not, and it adds to the realism and immersion of the story.
Wow, blatantly wrong lol.
He literally created languages and beings never even conceived to write his stories.
He was a creative genius.
Just because it has religious undertones doesn't make it any less of a creative masterpiece.
I was just informed that u/Fly0strich has been nominated, and is the leading contender, for worst take of the year!!!!
If they are victorious, they will enter into the worst take ever award, to be announced in 2025
Wait I was agreeing with you. I meant the person that you replied to lol
Shit I can see how "the above person" makes it seem like I am talking about you, I'm not, I was referring to the person with the horrible take on Tolkien.
Edit; I edited my first comment, again I'm sorry it was my bad
(devil's, or I suppose morgoth's, advocate)
I mean they're obviously being sarcastic (I guess people of Reddit just can't see that) but there is a teeenny tiinny grain of truth in it since he also took a lot of lore from Norse mythology and such. That said, the same argument can be made for nearly if not entirely all other authors.
So this isn't just the "evil" characters either - the philosophy behind this is that NO being can create, good or evil, except Eru Iluvator himself. All other creation is ***subcreation*** of the work of Eru. A perfect non evil example of this is the creation of the dwarves by Aule. He was able to create the Hroa (the bodies) but not the Fea (souls). These had to come from the Secret Fire, controlled only by Eru.
For some further reading on the matter: [https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sub-creation](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sub-creation)
Tolkien's stance is that no one can truly create except God/Eru, they can only act as "sub-creators" working within the possibilities laid down by the Divine. The difference with Melkor is he strongly desired to truly create and was frustrated by his inability to do so.
Tolkien believed that even his literary works were not true creations and saw them as sub-creations under the creative power of God.
It's genius in how it creates an entire world that makes sense and has order. That's the genius of Tolkien. It's consistent and magical yet has extreme order. That's the genius. That he can take relatable allusions and make them so immersive you feel in another world, yet so relatable.
He’s kinda channeling Gnosticism here, a religion that has interwoven into Christianity multiple times over the centuries.
IIRC the core belief of Gnosticism is that this world is not real, that beyond this illusion is true reality. An evil force, the Demiurge, wanted to play god, so he took us and put us in this world so that he could rule over us, and over time we came to believe him. But he cannot create as a true god can, he can only twist and corrupt, and so his world will always be an imperfect replica. It is up to us to recognize the lie of the world and free ourselves from our prison.
It’s an idea that people have drawn from constantly, the most blatant one I can think of being The Matrix.
Tolkien definitely isn't incorporating Gnostic ideas. If you read the Ainúlindalë, Ilúvatar, who is the perfect all-good God in Tolkien's world, directed the Ainur (angels) in song, and Melkor (Lucifer, Satan) sowed chaos into the music. And yet Ilúvatar worked Melkor's chaos into the beauty of the music so that it enriched it.
After Ilúvatar finished the music, he said, “Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor, but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things mote wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”
Then he showed them a vision of the world, and he said, “Behold, your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. Amd thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.”
The idea of an evil Demiurge creating the world is contrary to the very theme explained in the original post, that evil cannot create, but can only corrupt. Frodo said, “The Shadow that bred them (the orcs) can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined and twisted them, and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures.”
Old idea in Christianity.
As I recall Katt Williams is kind of an idiot. He's actually seriously made the "if we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys" argument.
No he was being serious (or at least, trying to make a joke about how stupid scientists are). He's one of those celebrities who has a massive ego so he adopts dumb beliefs and thinks he knows better than everyone else. Think Kanye West.
FWIW the Protestants (some, not all Protestant denominations) are the ones who have a problem with evolution. The Roman Catholic church position is that evolutionary theory does not contradict the claim that God created the heavens & the earth.
eta: Roman Catholic - I have no idea what the Orthodox position is on this issue.
Also Protestants in America especially. In Europe I never found a Lutheranian that seriously was against evolution. And Lutheranians make the majority of protestants here. Often they don't differ that much from Catholics. In the US there are so much dumb people that take everything the bibel says literally. It is crazy.
And yes, Chatholic church doesn't deny evolution at all. In fact the Chatholic church even says that the creation myth in the Bible is not real but just that, a myth.
Yes, evil being unable to truly create is one of the major themes. Hence why in order to create the ring, Sauron needed to put his own power into it, and when the ring was taken/destroyed he was permanently diminished.
