LotR Inspiration

[The Hammer]

Sam :
I know.
It's all wrong
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened.
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

And they called Tolkien a pessimist.

 

[Quagmire]

Pesky hobbits. More of these things every summer.

 

[The Hammer]

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And they called Tolkien a pessimist.

I've noticed a lot of times people who get labeled pessimist, or nihilist, or dark and dreary, it's not unusual to find a brilliant radiance of the opposite underneath the bleak outer layers.

 

[Quagmire]

If you play this music in the background it makes whatever you're working on seem like it's worth doing.

Doing laundry or washing the dishes can suddenly take on the significance of an epic quest.

 

[ChristineM]

Doing laundry or washing the dishes can suddenly take on the significance of an epic quest.

It can? Wow...

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I've noticed a lot of times people who get labeled pessimist, or nihilist, or dark and dreary, it's not unusual to find a brilliant radiance of the opposite underneath the bleak outer layers.

I'm not going with any sort of description of 'brilliance' for myself, but I consider myself very much an optimist. Whereas my cynical sense of humour, low key personality and intensely brooding good looks has the world often mistaking me for a pessimist.

Ahem.

 

[Jainarayan]

If you play this music in the background it makes whatever you're working on seem like it's worth doing.

Doing laundry or washing the dishes can suddenly take on the significance of an epic quest.

Well, I do have some ironing to do! The laundry never gets my shirts pressed just how I like them.

 

[Vouthon]

Another favourite 'theme' in Tolkien's writings for me:

"The chief of the stories of the Silmarillion, and the one most fully treated is the Story of Beren and Lúthien the Elfmaiden. Here we meet, among other things, the first example of the motive (to become dominant in Hobbits) that the great policies of world history, 'the wheels of the world', are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak – owing to the secret life in creation, and the pan unknowable to all wisdom but One, that resides in the intrusions of the Children of God into the Drama.

It is Beren the outlawed mortal who succeeds (with the help of Lúthien, a mere maiden even if an elf of royalty) where all the armies and warriors have failed: he penetrates the stronghold of the Enemy and wrests one of the Silmarilli from the Iron Crown. Thus he wins the hand of Lúthien and the first marriage of mortal and immortal is achieved."

- JRR Tolkien (Letter 131, To Milton Waldman), 1951

​

This is one, if not the most predominant, of Tolkien's great literary themes: the charming idea that in cosmic history, the 'wheels of the world' - the mighty, seismic moments of change and transformation, the greatest victories against evil - are often achieved by the merits of the weak and unknown (by conventional estimations), as opposed to Lords, Governors and even gods like the Valar.

It is obviously a concept, like so many weaved subtextually throughout his writings, inspired by his very devout and traditionalist Catholicism.

As Tolkien explains, this theme suffuses his entire legendarium - although the 'older legends', as Tolkien also explained in his letters, have a 'grimness of tone', tragedy and darkness when compared with the levity of The Hobbit and the more chivalric 'good triumphing over evil' optimism of The Lord of the Rings trilogy proper. The Second Age, for example, is not about plucky Hobbits - the humble 'everymen' - coming to the rescue and achieving what the wise and powerful could not but rather about the "Long Defeat" and fruitless or half-won 'pyrrhic' victories of the 'wise and powerful'.

 

[Ponder This]

And they called Tolkien a pessimist.

Well... that part was added to the movie version... it wasn't in the books. So... yeah.
But maybe he did something else optimistic! Like... I don't know. Scour the Shire? Nah. I know... Sam gets married and has kids!

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

If you play this music in the background it makes whatever you're working on seem like it's worth doing.

Doing laundry or washing the dishes can suddenly take on the significance of an epic quest.

"It quite often proves true that what is needed at a particular time is NOT A HERO!

"It's someone to take the garbage out."

BE THAT HERO!

 

[MNoBody]

 

[Quagmire]

It can? Wow...

It can if you let it all build up for 4 weeks.

 

[MNoBody]

 

[ChristineM]

It can if you let it all build up for 4 weeks.

To do that i would need to get rid of the dishwasher and my husband.