The New Shadow - Your thoughts?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I find it very insightful to see Professor Tolkien imagining a world in which terrible evil is treated as a joke, not taken seriously, or even admired by people too young and comfortable to recognise how bad things really once were.

I like the acknowledgement of the fact that even after a tremendous, hard-fought triumph on the part of good, peace and safety as entrusted to the Children never lasts.

Tolkien had seen that despite horrible sacrifices of blood during World War I, an even greater conflict had very quickly arisen.

The difference with Tolkien seems to be that he foresaw that his attempt to actually narrate an early resurrection of evil was doomed to be something along the lines of the sort of fiction he didn't himself care for.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

The difference with Tolkien seems to be that he foresaw that his attempt to actually narrate an early resurrection of evil was doomed to be something along the lines of the sort of fiction he didn't himself care for.

Yes, which in itself is a very interesting idea, I find. His belief that "The New Shadow" was the kind of narrative that was "not worth doing" rather reflects the "grey and leafless world" that would be plagued by banal evils, rather than incarnate ones. What I mean to say is that the actual act of abandoning "The New Shadow" supports the themes of The Lord of the Rings.