Years ago the BBC did a piece on Tolkiens life and covered this. Tolkien get's woken up by a phone call at 2 am and get's asked something along the lines of "Hey maaaaaaan, does the balrog have wiiiings?" Tolkien grumbles in disgust as he puts the phone down without answering.
@@JesusProtects If you had a copy of the local phone directory, you could look up anyone if you knew their name. You might need their address too but there probably weren't too many Tolkiens in the area!
I am glad that Professor Tolkien didn't live to see the internet age. The capacity for random strangers to bother him would be much increased, not to mention the modern tendency to publicly crucify authors of beloved works whose opinions are unpopular.
Heh, infinite amounts of information on anything of the topic and every random person thinking they have something to say about it? Sure I get what you're saying. I love his works and I can understand what this video is saying about the modern idea of a cultist like society. Many actors and people have talked about this before. A lot of times people don't think it's healthy at all.
I mean, I hesitantly make this comparision, but this essentially happened with JK Rowling. She has unpopular socio-political views in the eyes of those who fawn over her works. Its no stretch to say that social media makes a lot of people see her in a different light. I'd like to think Tolkien would have been more reserved than she was. I have doubts about him approving his books being put to screen in even the Peter Jackson films, let alone RoP.
That's very meta and topical. But yeah, not that LOTR was an allegory by any means, but Tolkien being a WWI veteran, saw the German empire fall and a cult of personality emerge around a certain sour National Socialist.
The funny thing is just from the few pages he wrote about "the dark tree" I found it WAY more compelling than even LOTR. The problem was likely him getting a bit too political and preachy about solutions to the issues of genuine decadence/boredom. Also I feel he was flying a bit too close to the sun involving the very real cults that permeate levels of government/business/religion With the recent controversies after controversies coming to light in the last decade alone, and since the advent of the internet, its essentially undeniable at this point. Honestly I think his "takes" would have been branded problematic for modern audiences. The "not worth doing" at the end of his letter regarding the sequel can be a double entendre. By pushing his beliefs in the sequel he would have risked the main trilogies integrity as purely a fantasy story.
@@chathanvemuri2625 he had a couple openly gay/queer friends so he definitely wasn't the most conservative for the time but I do agree he definitely would not be like most fans would like to imagine him lol. He'd be weirded out by cosplay and would hate stuff like the Shadow of Mordor video games and yeah, the Peter Jackson movies as well. As much as I love the films and think that most of the choices made on them were good for the screen he probably would have disliked them and would have preferred it not become a film at all. At most he would have tolerated them and understood the changes while still being apathetic towards them due to it focusing on the violence and action more than his books did since not doing so was an important aspect for him as a writer. He loved the journeys, not the wars, and that's what he wanted people to feel when they read his books.
I mean i am pretty sure it was one of his notes that galadrirl was put on a pedestal by sauron. I feel the fact that they brought the fact she has a husband who has no screen time for the whole thing is even more funny. Like imagine an romance adventurer where Mc gets exiled and sent to death galaavants across the world has the evil lord fall in love with her. Consider it, only to go oops I forgot I was married and have this loving relationship sure would have been good to have told him about my leaving the darn world lol.
Tolkien hated consumerism and "machine factory" capitalism and the empty world of materialism. It's horrifying to watch his world be commodified endless and stripped of all its beauty, a beauty so informed by his Catholic faith and struggles in life!
@@ianpage2509 Come now, if Christopher had been properly raised in his father's disdain of consumerism, The Silmarillion would likely never have been published and we definitely would not have got to see the Peter Jackson films.
I always felt if I ever met Tolkien he would dislike me, but be too polite to say so. The man had a great deal of restraint towards things that would normally drive modern people into a terrible fury. And yeah, sipping tea from a cup with "My Precious" on it definitely would heighten his ire. Or the replica of the One Ring I got years ago, at least I take it as some strange symbolism that its cheap craftmanship has made the chain rust and the gold of the ring fade into a greenish hue, maybe that evil one day fades and weaken or some such.
That was an excellent point of view, the rusting of the metal and it's decay. I would like to believe that Tolkien may have loved it, because indeed evil cannot and won't last forever.
Tolkien seems to have been a classy guy. He may have disagreed with some of his fan, & he may have found their obsession a bit too much, but he also seems to have respected them, & he was willing to communicate with them. Nice video, by the way.
The hippies simply saw that the Hobbits like parties and smoke. If they met a hobbit, the hobbit would consider them quite strange or “queer”. Good boy at the end. 👍
@@HermitKing731 That’s what I don’t get. Most Hobbits are either farmers and own land or have some sort of job, but Hippies were mostly a bunch of Boomers who got high as young adults until they sobered up and entered the real world.
What's funny is in the reverse if the hippies knew the worldview of "Hobbits" they would have probably considered them "fascist". "What you mean I have to work the fields and clean my house and be an upstanding member of the community I just want to toke on that pipeweed" .
Understandable reaction from Tolkien. There is respect that is owed to the essence of a work as opposed to merely being fascinated by its parts. A drinking goblet inscribed with what is essentially a curse is a perfect example of people missing the point.
Author here. It's difficult to know where to stand on these kinds of things. On one hand, if an aspect of art touches or inspires someone... great! On the other hand, if the person either accidentally or deliberately reverses or contorts the lessons or purposes of the art, that misinterpretation can definitely leave a foul taste behind and end up sullying the entire transaction.
Why? Who gives a shit? The ring isn't real, curses aren't real. It's all the same. Imagine if JK Rowling got upset that a fan carved her a replica of Voldemort's wand instead of Harry's. Ridiculous.
@@SpaghettiToaster see, you're really dense if you compare HP and LOTR, since as this VID already states, there's a vast difference to what LOTR meant to the author and what it meant to the average fanscum, while there is no such disconnect with HP
As a Catholic and an artist I find the more I learn about Tolkien from this channel the more I find I can relate to him. I've had some people replicate my art and it's almost always bizzare to me because I think most completely miss the point and turn it into something very foreign to me. Also as an artist it's always been very uncomfortable to want your art seen and appreciated but you often have to participate in a culture that basically contaminates your work by association. Seeing hippies and Tolkien is a good example of how I feel.
That's just kind of inevitable with making art though. How people perceive anything is based on their own belief and viewpoints, which a writer, artist, or any form of media maker can sort of direct or even challlenge but not outright control. There's saying that I've heard "Once you put your work into the world, it's no longer yours" which is a truth that creators will have to face.
Isn't specifically the catholic confession very entrenched in the activity of interpretation and theological discussion, even if in the church, proper interpretation is reserved to members of the clergy? I feel like, much like Christianity, this muddy and amateurish interpreting is very old, primitive and, in my opinion, beautiful. Interpreting and theorizing, copying and meaning-changing just shows how alive a work is, and how interested people are, as they not just passively consume these works, but also interact with them, let it be Tolkien's writing, your art or religion
@@sarmin8008interpretation of the Bible isn’t reserved for clergy.the veil between God and man was torn down with the death and resurrection of Jesus.my faith and salvation as a Christian is between me and God.Confession is another concept by the Catholic Church to control the religion
Mr. Tolkien seems as if he was a simple man with simple wants, and the idea of complete strangers overseas calling in the middle of the night to fawn over him would of course be highly peculiar. But is a sad truth that art outgrows the artist, and whether we like it or not, can be used for any damned fool thing regardless of how the creator feels about it.
