/lit/ - Literature

Wrong board. We discuss literature here, not films.

Well, OP, I think Tom Bombadil was much as you describe, but I think he was matter. Fully human and fully spiritual (liturgical echo intentional). He's the caretaker spirit of that part of the world.

>>1906508

man the one aspect of tolkien that i really do not care about is power levels

it's so much more than that, guys

>>1906515
I think its more or less staight forward. Sure its possible that someone with a lower power level can beat someone with a higher power level, but its unlikely. The elf that slew ancalagon the black for instance. I'm not sure what turins power level was, but he was able to beat morgoth and I'm sure his power level isn't that high.

Bombadil was a character from another of Tolkien's works, and was never fully established within the Middle Earth setting. If you must, the best I've been able to make of it was that Bombadil is a Maia, but a special one. His existence on Middle Earth is separate from the rest of the Maia and may even predate them, which leads me to believe Bombadil was sent directly by Iluvatar to watch over the earth. Do I have direct textual evidence? No.

>>1906523
But the ring having no effect on him at all rules out that theory. The ring has no power over him at all. Plus his wife is something of a spirit of nature as well if I'm not mistaken. Tolkien also mentions that spirits/creatures exist that aren't maia; he mentions pixies, brownies, ect.

I'm sticking by my reasoning that Bombadil is a representation of nature or the earth.

>>1906523

I second this. He's not influenced by the ring at all because he has an entirely different agenda. I do think Bombadil is perfectly integrated - he's intentionally a mystery, an anomaly.

Gandalf could take the Witch-King. He was essentially a minor god by this point, as it's heavily implied that he was personally charged by the Valar with ending the fight in Middle Earth. Certainly, if the Witch-King could be killed by a commonplace sword, he could certainly be slain by someone as powerful as Gandalf.

>>1906552
The witch king wasn't killed by a common sword; he was killed by an enchanted sword made specifically for undoing the spells that made him immortal. Merry was the one that killed him, I doubt Eowyn's stab to the face really did anything. It was all pippin. Plus keep in mind that Gandalf died fighting the Balrog as well.

I mean I think Gandalf would win too but I don't think it would be a lopsided fight. The Witch king was over 3000 years old at that point and immensely powerful.

>>1906536
I really love the tom bombadil character myself; I think he gets too much undeserved hate. I was sad that they omitted his scenes from the movie(which also made the plot involving the witch king confusing, since it was established, even in the films, that the nazgul are immortal, and only an enchanted arnor sword could kill them).

>>1906561
Hmm. Sorry, I'd forgotten that the Witch-King was stabbed, but I believe my point still does stand, somewhat.

Gandalf the Grey wasn't killed outright by the Balrog. He killed it first, then passed out and died of exhaustion/exposure/whatever. Gandalf the White is also significantly stronger.

Are the wizards of Middle-Earth immortal? Are they Maiar? My memory fails me...

Personally, after reading the books, I think the Lord of the Rings kinda sucked. I started to troll people who liked Lord of the Rings that Isildur and Boromir had it right that the ring should be taken.

Also, that Samwise was basically a willing slave to Frodo during the entire journey, heavily implying that Sam was gay.

Also, that there was blatant racism on account of the elves against humans.

Good times.

>>1906582
The wizards are biologically immortal, like the elves, but they can still die from violence or an accident. They do have superhuman strength and endurance though.

Of course, in the case of Gandalf, if they die Eru can always decide to send them back, but it's probably not something they rely on(which is why they don't go all suicidal and charge into mordor).

also from my understanding, Gandalf died from his injuries from the fight after he killed the Balrog.

>>1906584
I take it you read noam chomskys "analysis" of the Lord of the Rings movies and decided to pretend that your own opinion.

6/10, got me to respond.

>>1906584

Sam is Frodo's manservant.

This may be a completely false memory, but I could swear that in the third book, at Minas Tirith's darkest hour, Gandalf prepared to ride out to attack the Witch-King alone, but held back when he saw the Rohirrim arrive. Is this true?

>>1906584
>Also, that there was blatant racism on account of the elves against humans.

Does it count as racism if you're truly superior in every important way?

Fucking elves.

>>1906612
The Witch King shattered the gates of minas tirith with a spell, then gandalf confronted him and stopped him from entering the city. A fight was about to happen, but the rohirim arrived, and the witch king rode off to face them.

