I also wonder if they were a bit insulted/coy when someone asks, "Hey, is this clear & nearly blunt subtext in your writing about the horrors of war actually about them?" "Nooooooooo, not at all! You're just imagining things!"
I really love the 2005 Narnia film where there is the WWII bombing run near the beginning and then later, when we see the griffins and other flying animals attack in the big battle, they mimic the planes’ earlier movements, peeling off and dive bombing, etc. Really cool parallelism.
Well here's the thing: it can be partially inspired by it without being directly related to it, or meant as an allegory. It most likely is, on a subconscious level. The human brain works by pattern recognition. Whatever experience we had, whatever patterns we saw, we tend to replicate in our art and other works.
i think the best way to look at it is through the same lens of understanding the self-admitted catholicism of the books -- consciously connected through themes, but literal correspondence is solely subconscious.
It's impossible for Tolkien to experience war and write about war and not carry his personal experience, but his overall world is one that he doesn't want associated with ww1
A classic example is Mervyn Peake who wrote the superb Gormenghast trilogy. The final book is heavily influenced by him being one of the first civilians to see the horrors of Belsen.
Not just British. Felix Salten (Austrian) wrote Bambi (yes, that Bambi) in 1923. It was pretty damn grim - considerably more than the movie. Some folks saw it as an allegory for the oppression and conditions of the post-WW1 era. By the time he wrote the sequel (1939), it got downright fatalistic due to watching the rise of Nazi Germany from the inside looking out.
That's not remotely what Tolkien claimed. He got pissed about people repeatedly asking if it was an allegory for ww1 or 2. It was not. But the relationships between British officers and their vallets (batmen) inspired the Frodo/Sam dynamic. And he never claimed Mordor wasn't patterned after ravaged ww1 battlefields. And plenty of other personal experiences had influences
All I hear is LOTR this and LOTR that. The Hobbit was what we read out loud in 6th Grade. That would have last millennium in the 19th Century 68th year you slackers. Prepping up for the suck of getting drafted in Vietnam. Read it chapter by chapter out loud; and you had better be prepared or palyground was a bitch. That was and will remain my boss teacher. Wait for the eagles.
In high school I once mixed up who served in what war and wrote an entire paper about J.D. Salinger and how ww1 influenced his writing... Teacher gave me a B because for the most part it was a good paper.
Tolkien denied LotR being an allegory for World War 2. I don't think he ever denied WWI having an influence on his writing though. I know he wrote about the influence of British batmen on Frodo and Sam's relationship
Not only did he not deny it, he explicitly pointed to it to remind people that HIS big wartime experience was WWI:
"One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
Yeah it wasn't allegory, it was very blatantly a story about how war affect people individually and what hells they go through to become what they're needed to be, wanted or not, and the failures along the way.
IIRC another big part of it for him was that allegory requires authorial intent. Lived experiences slipping in and shaping the story unconsciously wouldn't be allegory, but sitting down and actively saying "This story is about my time in the war" would be.
Tolkien very explicitly states in the prologue that the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory. But yeah people tend to write about their own experiences so it will rub off one way or another.
It's not an allegory in the way Animal Farm is an allegory, where you can say "Comrade Napoleon is Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky, this event is the Holodomor," etc.
Some were arguing that TLOTR is "really" about WWII: that Sauron is Hitler and so on. Tolkien objected that this was not so; it is its own story. But he never denied that his ideas and writing were *influenced* by his experiences in WWI and WWII. So the tumblr post is just wrong.
LOTR can be read as a breakdown of how war trauma affects different people. Some, like Aragorn, become great leaders, some form lifelong friendships that change them forever (Legolas and Gimli), some achieve authority and recognition (Pippin and Merry), some acclimate to peace and become keystones for their communities, like Sam. And of course, some never truly heal from the trauma, like Frodo.
Tolkien hated allegory as a concept, preferring applicability of the reader to the story.
Reading this sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions, and I got a little misty when I got to the part about Frodo. I don't think I ever really thought of it in these terms before and tbh I find it beautiful and tragic in equal measure.
It's important to note he's not broken by the trauma. He doesn't desire vengeance nor does he flee from a fight when it's necessary. But he carries that weariness of conflict with him.
It’s less about allegory and universal shared symbols of the human experience. From how absolute power corrupts absolutely, to the small everyday niceties like a good cooked meal and the net good from doing small acts of kindness.
Yeah, IMHO tolkiens isn't telling "a" story, he's telling "the" story. This is Joseph Campbell shit. LOTR is an isekai story and gandalf is the truck that hits frodo.
Fuck this shit. Mordor had an airforce. Sauron was a powerful sorcerer with multiple Palantir. There's no way the eagles got near his realm w/o being burned out of the sky.
Pretty sure the Eagles spent most of the time alongside the Dwarves fighting the drakes and orcs coming down from the north. There was an entire war going on everywhere. Not just Rohan and Gondor.