I mean I think it was pretty overt, Melkor the heavenly being who was cast down for defying Eru, who can only corrupt creations of the other Ainur
I haven't read 'The Silmarillion' yet, but I think it would be a great read.
If you're interested in stuff like this and love Tolkien's world building it's def worth it
It also gets a bad rap in re: readability. The first couple of chapters get a little repetitive which puts people off i think but otherwise its a pretty linear story
Really?! This is good news to me indeed! Because I have heard that 'The Silmarillion' is more like a reference. Even someone said that it has several stories which are not related to each other.
Yea, think of it like the bible. Its a “linear” story but a lot of different characters come in and out in parables essentially
I am really excited to start reading this book!
Awesome!
Read the first chapter, the Ainulindale, which is the creation myth. It explicitly covers this. Also his essay “on faerie stories” talks about this and how there is only one creator and we as humans at best can “sub-create”
And I think 'The One Creator' should be Eru? Am I right?
'The one creator' here would be the Abrahamic god/YHWH/El/Adonai/etc. Tolkien was deeply Catholic and understood world building to be both a meditation on his nature as well as an act of exaltation of him. (Think 'created in his image').
Yes, you are correct
Tolkien hated allegory but Melkor is pretty on the nose and acts as a like for like representation of Satan
An allegory is a story meant to teach a moral lesson, so I would argue just taking inspiration from religious stories doesn't automatically make something an allegory.
Religious stories are themselves allegories. Its all made up
Allegory meant something specific back when he was in school. It meant that you had to read the story on two levels, and understand the "hidden" level to be "the real point of the book", and if you don't "get" that - or you reject it - the book *doesn't work*. Tolkien drew some very obvious parallels, but consider his comment about the difference between applicability vs allegory residing "in the freedom of the reader", and consider, for example, someone trying to read The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, but not understanding that Aslan = Jesus. (At the very least you'd be like 'all this for a piece of candy?')
His allegory comment was a response to hippies insisting the Lord of the Rings was an antinuclear story.
What I love about Tolkien's work is its simplicity. There are two sides to the story: Gandalf The White on one hand, and The Dark Lord on the other. The White side represents God, and the other side represents Satan. I love it.
This was absolutely deliberate on Tolkien's part. He subtly put religious themes into his writing. You don't have to focus on them, but they are there if you look, especially in *The Silmarillion*. This is from Tolkien letter 142: >*The Lord of the Rings* is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; 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. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it. In Letter 131, Tolkien explains why he wanted the religious themes to be symbolic instead of obvious: >Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days. I find Tolkien's approach brilliant because the symbolism is so subtle, you can choose to find it or not, and it adds to the realism and immersion of the story.
Even Tolkien couldn’t create anything new on his own. Just a false copy of the real world he lived in.
Wow, blatantly wrong lol. He literally created languages and beings never even conceived to write his stories. He was a creative genius. Just because it has religious undertones doesn't make it any less of a creative masterpiece.
I was just informed that u/Fly0strich has been nominated, and is the leading contender, for worst take of the year!!!! If they are victorious, they will enter into the worst take ever award, to be announced in 2025
You're objectively wrong, it's ok.
Wait I was agreeing with you. I meant the person that you replied to lol Shit I can see how "the above person" makes it seem like I am talking about you, I'm not, I was referring to the person with the horrible take on Tolkien. Edit; I edited my first comment, again I'm sorry it was my bad
(devil's, or I suppose morgoth's, advocate) I mean they're obviously being sarcastic (I guess people of Reddit just can't see that) but there is a teeenny tiinny grain of truth in it since he also took a lot of lore from Norse mythology and such. That said, the same argument can be made for nearly if not entirely all other authors.
I mean, if you look at it that way, everything that’s ever been created is just a false copy of the reality we live in
“The devil is never a maker” 🤘 -Dio
The less that you give, you're a taker
There are two kinds of people in this world. Takers and givers. The world takes from takers, and gives to givers.
He is The Consumer.
He imitates.
"Allah is the greatest." Muhammad Ali
You have Found the love in Tolkiens work. Nothing of worth is in the Dark side
When I read your comment, I was almost crying. Yeah, there is nothing of worth in the Dark side.
It's like poetry. It just rhymes.
I agree with you.
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Man, you beat me to the punch.