>>1906612
Close. The Witch-King was the one who retreated when the Rohirrim arrived. Gandalf would have pursued him (and Theoden might have lived) if Pippin hadn't told him about the Denethor mess.

The books are actually a pretty lacking in fantasy-action. The Balrog right takes place off screen/page, the Witch King and Gandalf never fight, and Aragorn, the big-badass human motherfucker, just scares away the Nazgul with fire.
>>1906515 This anon knows what's up; power levels really are ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT IN LOTR PROPER BECAUSE NO SUPER-BEINGS EVER FIGHT EACH OTHER (Balrog v Gandalf excepted, but its not really a fight).

The story is really political maneuvering and walking, with fights as the backdrop.

It's like a overwrought fantasy Tom Clancy novel.

>>1906653
yeah, if all you're looking for is fantasy-action and fights, you won't find it. of course, if you think that those things are what make a book good, you're a poltroon.

>>1906653
When I read these books for the first time, they really struck a nerve with me like no other books have.

I don't think you really appreciate them for what they are. The books most certainly are not lacking in supernatural elements either, I have no idea where you got that from. The Lord of the Rings, and especially the silmarillion, are full of fantasy action.

Let's be clear, The Lord of the Rings is a stupid idea for a book. It's a fantasy story with no magic battles because the writer was Catholic, and thought that it would be morally wrong to show good guys wielding magic. The reason it's worth reading is that it's this one eccentric guy's attempt to write a novel while denying the entire modern era. It gave birth to a genre entirely by accident. The more you enjoy the fantasy genre, the less likely it is you'll enjoy The Lord of the Rings as much as you respect it. If you hate the fantasy genre, you may well love The Lord of the Rings as an example of demented tiddlywink literature.

>>1906693
Holy shit do I sense a political agenda here. Let me guess, you're a member of the LGBT, right?

>It's a fantasy story with no magic battles because the writer was Catholic, and thought that it would be morally wrong to show good guys wielding magic.

What?! No! Not even close. Tolkien was very Catholic and that informed his writing a great deal, but he skipped over most of the magic because he wasn't interested in showing the details. There are a few hints in Fellowship with Gandalf placing a binding on a door and then using a word of Command, but then it all drops out and becomes wordless powers performed through will.

>>1906693
>>1906702
this is what happens when you feed a stoner scrambled eggs

>>1906659
Those aren't what make a good book good, but they are what make a good fantasy novel good. Find something other than fantastic things crossing swords and slinging magic at each other that a fantasy novel does well, and I'll find a non-fantasy novel that does it better.

>>1906669
Did you even read my post?
I'm quibbling with the lack of MAGICAL FIGHTS (a specific, but integral-to-fantasy subset of "supernatural elements") in the LORD OF THE RINGS (again, a subset of Tolkien's universe that does not include the Silmarillion, which does indeed have more magical fightan, but is terrible for its own reasons).

in b4 u mad
Yes, I mad.

>>1906702

There's no respect in which that makes sense as a response to what I wrote.


>>1906707

Have you read his letters? His reason for REWRITING THE ENTIRE BOOK ONE MORE TIME BEFORE PUBLICATION was to remove instances of the good guys using magic.

>>1906723
somebody find that .gif of jerry seinfeld getting up to leave a theater and post it

i'm out this bitch

>>1906723

> Find something other than fantastic things crossing swords and slinging magic at each other that a fantasy novel does well, and I'll find a non-fantasy novel that does it better.

This is correct.

>>1906728
Did you even READ the lord of the rings? Gandalfs wizardry, the magic of elves, dwarf magic, ect., are shown so many times its not even up for debate. The enemies use magic too obviously, which Galadrial refers to as the "deceits of the enemy", that's the only differentiation.

>>1906723

You're reading fantasy for the WRONG reasons then, kid.

>>1906738
Bring my misconceptions crashing down around my head by proving how your reasons are so right, and how mine are so wrong.

Actually, just tell me your reasons for reading fantasy, because I honestly cannot think up any reason other than some form of escapism

>>1906748
My reasons for reading any book is to see if the book will get me interested and involved, and perhaps even get me thinking about certain themes. Tolkiens works more than did all of those. The magic present in Lord of the Rings was more than adequate and I loved how they handled it. Wasn't your typical bullshit DnD "gandalf hits orc with magic missile for 2n6 damage" or some shit.

