I'm a big fan of Lord Of The Rings, it's the best books I've ever read. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I will very soon. I was a little disappointed when I heard they had removed certain characters and events in the movie, I think that's kind of unfair to the original work. Anyway, I saw this button that said; Frodo Lives!... It made me think, I mean isn't Frodo the lost hero of all heroes? The one we win in the heart, but always lose in reality. It's the romantic image of Jesus that wanted to save the world and you start to think; why would a man so great, want to sacrifice himself to a world so cruel? I mean didn't we lose what was truly good in the world when these characters died?...
The end of Lord Of The Rings was just beautiful, melancholic and unique, just like the elves that went on. It moved my sensitivity and it made me think that despite of the fantasy theme to the story, it's not really that unreal. I mean if the world ever saw an end, wouldn't it be dark and extreme in it's own beautiful way? Wouldn't we have characters such as Frodo and Gandalf that fought for the good in their small ways and then lost in a big way, without even knowing it. Personally I feel the end was sad and extremely depressing, thinking about all the good things that came to an end in such a tragic way. From another point of view, you understand the serious depth behind Tolkien's work, the underlying realness to it's characters, when you reach the end of the story. It's then you feel that this could have happened in reality, in many ways it have. We've seen great people, that lived and died for the world. We remember them trough speeches that moved us, but nothing really change and you feel that these great things, are lost when they are gone. So how can we be like them? when we believe that the goodness in the world, are only born in their eyes and can truly only be expressed trough their actions. How lost is the world then, when we need dead heroes to save it...
In the end, I feel there are no other way the book could have ended. Frodo stands out as the unselfish true hero, in reference to all the other super heroes in literature, that wanted to be worshipped. He died for what he was fighting for and he did it for everyone else but himself. Does it matter then, that the world didn't turn out as planned? I think the goodness that we would lose to these heroes, is what truly doesn't exist in the world and that is the sad and melancholic side of the story. The naive and in many ways quite childish faith that Frodo had in Middle Earth, is the faith that an intellectual individual wouldn't have. Frodo was the dreamer, the elves were the artists and Gandalf the link.
I once talked to someone about Tolkien's world, this person was actually more of a fan of Sauron. Sauron were in many ways the intellectual character in Lord Of The Rings, he knew that magic was a good thing to take advantage of, in a time were magic was fading. Sauron craved power and while the elves had a romantic and in the end a suicidal outlook on things, Sauron had an intelectual plan for his world. Destroying Sauron would eventually destroy everything that Middle Earth used to be. All the good things must come to an end, not just the bad things; that's the message you feel speaks to you in the end of the book. It's the dreamers end, the artists death; when we find happiness and the reason for living, we don't want to have it anyway, because it loses it's uniqness, it's beauty when it's turns into something you can have everyday.
The hunt for freedom is something romantic, it's a love for the violence that hits you in the heart. So all truly good heroes have to die in the end, it's the law of good stories, as it is the law of the dreamer. We want to cry in the end, because we want to have felt something, deep. We don't want to feel cheated with a happy fake love story, because in reality all good things do come to an end. Sometimes the heroes of reality lose and leaves us to sort things out on our own. Should we blame them then? blame them for trying?... To believe in something that isn't really there, a goodness, or a happy ending that can never really be, must be the creation of all good things, right? Because we do create and in many ways, the things we believe in, do exist and when we leave, we imagine that these things will still be here when we are gone...
What if all people could find the naive romantic hero inside themselves, maybe we could have saved him then, because he would be something that were a part of us all...
Favourite Lord Of The Rings Sites:
LOTR Wallpapers - The best LOTR wallpapers!
LOTR Fanatics Site - A shopping site.
The Lord Of The Rings - Basic things you know.
Tolkien Bibliography - Every Tolkien book listed.
The Land Of Shadow - Mostly about Mordor.
Tolkien Archives - Detailed information.
Tolkien Online - Popular one I assume.
The One Ring - About books and movies.
Hobbit Lore - This is just beautiful.
Ringzone - About everything.
Tolkien.co.uk - Mostly about Tolkien himself.
