Irrationalism in 'Rings'? So sayeth he...

[Iarwain]

I can't help but laugh, Lush. We can tell by this (it's already obvious though) that Pinkerton has never touched a copy of LotR. I bet there is a refrence to smoking at least every fifty pages in the book. I can just imagine if the Tobacco industry had caught on:

Everyone does it! It's the cool thing to do. Be like Gandalf and Bilbo, and Frodo, and Merry, and Pippin, and Gimli, and Aragorn, and Legolas, and maybe even Sam too; buy a pipe today!

[The Saucepan Man]

Tolkien's books and Peter Jackson's movies are not advocating war-mongering, they're advocating smoking.

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Lush, I can just see Aragorn riding Hasufel across the plains of Rohan under the caption "Marlboro country" ...

... or perhaps Gollum: "You're never alone with a Stinker".

[img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Bill Ferny]

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] HAHAHAHAHA--Huh?

...Hmmm... [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]

...oh, yeah. That is the reason I started smoking. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[Diamond18]

Ah, but Iarwain, Legolas doesn't smoke. It says so right in the book:

Legolas lay still, looking up at the sun and the sky with steady eyes. At last he sat up and looked at the mortals with the smoke rings curling about their heads. "That stuff will kill you, you know," he remarked.

"So? We're going to die anyway," Merry remarked.

"Yeah, so don't rub it in," Pippin replied with a defiant puff.

Ah, Lush, leave it up to you to elicit giggles in such a serious and politically crackling thread. And right after my serious, thoughtful, depressed post. I'm hurt, I really am. I'm in pain, see. Um..."ow".

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Americans are certainly not the only people willing to go to war against Iraq. You might be surprised at what some of your own countrymen think.

I think that you may have misunderstood my position. The articles were largely written about the climate in America, so I concentrated on that. The populations of all countries contain a roughly equal proportion of complete morons, most of whom are in favour of any war provided that they're not personally involved and their own country wins. I can assure you that I'm not claiming crowing rights, especially since it looks as though Her Majesty's Government is going to play follow-my-leader with the US in this as in every other political situation.

My point is that the articles were talking about America and how things are being interpreted there. I've absolutely no idea how matters have been "understood" among some brain-dead minority of Englishmen, but when I find out I shall be even more scathing about them, I can assure you.

On a lighter note, Lush has clearly put her finger on the real pulse of TTT with the smoking theory. The geopolitics is clearly a smokescreen thrown up by well-wishers to disguise that hidden agenda.

[Kalessin]

Here in the UK, I can only make a judgement about national opinion based on radio phone-ins, Question Time (the leading political debate programme on TV), opinion polls in national newspapers (of all political complexions), public comments by Members of Parliament etc. etc.

On that basis I think that UK national opinion runs pretty strongly against any war in Iraq that is not, at the very least, clearly sanctioned by the UN. I would guess there is a significant division of public opinion everywhere, but of course cannot speak definitively about the US.

Perhaps unlike the US, residents of the UK have many years direct experience of 'terrorism' (perhaps old-school terrorism by today's standards), on a small and large scale, related to the political situation in Northern Ireland. For that reason and others, a facile comparison between the moral protagonists in the LotR movies and the current situation is even more tenuous. We cannot really avoid the reality that "the enemy" are not easily identifiable monsters with bad teeth, like Orcs, or all necessarily led by inhuman beings intent on world domination, like Sauron.

This would be my interpretation of current public opinion in the UK, and I would think the likelihood of the movies acting as insidious propaganda is minimal.

The concept of a 'just war', sanctioned by Church and State, has been a reality for many hundreds of years. Whether what were called Just Wars actually qualified as such on moral grounds is certainly questionable in many cases, from the Crusades onwards. So it is certainly the case that wars can be justified through 'the media' of the day. But in historical terms, territorial wars, or conflicts of acquisition or succession, did not necessarily need to be 'popular' with a then disenfranchised public in order to take place. WWI might arguably be one of the few, and last, examples where a nation was initially swept along in an almost romantic enthusiasm for battle, and I would suggest it left deep and lasting scars on the national consciousness across Europe - no doubt Bill and Sharon can elucidate from a more informed perspective [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

The awareness, and perhaps the descriptive language, at least, of mass warfare was certainly within the reach of Tolkien. At the same time, one does not have to look for allegory or specific references - from Hastings to Agincourt, from Waterloo to Balaclava, British (or specifically English) martial history would have been deeply embedded in his psyche.

However, the suggestion that mass conflict on moral grounds can be legitimate is not exactly contradicted by the books (or films). The wars are acts of defence, and play a decisive part in the eventual triumph of Good over Evil. The key point is that the horror of war is not glossed over, and the contrast between desperate acts of heroism and defiance and the proud ruthlessness of conquest and dominion is apparent, as is the inevitable tragedy and loss of life. The argument that LotR is "anti-war" along the lines of Kent State is not supported by the narrative ... one probably only has to search among the interminable 'What If ... ?' posts to find the question asked - what if Gondor had not opposed Mordor, what if Rohan had formed an alliance with Isengard? etc. etc.

Conflict may have been forced upon the nations and reluctant heroes in LotR, but the challenge was met.

Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Kalessin

[ January 13, 2003: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

[The Saucepan Man]

The wars are acts of defence, and play a decisive part in the eventual triumph of Good over Evil.

It is difficult to imagine how, in LotR, war could have been avoided when the "forces of good" were faced by an unremittingly evil power bent on world domination. Rohan, Gondor, Lorien and Esagroth were all attacked by Sauron's forces and had no choice but to defend themselves.

I am interested to know, however, how Tolkien dealt with the reasons/justification for war in his other tales. Since I have not read the Silm (yet), my only other reference point is the Battle of Five Armies in The Hobbit. This starts off as a potential conflict between the Dwarves on the one hand and the Elves of Mirkwood and the Men of Lake-Town on the other. But they team up to defend themselves when attacked by the Goblins and Wargs. So, the battle is forced upon them.

Are there any situations in Tolkien's works where the "good guys" launch an attack on the "bad guys" (other than in self-defence, as with the confrontation before the Black Gate), or where the "good guys" fight a war between themselves (as might have happened at the Lonely Mountain had Bolg's forces not turned up at the right moment)? If so, how are the reasons for such wars/battles dealt with?

[Kalessin]

Well, the purpose of my posts was to show that, despite the deficiencies of the first article, and to a lesser extent the second, there is a valid discussion to be had about how films can at the very least reflect (or run counter to) contemporary ways of seeing. I think this unarguable.

My last post widened that by positing that Tolkien's historical grounding, along with perhaps his personal experience - regardless of his views on the matter - make his evocation of mass warfare effective as narrative, encompassing as it does both the strategic aspects and the chaotic reality of the front. Yet the essence of the conflict is surely romantic, if not romanticised. There are banners, there is the doomed yet noble king, there is the desperate courage against overwhelming odds, and so on.

In moral terms, the wars were unavoidable - for those with good conscience - but wars they were, and as such, you could extrapolate that Tolkien offers a legitimising of such conflict in moral or spiritual terms. This is an interpretation, of course ... but it is the case that within such conflict the bravery and perhaps even the goodness of individuals can be measured.

However, this is indeed a common aspect of heroic literature, and very much so in film - the argument that the LotR films is any more pernicious, or somehow directly related to a sinister justification of foreign policy, is over-stretching the point. You could equally say the same for Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. My only caveat is that the films (or books) are not anti-war in the liberal sense in which we may understand that notion today.

Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Kalessin

[Aratlithiel]

I once had a Lit professor with whom I used to argue CONSTANTLY about symbolism, allegory, etc. in great works. For instance, in Moby **** - my prof's. opinion (and apparently that of thousands of scholars) was that Melville sat down to write a symbolic work in which a giant white whale symbolized evil and that it was all the more striking because it was white, the color usually associated with good and it was juxtaposed in such a way as to point out...blah, blah, blah.

My own opinion is that...well, let me ask your opinion - do any of YOU believe that Melville actually sat down and said, "Hmmm, I'm going to make Ahab symbolize the inner-struggle of Man and show how we can desire to wipe out evil but still have evil purposes in our hearts."? I know I don't. I think Melville heard a good tale about a whale that attacked a fishing vessel some years before and decided to write a good story about it.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a whale is just a whale and sometimes a movie is just a movie. I see no parallels in the LotR trilogy to anything that's going on in the world right now except for what people with nothing better to do work very hard to extract from it. As Sam said of Lothlorien, "...folk takes their peril with them...and finds it there because they've brought it." The only allegory that's there is the one you read into it.

We don't read it or go to see the movies because we find allegory or symbolism, we do so because it is a fantasy world so well written that it makes us all wish we had the nobility and courage exemplified on each page. We admire these characters and have grown to love them - not because this one can decapitate and orc in one stroke or because that one can hit a Ringwraith at 50 paces in the dark, but because they are noble characters who fight for Good. There is no question about which side is good and which side is evil - it is all very clearly deliniated and we don't need to guess. There are no Vietnam-style gray areas or Middle East-style oil wars or lesser interests to muddy up the issues. There is only a very clear Good and a very clear Evil. Why must anyone make more of it?

More to the point, why would anyone want to? People read these books and see these movies for the same reason others have been doing so for years - escapism. We do not see the U.S. in the Dunedain nor Saddam in Sauron - not only because they aren't there, but because it is precisely these reasons among others that we have left Earth and entered Middle-earth for awhile. Who wants to drag all that baggage along on such an otherwise liberating trip? Who can imagine they're journeying beside Frodo or going into battle with Aragorn if you keep looking over your shoulder and seeing George W.?

These stories came about not because Tolkien wanted to teach us all a lesson on war, but because he had such a detailed and involved story to tell that it had to spill out somewhere. Luckily for us, we all get to see the end result and any life-lessons we may get out of them are simply an unintentional by-product. We should all say a silent prayer of thanks for Tolkien and his works and leave the symbol-seekers to pick each other to death and leave us the heck alone!

[DaughterofVana]

My goodness... the beating of butterfly wings causing a hurricane... but a very in-depth, philosophical, thought-provoking hurricane. I was so concerned that when I initially posted Pinkerton's article all I would get in return would be inane comments falling either into the "Go USA!" or "USA sucks" catagory. Thank-you for the posts!
And keep it coming!

-'Vana