You think that's a bad thing about art? If anything, the fact that an atheist can read a book written by a devout catholic mostly composed of religious ponderings, and they can reach the last page and think "Wow, there really is hope in this world after all." is a part of what makes art genuinely amazing.
The Hippie movement in England was big in to Tolkien as well. My parents were hippies in London and Oxford, and they were part of it. The first time my mother’s parents met my father, he was playing as one of the trolls in a theatrical performance of The Hobbit at Oxford University in about 1969 or 70 or something like that. And that was in Tolkien’s home town, at his former place of work, while he was still alive.
I really feel sad for Tolkien on his last years, he saw how the world around him was becoming even more worse than it already was when he published his novels. Of course i'm not saying he himself lived in despair and sadness.
I mean… He had a real reason to be concerned. Just look at how rings of power twisted his work. Plus during the 60s and 70s can you imagine what it felt like to see a bunch of hippies and Rockstars using Lord of the rings as an excuse to get high? I’m pretty sure that’s what it looked like to him
Cringe? Tolkien hated hippies. They are the reason these past few generations have had so many issues, and just so hippies could "have fun" and be, like, "hip" mannnn. They should have just listened their parents.
@GeorgeLCostnza Yes. A handful of boomers getting high and reading Lord of the Rings totally somehow led to all of the problems we had today. Tolkien fans like you give this fandom a bad name. The superiority complex is just so off putting
As someone who was raised Christian but ended up leaving the faith when I was 12 I can say his work still is extremely special to me on many deep levels. What he had to say about war and industrialization are still impactful and his world still feels as real today all these years later.
Tolkien is an underated theologian in a sense. The theologian enterprise is historically connected with thought and philosophy, especially after the scholastic movement of the late middle ages. Not so with JRR Tolkien. He is a bard, a poet, a myth writer, wich sets him totally apart from the usual theological tradition, yet being a theologian in his own right. I say this having in mind his most important and underated work, ainulindale. The way he narrates the myth of creation is unique and unpreceeded as far as my knowledge goes. Before even light, there was music. And that, gosh, explains and puts a lot of new elements and perspectives.
I mean, you don't pour nearly as much of yourself as Tolkien did into LOTR and not expect the author to not be emotionally tied to accurate depiction of it.
It would drive me crazy if I put my heart, soul and catholic faith on something that would be taken by crowds just to have the meaning of it distorted to please their world view, which is the one I'm against. The irony! I'm glad there was no social media back then, but it would have been awesome if Tolkien took them all down with one tweet 😅
@@AesirUnlimited yeah we do tend to convince pagans away from infant sacrifice and same sex group stuff, like "pray for the dead, don't unbury them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
@@AesirUnlimited oops YT deleted my response I love it. Yeah, we do tend to convince pagans to stop with the infant deletion practices, the same s3 x group hobbies, like "guys, don't dig up the d 3 a d, pray for them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
@@AesirUnlimited @AesirUnlimited oops YT deleted my response twice, I love it. Yeah, we do tend to convince pagans to stop with the small human deletion practices, the same chromosomes group hobbies, like "guys, don't dig up the expired, pray for them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
Tolkien may have been horrified, but i find fascinating how an expression of traditionalist catholicism and fantasy was almost immediately co-opted by both counterculture hippies and the post-war new wave of nationalist nazi-fascists. How does a work whose author adamantly opposed allegory and intended for his work to be a work of escapism get appropriated by two polar opposite extremes?
The Bible itself has been co-opted and the words of Jesus have been used to justify actions entirely opposed to the Gospel. Humans are drawn to truth always, but often corrupt it when they cannot accept the fullness of it.
It's very easily explainable actually. People appropriate things to suit their beliefs. The swastika symbol used to represent harmony among other things but Hitler took it and you see the outcome.
exactly becasue his work was not an allegory. He didn't forcibly imply in his work that this is the representation of the Catholic worldview and no one else can and should relate to it. Also note that all those you mentioned have their own (albeit twisted in my view) stories of honour, duty and the fight between good and evil - in which story they themselves are the virtuous heroes.
It's too easy to think the religious are less reasoned or practicing magical thinking. That's part of why I respect Tolkien as much as I do. He proves that you can have your life improved by religion without it becoming some enemy of other intellectual endeavours
I never get this narrative especially since most of what we have as science and literature today was invented by religious people. Most scientists were Christians. Islam as well provided stuff like Algebra and our number system. Heck so many of the most famous literature were made by religious people whi combined it with many myths and themes from their own cultures. There are so many things we take for granted and are too narrow minded and biased with modernity rather looking at history as whole good and bad which is ironic since modern people tout themselves as superior and inclusive when they are the opposite.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 i guess it's just more noticeable today since so many have moved beyond organised religion. It was a very important social structure for a very long time though
Contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church originated the vast majority of scientific thinking, and even as recently as the 20th century, the big bang was first described by a Catholic priest. Galileo is basically the only example of a mostly unjust reaction from church authorities, and even in that case it was a the result of one particular person rather than an institutional problem. For some reason, everyone likes to point to that example to say Christianity is anti-science, even though it is more correct to say Christianity _created_ science. At least in the West.
@@o00nemesis00o the Arabs invaded Persia. Persians were Muslim for a long time already when algebra was created in year 825 and comleted in the 12th century. Muslim scientists made breakthroughs in both geometry and trigonometry which are still used in many practical arts and studies today
Seeing what the world does with a multitude of works of art is frightening. It would be disturbing to know that your work awakes something in certain distasteful groups
And yet, on TH-cam, Tolkien's greatest fears are realized. People who neither understand or sympathize with Traditional Catholism, waste time trying to deconstruct his work WITHOUT trying to understand the fundamental Catholism underpinning it. 🙄
He liked some of his fans. According to "News from Middle Earth", Tolkien was very happy when a Scotsman named Sam Gamgee contacted him. Friends of his had read the book and come across his name, and he wanted to know how Tolkien had come up with him. The professor wrote him a very nice letter with a short etymological treatise on the name Gamgee. And he assured him that Sam in the book was an extremely positive character. And then he wrote to him that his book had unfortunately become "quite expensive", but if Mr. Gamgee showed the letter in a bookshop, the publisher would be happy to send him a free copy. Well, Gamgee was Scottish, and the old gentleman Tolkien must have thought that he would find the book too expensive if he had to pay for it.🤣🤣
there are few things more frustrating than having your words, actions or beliefs taken out of context and twisted into something they're not, i'm not surprised it bothered him i'd probably be furious if i were in his position. i don't know how much of it was deliberate or whether people really just misunderstood him that badly, but either way it's really disrespectful
@@TheOtakuKat it is kind of funny on the surface, but when you consider how important his beliefs were to him and the sheer number of people involved it's really not. imagine someone spread a rumour about you doing something weird, suddenly all your friends, coworkers and family think that you did it and even when you try to dissuade them they still believe it. now multiply how annoying that would be by a million and that's what tolkien was dealing with
I am pretty sure he would have preferred Rings of Power over the movies. I love the movies to pieces, but RoP is more mature and sticks closer to Tolkien's themes and the philosophical and spiritual questions of his books.
@@anni.68 Uuuuh no, Rings of Power breaks the lore. Barrow Wights aren't suppose to exist until after the Fall of Arnor, yet they appear. That's just one example.