>>1906738

In the previous draft, Frodo used the ring with impunity throughout. It didn't harm him to use it, it didn't increase its power of temptation. For Gandalf, essentially retconned into an angel, to use his natural Eru-given abilities is one thing, but no-one casts spells or uses things they've LEARNED, unlike any other major fantasy series you can name.

>>1906752

But that's better, because more entertaining. And that's what this shit is, entertainment, not art. It's not literature, it's popular fiction.

>>1906752
Thats . . . actually a good reason, and I'll stop being a dick.

>>1906754
Again, you sound like that DnD kid up above. And again, you're wrong. Gandalf knows every spell in the tongues of men, elves, dwarves, and orcs and eru sure as hell wouldn't have given him those abilities(especially orc spells), he would have had to learn them himself.

The ring is a part of sauron, it corrupts the wearer. No one can use the ring without being eventually corrupted. See golum, he's a prime example of what would have happened to frodo eventually, if he had kept the ring for himself and went into hiding.

>>1906723
>Find something other than fantastic things crossing swords and slinging magic at each other that a fantasy novel does well, and I'll find a non-fantasy novel that does it better.

Elaborately inventive alternate realities.

Fantasy doesn't have to revolve around violence, which is just as well since action sequences tend to be boring to read.

>>1906754
>In the previous draft, Frodo used the ring with impunity throughout. It didn't harm him to use it, it didn't increase its power of temptation

do you have a link on this because it goes against pretty much everything that tolkien was doing in lotr

>>1906754
> but no-one casts spells or uses things they've LEARNED
See, that's some bullshit. The reason the heavy hitters of Middle Earth are the magic users is because they've lived through enough ages to have learned how to cast spells. Now, I'm not saying there isn't a heaping of innate talent in Tolkien's work (Ahem, Feanor), but to say no one is falling back on learned knowledge is foolish. (Fuck, one of the reasons Elrond is so respected is because he's a goddamned scholar.

>>1906758
>But that's better, because more entertaining

Entertaining is subjective and it sounds like you have low tastes.

>And that's what this shit is, entertainment, not art.

Except it is art, did you know that universities actually assign LOTR as required reading material? It's certainly not pop fiction.

>>1906766
The Underground Man, Invisible Man, Infinite Jest, Mumbo Jumbo.

>>1906778
To add to this, the reason Saruman was the first head of the White Council is because of his research into the rings of power and Sauron.

>>1906779
You can read LOTR as an investigation into popular fiction/culture. That is a viable academic use. It is undoubtedly a cultural artifact.

Reading it as 'literature,' though, is misguided.

>>1906779

No, not at all. Of course Tolkien isn't art! Have you been to university? They set all kinds of shit, especially in creative writing departments that emphasise saleable skills. It doesn't make the set text 'art'. Again, this is like that phrase, 'highly respected', that fantasy readers attach to the names of anyone in the academy who tosses their favorite writers a crumb of respect.

>>1906770

Read the Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Tolkien, Man and Myth: A Literary Life by Joseph Pearce.

>>1906788
I don't suppose you'd mind elaborating on why you think that. Personally, I think there might be some literary worth in reading the novels of the man who wrote the premier essay on Beowulf and the significance of myths.

>>1906779
It's true. I'm taking a class on Tolkien this fall. Required readings include The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion, Tree and Leaf, Smith Wooton Major (or w/e), his essay on Beowulf, and maybe a couple more things.

I'm actually excited for it to be honest. It's not often I get to learn about an author and his works that many people read for fun.

>>1906788
Except Lord of the Rings is highly respected literature, and Tolkien is one of the most well known authors in the world and certainly among the most respected. I know you don't like it because it disagrees with your liberal agenda, but have some decency and stop trolling and acting like your horrible opinion is fact.

>>1906784
Haven't read any of those but I suspect their more in the vein of magic realism or fantastic literature, which is good too, but scratches quite a different itch from traditional secondary-world fantasy. I just like exploring the sort of sprawling impossible places that get invented by eccentric professors as backdrop to their made-up languages.

>>1906795
nerds like it, must be bad, cause i'm smarter than those dumb nerds

god, the rabid anti-fantasy people on here are unbearable sometimes.

>>1906792
For everyone else, his first point is true.

