The Lord of the Rings Rewatch: Deities

Tonight, I watched the second part of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings. You know, the one with the Balrog and Moria and Lorien and the death of Boromir. The Happy Part. But since I watched the movie last, and the last time I read the books, I've read a LOT of other fantasy literature. And after reading all of that other fantasy literature, I can say for certain that Lord of the Rings is missing something that almost everyone else includes as a portion of their worldbuilding: gods.

They just aren't there. There are magical beings (Gandalf, Sauron, probably Aragorn, the Elves), but there is no lightning-bolt-throwing, mountain splitting, mind-reading Gods, or Goddesses, to be seen. This is equally ironic since Tolkien was probably the most religious fantasy writer of all time, being a faithful Catholic raised by a priest. Other authors, of course, have deity-free works of fiction, but many of them include some sort of religious establishment (the Faith of the Seven, for instance). Some are explicit about the artificial construction of deities (Steven Erickson of Malazan Book of the Fallen, for instance). Still others delight in tearing off the mask of deification and revealing human tyranny and oppression. But Tolkien takes none of these routes, opting for a strangely unorganized general sense of an order to the universe and very little overt religious structure at all.

And, due to a friend asking me to edit a paper, I've been thinking a lot about nihilism the past few days. Tolkien's works are hardly nihilistic - there is a purpose and a structure inherent in the universe - but he does not make that purpose explicit. In fact, it is inexplicable by design. Gandalf even says so, on numerous occasions, especially the famous quote, "so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. They must only decide what to do with the time that is given to them." This is, in fact, a rejection of finding out the ultimate purpose for Frodo's suffering and a call for doing the right thing despite the apparent nihilism of the universe.

For in Tolkien's world, there is no nihilism. There is an ultimate deity who created everything, who devolved responsibility for the world on His servants but interacts with humanity at strange and unpredictable intervals. This gives the appearance of nihilism (ever, and after a respite, the shadow rises again should be the lyrics to a Nightwish song), but the struggle of the characters themselves creates an inherent meaning in the universe that coincides with the purposes of Eru, the creator-deity.

Tolkien himself had seen a world devoid of purpose or meaning. He had slogged through the trenches of the Somme, had seen the reckless destruction of the Second World War, had seen the first atom bomb. He never learned to drive a car, but he lived long enough to see Oxford filled to the brim with the things. He lived through one of the most complex and quickly changing periods of human history. When he was born, cars did not exist and blackpowder was still used in rifles. When he died, computers were landing humans on the moon. But there is no techno-utopia or dystopian dread in his writing. Instead, there is this steady, patient struggle in a world almost devoid of meaning.

But Tolkien was a medievalist, so it is not surprising that he sees a purposeful and planned world even in the chaos of the World Wars. What is missing from a medieval worldview is the emphasis on the union between Heaven and Earth, between God and King. The Powers are almost entirely corrupt, astray or useless in the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond are true to their purpose, but Denethor of Gondor gives in to despair, Theoden of Rohan is under a spell, Saruman is power-hungry, Rhadagast is distant and the dwarves of Erebor are threatening to shut themselves in and ignore the troubles of the outside world. When you dig further into the past histories, though, even Galadriel and Elrond are rebelling against some greater power, a most unmedieval thing to approve of.

No, the heroes of Tolkien's stories are the hobbits, who live in anarchical splendor in a land of small-town near-subsistence and ignorance. When put to the test, four of them prove to be heroes and Ted Sandyman proves to be horrible. Merry and Pippin are the immature comic relief, but even they prove unconquerable in numerous battles. Frodo eventually succumbs to temptation, but holds out longer than all other heroes could have done. Sam not only resists temptation and surrenders the ring, but also takes his master to his doom.

For in the end, only something as strangely unpredictable and indomitable as hobbits could hope to resist Tolkien's evil for long. That is the true power of the Lord of the Rings, despite its lack of female representation and strangely not-racist but totally racist undertones. Evil is something that corrupts and no one is immune. It is the only absolute in this lived universe, the one thing that no one questions or doubts. In a sense, the only god that the characters actually experience is the evil of the Ring. And they are fighting it for a chance to smell flowers and sing songs and be free.

Lord of the Rings, then, is the religion of the future.