[AbercrombieOfRohan]

I’m visiting Washington D.C. for inauguration and this has gotten me thinking about patriotism. And as I am wont to do, I’ve been thinking about Lord of the Rings as well. Naturally, this combination is what birthed this thread.

What sort of patriotism is there is the Lord of the Rings? Is it similar or different from patriotism in today’s world?

Think about the Shire. The Shire is comprised of different groups of families, many of whom hold grudges against one another and probably would not want to be associated with one another (see: Gamgees and Brandybucks). Because of this, can the Shire be defined as a country? It has no central government, but it has definitive borders. Its inhabitants are definitely what I would describe as “patriotic” (For the Shire!), but are they patriots only for their area of residence (i.e. Hobbiton)?

The only time they unite is under direct threat from an outside source (see: Saruman and Wormtongue). When Saruman was defeated, do you think that the hobbits became more unified? (It doesn’t seem to me that hobbits unite by race, only because the hobbits of Bree did not come to the aid of the Shire-hobbits in the Scouring). What does this mean in the real world? How is the response of hobbits when under threat from a foreign enemy different or similar to the response of Americans after 9/11 or Palestinians today?

And then there’s Gondor. Gondor is easier to define using real world terms because their government is defined in a more familiar way. I would define Gondorians as patriotic, because we can see in many arenas how they are willing to die for their country (Boromir, Faramir etc.). How do the people of Gondor show their patriotism under the rule of Denethor versus the rule of Aragorn?

And yadayada… what do you guys think about other cultures? What about the Elves (Rivendell, Lothlorien, Noldor even?) What about the Rohirrim (or Rohanites as Lush would say…)? How come they didn’t overthrow Theoden, even though he was poisoned by Saruman? What does Tolkien’s portrait of the affairs in Middle- Earth say about his views on patriotism as a whole? And then maybe you think this is all a load of something from the back-end of Shadowfax, so tell me that too…