I shit you not I had Tao Lin's short story collection "Bed" as a required reading for a methods of critical analysis class.

>>1906779
>It's certainly not pop fiction

It certainly is. I'm not saying it's bad, or even undeserving of study, but LotR is pretty much the definition of successful, popular genre fiction.

>>1906765

You're referring to this shit as if it actually happened - I'm referring to what an author WROTE. Gandalf isn't simply, as in most such stories, a wizard because he's a scholar of magic. He's a Maia, a different order of being to whom such things are permitted. Angels get to do angelic stuff which for a man to attempt would be blasphemous.

>>1906806
Well, not to go against the great /lit/ overmind, but I prefer to defer to the expertise of the instructors. Though, I suppose grad students teaching lower division courses are just as fallible as any student.

Why did Frodo never give the ring to Tom Bombadil? Would he have become corrupted by it, much the same way Gandalf refused to hold the ring for fear of it corrupting him?

>>1906806
I could care less what other books they assign in college. I consider Tolkien art, on the other hand I don't consider "post modern"(you know, take a shit on a canvas and call it art like hipsters do) art. Feel free to disagree with me, but it won't change my opinion.

LOTR especially can be seen as a social commentary on both WW1 and WW2, as well as a variety of other subjects. Tolkiens world is vast and well thought out.

>>1906813
But Gandalf as well as the other Wizards were scholars and Maiar. I know it's shocking, but a character can be both.

LIKE AN EXPRESS TRAIN, ANYONE?

Like and express train.

>>1906806
He was no grad student. It wasn't a lower division course either...

>>1906819
Frodo didn't because he was tasked with getting it to Rivendell and probably at that point didn't understand the gravity of the situation he found himself in. The council in Rivendell didn't turn to Bombadil because he was not a person that would be concerned about the fate of the ring. He would have treated it like a bauble and may have even lost it again.

>>1906819
Bombadil would not have become corrupted by the ring. But he also didn't care about it, it wasn't his concern, and gandalf says that he probably would have lost it. And even if they left the ring in bombadils care, saurons army was too strong to fight directly, they would have lost without destroying the ring.

>>1906826
Fair enough. I didn't mean that as an insult, but I'm sorry. However, I do think my greater point can be extrapolated to all teachers.

>>1906824
And this is why Tolkien was a shit writer.

>>1906800

My 'horrible' opinion? You're a poor representative of fantasy readers if your personality is really so fragile that you're frightened of what I'm saying. The Lord of the Rings is a major work of popular fiction. Those who like popular fiction, particularly the fantasy genre, admire it, even though many don't enjoy it as much as they'd hoped. To say it's 'highly respected literature' is simply wrong. No-one thinks it's literature except people who've never read any literature.

>>1906841
I have read literature

I think Lord of the Rings is literature

ergo, your argument is wrong

>>1906841
>>1906843

Read LotR, didn't do an awful lot for me (in terms of writing style; universe was pretty well thought out though) and I consider it literature, no doubt.

>>1906822

An angel is still an angel.


>>1906820

So now your attempt to refer to the authority of 'universities' has failed, you're back to just stamping your foot?

All opposition to Tolkien stems from the fact that Tolkien was conservative, and most of the shit posters on this board have overt liberal/socialist agendas(which Tolkien was thoroughly opposed to).

>>1906843

Ergo you're trolling.

>>1906851
>An angel is still an angel.

Elrond, Galadrial, Glorifendal, and even Aragorn and Denethor knew spells.

>>1906853
Unlikely. Comes more from posters not liking his fans, or considering themselves superior to same.

>>1906841
Yeah, as with >>1906843, the capacity to view Tolkien's work as literature is not predicated on our inability to read "actual" literature. I know acknowledging only "the best" literature is how /lit/ seeks to distinguish itself from the unwashed masses, but the argument is immature. LoTR is far from perfect in form or conception, but that hardly precludes it from being worthy of the title of literature.

>>1906853
>liberal agenda

Oh, you're one of those people.

>>1906853
No, I'm about as lefty as they come and I can still love Tolkien and overlook all his racist monarchist catholic bullshit.

>>1906851
>An angel is still an angel.
This is not an argument against anything I've written.

>>1906853
Excepting his continuous lament for the end of the English countryside? Dude was all sorts of tree hugger.

>>1906856
And you were doing so well until this point.