If you watch the trilogy with spiritual eyes you'll see the story is all about fighting sin or 'binding the strong man' from within. 'One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them' I think that's what the binding ring is all about; the binding of the strongman. That is, if we are bound by sin, then our house (our spirits) and our peace will be spoiled. See Luke 11 : 21, Matthew 12 : 29, & Mark 3 : 27 in the KJV.
Calling people's differing pop-culture opinions blasphemous is just a gag that largely plays on the self-aware knowledge that it's silly and therefore funny to use such a strong word for such a weak reason.
I think the band who really "gets" LOTR the most is probably Summoning. I feel like Tolkien would be appalled at people like Varg using his work to make their worldview sound good
@@meduseldtales3383 Tolkien wasn't a pearl clutching 18th century lady, he fought in WW2, he probably would think the music sucks but happy people was inspired by his work in their own ways.
Tolkien was very very friendly with many people's and groups who enjoyed his work and carried on a large correspondence with many fans. He just didn't like the crazy ones and those who used his work to symbolism something that it didn't.
This is something I have considered ever since as a child when I first read Tolkien's work, when later I grew in understanding and knowledge; It has always seemed obvious to me that Tolkien's legendarium represents his personal, perhaps not entirely rigorously, not a 1:1 polemic perhps, of how the world works. But certainly it has always seemed to me, to be adjacent to that, to be Tolkien's, perhaps tentative, perhaps somewhat self-conscious view of his resolution of things like, 'the problem of evil' , in the Christian sense. In his work, we have a monotheistic god figure, the only 'real' god of the story, the only being that can create life. We have an amalgamation of the pantheistic classical greco/roman religion, of a mount Olympus and the gods of nature and so on, who are combined with the Christian monotheistic view. We have a Satan figure, who rebels against the overgod, but who is told that "For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.” This all creates a sense, to me, of a deeply Catholic Christian religious writer, who, through his fantasy and fiction, attempted to resolve these issues in some way, these 'problems' in his religion. Now I don't share his beliefs, but I don't need to, his work, as I think he always intended, transcends such raw and simple consideration. He set out to create a work, a story that could be applicable to many, to all, perhaps, and I think he succeeded. That is the real legacy of Tolkien, to me. His message, such as it is, his theme of his greatest work, is universal, regardless of his own religion and beliefs, he tapped into universal human experiences and ideals, and that is why his work is so enduring.
So interesting! Never knew any of this. How precious ( no pun intended) his work was to him. It truly was an extension of himself. Thanks for your research & insight.
@@doedelzak3914 You’re human, so that means you’re flawed and corrupted too. Or do you not count because you are one of those “rare special people” who are beyond the corruption of desire, hate, anger, fear and so on. Be honest, you self destruct yourself more often than you think you do.
A person making a goblet with the One Ring's words written on it reminds me of people hosting glamorous parties based on the Great Gatsby. Kind of misses the point LOL! Points for effort though! XD
??? Who thinks that? I've never, in my 55 years, met anyone who idolizes Sauron. Much different from many Star Wars fans who claim "The Empire wasn't wrong"...
Funnily enough I watched a recent video by whatifalthist talking about how the Soviets literally saw Sauron as the good guys while the elves, dwarves, and human kingdoms as the evil bourgeois. I thought it was just a joke but then I read the sources and I can't believe it was true and that people legitimately believed that and see themselves as Sauron
He would’ve despise his current fanbase more if he knew how protective of his work they are. And what I’m referring to is the actual gatekeeping by a bunch of vitriolic snobs who will bully you for liking the movies or shows and gaslight you for daring to call them out for their rotten attitude, saying that “we are the greedy and ignorant ones”. Tolkien would hate hate HATE the fans of today.
Interestingly, in Italy Tolkien's work was adopted by the exact opposite of the crowds it attracted in the US. Meaning fascists. The MSI (Italian Social Movement, composed mainly by former members of the fascist Republic of Salò during WW2) organized "Hobbit camps" and "Shire gatherings", which were basically meetings, rallies and festivals of the youth branch of the movement, from 1977 up until the 2000s. Our current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni is an avid Tolkien fan exactly because she used to go to these rallies, being a former member of the MSI. Today, in Italy, Tolkien is still widely seen with suspicion by the left, having been widely weaponized by neo-fascists movements. I doubt Tolkien was aware of this (or anyone outside of Italy for that matter), but I very much doubt he'd have approved.
Its happened in other countries too: Swedish Neonazis (notably once infamous youtuber The Golden One) used Tolkien's work as 'evidence' or blueprints for modern absolute monarch ethno states, and online in English speaking Tolkien circles you can definitely still find groups that mix fantasy fiction with extremist talking points (both fascist and fundamentalist christian). Its seems like in Tolkien fans on one side have always been the hippies, rockers and artists and on the other the hyper traditionalists, fascists and religious fundamentalists.
@@kenofken9458 Not really hippies, more like english countryside farmers (like Tolkien's brother was), but I see your point. I think the MSI was more interested in the whole "men of the west fighting evil from the east" thing, and called the rallies "hobbit camps" just to make them more inviting. Either way, fascists aren't known for their intelligence and literacy.
@@Golwen_ There is a sort of theme or undercurrent in the stories relating to the idea of a more "noble race" of men ie the Dunedain/Numenoreans who were supposed to be physically, intellectually and, at least at one time, morally superior to other humans. The men of the east, by contrast, were depicted as generally corrupt and under the sway of evil and the enemies of "free peoples", so I can see where those interested in white supremacy or at least a kind of cultural chauvanism about "The West" would find something to latch onto there. I just don't see how they came up with tying all that to hobbits and shires. Maybe because the hard right has historically idealized agrarian societies. There's even a kind of ethno-nationalist hierarchy among the elves in LOTR. The silvan/woodland elves are sort of depicted as almost Appalachian vs the Noldor who were sort of the New England bluebloods.
I got to say, as an introverted Filipino Catholic nerd with more traditionalist views, I relate a lot to Tolkien in every regard here. His works have been viewed and used in ways far different from what he originally intended, and that applies to both the popular works we enjoy like the films and the…less popular ones, while many fans choose to disrespect or remain ignorant of his world views as well, while paradoxically revering him and his work too much. Nevertheless, there are plenty of great fans, Catholic, Christian or not, who respect him while also not obsessing over his work above all else.
I like his works, I hope more comes out, however I'm not a die hard fanatic. I'm not the guy to hover around a single storyline and worship it. New is great, different is great, the old is great but I don't day dream about anything and I greatly do not respect his Nationalist views. My understanding of what that is makes me think about the makeup of his fan base. Nationalists. Imperialists...
@@scottiestarcher409 I don’t think it’s fair to label him or the fanbase as predominantly nationalistic. At the end of the day, remember, Tolkien was Catholic (like, super Catholic) and not Anglican like C.S. Lewis (Tolkien was the reason he became Christian at all as they were friends). That meant he actually didn’t see the current royalty of England the same way as the Kings and Queens of old. He was also staunchly anti-imperialism. Like I said I’m a traditional Catholic myself and while we’re huge fans of Tolkien we don’t obsess over him and his work over God. The obsessed fans in the end are those like in the video who don’t hold to his ideologies or respect them at all.
I.e. those elements of the fandom didn't take him seriously enough. The real joy is in not devaluing it as 'mere phantasy'. The best we can draw from anything is how it helps us go through life.
