[Aerandir Carnesir]

My opinion is: Tolkein put symbolism and metaphor in his books. If he did it on purpose or not, they are still there. The thing that makes the books and movies enjoyable is that he lets the reader or the watcher decide for themselves what they want to see in the story. Christians(like me) can compare the story to events in the Bible. People who study mythology(I don't know the scientific name) can compare the story to events in mythology. People with no religion get to compare the story to whatever they want. I beleive that the way a man(Tolkien) thinks will reflect on what he writes. He was a Catholic, so he either intentionally or unintentionally wrote in reflection to Bible stories and characters. I think he intentionally put allegory in, but said he hated it and disliked it. He didn't want to have to explain to people what everything meant, so he denied putting allegory in. If he had proclaimed of intentionally putting it in, like C.S. Lewis in the CoN, there would be alot less fans and they probably would have never made the movies. All the fans would be religious and such. The brilliance of J.R.R. Tolkien was he let the readers decide what they wanted. If it had been written just for Christians, and only sold in Christian bookstores, we probably wouldn't even have this debate or the website we are debating on. I personally hate debate, and would rather not do this at all. I just had to get it all out. It's your choice what you want to see in the LotR. And as for Harry Potter, i just don't like it. I think it's stupid and Lord of the Rings is a whole lot better. Sorcery and magic, at least in LotR is just there to make the story more exciting. It's just a story, and it's not like the LotR was written to be a cult or occultic. People aren't trying to make blue fire come out of staffs or trying to destroy bridges with a magic spell, are they? Some of those fantasy stories can get pretty bad, but LotR is just fine.