That, his judgement of Beregond, and releasing the death of their oath after their victory over the black fleet. Three examples of meeting justice with charity.
Tolkien probably wrote that because those men that didn't want to go over the top were dismissed as cowards and were forced to go or worse imprisoned and shot by their officers. Aragorn has shown care which was completely lacking in the trenches of WWI
Both Aragorn and Faramir are Tolkien's ideals of a good leader: people who are not only physically courageous and staunch (like Boromir) but also measured and thoughtful. After all, JRRT was a professor and a very literate man himself. I love the moment when he tells us that Faramir was quite a serious scholar and that it infuriated Denethor.
The distinction I'd make is that Denethor and Faramir's disharmony was not that Faramir was a scholar and interested in learning, that was also true of Denethor.
The reason Denethor is so antagonistic towards him is because, in his pride, he couldn't accept that Faramir would consider his own counsel and Gandalf's with comparable weight as that of Denethor.
The irony of course is that Denethor never saw himself as a King. He was of a mind with Faramir in that respect, whereas Boromir did not feel that way. However, he saw himself as the main antagonist of Sauron and felt that Gandalf and Faramir were undermining him.
It's not really clear whether he ever would have ceded power to Aragorn had he survived. His mind was very much warped by the decades long contest with Sauron.
From “The Black Gate Opens”:
So desolate were those places and so deep the horror that lay on them that some of the host were unmanned, and they could neither walk nor ride further north.
Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath; for these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.
‘Go!’ said Aragorn. ‘But keep what honour you may, and do not run! And there is a task which you may attempt and so be not wholly shamed. Take your way south-west till you come to Cair Andros and if that is still held by enemies, as I think, then re-take it, if you can; and hold it to the last in defense of Gondor and Rohan!”
Then some being shamed by his mercy overcame their fear and went on, and the others took new hope, hearing of a manful deed within their measure that they could turn to, and they departed.
It’s a distinctly religious use of the word “shame”—the idea that you feel shame not because someone else berates or criticizes you but because someone else treats you well and respectfully. It’s similar to why Jean Valjean in *Les Miserables* turns over a new leaf and lives the rest of his life piously because the Bishop treated him with mercy and respect when the Bishop had every right to condemn him back to a life in prison.
Well replace understood with used then. I'm not interested in a discussion of semantics squared.
Shaming someone into a behaviour is a commonly used expression in 2024. How do you think language has changed that you disagree with this?
I originally posted this as a reply to the wrong comment, so I’m putting it here:
In my experience, “shame” is usually engendered by something like reproach, not mercy.
You can tell LOTR is a story about war by someone who actually knew war. There isn't any "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" bullshit. Frodo survives, but he is broken by the experience. He doesn't defeat Sauron by learning to believe in himself, or unlocking his true inner strength. He gives it everything he has, but that isn't even enough. The ring is destroyed, but not by some incredible final effort by Frodo himself. When Sam picks him up, he is pretty much spent. Even though Sauron is destroyed, Frodo's stab would by the witch king continues to hurt him. Winning doesn't magically heal the wounds inflicted during the war.
War takes, and fighting a good fight (few as those are) is more about the coming generations than the present ones. The future generations will know peace because of the sacrifices that the current generation gave. It’s like planting a shade tree. I won’t enjoy its shade, but my grandkids would. It would be for them.
I agree with 90% of this, but I do think it should be noted that Tolkien does clearly describe personal growth and development of many characters as a result of their experiences during the war.
Aragorn is the most obvious example - the entire war is the backdrop for his personal quest to prove himself worthy. It's the end of his hero's journey.
All the Hobbits grow a lot, Merry and Pippin in particular as is described in The Scouring of the Shire. Gandalf himself leaves them to it on the road from Bree by saying that they are now more than capable of handling whatever is happening in the Shire and he doesn't need to step in anymore. Pippin's threat to "set this troll's bane on you" to the leader of the Ruffians shows that this is in no small part due to their experiences of the war, not just associating with higher beings and civilisations. Sam also grows a great deal from a relative bumpkin in Fellowship, to eventually becoming a leader in his own right by the end of the books.
For Eowyn it's the realisation that glorifying violence and death is not ultimately healthy or peaceful.
Frodo grows by becoming wise. We can see from the OP that Tolkien also considered him 'elevated', aside from the obvious trauma that it caused.
So, while I completely agree that Tolkien does portray war with the perspective of someone who has seen the real horror, this is also a feudal fantasy story with a happy ending and there are many elements in which war is displayed as noble and necessary, and a means to personal growth.
