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Originally Posted by Lal
The Princess and the Frog for one shows a girl who shows pity to a little ugly frog who turns out to be a prince. Beauty and the Beast shows how a girl's turning to pity results in yet another happy ending.
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The problem with these is that not them answers my question - regarding acts of pity that save the world.
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Other people show vastly more compassion than I do
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That could be so; I can't argue against. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree on how common Frodo's pity is in real life.
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I'm not sure why the moral values promoted by a culture or a belief system would be relevant though as Tolkien's stories weren't putting forward a moral message?
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Well, the height of the story is the eucatastrophe; according to Tolkien, the greatest fairy-story produces the "essential emotion: Christian joy". Elsewhere, he notes that the religious truth should not be put out explicitly. Subcreation, which is the apex of an author's development, according to him, is also but a reflection of Truth. At least for him, the myth-maker, his work carried a potentially cathartic power, in the religious sense.