There were major battles in Erebor, but I don't think either drakes or eagles were involved. The eagles did show up while major fighting was still going on in the Battle of the Black Gate. They brought down the Nazgul/ fell beasts
My understanding is that the One Ring enhances the qualities of the wearer. Frodo, Sam, and Sméagol are all Hobbits, and Hobbits are naturally sneaky (see The Hobbit for more). Isildur didn’t turn invisible when he had the One Ring, but other qualities. I suppose the person to ask would have to be Ngugi, so check his profile to see if there’s a post on this?
Hextar
Yeah, he also created literally three different languages for the seried, a history leading back centuries, a FUCKING BIBLE...
Helixninja333
I also wonder if they were a bit insulted/coy when someone asks, "Hey, is this clear & nearly blunt subtext in your writing about the horrors of war actually about them?" "Nooooooooo, not at all! You're just imagining things!"
Cyrakhis
David Drake did that with sci-fi, HEAVILY coloured by his experience in Vietnam
Imalwaysready
I really love the 2005 Narnia film where there is the WWII bombing run near the beginning and then later, when we see the griffins and other flying animals attack in the big battle, they mimic the planes’ earlier movements, peeling off and dive bombing, etc. Really cool parallelism.
Xenarion
Well here's the thing: it can be partially inspired by it without being directly related to it, or meant as an allegory. It most likely is, on a subconscious level. The human brain works by pattern recognition. Whatever experience we had, whatever patterns we saw, we tend to replicate in our art and other works.
VinchVolt
i think the best way to look at it is through the same lens of understanding the self-admitted catholicism of the books -- consciously connected through themes, but literal correspondence is solely subconscious.
LincLoud
Meanwhile, you get Ambrose Bierce who is very blunt about the horrors of war in his work.
TootiesMagooties
It's impossible for Tolkien to experience war and write about war and not carry his personal experience, but his overall world is one that he doesn't want associated with ww1
SleepyHollowAppleTree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming
southoffrance
A classic example is Mervyn Peake who wrote the superb Gormenghast trilogy. The final book is heavily influenced by him being one of the first civilians to see the horrors of Belsen.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-14015945
Eiladar
Not just British. Felix Salten (Austrian) wrote Bambi (yes, that Bambi) in 1923. It was pretty damn grim - considerably more than the movie. Some folks saw it as an allegory for the oppression and conditions of the post-WW1 era. By the time he wrote the sequel (1939), it got downright fatalistic due to watching the rise of Nazi Germany from the inside looking out.
PeppiriusPeppersusscrofa
Isn't the allegory in Bambi intentional though?
Eiladar
Likely, yes - I just haven't seen anything from the author to confirm it.
yellowgage
That's not remotely what Tolkien claimed. He got pissed about people repeatedly asking if it was an allegory for ww1 or 2. It was not. But the relationships between British officers and their vallets (batmen) inspired the Frodo/Sam dynamic. And he never claimed Mordor wasn't patterned after ravaged ww1 battlefields. And plenty of other personal experiences had influences
TI99Kitty
This. He wrote about *a* war, and the the effects it has on people, but it wasn't a re-telling or re-imagining of a *specific* war.
softsuit
All I hear is LOTR this and LOTR that. The Hobbit was what we read out loud in 6th Grade. That would have last millennium in the 19th Century 68th year you slackers. Prepping up for the suck of getting drafted in Vietnam. Read it chapter by chapter out loud; and you had better be prepared or palyground was a bitch. That was and will remain my boss teacher. Wait for the eagles.
friendsofsandwiches
And they WALK WALK WALK WALK...
ladyfirewitch9000
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1b3J5cHRtbHhyZGppbnlqem1waXc0OGlwcDFmaWVmZnlsYXlrdjhjZiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/CjJoc2wv5zoOI/200w.webp
InfocalypseRising
THIS IS MY BOOK MOTHERFUCKER, THEY'LL WALK IF I TELL THEM TO
cousteau
Oh god, I had forgotten that one. https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/1001523
FireSolvesProblems
It has no right being that catchy.
jonhamsandwich11
Watership Down?
Hecticombrage
Man, I can't believe I was so blinded by the Furry Aeneid of it all that I didn't notice it was also WW2
Hexrowe
It even opens with a nightmarish gas attack...
Forensickle
And the Nazi bunnies are a pretty big tell
turbodog
As a child, that was nightmare fuel.
crashmat
It had that cute theme song, saw it in the cinema and the trauma never left me.
tanebot
"It's a cartoon", they said, "we'll put it on for the kids." Yeah I was like 6 and I was *not prepared*.
Bohrdumb
jonhamsandwich11
Huh
Nailed it
Cornflakes91
that is ww2 tho :V post said ww1
Redoneter593
Still applies.
Tinyfish3
Similar idea though.
BurningVeryImportantThings
In high school I once mixed up who served in what war and wrote an entire paper about J.D. Salinger and how ww1 influenced his writing... Teacher gave me a B because for the most part it was a good paper.
arikelrecords2000
Here you go.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1YjZqZHBpZTdxNzZlZ3Q5bWR1ZmkzdTY0NDRxbTg5bXdoOXhrZ2RvZiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/1wq4d4PXpvyN3bDDDj/200w.webp
JayDeeDubs
Tolkien denied LotR being an allegory for World War 2. I don't think he ever denied WWI having an influence on his writing though. I know he wrote about the influence of British batmen on Frodo and Sam's relationship
TMPudding
CS Lewis, rhubarb, rhubarb.
