[Orual]

Oh, I'm not saying that you can't have a dishonorable sword-fight. I just think that looking your opponent in the face before going into mortal battle makes for a more honorable situation, and would probably make people think about what they were doing. I've never shot a gun except once or twice at a shooting range with my dad, and I've only held fencing swords and a blunt-edged short sword when I dressed as Sam for FotR, but I think that it's probably easier to shoot someone than to kill them with a sword. In that way, I think that sword-fighting is a more honorable way to do battle than gun-fighting. (Besides, it's older, and therefore cooler. But that's not really my point.)

Good points on the realism issue, Willie. Some people have a hard time distinguishing, as you said, reality from realism. The realism in the Lord of the Rings has to do with the actions of people, not the circumstances. It's the circumstances that makes it "fantasy." The characters all act like people really do. It's highly questionable that any of us will be asked to go destroy an all-powerful evil ring in a huge volcano halfway across our continent, risking life and limb in a pivotal role against a dark lord. No indeed. But we'll all have "quests" in our lives. Perhaps not quite as grand or epic as Frodo's. Perhaps it will be a friend's terminal illness, or a chronically sick son or daughter, or something like that. There are all sorts of troubles in our lives that could be our toughest battles. We'll all have to face hard decisions; perhaps not whether to leave your best friend's body to be desecrated by evil creatures or to go and complete the quest that he died for, like Sam had to decide. But we'll all face that doubt, and we'll all grieve, and we'll all be tempted like Boromir, heartbroken like Eowyn, forced to wait for something important to us like Arwen. We'll all feel helpless like Merry, troublesome like Pippin, overwhelmed like Gandalf. These feelings that we all share are what makes the Lord of the Rings realistic. Appreciating this work means that we have to look past fantastic elements like the Nazgul, the Ents, magic Rings and bread that can keep you on your feet for days at a stretch. It means looking past the Elves and Dwarves, the mithril and the miruvor, the Hobbits and their idyllic Shire. It means looking into the things that ties our world to theirs, and appreciating it for what it teaches us. All good books say something about humanity, the human mind and the human condition. It's that message that makes a book realistic or unrealistic. The Lord of the Rings says many things about this, and all of them are true. That is what determines its realism.

~*~Orual~*~