[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Child

Lal and Littlemanpoet -- Would you both feel more comfortable with that mental image of a continuum rather than "either/or"?

I don't need either.

Seriously. Of course we can find elements of Tolkien's faith is his work, that is probably inevitable, but there questions about how much was there intentionally (from everything Tolkien has said about it, any specifically Catholic images or ideals can be counted on our fingers), questions about whether they were there to 'teach' us anything (Tolkien keeps telling us "No" to this one), and there are questions about whether such images and ideals take primacy to everything else.

Nothing can be said with certainty or clarity about the 'meaning' of Lord of the Rings, because as Tolkien told us time and time again, there isn't one. Tolkien wrote "Lord of the Rings is not 'about' anything apart from itself". If we want an objective opinion, then Tolkien gives us one. Of course, we might think objective opinion is something other than what the author intended, but then that other cannot be objective opinion, it can only be relative and personal.

There's nothing wrong of course with a bit of applicability, but there are limits to it. We must be sensible. The lesson of what has happened to Lewis is interesting. He was indeed making a Christian message but it was being made in a more subtle way than the hype would now have us believe; the applicability has overtaken the Author and now Lewis is being unfairly viewed as an outright evangelist by modern readers, many of whom would say that this is sinister. I've got Pullman in mind now, who does like 'messages'; he identifies Lewis as deeply troubling, but failed to find the same in Tolkien. Long may that last, if the message that gets into the heads of the general public is one that makes them avoid Tolkien!

I have to ask, why when we can indeed have a worthy discussion about the Catholicism that can be found in Tolkien's work, does it have to be to prove some bigger point? Tolkien also loved Norse myth but the presence of it can be explored without trying to prove it was Tolkien's overarching aim. Of course, an Odinist may come onto a website and claim just that. But that is the difficulty when people with strong personal convictions get onto discussing matters such as this. There always seems to be an overarching agenda to be proven. So instead of yet another highly subjective discussion, another push-me-pull-you which will inevitably result in someone causing someone else 'offence', and we know nobody will agree on, can't we instead objectively examine what is specifically Catholic in Tolkien's work as promised? What it might be?