[HerenIstarion]

Deadnight Chanter
Posts: 1265

Another parallel may be drawn, for it is impossible to think of such strongly religious writer as Tolkien not to be affected by his belief. For in Christian doctrine (common for all Christian divisions) thing must die to live. Even the birth of a human being is considered somehow to have only importance with regards to its future death, as a gate of a new life, which is the only thing worth having. The lower you bow, the higher you grow. To build something better you must destroy first what was before it. The complete refusal of anything – happines, power, life itself (not refusal as a mere “no, I don’t want it” – it’s more like a suicide, but voluntary sacrifice of things you love for a thing worth of still greater love, and only with such a sacrifice one may retain things that should have been loved less)– qualifies you most for a new kind of happines, power and life. In this case – more wisdom (expressed, but not contained, in the new title).