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Is LOTR a dark story?

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Di of Long Cleeve
Post subject: Is LOTR a dark story?
Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:16 pm
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I was lurking in the Bombadil thread, and this comment of Cerin's caught my eye:
Cerin wrote:
Semprini referred to the light in the story. I've always been puzzled at comments about the story being dark, because to me it is just incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all, and the place where that seems to center quietly as an abiding peace and contentment, is in the forest with Tom.
That intrigued me, because my response to LOTR is a complex one. I see both light and dark in the story. The Light ultimately wins out, but the Dark leaves an indelible impression.

LOTR is a redemptive story, a fairytale, a romance. And of course it's a laugh a minute compared with The Silmarillion. ;)

Even so, I see great darkness in the story. I sense the weight of that darkness as Frodo gets nearer to Mordor. I too can imagine the weight of the horrific presence of Sauron pressing down on my shoulders, weighing me down, haunting my dreams. I sense the nearness of the concentration camps of Mordor - the No-Man's Land (which Tolkien saw first-hand on the Somme) of blasted and desolate landscapes, of the horror and despair of war ... converted by Tolkien's imagination from Reality into Myth. I feel that darkness pressing down on me in Frodo and Sam's nightmare journey to Mordor.

The darkness is ultimately not the predominant note ... but it leaves its mark.

What Cerin so lyrically describes as "incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all" are for me interludes ... all the more precious because they're rare, or because they must be preserved. Rivendell, and Lothlorien, and Minas Tirith (in which the glory of Numenor is dimmed) are sanctuaries, with their own kind of powers. The light and joy do bubble up, in the Shire, and in Lorien, and on the Field of Cormallen, and for me is all the more powerful because it's been hard-won and hard-earned.

People have been waxing lyrical about Bombadil and the Old Forest. I do like that episode very much (I like Tom's philosophising a lot more than his poetry). But for me the ultimate place is Lothlorien, the last remaining Noldorin haven - sob - which provides a glimpse into the Elder Days, the incomparably ancient past. In LOTR, Lorien is the bridge between Middle-earth and what lies beyond.

Lothlorien is for me the most mysterious and powerful place in Middle-earth. The Lorien chapters are my favourites in the entire book. I read them again and again. They have a mystical, contemplative power which I find the most spiritual part of LOTR (there is tremendous spirituality in the Bombadil episode, of course.)

The other intensely spiritual part of the book is its ending, and Frodo's departure of Frodo for Elvenhome, which is so mysterious and enigmatic (in the narrative of LOTR, that is ... Tolkien does not explain in the body of the text what Elvenhome is and why it is separated from Middle-earth by the Sundering Seas ... the eager reader, such as I was, has to delve into Sil and HoME to solve the mystery.)

I have always found the ending of LOTR incredibly bittersweet and melancholy.

There is a real note of hope, of course, represented in Sam's healing of the Shire, in Sam himself :) and the promise of his eventual reunion with Frodo :) and in the Golden Age of Aragorn and Arwen's reign ... but the sadness for an age that has ended is the predominant note for me.

Incandescent with light and joy?

In many ways, yes.

But LOTR also breaks my heart.

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Faramond
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:28 pm
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A lovely question and introduction to the question, Di. :)

LOTR sounds a lot like life ... or at least a good life. Even the best lives are full of heartbreak.

There are of course scenes of light and scenes of dark in the story. The question I ask is what is the prevailing attitude in the story?

That's a question I shall have to come back to.


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Di of Long Cleeve
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:46 pm
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Faramond wrote:
A lovely question and introduction to the question, Di. :)
Thank you! :)
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LOTR sounds a lot like life ... or at least a good life.
I'm not sure about that. :) LOTR always seems super-real to me, hyper-real. It is fantasy after all ... although a very superior form of fantasy, deeply earthed in ancient myth and metaphor and all kinds of things that go way back in our collective psyche. (Wow, that was deep. ;) )

I can't relate LOTR to real life, though, and I wouldn't want to. Too intense and romantic for RL, IMO. Which is precisely its tremendous appeal for me.

Actually, I'll qualify my above comments. LOTR is hyper-real, not quite of this world ... but it has its roots deep in this world as well. Middle-earth is not a never-never land floating about in another dimension (like Fionavar). It's OUR WORLD, Planet Earth, in an imaginary time.

The Shire has its roots deep in England, Rohan is related to distant Anglo-Saxon culture (albeit in a highly idealised and romanticised form), Numenor relates to Atlantis, Aragorn's story has strong Arthurian elements ... and so on.

