Are you a better person?

[Eothain Elfwine]

I do not know if I can say that reading Tolkien has made me better morally, made me kinder or more giving or more loving. But I know Tolkien has enriched me. I have a love of beauty and the natural world that is far beyond anything I had before I started to read Tolkien. I have a great appreciation now for the exquisite use of words. And Tolkien's writings taught me to respond more emotively to literature. I used to be ashamed of crying over books or movies, but now I am glad to be so moved. More than anything, the battle cries in TTT and RoTK and the great battles of RoTK make me cry--I don't know why, really. But if to be enriched is to become better, I have indeed.

[elfearz1]

has reading (and/or re-reading, and re-reading…) The Lord of the Rings made you a “better person”?

In some ways, yes. I had a hard time liking to read before, because I was reading the wrong kind of books. When I discovered I liked fantasy I began to LOVE reading and can't get enough of it. Lord of the rings has inscreased my vocabulary and when teachers or youth pastors use illustrations from it, it helps me understand better. J.R.R. Tolkien also inspired me on a career path. I always loved writing and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but never before thought to put the two together! So, yes in ways it has, but morally I don't think so.


Oh, and I'm also doing the "walk to Rivendell" so you can say it's made me healthier!

[Mithalwen]

In one sense I am probably a worse person for Middle Earth since I spend so much time happily rereading Tolkien and on Tolkien related websites which I could devote to reading that huge pile of bought but unread books I posess or doing something career advancing.

Furthermore in my first Tolkien phase in my adolescence it encouraged an extant interest in languages which eventually led me to follow my heart rather than my exam grades when I chose my A-Levels ( however my grannie's wish that I should become a doctor was a non-starter as I knew it would involve cutting up dead people - this was before I learned that the living are much scarier!)

Anyway I don't think that I can entirely blame Tolkien for my poor career choices and I had blast for 4 years doing English and French Lit even though I hadn't a clue what I would do with it. At least it pleased my personal tutor that she had a charge who was positively ecstatic about the prospect of studying her own subject of linguistics. Strangely enough though it was at this point, I left Tolkien for a long time. Partly, I had little time to read anything of my own choice and partly, I perceived that I was expected to be interested in more serious stuff.
Also I had exhausted the supply other than the slowly emerging HoME which I really didn't have time to digest.

However while I might have had a different and more successful career without Tolkien, I don't want to be melodramatic but there is a distinct possibility that I would not be alive without Tolkien. When I first read it, I was having a particularly bad time at school and really wanted to die. I don't think I could have survived the real world if I had't had middle earth to escape to.

When I returned to Tolkien, it also had a therepeutic value. It was partly the films that brought me back - I had thought I wouldn't want to see them, having such a clear picture of them in my head but as soon as I saw a trailer my resolve melted. The FOTR came out a matter of weeks after my mother died. We knew her cancer was terminal from diagnosis, but she went through so much against the odds and won a little precious remission. I had long ago learnt by heart Sam's song in Cirith Ungol and I had copied it for her. And it really summed up her attitude - she kept on going in the face of what was logically a hopeless situation. I had put my life on hold to care for her and when she died - very suddenly in the end- I was absolutely bereft, emotionally and physically exhausted. Middle Earth was again a comfort - going back to the books may have been escapism and regression but it was also healing. Through Tolkien I have made some good friends, one in particular who was more help than any counsellor of priest could have been as I grieved. So on the scale of things I think I come out better because of Tolkien - as a person if not as an economic unit. I am not sure that another author could have had quite the same effect.. I mean I found the entire Forsyte Chronicles a distraction when I was ill between Tolkien phases but it hasn't had such a lasting or profound impact..

Now I worry that I should do something more constructive with my time and it slightly concerning that I am often keener to find out what is happening on the downs or my other board than what is going on in the lives of my "real" friends. However most of my real friends have children and are unable to talk about anything else which gets a bit tedious ..... arguing the toss about balrog wings and elf ears beats getting a far too detailed account of god-son's potty training believe me.

[Carlas]

Has reading LOTR made me a better person? I don't think reading something can make you a better person. It is up to the person to make themselves better, even though the reading of a certain book may have helped them want to be better, only they can change themselves.

For me personally though, LOTR has helped me look on the world around me differently and see that even when life seems to be at it's worse, it can get better. But I did not read the books to help change me or make me a better person, I read them so I could lose myself in another world. When life gets crazy, Middle-Earth is my escape.

[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

No. Actually, reading the Lord of the Rings made me worse.

Seriously ... let's see ... in grade school and middle school I was an A+ student. Then in 9th grade I read the Lord of the Rings, and in high school and college I was a lazy, chronically bored, always sleeping mess of a C student.

And to top it off, I spent my waking hours in school drawing characters from the Lord of the Rings.

The only class I ever had a 100 average in was Trilogy ... a class where we read the Lord of the Rings.

And also, for four years I never felt the need to read anything non-Tolkien. That can't be good for expanding my horizons, I'm sure I missed out on loads of good reads, and I KNOW I missed out on a lot of reading for classes I could have been doing, but wasn't, because if I was going to read anything, it had to be LOTR.

On the bright side, some of the topics on this forum helped teach me good debate skills for college, and through all that drawing, I got better at everything from drawing horses to human musculature, all sorts of texture and shadow, and architecture and weapons.

Which is good, I suppose.

That's not to say the Lord of the Rings isn't the greatest book ever written ... it's a thrill ride, with some of the best writing ever, especially the suggestive parts Tolkien stuck in between all the great descriptive parts. The Father of Modern Myth.

Anyway, I'm actually a worse person. But I'm a better artist ... so there's some good that came of this.

[Orophin]

Well. like was said before me, I have been guilty is slacking off in other areas do to my Tolkien fasination *cough* But LOTR teaches a lot of good stuff. I like to think that it has made me e better person. You could live your life by the values of some of the main characters....

[Assasin]

I think watching Sam and Legolas and how loyal they are makes me want to be like them. I think I am a better person. I am more quiet, and listen more to other people. And I notice a lot more things. (Not that that has to do anything with being a better person.)