One of those fans was Christopher Lee (who played Saruman in the movie). He became so starstruck when he met him (at a pub) that he could hardly utter a sentence 😊.
Tolkien was a rare example of Genius Recognized In Its Time. I'm not religious, but I'm a die-hard Middle-Earth fan; the Catholic undercurrents in the work don't bother me (in the way that they do in Lewis' Narnia Chronicles). Tolkien did what nobody else (except Herbert) was doing at the time and he did it for the purest of reasons, not for material ones, and THAT is why I think his legacy endures despite any regressive properties. His M-E work is a masterpiece of imaginary and scholarly thought and it's also an example of how someone's beliefs can motivate them to do Great Things that span the course of time and find an audience in each generation. That is why his work was both co-opted but also passed on throughout the years: it's THAT accessible, meaningful, and potent.
This sorrows me as progressive Tolkien fan who recognizes Tolkiens world view and underlying catholic metaphysics and values in his works I would call him my "favorite christian conservative", for even though if we ever met and had a discusssion, we would find some of our differing views awful. But what I could agree on, is what I will forever treasure in my heart forever and ever I have discussed with Tolkien fans who just won't get it and have either simplistic or just plain wrong and ignorant vmway of understanding Tolkien's work
Tbf, a LOT of modern vocal “Tolkien Fans” can be a bit gatekeepy towards anyone who doesn’t fit their worldview. This is especially apparent when Game of Thrones fans engage with them acting like they are better and forgetting the fact that most of us (including Martin himself) are massive Tolkien fans.
I do often wonder what particularly progressives like about it. Is it the world and the themes that apply to all mankind? If so, which ones in particular? Forgive me if I'm being gatekeepy, but I think it's very hard to get to the very core of the story without understanding all of the Catholic symbolism and messaging, something that I coincidentally did not do until becoming Catholic. Before, I just thought of it as another world like Star Wars, except something somehow more special. Now I think of it as the greatest non-inspired expression of my faith and a marvel of "pre-evangelisation" as Tolkien called it. It just felt like Catholicism was the key to fully appreciating it, but maybe I just lacked something else that you don't.
@@MrBulbasaurlover Plenty of catholics are progressive, thought, so even if we took your comment as being the truth (that you cant enjoy Tolkien to its full extent without being catholic), that would not exclude all progressives from enjoying it, and would actually exclude lots of conservatives from doing so (not all conservatives are catholic).
He would have hated Jackson’s take on his work, too. I suppose Jackson got most of the big stuff right (I guess) but Tolkien would’ve hated what Jackson did to the characters. I’m with Tolkien.
@@junglemoose2164then Tolkien should have had the movies made during his lifetime. Jackson did a phenomenal job and did change some things, but I’m not sure you could get better with the culture at the time.
@@adamb8317 He did a terrible job but you're right, I doubt anyone could have done better. Saying Tolkien should have had them made in his lifetime is lame. You know full well he couldn't have made them.
@@adamb8317 Incorrect. Saying he did a good job is ignorant given we have the novels to understand just how bad Petey screwed things up. Your need to shut people down because they have a different opinion is weird.
"Art moves them and they don't know what they've been moved by, and they get quite drunk on it" This statement nailed it. And not only for LotR. People constantly get obsessed in fictional works without even understanding the underlying themes, the messages, and the author's points of view.
He didn't call his fans "deplorable" he called his "cultus" (literally "worship" in Latin). Also despite the difference between Tolkien and the hippies there were commonalities a recognition of the spiritual and alienation from the modern & industrial world
I was a big fan of LOTR when the movies came out, and then I became a bigger fan when I found out he was Catholic and the books were an expression of Catholic faith.
Wow, I feel for Mr. Tolkien, he makes an absolute masterpiece, and people don't get its purpose,or its meaning.Instead it is reduced to something of pop culture,a"fad" and is used for rich men to use to get richer. His life's work is thought of as a mere book,something on level with the much poorer rip-offs of our generation. It stinks. If I could,I would make a movie worthy of the books,something he would be proud of. Sorry guys, I do love the Lord of the Rings Movies,but they have nothing on the book.
Our lives are richer for Middle-earth’s existence, however people came to know the stories whether by page or celluloid. No one with a brain or heart comes to this story leaves unenlightened or unmoved. And there are those who still study his writings to the best of their abilities. The rich buffoons and their stooges have missed the deeper meanings, but they have not buried them. If you truly think that Tolkien has been brought down to the level of modern day ripoffs and that the depth and emotion is no longer there, then you are letting Bezos and his cronies win.
Perhaps its not meant to be a movie or anything else than a Book and a views of Tolkien on our world emerged in a fantastical and very much generous work
There is already an incredible trilogy of movies released in early 2000’. To call those movies unworthy is delusion and a clear lack of knowledge on how to adapt a book into a movie.
@@tuba3000 They are the best possible adaptation we have and probably will have. However, the Book itself is sometimes different from the Jackson trilogy, nevertheless i'd argue we never will be able to convert tolkiens idea of middle earth on tv without using our own imagination in visualisation
@@oscarstainton Bezos won a long time ago. But as for modern rip offs, this is only the beginning, wait til they get rights to the First Age. And they will.
Hmm. Seems like he was not doing it for the fame. He disliked the glory some people like to take credit for. And then Rings of Power happened. Unbelievable.
I feel like Harlan might have murdered Tolkien mid conversation, guy was really upset by default at everyone and everything (made for an excellent AM though, both in the short story and his voice acting)
I don't think he was angry that hippies liked his books, I believe he was irritated because they used to it to promote/excuse/suppliment their deviant (according to the professor) lifestyle . You see, despite what "scholars" and some "fans" tell us, Middle-earth is not about drugs, or sex, or many other things folks seem hellbent on projecting on to it.
Tom Bombadil was a simple man enjoying his life. Hippies are subversive outcasts who hate life so much that they need to fornicate and consume large quantities of mind-altering substances just to be happy.
There was in fact intersectionality between (progressive) 1960s Christianity and the "flower power" movement, although admittedly not much. In any case, it was inevitable that counterculturalists would embrace Tolkien's works. While there is undeniably a great difference between religion and mythology, the Tolkien cult was an antidote not just against the science fiction and dry realism of postwar literature, but the bland brand of Christianity that prevailed over more "spiritual" forms of faith in the contemporary secular and rationalist age. American Christianity had evolved to a place of Sunday picnics and ladies in white gloves and large hats, and a world of adventure that was both rough-and-tumble and mystical seemed to be a lot closer to what religion had been at the beginnings of civilization. (I am, of course, aware that while Tolkien was traditional, he was not THAT traditional. Post-Enlightenment conservatism and bohemianism both rebel against the modern world, but in very different ways.) Tolkien apparently was also mildly xenophobic, having no affection for foreigners of any kind, not even for the ethnically French Normans that continue to make up a substantial part of the English pedigree. He wanted THE LORD OF THE RINGS to be a "pure Anglo-Saxon" foundation myth. Aside from the fact that English folklore is rooted in the more general Indo-European folklore, and that Anglo-Saxons are not the indigenous people of the British Isles anyway, there is no reason why Tolkien's books should be for ethnically English readers only. The English had long been just another minority group in America (albeit a still-influential one) by the time THE HOBBIT was written.