>>1906867
Still you prove my point, other liberals are too hardwired into their narrow minded beliefs that they can't appreciate a fantasy book unless it has Black people, "tough" women in fighting roles, and homosexuals.

It's the reason the Dragon Age video game series has gotten far better reviews than it deserved.

>>1906875
But LoTR has all those things.

>>1906875
How does that prove your point at all?

People are capable of enjoying things they disagree with. I feel the exact same way as that guy.

>>1906870
>Excepting his continuous lament for the end of the English countryside?

That's a well conservative position, especially when you consider that in Tolkien's day conservatism had yet to be hijacked by the disciples of the markets.

>>1906875
>liberals are narrow-minded
>generalizes entire demographic
Oh you.

>>1906853

Oh wow, if that's still you, foot-stamping child, that's an extraordinarily baseless, childish statement. It's hard to know where to begin. I'm not opposed to Tolkien, I'm saying he created an eccentric entertainment. It was on this basis that he was received by virtually every positive critic of his own generation. There's a self-defeating tendency from some people to think that 'art' is just a nice thing you say about entertainment you like, and if people deny that your favorites are 'art', then they're being 'mean'. Taken to its logical conclusion, this makes the word meaningless, which may be what they want, but I'm afraid it's the nature of intelligence to make distinctions, and you're not going to stop it from happening.

If you read the books and books of extra-LotR content he put thought and work in to, it should be obvious the books are literary.

After you read Morgoth's Ring, the subtleties of the books become more apparent. The main themes are already pretty obvious but the ideas of the problem of evil and redemption and culpability/justice are there too if you read it carefully.

Its not a point in its favor that it doesn't quite stand on its own, and almost requires reading volumes of other works to appreciate. But having a flaw doesn't make it not literature.

>>1906508
0/10

mfw Tolkien was a christfag

>>1906889
Ah yes, I had forgotten that conservation wasn't always only for the left. In any case, Tolkien's personal politics, real or imagined, have no bearing on my enjoyment of his works.

>>1906892
lord of the rings is art, though, by any definition of the word as applied to literature

>>1906875

I'm amused that a number of people joined your side, and now, after this post, presumably realize how futile that is.

I don't think we want to have the same old conversation about Tolkien's entirely incoherent politics, which had no real connection with anything that could have been workable after about the 16th century.

>>1906897
>mfw what the fuck does that have to do with anything?

>>1906907
I really hope you're not referring to the thoroughly debunked and bloodthirsty, disproven ideology of marxism, as a "good political platform". I share almost all of Tolkien's views, save a few.

>>1906907

Only read LotR here and know pretty much nothing about Tolkien except for he was a Catholic and converted C.S. Lewis or something. Oh and that he was anti-semitic and various thing like that according to /lit/.

Anyway, can someone fill me in on his politics? I want to see how batshit they are.

Pic not related.

>>1906893

> If you read the books and books of extra-LotR content he put thought and work in to, it should be obvious the books are literary.

We don't evaluate these things in that way. Rilke wrote nothing for twenty years at one point, and I vaguely know a schizophrenic who has been working on a manuscript of massive importance (to him) for many years, in tiny, illegible handwriting, but Rilke's poems are literature and my acquaintance's writing certainly isn't.

>>1906921
Fairly standard English Catholic Toryism, really. Anti-modern, in defense of tradition, the countryside, monarchy.

>>1906922
Tolkien began writing about middle earth as early as 1910. Fellowship was published in 1954. Try again.

>>1906922
Not the anon you're responding to, but I don't think the supplemental material on Middle Earth is at all required before one can view LoTRs as literature. (This includes The Silmarillion.) I imagine it certainly helps and serves to deepen one's understanding of Tolkien and Middle Earth, but one's understanding of Gravity's Rainbow is likewise helped by a handy dandy Gravity's Rainbow reader and in neither situation do I see that as a detriment to the quality of the literature.

>>1906929
his point is that length of time and volume of writing don't confer literary status. which is true. tolkien's writing isn't literature because he spent a lot of time on it, it's literature because of qualities inherent to the work (to the extent that literature is a coherent thing we can talk about, which it's really not, but w/e)

>>1906495
I think Bombadil is a Maia, who has an association with the Earth in a similar way Sauron has an association with the ring.