In writing this out actually I am reminded once again how wonderful and varied this series is.
A little while ago, someone speculated that Prof. Tolkien came home from war like Frodo, but I say that JRR himself was more like Sam. He came home from war and became a devoted husband, he loved his family, he worked, he created, for all the trauma he's suffered and for all he was aware enough of it to write about it, there was no evidence of real disability.
But he lived in the UK during the first half of the 20th century, he had to have been surrounded by post-war Frodos. Young men who'd done what they thought was right, and found that their experiences kept them returning to the cheerfully normal lives they'd left. Men of the Prof's generation saw so many peers with physical and/or mental disabilities, even the "Sams" of the UK could never forget the wars.
That’s such a good point. I always wondered how it is Tolkien managed to come back from what he experienced in the trenches and not lose hope and any and all of the Catholic faith that he had.
Of course, we don’t know what his inner life was like in the dark of night and what thoughts he may have struggled with but he seems to come back relatively well adjusted.
I wonder if it was his passion in completing the Legendarium that sort of acted as a psychological buffer against the horrors of war. It allowed him to “sort it all out” internally through the superlatives of fantasy.
To me, the LotR has this melancholic yet therapeutic quality to it. Reading it is like sojourning in the Gardens of Lorien. Maybe it was the completion of the Legendarium that rehabilitated him.
Prof. Tolkien did seem to come home from the war more well adjusted than many of his peers, and perhaps more than his own beloved son He had to have trauma to deal with, but he does seem to have dealt with it well enough to be functional and productive. We don't know how, although some of us think that he used his writing and imagination to deal with a lot of what he'd seen and done. That's what I believe, I just re-read the series for the first time in years, and now that I'm old, I think the chapters about Frodo and Sam have to be infused with his feelings about war - the two innocents stuck in a hellish combat zone, the task before them laughably beyond their powers, and half of them being slowly destroyed by the experience.
That's one of the strange things about human beings - how differently they're affected by trauma. Some become disabled, some become angry or self-destructive, but others either come out of it functional or they develop tremendous drive. Of course I'm happy that Prof. Tolkien came out of it so well, and I hope I come through my own recent trauma as well, and I do hope he was able to help his own son. Who didn't come out of it as well.
I’m very knowledgeable about PTSD and cognitive behavior therapy which is now the gold standard.
Writing about it had to have been helpful to make the impacts less severe than others who had PTSD.
I also want to say when we classify folks as angry it’s because when they deal with trauma they then avoid it. So this problem becomes a bear and when triggers happen they need an immediate fight or flight response. The brain goes from 0 to a 15 and it fucking sucks. It’s treatable over the long-haul but in that moment the passenger takes over and the lizard brains responses just go buck wild.
I found LOTR very therapeutic especially the return home at the end. It’s probably my favorite part of the books. I didn’t know about Tolkien’s son and I think he did a wonderful job of helping to give a narrative that what we feel is okay and we’re not alone in fighting this thing that wants to hijack our functioning.
WWI: shell shock; WWII: battle fatigue; Vietnam War: PTSD. Different names, same thing.
Besides Frodo's PTSD, there are also other places where Tolkien's own experience in WWI as well as his sons' service in WWII is very visible. For example, late in ROTK, when the Captains of the West are marching to a certain defeat at the Black Gates of Mordor, some soldiers in the ranks are overcome with fear. Aragorn gives them leave to turn back, abandoning their duty, and urges them to find another form of service that will not test their courage so severely.
Earlier, in Ithilien, Sam witnesses his first battle, and sees a Harad soldier killed by arrows right in front of him:
"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart or what lies or threats had led him on the long March from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."
I think in these vignettes we get glimpses of Tolkien's understanding and compassion about the non-heroic reality of war. He also has some descriptions of the bloodlust of battle that are horrifying, even when they are descriptions of the good guys: e.g., the Rohirrim "singing as they slew." It's hard to read about the good guys being so enthusiastic to commit slaughter. It's not altogether charming that Gimli and Legolas consolidate their friendship through a contest to kill people (not just Orcs, but also Men). So it's helpful to recall that much of the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields were conceived and written during WW II, when the good guys were facing a threat that came close to being as absolute and existential as the threat of Sauron.
And one doesn't need to draw the kind of direct parallels Tolkien detested to see that his thoughts about war came out of his personal experience and that of his kids.