@@SeasideDetective2 I just think he wanted to create a story for the Anglo-Saxon people who aside from Beowulf, really didn’t have a mythology of their own, according to Tolkien. And, I see nothing contradictory about the Lord of the Rings being both a story with universal themes and messages and a story for the Anglo-Saxon people. P.S. Also, I believe after 1,000 years of Anglo-Saxon habitation in Britain they became the main inhabitants. But that’s just my opinion. Peace ✌🏻
Refreshing to view a Tolkien video that doesn't involve broadcasting hate 24/7. That kind of thing really would have the kindly professor turning in his grave!
Ahhhh ❤️. Bless his heart. The genius of Tolkien is that his work transcends various narrow world views because it contains universal truths. I’m an old hippy & a Pagan, & a major Tolkien nerd. To me his Catholicism embraced not only what is good about that religious philosophy but also what the Catholic religion took from the old religions - the Religio especially.
He seemed to be against anything. I think I’ve probably seen dozens of videos about what Tolkien would’ve hated, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard about anything he would have liked besides the artwork of a few illustrators. It seems like he hated more than he liked or loved. Or at the very least people seem to like painting him in this way.
@@AesirUnlimited That's also the impression that I get from him, and from Christopher too. They would've disliked anything that changed the original in the slightest level. Christopher, for example, hated Peter Jackson's trilogy for LOTR. I can understand it from the author's perspective, people who don't fully understand the work and appropriate it for a movie or other kind of media will be bound to change it, and thus they risk not only "dumbing it down" but also changing the message. But on the other hand, come on, I'd be honored to have so many people like and connect with my work, even to the point of it becoming a movie or series. We could also look at Game of Thrones for example. I don't think George Martin enjoyed the last couple of seasons of the show. That's why I think the correct approach with adaptations is getting the original author/creator involved in the production.
@@o00nemesis00o Tolkien was a legendary writer, and has my respect but his opinions and worldview are hardly the be all and end all. Tolkien passed away long enough ago that most people who complain about this stuff most likely weren’t even alive when he passed. Getting upset on behalf of a man who has been gone for 50 years is hardly a worthwhile pastime.
Tolkiens' work was on a mamouth scale. I mean, he even invented his own languages and wrote thousands of pages of lore and history on middle earth. It would have been pretty much impossible for anyone to measure up to his standards. To be fair to CS Lewis his books were aimed more at kids even though adults love it as well
Odd that he should use the word "deplorable" thus in his day, as presently we find ourselves in a time when modern deplorables watch Lord of the Rings and cheer orcs. Methinks his were the grandsires of ours, no?
I know through a different channel what a double-edged sword having a fanbase can be. On one hand, it's nice to know that people love your work. On the other hand, it's disheartening when they love it too much, when they don't want you to stretch your potential beyond the thing they already know that they love, at least in my case.
So I feel there are two sides to this. One aspect is the deplorable behavior of his fans towards him. Every famous person goes through this from what I've heard, but don't call people you don't know in the middle of the night or stalk them, or unsolicitedly send them self-crafted items, particularly ones you know they would only associate with evil and corruption. It's creepy and fans like that should be ashamed of themselves. The other aspect is Tolkien's (alleged?) opinion of readers who diverge from his world view and apparently get something else from his work ideologically than he intended. He's entitled to his opinion, of course - but a writer who has a problem with his readers holding different world views than himself is a writer who has a problem, _period._ It is not my obligation as a fan of someone's work to adopt that person's world view. I enjoy literary works by people from the very far left all the way to the very far right, and from countless different religions, and I'm able to get something for myself from all of them. Am I supposed to agree to all of these vastly different world views simultaneously? My mind would explode from the cognitive dissonance. It's not just a false line of thought, it's also a dangerous one. It stifles responsible literary consumption and appreciation instead of encouraging it. I know Tolkien was a big moralist, but I have trouble believing that he actually had an issue with that. I'm pretty sure he knew better.
His problem wasn't that people with defferent views liked his work. Problem was that these people thought that he and his work are confirming their believes.
@@DISTurbedwaffle918 You know, at first I wanted to say obviously. His Catholicism and cultural conservatism are very well-documented, so I assumed this extended to this question as well. But I always make sure to double-check, and after a bit of searching, it actually doesn't look all that clear-cut anymore. He was a big fan of E. M. Forster, who wrote the homosexual romance novel _Maurice,_ and he was also personal friends with Mary Renault and wrote in his letters that he heavily enjoyed her works - and Renault's books, just like Forster's, explicitly center homosexual relationships, both between men, like _Last Of The Wine,_ and between women, like _The Friendly Young Ladies,_ which Tolkien actually edited. Now appreciation for things in literature doesn't perfectly translate to real-life positions (although it can be an indicator and Tolkien was friends with Renault in real life too), and I'm definitely not one of those people who try to read homosexual subtext into Lord of the Rings. But also, there is little to no explicit statement by Tolkien on this issue at all from what I could find, which means we simply don't know that well. However, we do know one thing for certain: Tolkien despised people who spread hate towards their fellow human beings for whatever reason _way_ more than gay people.
Most artists including Tolkien don't understand that any piece of art once brought into the public doesn't belong to you no matter how much you protest. Misinterpretation, added elements, weird obsession with the work or creator and other reactions people may have are beyond the artist's control and that's a good thing because the value of art comes from how people react to it and not what the creator intends or feels about it. For example, Tolkien was annoyed that people obsessed over the worldbuilding and characters missing some of the depth but when you spend so much time building one of the most detailed fictional worlds and mythologies what do you expect people to take from that. Readers understood better than Tolkien himself what the most interesting aspects of his work were, and it was not his philosophical questions or catholic message.
Nah you're missing the point. Christianity Is core part of The Lord of the Rings no matter how much people want to revision that It wasn't. Also he understood better than his fans.
@@edwinve4112 I'm not desputing that. LOTR is clearly a catholic story, almost allegory even though Tolkien hated allegorys. My point is that most people don't care about it being catholic. They care about the worlduilding and the characters. They care about dragons, orcs, elves, castles, epic battles adventures, the history and mythology of that fictional world simply because of how detailed and well crafted it is. The overarching themes of good vs evil and catholic morality are not the main appeal of his work.
Imagine his reaction to Rings of Power or other similar attempts to "modernize" (pervert and bastardize) his works. 😅 In a way, I'm glad he wasn't alive to see this.
Imagine his reaction to clowns like you who claim to be experts on what his works do and do not represent and depict. I think he'd honestly hate you more than the show.
@@icefarrow7959 in other words effeminate banter because how dare he say anything bad about a slop show that says hobbits, elves, dwarfs and gondorians had black skin, because ya know ya gotta project today's bs beliefs on to the past, especially on a dead man who's entire life was nothing like today, lived in a majority white society, where you wouldn't be caught dead insisting that England or any of the others in the UK were for "anyone can be english, Scottish!". Dumb a.s.s.s.s 😂
@@PraetorianG2004 "if you're gonna sh°° on my thing that I like then then gonna do the same with that thing too!" Stf, the most petty crap imaginable just to defend a slop show with mediocre writing, inserting different racial groups into western kingdoms because homogeneity is somehow a sin by today's standards, which Tolkien himself did not live in a time where that BS was being pushed. "Oh anyone of any race can be..." Didn't exist back then and you'd die of old age trying to find anyone who would say that sincerely.
