Most Tragic Moment?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

The point is to bring BD to RL not RL to BD.

What? Bring this looneybin of nightgaunts to RL? I don't think it ready for us yet, Thin.

I'd like to thank Noggie for realising what my point was, that in common usage "tragic" is not limited to just the formal, classical meaning, so it isn't a question of "mixing it up" but of clarifying how we use the word. After all, I myself was making an offhand nod to a particular meaning ....

And anyways, why can't we discuss Wittgenstein? LMP talks about Barfield. Or are we only supposed to talk about writers who agree with Tolkien or who Tolkien agreed with? Maybe his ideas about language aren't the only ones out there.

Originally Posted by Noggie

But is it tragic then if it carries a hope within it?

Well, isn't the end of every tragedy supposed to bring us back out of the horror?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, isn't the end of every tragedy supposed to bring us back out of the horror?

It might depend on the time and the author...

But this also raises the question whether a tragedy should give us the hope or the uplifting with it's content, by somehow suggesting that there still are lives to live for or hope in the horizon (like I see LotR doing it)? Or is it just this katharsis that Aristotle spoke of, where it is the general characteristics of a tragedy to let us experience the strong and frightening feelings in a safe way and thus feel relieved emotinally? So what makes a tragedy: the actual content of it or the reaction it arouses in us?

[Aaron]

But is there hope at the end of LOTR? The Ents will die out, the elves are leaving, Gandalf has exhausted his purpose. It all seems quite nihilistic to me.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Treebeard still had hope that the Entviewes would be found, surely it does not look like it, but the hope remains.

The Elves are leaving yes, but that is not devistating at all. Beautiful things will disapear, but only from middle-earth. It was not like men had much interfearing with elves anyway.

Hehe the very fact that Gandalf is leaving signals hope! He was only around when there was very little hope, him leaving is a sign of better days to come.

This being said I must admit that all of these things makes me sad, but that is not the same as it takes away hope.

(only the hope of Legolas and Gandalf running an entling-kindergarden is no more)

[Bêthberry]

The Shire was successfully defended. The party tree grew back. Merry and Pippin had progeny. Sam and Rosie had a baker's dozen--lots more than Aragorn and Arwen, who must have been busy with ruling etc. The Shire expanded its territory. Eowyn and Faramir redeveloped Ithilien. Dale recovered well.

Does change always mean a defeat of hope? I don't think so.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Does change always mean a defeat of hope? I don't think so.

If you ask Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Jünger, Heidegger... yes it does. But if you ask the enlightenment philosophers, Marx, J.S. Mill, the socialist movement, the technocrats... no it doesn't. Change is for the better or worse.

But as a true romantic, J.R.R. did not love change?

[Aaron]

I am the same, I think the tragedy is that you grow so attached to the characters and they mean so much to you as a reader that in a sense you yearn for further perils so that they can continue as they did in the past. But all things eventually change.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

But as a true romantic, J.R.R. did not love change?

But was J.R. "a true romantic"? Oh, my, we have another word to define!

Originally Posted by Aaron

I think the tragedy is that you grow so attached to the characters and they mean so much to you as a reader that in a sense you yearn for further perils so that they can continue as they did in the past.

Ghoulish, isn't it, how much enjoyment some have in wanting to see others struggle even more.

Originally Posted by The Snide One

You could give up on breakfast altogether, and sit on your duff despondently in the kitchen, or simply microwave some waffles.

Tragic, en't it, how the standards of cookery have declined with that wretched microwave.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Does change always mean a defeat of hope? I don't think so.

No matter how much you scrape, you eventually run out of butter for your toast. You could give up on breakfast altogether, and sit on your duff despondently in the kitchen, or simply microwave some waffles.