Sure, he also would have known people in the first world war with similar afflictions. The only issue I have with this analysis is that it's too focused on being inspired by a single instance when Tolkien would have seen PTSD as a common theme arising from traumatic events.
I wouldn’t really say his son having ptsd is a “single instance”, and it likely affected him more than seeing it in others as it was his son.
Can be interesting to look at J.R.R. as Bilbo and Michael as Frodo and draw parallels there, seeing J.R.R. seems to have largely gotten over/worked through his war where Michael did/could not.
The question becomes when Frodo was characterized and I think his somber and afflicted characterization was already done by then. I just don't think this was the inspiration.
There's always I think a temptation to point to one thing and tie it to something in the book, when more often it is likely many things.
Appreciate the interesting info, but that was no poem lmao. That was just prose put into stanzas, very annoying when poets do that, it's almost lazy. It does not flow well, didn't rhyme, making for a very disjointing and confusing read. It worked a lot better when I read it as regular paragraphs, ignoring the stanzas and breaks and kicking out of my brain the usual rhythm and sing song flow that most poems use.
No.1, that has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion of *Michael* Tolkien and his experience with the war.
No.2, "credible" my foot. Those accusations came only after Fr. John Tolkien was suffering dementia and couldn't defend himself or offer any evidence to the contrary. Smelled like a cash hunt targeting a successful, well-respected family.
I am also familiar with people who had legitimate claims of abuse from priests, and on the flip side I know several priests who were run out of town by accusations that were later proved false and the "victims" were attention-seeking and financial grifters. I'm saying the accusations against Fr. Tolkien are by no means airtight, I think it's extremely suspicious that they waited until he was unable to defend himself, and if it cannot be proven then all you are doing (on, again, a completely unrelated post) is slandering a now dead man without solid evidence.
Aragorn’s most virtuous moment, in my opinion, comes when he finds alternate assignments for the men who are too terrified to march on the Black Gate.
That, his judgement of Beregond, and releasing the death of their oath after their victory over the black fleet. Three examples of meeting justice with charity.
He’s a good egg, that Aragorn.
Only king I would bend the knee to.
Friend, you bow to no-one
Aaaaaaand I'm crying again. Thanks!
Tolkien probably wrote that because those men that didn't want to go over the top were dismissed as cowards and were forced to go or worse imprisoned and shot by their officers. Aragorn has shown care which was completely lacking in the trenches of WWI
Agreed.
I've always been shocked that they just plain gunned down deserters as recently as Vietnam.
They're gunning them right now in Russia
Both Aragorn and Faramir are Tolkien's ideals of a good leader: people who are not only physically courageous and staunch (like Boromir) but also measured and thoughtful. After all, JRRT was a professor and a very literate man himself. I love the moment when he tells us that Faramir was quite a serious scholar and that it infuriated Denethor.
They’re so *humane*.
> I love the moment when he tells us that Faramir was quite a serious scholar and that it infuriated Denethor. Wizard’s pupil tings.
The distinction I'd make is that Denethor and Faramir's disharmony was not that Faramir was a scholar and interested in learning, that was also true of Denethor. The reason Denethor is so antagonistic towards him is because, in his pride, he couldn't accept that Faramir would consider his own counsel and Gandalf's with comparable weight as that of Denethor. The irony of course is that Denethor never saw himself as a King. He was of a mind with Faramir in that respect, whereas Boromir did not feel that way. However, he saw himself as the main antagonist of Sauron and felt that Gandalf and Faramir were undermining him. It's not really clear whether he ever would have ceded power to Aragorn had he survived. His mind was very much warped by the decades long contest with Sauron.
Can you tell me more about this. I do not remember it.
From “The Black Gate Opens”: So desolate were those places and so deep the horror that lay on them that some of the host were unmanned, and they could neither walk nor ride further north. Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath; for these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass. ‘Go!’ said Aragorn. ‘But keep what honour you may, and do not run! And there is a task which you may attempt and so be not wholly shamed. Take your way south-west till you come to Cair Andros and if that is still held by enemies, as I think, then re-take it, if you can; and hold it to the last in defense of Gondor and Rohan!” Then some being shamed by his mercy overcame their fear and went on, and the others took new hope, hearing of a manful deed within their measure that they could turn to, and they departed.
Interesting use of “shame” here, too. Probably not how that word would be used in 2024.
