LOTR and your Weltanschauung

[Iarwain]

Not much time to post, obviously.

I just felt like sharing that Tolkien's works established in my mind a firm belief in absolutes. The sense of direction in all (or most) of the characters' lives leaves a sense that when one looks at the grand scheme of the world, things do make sense.

Also, I've found that Tolkien's writings have influenced me to favor passive suffering (at least in theory). For some strange reason I've come to believe that suffering injustice is in itself a noble thing. I remember seeing a film last year about the life of a central American Archbishop that was martyred (it was called "Romero"). The man had encouraged social organization against the military regime in El Salvador(?). When discussing the movie, I found that everyone else thought that Romero had taken the "high road", while I found myself thinking that he'd taken the easy way out. I still think so, and this (more than the belief in absolutes) is firmly grounded in my experiences in the Lord of the Rings and especially the Silmarillion.

I suppose in summary, these wonderful books have given me a different sense of moral values, a sense that supererogatory goodness is a great virtue.

Wandering off again,
Iarwain

[Dimturiel]

I first read LOTR when I was almost 14 years old and I have to admit that it has changed me completely. It made me be more aware of feelings and moral values that had been until then almost unknown to me, it made me understand life better and it made me cherish the ligth and beauty of this world because the characters that I admired so much had been through so much toil and suffering to keep it there. But this is what all myths and fairy-tales do and maybe this is why we love them so much. In real life we see many horrible things such as murder, treason and so on, and it is more than sad to see what man is doing to this world. And I think that it is a comfort for us to read about bravery, and friendship, and honour, and all the other things that are valued in fairy-tales and in legends. Books like LOTR are places of refuge for those that are tired of the pain and horror that is in their world. It is rather lonely, I know, to say that some characters from a book are your greatest friends, but I have learned more from them than I have learned from any other person in the real world. And I think that if more people read and understood LOTR many of the problems we deal with would be solved.