[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

Of all the academics I've read, Flieger has always been my favorite. Months ago, when I did a thread on "The Light in Frodo's Eyes" that turned into a wonderful discussion, it was right after I'd finished re-reading the book on splintered light and that jump-started the thing in my head.

Several times, way back before I was a Shire mod and immersed in writing and RPGS, I tried to start discussions in Books focusing on studies like these. For the most part, they fell flat as a pancake with no one taking up the bait. It seemed to be more than simple disinterest. There seemed to be an active dislike or resentment of "scholarly studies", whatever you want to call it, on the part of posters. You see some of this same attitude on the part of at least a few folk in the thread that Lush recently put up.

I would love to see further discussion of both Flieger and Shippey in Books, or the articles contained in Tolkien's Legendarium or the Literary Resonances collections. If I'm not mistaken, Lindil also has an interest in this.

Bill Ferny - I don't think the term "gated community" is too extreme when applied to the Shire. In fact, it may not be extreme enough. Davem's reference to "gated worlds" is probably more accurate.

I am thinking specifically of the edict which prohibited all Men from entering the borders of the Shire. On the face of it, it's hard to believe this was the only way to maintain peace and order, now that the king had returned.

If peace had indeed been restored under Elessar's rule, then the Shire would be a safe place to live. If it had not returned, no amount of words on paper would keep the baddies away. So why enact a rule which makes a blanket assumption that the influence of the big folk must per se be bad?

In Bree, the big and little folk had lived peacefully for many, many years. For the most part, with only a few exceptions, they had managed this peaceful co-existence even during the time when the Shadow was expanding its power. This is really quite remarkable when you think about it.

Then, why was it so inherently impossible for there to be any contact between Men and Hobbits within the borders of the Shire itself, now that Sauron and Saruman had been ousted? This edict was obviously intended to be viewed as a "good" thing, not a "bad" one, a symbol of the Shire's independence and triumph over the Shadow. Why does the restoration of peace require the renewed imposition of the ideal of separateness, cutting off roads for travel, etc.? These are two branches of Men, not Men and Elves where their ultimate fates were so different that it required them to follow separate paths.

The only thing that makes sense to me is this. It is true that we can point to a few examples and places where ongong, long term cooperation between different free peoples is the norm. But these examples are vfew. Separateness seems to be closer to the norm---Davem's idea of gated worlds. People have talked about the practical need for military protection, the way human nature is in real life, and the mythic/faerie model which inherently requires separate communities, each with its own fate and culture. But no one suggested we push this argument one step further.

Perhaps, Tolkien's ideas on separateness and cooperation are heavily influenced by his personal views as a Christian, how there will be no lasting victory before the end ....only small ones, interrupted by continuing defeats. The separateness of the communities are a reflection of this. For a few moments, the free peoples are able to cooperate in a way they've not done before. But even with the overthrow of Sauron and improved conditions, there are hints that this kind of cooperation can't be maintained. In other words, you can manage to climb to the top of the mountain and see the wonders of the heights, but you can't live there all the time. Still, you are better for having seen it, even if you return to your gated world.

It seems to me that Tolkien is saying you have to leave the gated world to learn and grow. Once you do that, you are never the same. You know the one thing about Tom and Goldberry is that they are unchanging characters. They never leave their gated home and they never change. But Man has to change in order to learn and grow---even if that process is painful. Once Bilbo returns to his home, he had plenty of problems with his neighbors. Tolkien may be saying we can't change our gated world, not then and not now. We have too many limits on our soul. But what we can change, what we are responsible for, is our own attitude within that world.

I don't think it's coincidence that all five of the main hobbit characters in LotR end their life outside the Shire. It's not just Frodo--it's all of them. Merry and Pippin go back to Gondor before they die, Sam goes to the West, and Bilbo goes first to Rivendell and then the West. The four of them are not changed so much that they can't still live in the Shire for many years. But, at the end of their lives, they have to leave again, perhaps symbolic of the fact that they can live in a gated world, but their own attitudes have really grown beyond that.

And Frodo's growth, which was indeed more profound and soul shaking because of his confrontation with ultimate evil, is such that he can not return to the Shire to live at all but must immediately go beyond, both for the sake of healing and the fact that he can no longer fit in his gated world. The others just take a little longer to get to that same point of leaving the gated world, as they still have unfinished business in terms of learning and growing. (BTW, Davem, I think of this more in spiritual terms than in reference to "faerie", but at heart it is the same, I believe.)

sharon