People take the great traditional authors and grind them through jagged, modern lenses to satisfy their profane wants and diabolical goals. Tolkien understood the necessity for imagery and narratives to connect with the Sacred above all else.
Its a bit amusing that he obsessed over mythology and then got confused and frustrated when people obsessed over 'modern mythology' which includes his works. But since he hated anything modern I guess it makes sense he didn't appreciate people modernising his works.
@@AesirUnlimitedwould you rather have progressivism though? Tolkien was never against change he was against how society in general doesn't learn to think about the consequences of its actions and thinking newer is better rather than reflecting in the past what was good. Tolkien had seen how over industrialization had destroyed Britain and led to deaths of many of his friends during both world wars. Honestly Tolkien's works are a reflection of his journey through the horrors of the 20th century and finding hope and beauty in it.
poor fella wrote a whole series on how evil is bad yet most of the fans are metalheads who love Sauron and Melkor designs, who play half orcs on fantasy rpgs and most don't eve practive any form of religion
@@alvaropinel7752 I really don't care what he thought. He'd be totally out of place in the modern world and not someone to take morals from. He forced his wife and friend to convert.
Honestly to all you guys in the comments: I guess Tolkien's own famous admonishment of interpreting his works means nothing when you get to point and go 'A good Christian boy!' He wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as stories first, as literature first. He despised all this philosophising in his lifetime, just because you see yourself on a high horse, doesn't change that the fantasy author is on record for describing his own work as being straightforward literature. Honestly, just try applying this nonsense to The Hobbit and tell me how an entire chapter about the actions of the dwarven vanguard fighting goblins is actually holy revelations that everyone aught to listen to the Pope in Rome
@@zarrg5611 Yeah that sounds unfortunately accurate. One of my first encounters with the online Tolkien fandom was The Golden One, infamous Swedish NeoNazi, making videos about how Tolkien's descriptions of kings (in his fantasy fiction) is evidence for absolute monarchy based ethnostates supposedly being the ideal government in real life. Ive seen these awful vibes in other parts of the Tolkien fandom in the years since, and this channel seems to regularly attract them in their comment sections when just about every other Tolkien lore channel either does not or explicitly casts them out
@@edwinve4112 Oh no, truly unless I tolerate the literal NeoNazi that I complained about that I must be the truly intolerant one! Look my sympathy for people who want to recreate the circumstances of trying to bomb my grandparents and wanting to gas my child isn't high
Bueno... yo siempre he sabido que nunca le habría caído bien a Tolkien, y sé bien que me obsesiona su mundo, pero jamás habría tenido la osadía de molestarlo jamás.
I feel the exact same consternation and horror at the many fans of these kinds of works who just _embrace_ the villains and the dark side because they're "cooler". A lot of people say "come on, it's not a big deal, who cares, it's just a story, there's no actual good and evil forces like that" -- but that's the _problem,_ and one of the reasons I take stuff like that seriously. I think particularly of the _creators_ of the newest renditions of both LOTR and Star Wars, _openly saying_ that the Dark Side is cooler, and making their new works convey the idea that the dark side is "misunderstood", and not flatly wrong and evil. That idea comes from postmodernism, which is a belief that everything humans believe is just a societal construct, and that there IS no true fundamental right and wrong, or Truth. As a Christian, I think there is no more _dangerous_ philosophy to have. It's _very_ serious. So I'm right alongside Tolkien with being concerned about these crazy amoral "fans".
I have many acquaintances who fit your comment perfectly, just like the Professor feared. We all loved the books since our teenage years, but some (a minority, thankfully) liked them “the wrong way”, as childish as it sounds, haha. Basically they enjoyed the destruction of Middle-Earth because they saw Sauron as a luciferian destroyer of the oppresive burgeois and their institutions, and the thing the liked the most about the ending was the Elves relinquishing their influence on ME.
Some of the best, most christian lessons on LOTR happens in the scouring of the Shire, and P Jackson just omitted it, sadly. That part impresses me profoundly. How the Hobbits are all for forgiving and for not trying to be too special after all their adventures. I just loved that
If he thought his fans were "deplorable," he should see the Star Wars fans. They are so horrible that Lucas literally decided to sell off his own franchise, just to get rid of them :D
J. R. R. Tolkien was someone who, by modern standards, would be called a "gigachad" or a "sigma". It's not surprising at all that it was really easy to get under his skin - he had his standards straight.
I don't think he meant his fans were deplorable. He seems to have said the the cult itself was deplorable. There's a subtle but very important difference.
Even George Lucas said that while he was grateful to the people who loved Star Wars, he warned people not to let it take over their lives.
And then he went on to make Stars Wars an allegory for the Gulf War.
@@AzureSymbiote Never heard of that before.
@@crusader2112 A significant chunk of the prequel trilogy is dedicated to this.
@@AzureSymbiote I guess I never picked it up, because I never got that at all.
I always assumed it was more of a Civil War allegory, with the CIS being, well, a Confederacy and the victorious republic becoming an empire.
Getting phone calls in the middle of the night would make me grumpy, too!
Years ago the BBC did a piece on Tolkiens life and covered this. Tolkien get's woken up by a phone call at 2 am and get's asked something along the lines of "Hey maaaaaaan, does the balrog have wiiiings?" Tolkien grumbles in disgust as he puts the phone down without answering.
@@NoFormalTraining That's the one I was thinking of as well! 😯
How did people got a hold of his phone number?
@@JesusProtects If you had a copy of the local phone directory, you could look up anyone if you knew their name. You might need their address too but there probably weren't too many Tolkiens in the area!
Unplug the phone at night and plug back in in the morning?
It makes sense that a man of his generation wasn't prepared for modern celebrity culture. It's gotta be a nasty surprise to someone not raised on it.
While I need a time machine to go back to his time..
Celebrity culture. Because we've become dumber over time.
It is even for those born in it
Even celebrities of this time aren't fully prepared for celebrity culture.
YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. IT'S SAD. DON'T BE SUCH AN CONSUMERIST.
I am glad that Professor Tolkien didn't live to see the internet age. The capacity for random strangers to bother him would be much increased, not to mention the modern tendency to publicly crucify authors of beloved works whose opinions are unpopular.
Heh, infinite amounts of information on anything of the topic and every random person thinking they have something to say about it? Sure I get what you're saying. I love his works and I can understand what this video is saying about the modern idea of a cultist like society. Many actors and people have talked about this before. A lot of times people don't think it's healthy at all.
He would have ended up putting on the ring and simply disappear ;)
I mean, I hesitantly make this comparision, but this essentially happened with JK Rowling. She has unpopular socio-political views in the eyes of those who fawn over her works. Its no stretch to say that social media makes a lot of people see her in a different light. I'd like to think Tolkien would have been more reserved than she was. I have doubts about him approving his books being put to screen in even the Peter Jackson films, let alone RoP.
@@danc5644 no one likes TERFs 😁
Imagine if he watched how his works are turned in to a show of people who are anti-christian and who believe in gray morality.
Now I understand why The New Shadow (the sequel of The Lord of the Rings he decided not to finish, but that is canon) was about the dangers of cults.
That's very meta and topical.
But yeah, not that LOTR was an allegory by any means, but Tolkien being a WWI veteran, saw the German empire fall and a cult of personality emerge around a certain sour National Socialist.
