Fantasy Morality

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

I think that the style and tone of Sil and CoH is different to LotR, particularly the Fellowship part of trilogy. This writer seems to prefer the tone of the Sil, that is his right.
Another thing - these are works of literature, not religious tracts, so to discuss conflict/shift/discrepancy within the books is to highlight what is interesting about them, and to praise the range and skill of the author - it is not to attack them. For example, I could write an essay about the shift in tone between the brutal/gothic opening and domestic/romantic ending of Wuthering Heights. This shift in tone makes WH in my opinion a more, not less, interesting novel.

I agree--but I don't think it necessarily follows that, accompanying the stylistic shift, there's a philosophical one.

Or, if it is, I don't think that the philosophical one is the one that the essayist argues for. LotR to my mind is basically the Silm with hobbits. Seeing Middle-earth through their eyes rather than those of the tragically doomed elves gives the whole world and its passing into mundanity a completely different context--not necessarily a different morality.