[ SECRET POST #2902 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2902 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 058 secrets from Secret Submission Post #415.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've always wondered if there was some small correlation between the differences in (the perception of) the world wars and the differences in tone/theme between the Hobbit and LotR. He wrote the Hobbit in the 30s, closer in time to his experiences in WWI, and the final conflict of the Hobbit is essentially a massive political cock-up over greed, grudges and alliances with some genuinely evil beings/armies crashing the party (and sparked by one titanic death). LotR, on the other hand, was written in the late 30s and 40s, while WWII was going on around him, and its final conflict is a vast heroic struggle between an unambiguously evil empire and an alliance of all good races. Those outlooks fit reasonably well with the popular perceptions of WWI and WWII respectively.

It's definitely more thematic a connection than an attempt to redo a historical conflict in a fantasy world, yes, but the world wars are definitely there on an emotional level. Particularly in the Hobbit, I think. Bilbo's desire to just go home, his impatience with the old wars and old grudges of this foreign land he's been thrown into, his despair at the endless conflict ... It does have a strong 'WWI through the eyes of a British soldier' vibe to it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well you could certainly read Bilbo that way and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong. But when it comes to lotr and WWI the part that's most relevant is Frodo's part of the story - that's where the WWI themes are strongest & certainly frodo is more the soldier in the trenches than Bilbo however much aragorn's story may be hopeful. My own tendency has been to read lotr as a confrontation between ancient, heroic, mythic, religious on the one hand and modern on the other, with aragorn broadly being the central character of the first part and frodo of the second but that's far more tenuous and in any case doubtful than the association of Frodo's quest with wwi.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really know if it helps, but Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey believes that Tolkien deliberately designed Frodo, Bilbo and the other hobbits to be more modern than the rest of the races in Middle-earth, so that they might stand as "translators" or "gateways" between the ancient, mythic world of Middle-earth and the readers in the present.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure sure. And even if it weren't so it's hard not to notice their Englishness or the deep England fantasia that is the Shire, or the tonal difference between Hobbits and men, dwarves, elves, etc, and even tonal differences between hobbits. And very interesting in this context definitely.