The funny thing is just from the few pages he wrote about "the dark tree" I found it WAY more compelling than even LOTR. The problem was likely him getting a bit too political and preachy about solutions to the issues of genuine decadence/boredom. Also I feel he was flying a bit too close to the sun involving the very real cults that permeate levels of government/business/religion
With the recent controversies after controversies coming to light in the last decade alone, and since the advent of the internet, its essentially undeniable at this point.
Honestly I think his "takes" would have been branded problematic for modern audiences. The "not worth doing" at the end of his letter regarding the sequel can be a double entendre. By pushing his beliefs in the sequel he would have risked the main trilogies integrity as purely a fantasy story.
@@pokeman5000 I thought it was because he didn't want to ruin the eucatastrophic ending of Lord of the Rings, but this might also be the case.
@@pokeman5000 I think it's a much more promising series than Rings of Power.
I feel he loved the fans as proven by numerous replies to letters. He understandably disliked the disrespectful and harassing ones.
It seems like a number of the fans in the early days were more academically minded and actually wrote compelling inquiries.
There's this one particular story of him getting mail from a real life Sam Gamgee. That was rather sweet.
@@chathanvemuri2625 Heh, he also met Ava Gardner but had no clue who she was.
@@chathanvemuri2625 See? *You* get it, I don't know hwy other people find it so hard.
@@chathanvemuri2625 he had a couple openly gay/queer friends so he definitely wasn't the most conservative for the time but I do agree he definitely would not be like most fans would like to imagine him lol. He'd be weirded out by cosplay and would hate stuff like the Shadow of Mordor video games and yeah, the Peter Jackson movies as well. As much as I love the films and think that most of the choices made on them were good for the screen he probably would have disliked them and would have preferred it not become a film at all. At most he would have tolerated them and understood the changes while still being apathetic towards them due to it focusing on the violence and action more than his books did since not doing so was an important aspect for him as a writer. He loved the journeys, not the wars, and that's what he wanted people to feel when they read his books.
tolkien: look at how gollum's obsession with the ring ruined his life
lotr readers: ...my precious...
Relatable: I find myself laughing at and imitating gollum’s mention of precious, but not always focusing on his origins or the meaning of it
Makes sense. Being a man of deep faith, it's only natural that he would be disturbed at the idea that he might be being placed as some sort of idol.
Shows his integrity. Nowadays I relate to his distress seeing the massive influencer culture now.
Imagine if he discovered Brain Rot Language.
I'm glad he didn't live to see people trying to "ship" Galadriel and Sauron.
Or Shelob turned into a hottie
Nah, he could make them non-cannon and be able to call out the fanfictions, for what they are
I mean i am pretty sure it was one of his notes that galadrirl was put on a pedestal by sauron. I feel the fact that they brought the fact she has a husband who has no screen time for the whole thing is even more funny.
Like imagine an romance adventurer where Mc gets exiled and sent to death galaavants across the world has the evil lord fall in love with her. Consider it, only to go oops I forgot I was married and have this loving relationship sure would have been good to have told him about my leaving the darn world lol.
He would absolutely despise those “fans” that love shipping and head-cannoning Frodo x Sam
😂😂😂😂😂
Tolkien hated consumerism and "machine factory" capitalism and the empty world of materialism. It's horrifying to watch his world be commodified endless and stripped of all its beauty, a beauty so informed by his Catholic faith and struggles in life!
Amen.
and sadly the heirs of his work are doing what he hated... at the end Sauron wins.
@@jan7392he didn't teach his own children right. that's what you get when you spend more time with your writing that raising your kids properly.
@@NoctLightCloudno his kids were fine. It’s the Grandkids that are green lighting crap like Rings of Power.
@@ianpage2509 Come now, if Christopher had been properly raised in his father's disdain of consumerism, The Silmarillion would likely never have been published and we definitely would not have got to see the Peter Jackson films.
I always felt if I ever met Tolkien he would dislike me, but be too polite to say so. The man had a great deal of restraint towards things that would normally drive modern people into a terrible fury.
And yeah, sipping tea from a cup with "My Precious" on it definitely would heighten his ire. Or the replica of the One Ring I got years ago, at least I take it as some strange symbolism that its cheap craftmanship has made the chain rust and the gold of the ring fade into a greenish hue, maybe that evil one day fades and weaken or some such.
That was an excellent point of view, the rusting of the metal and it's decay. I would like to believe that Tolkien may have loved it, because indeed evil cannot and won't last forever.
Tolkien seems to have been a classy guy. He may have disagreed with some of his fan, & he may have found their obsession a bit too much, but he also seems to have respected them, & he was willing to communicate with them. Nice video, by the way.
The hippies simply saw that the Hobbits like parties and smoke. If they met a hobbit, the hobbit would consider them quite strange or “queer”. Good boy at the end. 👍
How can Hobbits be hippies when they own property and land while hippies dont own shit.
@@HermitKing731 That’s what I don’t get. Most Hobbits are either farmers and own land or have some sort of job, but Hippies were mostly a bunch of Boomers who got high as young adults until they sobered up and entered the real world.
What's funny is in the reverse if the hippies knew the worldview of "Hobbits" they would have probably considered them "fascist". "What you mean I have to work the fields and clean my house and be an upstanding member of the community I just want to toke on that pipeweed" .
Are you incapable of seeing the world outside of archetypes that appeal to people with the cognitive abilities of a 12 year old (at best).
@@HermitKing731 Hippies are posers. Hobbits are natural-living humans
Understandable reaction from Tolkien. There is respect that is owed to the essence of a work as opposed to merely being fascinated by its parts. A drinking goblet inscribed with what is essentially a curse is a perfect example of people missing the point.
Author here. It's difficult to know where to stand on these kinds of things. On one hand, if an aspect of art touches or inspires someone... great! On the other hand, if the person either accidentally or deliberately reverses or contorts the lessons or purposes of the art, that misinterpretation can definitely leave a foul taste behind and end up sullying the entire transaction.
Why? art should be art and it's a form of flattery. Not sure why he would be offended by it if it means something to the reader.
Why? Who gives a shit? The ring isn't real, curses aren't real. It's all the same. Imagine if JK Rowling got upset that a fan carved her a replica of Voldemort's wand instead of Harry's. Ridiculous.
@@SpaghettiToaster see, you're really dense if you compare HP and LOTR, since as this VID already states, there's a vast difference to what LOTR meant to the author and what it meant to the average fanscum, while there is no such disconnect with HP
@@lmatt88 "art should be art" what the hell does that even mean?
As a Catholic and an artist I find the more I learn about Tolkien from this channel the more I find I can relate to him. I've had some people replicate my art and it's almost always bizzare to me because I think most completely miss the point and turn it into something very foreign to me. Also as an artist it's always been very uncomfortable to want your art seen and appreciated but you often have to participate in a culture that basically contaminates your work by association. Seeing hippies and Tolkien is a good example of how I feel.
That's just kind of inevitable with making art though. How people perceive anything is based on their own belief and viewpoints, which a writer, artist, or any form of media maker can sort of direct or even challlenge but not outright control. There's saying that I've heard "Once you put your work into the world, it's no longer yours" which is a truth that creators will have to face.
