The Subversion of Middle-Earth
Tolkien’s Symphony of Virtue Meets Hollywood
by Garrin W. Dickinson
On December 19, 2001, the long-anticipated cinematic event of the decade opened—The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of Peter Jackson’s film rendition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. The movie opened to rave reviews and Golden Globe nominations. Many of the Christians I know even liked it. But I believe that both these viewers and the director himself have missed something of supreme importance in Tolkien’s work.
The Real Value of the Story
I first heard The Lord of the Rings read by my father when I was five years old and have returned to it again and again. With apologies to the psalmist, I lived with this story “until the iron entered into my soul.” I found in it an unadulterated tribute to virtue—virtue in its many forms and guises. The virtue of the great and of the less: faithfulness, courage, justice, courtesy, kindness, self-control, long-suffering, costly repentance, true humility—in short, righteousness, agape.
In my ongoing struggle up the path of Christian maturity, Tolkien’s exposition has been my roadmap. This statement might scandalize some people; certainly I would never consider Tolkien a basis for doctrine. But his story shows truth and virtue in a way that the Church rarely does. His foray into the realm of Faerie has the power to inculcate in the reader a desire to be righteous and a vision of what righteousness looks like. I know, because it did that for me.
I believe that Tolkien’s work can be powerful pre-apologetic material. Written in the twentieth century, it draws on the strengths of ancient and medieval literature to build something that exceeds its sources: a vision of truth and virtue that is completely countercultural. Thousands of pagans love The Lord of the Rings and don’t know why it is worth loving. Thousands more will see the movies. A faithful rendition might have been a great force in bringing people to the Light.
But instead of faithfully representing the spirit of the book, Jackson has reduced the story to a hack-and-slash “sword and sorcery” yarn on a par with Conan the Barbarian, thus emphasizing from the book only what is not countercultural. The movies may even help to inoculate many people against the real value of the story.
Strength, Goodness & Simplicity
Jackson undervalues and misrepresents Tolkien’s various expressions of goodness and virtue and strength. One case in point is the character of Elrond. While Tolkien’s Elf-lord is powerful, he is nothing if not courteous. He is a paragon of wisdom and almost impossible to ruffle. He may at times be stern, but he is always kind. However, the only way the movie seems to be able to portray strength is with a scowl. Jackson’s Elrond has a chip on his shoulder, a 3,000-year-old unresolved grievance with the Man Isildur, who did not destroy the Ring when he had the chance. He speaks disparagingly about his future son-in-law Aragorn, to whom (in the book) he is a surrogate father figure. He never smiles but is always acerbic and irascible. In fact, none of the Elves ever laughs or really smiles, though their race is supposedly renowned for merriment and singing.
If Jackson misrepresents the Elves, it is the humble Hobbits who suffer the worst from his lack of understanding of virtue. Tolkien’s Hobbits (at least the members of the Fellowship) are simple but basically virtuous. Indeed, one might say that their virtue grows out of their simplicity. We laugh at them out of identification. It is the warm laughter of finding a friend in an unexpected place. They, like us, fight the petty battles of physical comforts and “stick-in-the-mud-ness,” but they also win the small battles of friendship and loyalty that finally add up to great victories over evil.
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