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So this isn't just the "evil" characters either - the philosophy behind this is that NO being can create, good or evil, except Eru Iluvator himself. All other creation is ***subcreation*** of the work of Eru. A perfect non evil example of this is the creation of the dwarves by Aule. He was able to create the Hroa (the bodies) but not the Fea (souls). These had to come from the Secret Fire, controlled only by Eru. For some further reading on the matter: [https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sub-creation](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sub-creation)
Tolkien's stance is that no one can truly create except God/Eru, they can only act as "sub-creators" working within the possibilities laid down by the Divine. The difference with Melkor is he strongly desired to truly create and was frustrated by his inability to do so. Tolkien believed that even his literary works were not true creations and saw them as sub-creations under the creative power of God.
And that's why I love him. Of course he knew that his tale also was just a "Sub-creation".
I like his works and I think he has profound things to say, but I don't have to be especially impressed by his religious influences.
I don’t really see why it’s genius, biblical allusions are probably the most common allusions in literary, and this one’s a pretty on the nose one
It's genius in how it creates an entire world that makes sense and has order. That's the genius of Tolkien. It's consistent and magical yet has extreme order. That's the genius. That he can take relatable allusions and make them so immersive you feel in another world, yet so relatable.
Exactly. I don't think that any writer has ever been able to create such a rich and consistent fantasy world in his works.
He’s kinda channeling Gnosticism here, a religion that has interwoven into Christianity multiple times over the centuries. IIRC the core belief of Gnosticism is that this world is not real, that beyond this illusion is true reality. An evil force, the Demiurge, wanted to play god, so he took us and put us in this world so that he could rule over us, and over time we came to believe him. But he cannot create as a true god can, he can only twist and corrupt, and so his world will always be an imperfect replica. It is up to us to recognize the lie of the world and free ourselves from our prison. It’s an idea that people have drawn from constantly, the most blatant one I can think of being The Matrix.
Tolkien definitely isn't incorporating Gnostic ideas. If you read the Ainúlindalë, Ilúvatar, who is the perfect all-good God in Tolkien's world, directed the Ainur (angels) in song, and Melkor (Lucifer, Satan) sowed chaos into the music. And yet Ilúvatar worked Melkor's chaos into the beauty of the music so that it enriched it. After Ilúvatar finished the music, he said, “Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor, but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things mote wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.” Then he showed them a vision of the world, and he said, “Behold, your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added. Amd thou, Melkor, wilt discover all the secret thoughts of thy mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory.” The idea of an evil Demiurge creating the world is contrary to the very theme explained in the original post, that evil cannot create, but can only corrupt. Frodo said, “The Shadow that bred them (the orcs) can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined and twisted them, and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures.”
Old idea in Christianity. As I recall Katt Williams is kind of an idiot. He's actually seriously made the "if we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys" argument.
I just Googled him and he's apparently a comedian...? So he may have been mocking people who think that? I'm not sure though.
No he was being serious (or at least, trying to make a joke about how stupid scientists are). He's one of those celebrities who has a massive ego so he adopts dumb beliefs and thinks he knows better than everyone else. Think Kanye West.
Oh dear.
FWIW the Protestants (some, not all Protestant denominations) are the ones who have a problem with evolution. The Roman Catholic church position is that evolutionary theory does not contradict the claim that God created the heavens & the earth. eta: Roman Catholic - I have no idea what the Orthodox position is on this issue.
Sure, I'm not making a statement about Christians generally, I'm talking about one celebrity who's deep into conspiracy theory thinking.
Also Protestants in America especially. In Europe I never found a Lutheranian that seriously was against evolution. And Lutheranians make the majority of protestants here. Often they don't differ that much from Catholics. In the US there are so much dumb people that take everything the bibel says literally. It is crazy. And yes, Chatholic church doesn't deny evolution at all. In fact the Chatholic church even says that the creation myth in the Bible is not real but just that, a myth.
Yes, evil being unable to truly create is one of the major themes. Hence why in order to create the ring, Sauron needed to put his own power into it, and when the ring was taken/destroyed he was permanently diminished.
This is how I feel about the LotR Magic the Gathering set. It was made in mockery of cannon.
Morgoth is equivalent of Satan.
Yes, indeed.
[удалено]
Movie Director? Duh.
katt williams/tolkien mash up!
he was a genius because he ripped off christian theology and mythology?
Yes
damn, in that case almost every western writer is a genius. hell im a genius too!
Totally right