Fantasy Morality

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

This essay didn't make any sense to me. And from what did make sense, I highly disagree. I'm especially bothered by the words "When Tolkien is at his best, as he is in Children of Húrin and in parts of The Silmarillion..." - as if he's not good in LOTR, TH, the rest of The Sil, and others?!

You're right, Galadriel. What we have here is a stuffed-shirt essayist using dollar words he purchased with an English lit. degree, propounding prolix platitudes that are not germane to Tolkien's corpus. Just another post-modernist wanting to afix his literary values to a book (in this case, LotR) and a mythos (Middle-earth) that he misunderstands completely. The gentleman, in his muddled mix of Nietzschean morality and Greek Hamartia, even fails to comprehend why The Lord of the Rings is Tolkien's greatest achievement, and seems utterly confused as to why the book is so influential (a bitter thought that obviously gives him constipation).

I suggest he should read the books a few more times, and then get back with us.