Jattetont
Not only did he not deny it, he explicitly pointed to it to remind people that HIS big wartime experience was WWI:
"One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
FruitFlyInStrangePlaces
Yeah it wasn't allegory, it was very blatantly a story about how war affect people individually and what hells they go through to become what they're needed to be, wanted or not, and the failures along the way.
InDubiousBattle
Tolkien was also going by a very strict definition of allegory, where *everything* is a symbol for something else or other idea.
Leave it to the philologist and scholar of Old English to be a bit of a pedant about the meanings of words.
TheBigBadBonerBiter
IIRC another big part of it for him was that allegory requires authorial intent. Lived experiences slipping in and shaping the story unconsciously wouldn't be allegory, but sitting down and actively saying "This story is about my time in the war" would be.
GhostBear3067
He would considering he started writing it before WWII.
aerophex
Wonderfully parodied in Archer
CommodusLeitdorf
Tolkien very explicitly states in the prologue that the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory. But yeah people tend to write about their own experiences so it will rub off one way or another.
shitheadtookmyname
Yeah an allegory would be intentional.
Jattetont
It's not an allegory in the way Animal Farm is an allegory, where you can say "Comrade Napoleon is Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky, this event is the Holodomor," etc.
Some were arguing that TLOTR is "really" about WWII: that Sauron is Hitler and so on. Tolkien objected that this was not so; it is its own story. But he never denied that his ideas and writing were *influenced* by his experiences in WWI and WWII. So the tumblr post is just wrong.
Zedrapazia
I'd simply say that getting inspired by something isn't the same as an allegory.
Nengex
LOTR can be read as a breakdown of how war trauma affects different people. Some, like Aragorn, become great leaders, some form lifelong friendships that change them forever (Legolas and Gimli), some achieve authority and recognition (Pippin and Merry), some acclimate to peace and become keystones for their communities, like Sam. And of course, some never truly heal from the trauma, like Frodo.
Tolkien hated allegory as a concept, preferring applicability of the reader to the story.
rossimus
Reading this sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions, and I got a little misty when I got to the part about Frodo. I don't think I ever really thought of it in these terms before and tbh I find it beautiful and tragic in equal measure.
Camelspotting
It's important to note he's not broken by the trauma. He doesn't desire vengeance nor does he flee from a fight when it's necessary. But he carries that weariness of conflict with him.
AnonKneeMoose
It’s less about allegory and universal shared symbols of the human experience. From how absolute power corrupts absolutely, to the small everyday niceties like a good cooked meal and the net good from doing small acts of kindness.
AnonKneeMoose
Tolkien despised evangelism, and so any kind of author’s intent to preach a specific worldview, would be abhorrent
astrangehop
Yeah, IMHO tolkiens isn't telling "a" story, he's telling "the" story. This is Joseph Campbell shit. LOTR is an isekai story and gandalf is the truck that hits frodo.
AnonKneeMoose
What?
TMPudding
Slacker eagles turning up after all the serious dying's been done.
43crash92
Soooooo the Americans?
mithiwithi
cousteau
Ride booking apps had quite some lag back then.
tanebot
They were busy doing important eagle shit elsewhere. Can't be everywhere at once.
yellowgage
Fuck this shit. Mordor had an airforce. Sauron was a powerful sorcerer with multiple Palantir. There's no way the eagles got near his realm w/o being burned out of the sky.
yellowgage
And they showed up during the Battle of the Morannon (Black Gate) to fight the Nazgul/fell beasts. That's kind of a big deal
Nengex
Pretty sure the Eagles spent most of the time alongside the Dwarves fighting the drakes and orcs coming down from the north. There was an entire war going on everywhere. Not just Rohan and Gondor.
rossimus
Wait WHAT
yellowgage
There were major battles in Erebor, but I don't think either drakes or eagles were involved. The eagles did show up while major fighting was still going on in the Battle of the Black Gate. They brought down the Nazgul/ fell beasts
Wapusk
Also, the last thing you want is a giant INVISIBLE bird of prey tainted by the Ring's evil.
PipWhipple
Now hold on, evil or no, an invisible mode of flight sounds wonderful! People would get SO confused seeing a sitting person zoom by.
Wapusk
Wonder Woman might tell you people can look right up your skirt.
FlyingGiantElk
They wouldn’t have been invisible if they had the One Ring.
Wapusk
Are Smegol, Bilbo, and Frodo made invisible because they aew hobbits? (No shade, I honestly don't really know.)
FlyingGiantElk
My understanding is that the One Ring enhances the qualities of the wearer. Frodo, Sam, and Sméagol are all Hobbits, and Hobbits are naturally sneaky (see The Hobbit for more). Isildur didn’t turn invisible when he had the One Ring, but other qualities.
I suppose the person to ask would have to be Ngugi, so check his profile to see if there’s a post on this?