Consider that the Ring was made primarily to amplify Sauron's natural abilities, the main one being the ability to dominate the wills of others (even in the Silmarilion its said that he's sort of the right hand man because few can stand his gaze). So when Sauron and the Ring are united, its almost impossible to ignore his suggestions, even if you do ultimately reject them - similar to Saruman's voice, but amplified many times of course.

With Tom Bombadil, the Earth doesn't exactly have a "purpose" (at least not one besides what Eru has given it that no one knows); it just sort of exists. And that's exactly how Bombadil is. He's not a reliable ringbearer because guarding the Ring is outside the scope of natural existence, but at the same time his connection with the Earth makes him immune to the Ring's power.

Consider also that the way Gandalf says Bombadil would be "last, as he was first" almost mimics Sauron's connection with the Ring. You can't get rid of Sauron without getting rid of the Ring, and you can't get rid of the Ring without getting rid of Sauron. Tom Bombadil seems to be in a similar situation with the Earth.

I dont think Tolkien ever thought of it exactly in these terms, but its interesting to think about

>>1906926
Well that sets it in stone than. British conservatives are superior to Statesians

>>1906917

What a windy idiot you are. If you've used 'almost', you don't have to use 'save a few', you're just trying to use old-timey language where it isn't needed.

Tolkien would have liked an absolute monarch. He was a pre-Vatican II Catholic who opposed all industrialization. He was horrifed by the Nazis, yet read the British Fascist periodical Candour. I don't for a moment think he was a Fascist, I think his politics were an entirely unworkable home-made concoction, real crank stuff which no-one would take seriously for a moment, except that some of his readers have this worrying desire to credit him as some sort of thinker.

>>1906922
Don't evaluate things in what way?

I didn't say that all the thought and extra content is what made the LotR literature. I said that it becomes obvious the LotR is literary IF you happen to read them.

Which is why I expanded my point in the following lines of the post.

If your reading comprehension is this poor all the time I'm curious how you can read literature at all.

>>1906951
Like, I agree with your description of his politics, but I want to defend fiercely Tolkien's status as a worthwhile writer, even if I consider his politics basically unworkable and disagree with him entirely. Basically the same as Chesterton, really.

>>1906929

You've entirely missed the point. We don't award literary status for man-hours.


>>1906939

Of course it's a coherent thing. People like foot-stamper don't want there to be no such thing as truth, you know. They want there to be real, undeniable truth, and for themselves to be its possessors.

>>1906941
You make an interesting point. But I believe the key difference is that sauron forged the ring himself. Bombadil, from what we know, was the first and will be the last. He's tied to the earth in some way, but if he was a maia, I'm almost positive the ring would affect him in some way.

My interpretation is that bombadil will exist as long as the earth itself does. I just have a hard time believing he's a maia because of his total disregard for the ring.

>>1906959
I'm pretty sure that we've already had a fairly long argument about this, and I'm not evil, a liar, or an idiot, so can we just agree to disagree?

>>1906951
Come back when you're able to form a coherent sentence, boy. I can practically see you foaming at the mouth with rage.

>>1906955

That conflicts with your 'Tolkien started in 1910...' thing. In any case, this is very much in line with your apparently forgetting you're not talking about real people earlier. I've read the book. It's an eccentric entertainment. I'm not concerned with how like a real scholar you felt reading book five of the outtakes, you weren't.


>>1906958

Fair enough. I think Tolkien is worthwhile, as a writer of eccentric entertainments. But literature is not just a nice word we use for stuff we enjoy. It refers to an engagement with the world as it is, and with the human condition, that Tolkien would have been aghast at being accused of attempting.

>>1906967

No, we haven't. I think if you're going to try and wield this stuff in front of foot-stamper, there's just going to be more vomit to clear up. He wants to be told that Tolkien is Good because he's Right about Goodness and they Mention him in Universities you know, where the Clever Folks are. Getting him onto social science excuses for wallowing in garbage is many, many years into the future, especially as he'd probably think it was a plot by 'members of the LBGT' to spread their 'horrible opinions'.