CS Lewis and Tolkien have all sorts of wonderful things to say about the power and value of fairytales, but I'm too tired to go and dig out their respective essays on the subject. I forget which of them said that the Fairtyale was Reality dipped in Myth ... or something to that effect.
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Even the best lives are full of heartbreak.
I wouldn't dispute that. :bawl:
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The question I ask is what is the prevailing attitude in the story?That's a question I shall have to come back to.
Me too. ;)

Well ... Tolkien said that the main 'message' or point of the story was that it was about "death and deathlessness."

I guess we might frame our answers around that. ;)

Last edited by Di of Long Cleeve on Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:46 pm
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Yes, extraordinary post, Di.

I too will have to think about it. When I first read it, although I was only 15 years old, what I felt was tremendous resonance with reality. Odd that this would be one's response to a fantasy story, but sometimes one has to use fantasy to present reality in a way that people can accept.

It was poignant. Both light and dark, as you say. Yet I agree with Cerin that it throbs with a certain kind of light ... it is full of Hope in the way that only words devoid of deception can be.

Jn

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Faramond
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 10:51 pm
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Di, my comment about LOTR being like life was actually in response to the things you said about it, especially at the end of your post. :)


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Di of Long Cleeve
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 11:02 pm
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Ah yes, now I understand, Faramond. :)

And it's that underlying note of melancholy, that sense of the 'long defeat', as Galadriel calls it (the need to be constantly vigilant against what the Bible calls 'this present darkness'), that deep sense Tolkien had that we are all trapped in Arda Marred, that gives LOTR its extraordinary sense of realism. (I realise I am contradicting what I said earlier about hyper-realism but you'll have to bear with me ... I tend to be an intuitive thinker rather than a particularly logical one.)

That sense of realism sets it apart from other fantasy novels (not that I've read many others apart from Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Trilogy, which I like).

Ah. I know what it is about LOTR that triggers all sorts of powerful emotions in me.

It's all to do with LOSS.

Frodo's loss of innocence - the loss of the power of the Three Rings - the ending of the Third Age - etc etc etc.

The theme of loss is powerfully prevalent in Tolkien's writings.

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"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... " Letter no. 246

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 11:14 pm
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Yes. Loss and fading. Things that were unique or beloved and will never be the same. Tolkien lost the England of his youth, just as we all lose our Englands, but his was spoiled as well.

Life, even a happy life, is full of these losses—the things you can't return to because you've changed, or they've changed; the people who drift away or die or become someone different; even the betrayals your own body commits over time.

The book makes these things so vivid, and yet they're also accepted, calmly. Aragorn accepts his death; Frodo leaves willingly; the Elves know their time is at an end and that is how it must be. The pain is there, but the acceptance is a counterbalance. So the book is not, to me, dark, though it goes to dark places. Always there is light and beauty the darkness cannot touch.

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MaidenOfTheShieldarm
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 11:20 pm
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LOTR breaks my heart every time I read it. If it were happy, I do not think I should love it half as much as I do.

Yes, to me, LOTR is dark. Even though the lightness wins in the end, it comes at such cost that it makes the story dark. The loss of Lorien and Rivendell, the departure of the Elves and Gandalf, Frodo's unhealable wound. Middle Earth is free, but it is still much the poorer. It will heal eventually, but it will never be quite the same, never quite as beautiful and wonderful.
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incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all.
This has to be one of the most beautiful sentences I have ever read on this board. My first thought when I read it was of Éowyn and Faramir, when they kiss upon the walls with the sun shining down.

In a way, perhaps this is ironic, because Éowyn and Faramir were very much touched and, in some ways, scarred by the War. Éowyn went through a lot and it left its mark on her, and Faramir has more emotional issues than anyone could ever possibly need, what with Boromir and his father. This is rather like all of LOTR. A marriage of sad and dark things to create something light and lovely.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it is both light and dark. These are inextricably linked. It could not have a "happy" ending were it not for all the pain that was endured to get there, but out of the pain comes great happiness. Almost everyone in the book ends up essentially happy, though. Frodo goes to Tol Eressea to be healed, and Sam is married, and Aragorn marries Arwen and becomes king, and Galadriel gets to go back home.

And this is the part where I come full circle . . . because in the end, it's still sad. Even though the ending should be happy, it's not. Underlying everything is this great feeling of loss and melancholy that turns the sweet to bittersweet. Nothing is gained without cost, and nothing will ever be as wonderful as it once was.

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Sassafras
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 11:39 pm
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Lovely post, Di.

