[Knight of Gondor]

I thought the article was ultimately pretty lame, if only because I find the very idea of talking about the deep undercurrents of religious belief during a press-junket for a film to be distasteful.

Well, Lush, what can I say? I didn’t expect any sort of agreement with you. Ha ha, just a mere blank post from you would have been indication enough for me to know what you think. You think it’s distasteful? I suppose if you want to think it is, that’s your prerogative. I’m exceedingly happy that Ms. Basham wrote both these articles, because they’ve given me the insight I desired as far as the character of the characters goes.

If I was up there, I wouldn't have exactly jumped at the chance to discuss the Christian themes in the book either. Faith, whether mine or Tolkien's, is such too intimate of an issue for a setting like that.

You have to understand that Lord of the Rings has remarkable appeal for people of different faiths, whether it be Christianity, or secularism. I’d certainly think the mass populace has the right to know how our favorite actors respond to questions regarding such issues, especially when the author himself was undeniably Christian. (Catholic)

Furthermore, I think the author of the article is confusing faith, a private property, with religion. She writes from the point of a person who knows exactly what is going on in these people's minds. This makes her presumptuous and condescending.

She went to a press screening, and asked questions, and then wrote based on the answers she got. Isn’t that kind of what everyone else does? Ms. Basham is just the first one to do it from a Judeo-Christian perspective.

There wasn't anything overtly Christian in the Lord of the Rings.

Besides an immoral, omniscient Creator creating the world, sending his angels to sustain it, having one powerful angel fall away and despoil creation, and the hearts of his creations. And undeveloped legends tell of a time when Illúvatar would one day enter Arda in mortal form. Besides that...

everything I've read on the subject, I got the idea that Tolkien himself wasn't exactly keen on people drawing sweeping parallels between the events in the book and Christian thematics.

I will merely quote Ms. Basham, who merely quoted Tolkien. Some time, perhaps you can take the discussion up with him. “Tolkien himself stated, The Lord of the Rings is ‘a thoroughly Christian work.’ ”

Yes, the presence is clearly there. And it does show up in the films, if you manage to distract yourself enough from shrieking "cool!" at the action sequences. Whether one chooses to publicly acknowledge it and discuss it is not a matter of how "misguided" or whatever one is.

I don’t shout cool at the screen, but I must admit that my second viewing, one tear pushed its way over the brink and ran down my cheek during the blowing of the horns. (Perhaps my previous day’s viewing of The Passion left me a little raw?) I’m quite happy that Ms. Basham requested the actors and staff to address the Christian issues. Perhaps you are displeased with the result, but I’m quite sure I’m not alone in being happy she did that.

Ok, to elucidate my point further, I think that in LotR, the essence of evil is the lust for power, the wish to subjugate or dominate others. This is what unites Sauron and Saruman - they are in essence quite similar.

Hm, I see where you are coming from on that. So thinking on it (and I agree one does need to think before recalling a different sense of evil in LotR), what about Gollum? He cared nothing for power, control, subjugation. He merely wanted his Precious. And even Andy Serkis acknowledges that Gollum represents evil. (But I forgot, evil doesn’t exist, does it?)

Good is a more variable concept - Barliman Butterbur, Elrond and Gimli are all on the side of 'good', but what else do they have in common?

None of those characters have the inclination to do evil (at least, great evil, I’m sure neither Bree nor the Shire is a sinless community), it’s just that some of those have more of an inclination to fight evil.

Good point. I think that Middle Earth's politics have a refreshing simplicity....

So....good and evil only works in theory? I don’t want to get involved in a good or evil discussion, because we need to keep it on topic, it’s just an interesting (strange) idea. PM me if you’re interested in discussing it further, please.

I'm not quite sure what the argument here is, Knight. You started off by saying that the Lord of the Rings "shines with a steady Good versus Evil message," but that does not seem to be the full scope of what the above article is really addressing.

I might have gotten the points slightly confused there, so I shall clarify. The main point of this discussion is about whether or not LotR contained the theme of good and evil too powerfully (ie, unrealistically, which it does if you don’t believe in good or evil) or if it was underplayed. Since this is in the movies forum, obviously the discussion pertains to the movies, because those who created it, while doing an admirable job, had no appreciation for the deeper themes whatsoever. Peter Jackson has no interest whatsoever in addressing those themes. Seems like a diss to Tolkien, being that LotR was a “fundamentally religious” work.

I have to divide this into two posts, nuts.