>>1906981
I disagree, and I think that Tolkien, in LotR, absolutely engages with the human condition. I mean, think about it this way - it's not the only way, but think about it this way: inasmuch as LotR is a deeply, profoundly religious work, one reflecting Tolkien's Catholic faith, it must engage with the human condition, because Catholicism engages with the human condition. And I don't think that you'll deny that it's a Catholic work. There are other ways that it engages with the human condition - the rich elements of folklore and myth Tolkien used as a source, the reaction to World War I and modernity, a bunch of other stuff - but in sum I would argue that Lord of the Rings absolutely, unquestionably engages with the human condition. Does it do so with characters who are not themselves human? Yeah. But in some way the existence of those characters helps comment on the human condition - the immortality of the elves against the mortality of the humans. And mortality, I'll hope you agree, is a fairly central aspect of the human condition.

>>1906969

You see, this isn't going to work when people can read what I wrote, and then read what you wrote.

>>1906981
Im not the one who said that.

Only
>>1906955
>>1906893

Your inability to consider the book literature is just a reflection on how poorly you read or how unwilling you are to read critically. Like someone saying Hills Like White Elephants isn't literature because it isn't about anything.

It's not great literature. Its a literary work. You're wrong. DIAF

>>1906986

None of that is working for me, I'm afraid, especially this:

> I disagree, and I think that Tolkien, in LotR, absolutely engages with the human condition. I mean, think about it this way - it's not the only way, but think about it this way: inasmuch as LotR is a deeply, profoundly religious work, one reflecting Tolkien's Catholic faith, it must engage with the human condition, because Catholicism engages with the human condition.

This doesn't follow at all. It's pink elephants, isn't it? In any case, Tolkien doesn't engage with Catholicism, he accepts its propositions and aims always to minimize the extent to which he could be taken to contradict them in imagining this off-stage part of creation. Catholicism addresses its believers, instructing them in conduct and protocol. Tolkien never brings his work to a point of contact with the beliefs that energize it, because it would be too difficult - there's a childlike innocence to his language-making games that would be ruined if there was any path through the woods to the outside world, probably one of the reasons why he could never bring the Silmarillion onto 'the record' while he was alive - even the imagery of Eru's music might have been taken as an impertinence.

>>1907018
I don't agree with you at all and I don't think that a careful reading of Lord of the Rings agrees with your analysis.

On some level, I don't know if there's anything to say beyond that: we disagree.

>>1906989

> It's not great literature. Its a literary work. You're wrong. DIAF

What a pointless outburst.

>>1907029

Indeed, we disagree.

>LotR thread
>No mention of Turin Turambar

>>1907058
I've been meaning to get around to reading children of hurin one of these days. Looks awesome.

>>1907064

It's being treated as some sort of great lost sequel, when it's just a new CT collation of unfinished materials, puts me off.

IMO the adventures of Tom Bombadil basically confirms he is the avatar spirit of the earth/nature. (currently reprinted in the Tales of the Perilous Realm for those interested)

As for the Witch King/Gandalf fight. IMO it would have been a stalemate. Both of them were VASTLY more powerful than they had been before, but I can see neither of them being able to gain the advantage on the other.

Tolkien is actually gaining respect in the university/literary field.

It may take another decade or 2 but LOTR is going to be remembered like Huckleberry Finn and the great gatsby are today.

>>1907080
/lit/'s response to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEdDMQZaCU

Question:

Just how much more powerful was Gandalf the White to Gandalf the Grey?

>>1907080

Well, Catholic Nazis have universities too.

>>1907080

> the university/literary field

This is like watching that old TV show, The Invaders. They seem legit, and then they give themselves away, every time!

Anybody else think that Fingolfin is the most badass character in all of Tolkien's works? OP's pic reminded me of how awesome that motherfucker was.

>>1907080
I hope so, Tolkien's work with linguistics and language is remarkable.

>>1907124

Tolkien's work in his day-job is sound. That's not what's being discussed here, obviously.

>>1906820
>I could care less
Get it, he cares to some extent, but to what extent? IT WILL FOREVER BE A MYSTERY

>>1907163

He also doesn't know the word 'into', forcing him to use 'in to' instead.

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

>>1907163
>>1907173
this is why i love /lit/. the snobbery is delicious.

>>1907178

To be fair, it's not really snobbish to say that you should have some basic grasp of English if you're going to express an opinion on literature.

Snobbery increasingly means people who make any kinds of distinction. Eventually 'snob' will be the name for people who don't let their kids play in dog shit.

I've just had a thought - wouldn't it be funny if I record myself screaming obscenities over the LOTR movies, add that as the only soundtrack option to an avi, then torrent this without comment?

>>1907195

>>/tv/