I don't know if I can put into words the feeling(s) LotR invokes in me ... but somewhere in there is this overarching sense of poignancy.

Like Di, the Lothlorien chapters are the ones that speak most vividly to me. I'm not sure I would label as 'spiritual' my response; perhaps 'mystical is a better word ... but the images resonate and I have always found Galadriel and the Elves to be similtaneously awe-inspiring, in the mythic sense, and profoundly sad, imbued with a deep regret.

But then I've often thought I've missed the message that so many of you seem to find.


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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Fri 28 Oct , 2005 12:18 am
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LOTR is mostly about mortality. Of course it is a dark story. :)

But Cerin is absolutely correct that it is also about light.

Sorry, can't say anything more then this now, but this is another great thread. Likes Di and everyone.

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Dindraug
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Posted: Fri 28 Oct , 2005 7:39 am
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With you totally on this one Di, LOTR is about the end of a world, end of an era. It is as sad as the accounts of Honorius at the gates of Rome when the Visigoths come over the hill or the last days of Constantinople or that perculier post war, end of Empire period it was written in.

I do find it sad, I think it is when everybody leaves at the end, with only Sam and his "Well I am back" line. So poinient if the emphasis is on the 'I'.

And the darkness overlays everything in this book, there is nothing in it but endings. Even Aragon, new King, is the last of the line of Elendil and the last of the High Numenorians, his wife is human (once elf), but there is no impression of Elfin blood revitalising his line, but only of it all fading away.

*sniff*


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eborr
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Posted: Fri 28 Oct , 2005 11:33 am
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bound tro be dark is another phase of thel long defeat - how the heaven that was supposed to be created on earth is diminished.


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jeanelf
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Posted: Fri 28 Oct , 2005 2:22 pm
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Di, wonderful post that eloquently says what I feel as well but could never express in words as you have. The interlude of light is exactly how I saw/see things as well. For me, light and joy are constantly trying to break through the darkness, which is an overlying layer struggling to cover and strangle all. I remember reading it the first time and feeling that heaviness.

I haven't really read the Bombadil thread because, honestly, sometimes things are way over my head here :oops: and I find it hard to state things as wonderfully as most. Your statements about Lothlorien are well-taken in regards to its being a sanctuary where the light bubbles to the surface. However, crazy tho it will seem, I respectfully disagree with your opinion that Lothlorien is the most magical place in Middle Earth. (This is just coming from my own personal vantage point, of course. 99% of the world will agree with you. ;) ) Dark or no, personally, the most magical places for me were the great forests -- the Old Forest, Mirkwood, and Fangorn -- the places time forgot and secrets were around every corner. I absolutely always find something magical about a forest anyway. But these!! I relished the bits of them getting lost among trees, the paths disappearing and changing, the feeling of things "knowing" about the hobbits, etc. and the little world of its own the forest(s) create(d) away from everything else. I loved the feeling of history lost there and the unknown (Bombadil, barrow wights, elves, the Ents) -- always wondering about the story behind the story, as it were. Indeed, for me the forests were often some of the most immediately dark parts of the book, yet they brought with them Bombadil and Goldberry, Treebeard and Quickbeam -- little moments of their own light to stave off the darkness. :neutral:

And you're totally right about it being the most bittersweet story. It does break my heart every single time I read it. And then I read it again. :love:


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Semprini
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Posted: Fri 28 Oct , 2005 2:33 pm
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Beautiful post, Di. :)

Is LOTR a dark story? No, IMO. It looks at darkness sometimes, but as we would expect from a lucid mind, and always with the light on our side (Cerin :) ), even when despair temporarily seizes the hearts. For me too Lorien is a restful place. And joy too can break a heart.


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Legolas the elf
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Posted: Sat 29 Oct , 2005 11:55 pm
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I see Lord of the Rings as a deeply spiritual story.
I just finished reading "The Grey Havens" a few minutes ago, and I find Frodo's whole post-Mt. Doom life in the Shire to be a dark, sort of a languid existense. It seems he merely hangs around to write down his tale so that he can give it to Sam to warn those in the future about "...the Great Danger...". Frodo is martyr-like. And I think in that sense, w/ Frodo being a great hero of the story, his "happily ever after"-only-to-be- in-death is solemn...grave, if not dark. But, from my view, Tolkien treats it w/ little bitterness. It's not grief-stricken....but instead awe-inspiring...wonder-filled...making me wonder about life, death, and the afterlife...all those giant questions. It just seems that the Grey Havens scene is taking place on the edge of earth and the spiritual....kind of inbetween....Merry and Pippin are singing merrily when they get back in the Shire.......they're back on "earth"...fully back in the earthly existence.