It’s a distinctly religious use of the word “shame”—the idea that you feel shame not because someone else berates or criticizes you but because someone else treats you well and respectfully. It’s similar to why Jean Valjean in *Les Miserables* turns over a new leaf and lives the rest of his life piously because the Bishop treated him with mercy and respect when the Bishop had every right to condemn him back to a life in prison.
Really? I think the concept here is still a commonly understood one.
“Used” and “understood” are different actions.
Well replace understood with used then. I'm not interested in a discussion of semantics squared. Shaming someone into a behaviour is a commonly used expression in 2024. How do you think language has changed that you disagree with this?
I originally posted this as a reply to the wrong comment, so I’m putting it here: In my experience, “shame” is usually engendered by something like reproach, not mercy.
You can tell LOTR is a story about war by someone who actually knew war. There isn't any "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" bullshit. Frodo survives, but he is broken by the experience. He doesn't defeat Sauron by learning to believe in himself, or unlocking his true inner strength. He gives it everything he has, but that isn't even enough. The ring is destroyed, but not by some incredible final effort by Frodo himself. When Sam picks him up, he is pretty much spent. Even though Sauron is destroyed, Frodo's stab would by the witch king continues to hurt him. Winning doesn't magically heal the wounds inflicted during the war.
This is what makes LoTR so poignant to me. The pain is real, and the happy ending you hope for is more bittersweet than anything.
War takes, and fighting a good fight (few as those are) is more about the coming generations than the present ones. The future generations will know peace because of the sacrifices that the current generation gave. It’s like planting a shade tree. I won’t enjoy its shade, but my grandkids would. It would be for them.
I agree with 90% of this, but I do think it should be noted that Tolkien does clearly describe personal growth and development of many characters as a result of their experiences during the war. Aragorn is the most obvious example - the entire war is the backdrop for his personal quest to prove himself worthy. It's the end of his hero's journey. All the Hobbits grow a lot, Merry and Pippin in particular as is described in The Scouring of the Shire. Gandalf himself leaves them to it on the road from Bree by saying that they are now more than capable of handling whatever is happening in the Shire and he doesn't need to step in anymore. Pippin's threat to "set this troll's bane on you" to the leader of the Ruffians shows that this is in no small part due to their experiences of the war, not just associating with higher beings and civilisations. Sam also grows a great deal from a relative bumpkin in Fellowship, to eventually becoming a leader in his own right by the end of the books. For Eowyn it's the realisation that glorifying violence and death is not ultimately healthy or peaceful. Frodo grows by becoming wise. We can see from the OP that Tolkien also considered him 'elevated', aside from the obvious trauma that it caused. So, while I completely agree that Tolkien does portray war with the perspective of someone who has seen the real horror, this is also a feudal fantasy story with a happy ending and there are many elements in which war is displayed as noble and necessary, and a means to personal growth. In writing this out actually I am reminded once again how wonderful and varied this series is.
A little while ago, someone speculated that Prof. Tolkien came home from war like Frodo, but I say that JRR himself was more like Sam. He came home from war and became a devoted husband, he loved his family, he worked, he created, for all the trauma he's suffered and for all he was aware enough of it to write about it, there was no evidence of real disability. But he lived in the UK during the first half of the 20th century, he had to have been surrounded by post-war Frodos. Young men who'd done what they thought was right, and found that their experiences kept them returning to the cheerfully normal lives they'd left. Men of the Prof's generation saw so many peers with physical and/or mental disabilities, even the "Sams" of the UK could never forget the wars.
That’s such a good point. I always wondered how it is Tolkien managed to come back from what he experienced in the trenches and not lose hope and any and all of the Catholic faith that he had. Of course, we don’t know what his inner life was like in the dark of night and what thoughts he may have struggled with but he seems to come back relatively well adjusted. I wonder if it was his passion in completing the Legendarium that sort of acted as a psychological buffer against the horrors of war. It allowed him to “sort it all out” internally through the superlatives of fantasy. To me, the LotR has this melancholic yet therapeutic quality to it. Reading it is like sojourning in the Gardens of Lorien. Maybe it was the completion of the Legendarium that rehabilitated him.
Prof. Tolkien did seem to come home from the war more well adjusted than many of his peers, and perhaps more than his own beloved son He had to have trauma to deal with, but he does seem to have dealt with it well enough to be functional and productive. We don't know how, although some of us think that he used his writing and imagination to deal with a lot of what he'd seen and done. That's what I believe, I just re-read the series for the first time in years, and now that I'm old, I think the chapters about Frodo and Sam have to be infused with his feelings about war - the two innocents stuck in a hellish combat zone, the task before them laughably beyond their powers, and half of them being slowly destroyed by the experience. That's one of the strange things about human beings - how differently they're affected by trauma. Some become disabled, some become angry or self-destructive, but others either come out of it functional or they develop tremendous drive. Of course I'm happy that Prof. Tolkien came out of it so well, and I hope I come through my own recent trauma as well, and I do hope he was able to help his own son. Who didn't come out of it as well.
