An early Lord of the Rings fan review

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I think personally that Sauron has much more in common with Orwell's Big Brother than Hitler, but that's another thread.

Another thread perhaps, but I agree completely. The parallels are quite striking (a largely absent primary antagonist whom the protagonists never meet and exists almost entirely through symbols and representations - although while Sauron is of course meant to be real, but hidden, I always assumed Big Brother did not exist at all, although it's of course ambiguous).

It's reassuring to know that Major Lewis perceived that such an allegorical reading could only occur "by accident." It's also very interesting to see a forecast mis-reading of the text as a prediction of a future Cold War 'gone hot' rather than as an analogy of the Second World War. To go by that example, however, I think from reading Tolkien's letters he saw World War 2 as more like many different Mordors and Isengards (and perhaps a few Denethor-led Gondors) fighting each other rather than a conflict with quite the moral clarity of his own narrative. I daresay any Cold War scenario would be much the same, if not worse.

"we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side." (Letter 66)