And w/ the book ending w/ Sam returning home and Rosie putting his baby in his lap, w/ a warm dinner made for him, expecting him, I see a reminder that a life will inevitably change drastically in it's course....new things begin, like Sam's family...Sam's new life...his old life has passed on w/ Frodo. ...The sheer powerlessness we sometimes have over our own lives is humbling and shockingly terrifyingly awesome! Tolkien captured that SUPERBLY.

So, yeah....there is plenty of dark and light...but I just call it realism. It's a very realistic story.
Di wrote:
The Lorien chapters are my favourites in the entire book. I read them again and again. They have a mystical, contemplative power which I find the most spiritual part of LOTR
I agree....good word choice: contemplate. That same mystical power is present in the Grey Haven chapter... it's the passing of this power, which to me makes it even more out of my comprehension...which makes me contemplate wonderfully. It is good to contemplate..may we never stop.
Di wrote:
But LOTR also breaks my heart.
It's a good heart-breaking, though, isn't it? :) Deeply stirring...deeply moving...maybe not "breaking"? :)
I used to read it and yearn for the spirituality the characters seem tohave...Tolkien was obviously a man of out-standing character...a true gentlemen, to give these characters so much depth. I longed for that....for the values and principles the characters had, that Tolkien instilled in them....I didn't realize it, but that's what my yearning was for.

I discovered the books when I was 14. LoTR planted a seed of desire in me to become a better person....better yet, to become a man.

Dark story? I don't think so...just realistic.


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eärendil
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Posted: Thu 08 Dec , 2005 11:13 am
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I must get really sensitive... or no, in fact I think it is because your introduction post is absolutely superb Di (it caused some tears to gather in my eyes).

As many said this story is about endings and those come with melancholy and sadness, which taints everything in darker shades. Every end comes with this, even in real life; to take a simple example, departing from friends after a meeting such as the Gathering was simply horribly sad despite the times of happiness we had shared. The moment things end you do not always manage everything happy that came before, which makes those moments in Lothlorien sort of sweet and sour. I love them also because they have something very peaceful about them. It feels like you could live there without being troubled although still aware that things do happen around you (and you have no idea how much I need this kind of heaven these days :P). I'm not sure this makes sense but it is also as if those times came in after very hard and hurtful times. Rivendell after the attack of the Nazgûl upon Frodo seems to be the moment you need to recover from the pain and the loss. Lorien after Gandalf's disappearance with the Balrog, and again it gives us the time and space to recover from this feeling of emptiness that comes with the loss of a beloved one. And for me the fact that time cannot really be measured in Lothlorien embraces this expression 'take your time'; when you lose someone you can't say how long it will take you to recover from the loss, maybe months, maybe years, maybe never, but still at some point you realise you have to go on with your life... For me Lorien represents all this, and even more since I lost my grand dad; it made it so clear to me.

And Legolas talked of the Grey Havens, which is another example to me; this is terribly sad because it is the ultimate end somehow but still there is happiness to be lived beyond this departure, this separation.

As for the darkness itself, I remember someone on TORC mentioning in my early days there that LOTR darkness was somehow a reflection of our own. I think it is very true; there are moments in which you pour your own fears, doubts and darkness and thus they become even more vivid as you read.
Here I fear my English will fail me, I can't find the words to express clearly what I would want, so I hope you'll forgive me.

I know that the reason why I loved LOTR when I first read it was that I could relate to many things, one being this feeling Frodo has that his journey is a one way and that he had accepted it. Let say that I was at a moment of my life when things seemed to go all wrong and I totally understood this acceptance that sometimes you had to die for others to live...
I also felt closely bound to Boromir probably the most torn character of this book (to me) and the one in whom 'my' darkness found an echo I never found in any other character since then. It seemed (and even more now again) that he did things wrong when his desire to be the perfect elder son was leading his actions and that he redeemed himself by recognising the desire and acknowledgment of his father was not necessarily what was best for him or for the others. I'm not sure it makes sense but as I said my English there is limited (it'd be easier to write this in French ;))


Well... my feelings. But I wanted to thank you Di because it's the first time in a long while that I come in this forum and feel the desire to actually post.
So yes many grateful thanks to you all for this discussion

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I Endure in order to Reflect
Transcending Order
I seal the Matrix of Endlessness
With the Cosmic tone of Presence
I am guided by the power of Spirit

Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good


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