Ah... this old fascinating thread. I saw the title on the main forum index and thought, "Is that what I think it is....?" Some threads are so thought provoking they stick in your mind long after you've read them.
I'm still a Right person, actually even moreso than I was the last time I posted. But funnily enough, in that post I used a story I was writing as an analogy and since then I've realized that my ending didn't work -- my characters, like me, just plain ended up being Right people despite everything I wrote into their lives to make it as easy as possible to leave this world behind. One of those instances where you realize you're just forcing an outcome that doesn't really fit. That realization and change of plan really meshes with my stance all the more, though, so I won't complain. I think the trouble is because fantasy worlds, no matter how much time you spend imagining them, when compared to our world, always end up being small and narrow and limited. M-E may be one of the deepest, but at the end it's still the imaginings of one man's mind, and so if I stood there I would probably be hit even harder with its limitations.
And then of course, since I
am a writer, even living in M-E I'd have all these stories in my head that have been inspired by this world. I wouldn't be able to show them to anyone from M-E. That would be a drag. I couldn't force myself to forget about everything I know and write only M-E appropriate stories, that just wouldn't be me. I can just
see the look on a hobbit's face when reading something I wrote. Hee. Hee. Hee. (evilman smiley where are you?)
At any rate, I still think it's a mistake to measure the worth of the two worlds by comparing good and bad elements. I'm not basing my desicion on the fact that "I can't live without all my friends and family/modern conveniences/favorite stories/rock music" etc. (though the thought of no more rock does make me shiver ;p) because frankly I hope that if was called to live without those things in this world I could indeed survive without them. All those "comforts" can't be the things that keep you alive. Losing them could very well happen. After all, there are lots of places in this world, like Third World countries, where there are no modern conveinences or free culture. I thank God that I do live in America and have the luxury of thinking this world is pretty swell. I don't want to disrespect the trials and tribulations of other nations and say that life in America is bad because the rent is high, so you won't hear me screaming "get me outta here" anytime soon.
Back to comparison to M-E: Sauron beats the pants off of any unpopular world leader/government that's ever been in this world, so I have to laugh when that is cited as a reason to leave here. We have the benefit of knowing that in LotR everything turns out pretty swell in the end, with Sauron being defeated. But the inhabitants of the story don't have that foresight. Indeed, one of the huge themes of the book is that even when you
don't know if there will ever be a Shire to go home to you must still persevere. One of the things that makes Tolkien's work so powerful is the hope in face of bleakness -- to turn from our own world in the way that the Hobbits et al did not turn from theirs seems very ironic considering! Of course, then there are the Elves, who did take their equivalent to the "Left" and sail away to Valinor, but they were immortal and so that was really their "heaven" and I won't begrudge them such a thing.
And now... goodness, I just remembered that I made tea for myself nearly two hours ago and it's been steeping ever since.