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Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and ...
"Where there's a whip there's a will": Orcs driving a Hobbit across the plains of Rohan. Scraperboard illustration by Alexander Korotich, 1995 . The author J. R. R. Tolkien uses many proverbs in The Lord of the Rings to create a feeling that the world of Middle-earth is both familiar and solid, and to give a sense of the different cultures of the Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves who populate it.
Great men are almost always bad men" to it, noting that this was a distinctively modern thought: contemporary authors such as George Orwell with Animal Farm (1945), William Golding with Lord of the Flies (1954), and T. H. White with The Once and Future King (1958) similarly wrote about the corrupting effects of power. [19]
The corrupting effect of power is, according to Shippey, a modern theme, since in earlier times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey quotes Lord Acton's 1887 statement: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men [1]
Melkor is the most powerful of the Valar but he turns to darkness and is renamed Morgoth, the primary antagonist of Arda. All evil in the world of Middle-earth ultimately stems from him. One of the Maiar of Aulë betrays his kind and becomes Morgoth's principal lieutenant and successor, Sauron.
The theologian Ralph Wood replied that Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen are far from being "plaster figures": Galadriel is powerful, wise and "terrible in her beauty"; Éowyn has "extraordinary courage and valor"; and Arwen gives up her Elvish immortality to marry Aragorn. Further, Wood argued, Tolkien insisted that everyone, man and woman alike ...
She quotes Tolkien's description in The Two Towers, which states that Saruman explored "all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom". [8] She explains that he is in this way giving up actual wisdom for "mere knowledge", imagining the arts were his own but in fact coming from Sauron.
Tolkien's Radagast, with his affinity for animals, knowledge of herbs, and shape-changing abilities, has been compared to a shaman. [1] Altai shaman pictured.. Unfinished Tales explains that Radagast, like the other Wizards, came from Valinor around the year 1000 of the Third Age of Middle-earth and was one of the angelic Maiar.