[Morthoron]

Trees. One would think a man like Tolkien, a professed lover of trees, would describe them more realistically. But no! His trees walk about and grumble and eat people! It's preposterous! I think Tolkien was barking up the wrong tree on this one, and gives the reader a stilted view in his depictions that in no way mirror real life. Some readers may get an altogether wrong impression about trees, and the way Tolkien glorifies trees going to war. They may cringe whenever they pass a malevolent maple or bellicose beech, eventually contracting dendrophobia, and flee in terror from a sullen spruce, irrationally fearing that it will engorge the family dog.

In an age when environmentalism and ecology are crucial subjects and the effects of global warming are more pronounced every day, it is evident we need more trees; unfortunately, frightened people, having been been fooled by the nefarious machinations of Tolkien, will eschew the planting of trees and may suggest at their local city council meetings that trees be banned altogether due to their insidious encroachment on eaves, awnings and underground water pipes and sewage lines, as well as the negative effects barbarous trees may have on impressionable youths. It only takes one bad apple tree to spoil the whole bunch.

Was Tolkien aware of the damage he wrought? Wouldn't it have been far more responsible to portray trees as noncombatative and less curmudgeonly? Arborism may not been Tolkien's branch of study, but he knew enough about trees from personal experience to know better. I am shocked and appalled!