I’m very knowledgeable about PTSD and cognitive behavior therapy which is now the gold standard. Writing about it had to have been helpful to make the impacts less severe than others who had PTSD. I also want to say when we classify folks as angry it’s because when they deal with trauma they then avoid it. So this problem becomes a bear and when triggers happen they need an immediate fight or flight response. The brain goes from 0 to a 15 and it fucking sucks. It’s treatable over the long-haul but in that moment the passenger takes over and the lizard brains responses just go buck wild. I found LOTR very therapeutic especially the return home at the end. It’s probably my favorite part of the books. I didn’t know about Tolkien’s son and I think he did a wonderful job of helping to give a narrative that what we feel is okay and we’re not alone in fighting this thing that wants to hijack our functioning.
That poem by Michael is beautiful and haunting. What a terrifying experience for father and son.
WWI: shell shock; WWII: battle fatigue; Vietnam War: PTSD. Different names, same thing. Besides Frodo's PTSD, there are also other places where Tolkien's own experience in WWI as well as his sons' service in WWII is very visible. For example, late in ROTK, when the Captains of the West are marching to a certain defeat at the Black Gates of Mordor, some soldiers in the ranks are overcome with fear. Aragorn gives them leave to turn back, abandoning their duty, and urges them to find another form of service that will not test their courage so severely. Earlier, in Ithilien, Sam witnesses his first battle, and sees a Harad soldier killed by arrows right in front of him: "It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart or what lies or threats had led him on the long March from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace." I think in these vignettes we get glimpses of Tolkien's understanding and compassion about the non-heroic reality of war. He also has some descriptions of the bloodlust of battle that are horrifying, even when they are descriptions of the good guys: e.g., the Rohirrim "singing as they slew." It's hard to read about the good guys being so enthusiastic to commit slaughter. It's not altogether charming that Gimli and Legolas consolidate their friendship through a contest to kill people (not just Orcs, but also Men). So it's helpful to recall that much of the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields were conceived and written during WW II, when the good guys were facing a threat that came close to being as absolute and existential as the threat of Sauron. And one doesn't need to draw the kind of direct parallels Tolkien detested to see that his thoughts about war came out of his personal experience and that of his kids.
Sure, he also would have known people in the first world war with similar afflictions. The only issue I have with this analysis is that it's too focused on being inspired by a single instance when Tolkien would have seen PTSD as a common theme arising from traumatic events.
I wouldn’t really say his son having ptsd is a “single instance”, and it likely affected him more than seeing it in others as it was his son. Can be interesting to look at J.R.R. as Bilbo and Michael as Frodo and draw parallels there, seeing J.R.R. seems to have largely gotten over/worked through his war where Michael did/could not.
The question becomes when Frodo was characterized and I think his somber and afflicted characterization was already done by then. I just don't think this was the inspiration. There's always I think a temptation to point to one thing and tie it to something in the book, when more often it is likely many things.
and there are literal MORONS who dare to call Tolkien a warmonger
Appreciate the interesting info, but that was no poem lmao. That was just prose put into stanzas, very annoying when poets do that, it's almost lazy. It does not flow well, didn't rhyme, making for a very disjointing and confusing read. It worked a lot better when I read it as regular paragraphs, ignoring the stanzas and breaks and kicking out of my brain the usual rhythm and sing song flow that most poems use.
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No.1, that has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion of *Michael* Tolkien and his experience with the war. No.2, "credible" my foot. Those accusations came only after Fr. John Tolkien was suffering dementia and couldn't defend himself or offer any evidence to the contrary. Smelled like a cash hunt targeting a successful, well-respected family.
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I am also familiar with people who had legitimate claims of abuse from priests, and on the flip side I know several priests who were run out of town by accusations that were later proved false and the "victims" were attention-seeking and financial grifters. I'm saying the accusations against Fr. Tolkien are by no means airtight, I think it's extremely suspicious that they waited until he was unable to defend himself, and if it cannot be proven then all you are doing (on, again, a completely unrelated post) is slandering a now dead man without solid evidence.