Isn't specifically the catholic confession very entrenched in the activity of interpretation and theological discussion, even if in the church, proper interpretation is reserved to members of the clergy? I feel like, much like Christianity, this muddy and amateurish interpreting is very old, primitive and, in my opinion, beautiful. Interpreting and theorizing, copying and meaning-changing just shows how alive a work is, and how interested people are, as they not just passively consume these works, but also interact with them, let it be Tolkien's writing, your art or religion
@@sarmin8008interpretation of the Bible isn’t reserved for clergy.the veil between God and man was torn down with the death and resurrection of Jesus.my faith and salvation as a Christian is between me and God.Confession is another concept by the Catholic Church to control the religion
Do you make art for people to think the way you think ?
@@MrVovoda to some extent I do.
So, you’re telling me that he wouldn’t like my belt that has the One Ring’s words decorating it? Damn.
You mean the One Belt?
The words on the One Ring are the Middle-Earth equivalent of "Sieg Heil" from our world. You wouldn't put those words on your belt, eh?
Well, I think is obvious, even if you like that kind of things.
And my two rings...
@@arphayas2826 The One Belt that would make you invisible?
Mr. Tolkien seems as if he was a simple man with simple wants, and the idea of complete strangers overseas calling in the middle of the night to fawn over him would of course be highly peculiar. But is a sad truth that art outgrows the artist, and whether we like it or not, can be used for any damned fool thing regardless of how the creator feels about it.
You think that's a bad thing about art? If anything, the fact that an atheist can read a book written by a devout catholic mostly composed of religious ponderings, and they can reach the last page and think "Wow, there really is hope in this world after all." is a part of what makes art genuinely amazing.
The Hippie movement in England was big in to Tolkien as well. My parents were hippies in London and Oxford, and they were part of it. The first time my mother’s parents met my father, he was playing as one of the trolls in a theatrical performance of The Hobbit at Oxford University in about 1969 or 70 or something like that. And that was in Tolkien’s home town, at his former place of work, while he was still alive.
I really feel sad for Tolkien on his last years, he saw how the world around him was becoming even more worse than it already was when he published his novels. Of course i'm not saying he himself lived in despair and sadness.
I mean… He had a real reason to be concerned. Just look at how rings of power twisted his work. Plus during the 60s and 70s can you imagine what it felt like to see a bunch of hippies and Rockstars using Lord of the rings as an excuse to get high? I’m pretty sure that’s what it looked like to him
That's the most cringe comment ever, I mean in regards to the 60's and 70's. Guess you are real fun at parties.
Cringe? Tolkien hated hippies. They are the reason these past few generations have had so many issues, and just so hippies could "have fun" and be, like, "hip" mannnn.
They should have just listened their parents.
@@GeorgeLCostnzathat’s now how the real world works.
@@cegesh1459 I'm thinking you misread my comment. Edit: or misunderstood it.
@GeorgeLCostnza
Yes. A handful of boomers getting high and reading Lord of the Rings totally somehow led to all of the problems we had today. Tolkien fans like you give this fandom a bad name. The superiority complex is just so off putting
As someone who was raised Christian but ended up leaving the faith when I was 12 I can say his work still is extremely special to me on many deep levels. What he had to say about war and industrialization are still impactful and his world still feels as real today all these years later.
Tolkien is an underated theologian in a sense. The theologian enterprise is historically connected with thought and philosophy, especially after the scholastic movement of the late middle ages. Not so with JRR Tolkien. He is a bard, a poet, a myth writer, wich sets him totally apart from the usual theological tradition, yet being a theologian in his own right. I say this having in mind his most important and underated work, ainulindale. The way he narrates the myth of creation is unique and unpreceeded as far as my knowledge goes. Before even light, there was music. And that, gosh, explains and puts a lot of new elements and perspectives.
I mean, you don't pour nearly as much of yourself as Tolkien did into LOTR and not expect the author to not be emotionally tied to accurate depiction of it.
It would drive me crazy if I put my heart, soul and catholic faith on something that would be taken by crowds just to have the meaning of it distorted to please their world view, which is the one I'm against. The irony! I'm glad there was no social media back then, but it would have been awesome if Tolkien took them all down with one tweet 😅
You say that as if Catholics don’t do the same. Lol
@@AesirUnlimited yeah we do tend to convince pagans away from infant sacrifice and same sex group stuff, like "pray for the dead, don't unbury them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
@@AesirUnlimited oops YT deleted my response I love it. Yeah, we do tend to convince pagans to stop with the infant deletion practices, the same s3 x group hobbies, like "guys, don't dig up the d 3 a d, pray for them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
@@AesirUnlimited @AesirUnlimited oops YT deleted my response twice, I love it. Yeah, we do tend to convince pagans to stop with the small human deletion practices, the same chromosomes group hobbies, like "guys, don't dig up the expired, pray for them", our bad. Good thing it all left Europe and now they are better than ever!!
@@Elven. “Pagans.” Bro, what year do you think it is? Lmao
Tolkien may have been horrified, but i find fascinating how an expression of traditionalist catholicism and fantasy was almost immediately co-opted by both counterculture hippies and the post-war new wave of nationalist nazi-fascists. How does a work whose author adamantly opposed allegory and intended for his work to be a work of escapism get appropriated by two polar opposite extremes?
because that is how humans work. you dont need to undestand the meaning of what you like, just that you like it.
The Bible itself has been co-opted and the words of Jesus have been used to justify actions entirely opposed to the Gospel. Humans are drawn to truth always, but often corrupt it when they cannot accept the fullness of it.
It's very easily explainable actually. People appropriate things to suit their beliefs. The swastika symbol used to represent harmony among other things but Hitler took it and you see the outcome.
People like good stuff
exactly becasue his work was not an allegory. He didn't forcibly imply in his work that this is the representation of the Catholic worldview and no one else can and should relate to it.
Also note that all those you mentioned have their own (albeit twisted in my view) stories of honour, duty and the fight between good and evil - in which story they themselves are the virtuous heroes.
It was the cult he called "deplorable", not the fans. Great piece otherwise.
It's too easy to think the religious are less reasoned or practicing magical thinking. That's part of why I respect Tolkien as much as I do. He proves that you can have your life improved by religion without it becoming some enemy of other intellectual endeavours
I never get this narrative especially since most of what we have as science and literature today was invented by religious people. Most scientists were Christians. Islam as well provided stuff like Algebra and our number system. Heck so many of the most famous literature were made by religious people whi combined it with many myths and themes from their own cultures. There are so many things we take for granted and are too narrow minded and biased with modernity rather looking at history as whole good and bad which is ironic since modern people tout themselves as superior and inclusive when they are the opposite.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 i guess it's just more noticeable today since so many have moved beyond organised religion. It was a very important social structure for a very long time though
Contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church originated the vast majority of scientific thinking, and even as recently as the 20th century, the big bang was first described by a Catholic priest. Galileo is basically the only example of a mostly unjust reaction from church authorities, and even in that case it was a the result of one particular person rather than an institutional problem. For some reason, everyone likes to point to that example to say Christianity is anti-science, even though it is more correct to say Christianity _created_ science. At least in the West.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 Islam stole algebra from the Persians when they invaded
@@o00nemesis00o the Arabs invaded Persia. Persians were Muslim for a long time already when algebra was created in year 825 and comleted in the 12th century. Muslim scientists made breakthroughs in both geometry and trigonometry which are still used in many practical arts and studies today
Tolkien inspired me to be a writer.
Fandom inspired me to wait until after death to be published.
Seeing what the world does with a multitude of works of art is frightening. It would be disturbing to know that your work awakes something in certain distasteful groups
And yet, on TH-cam, Tolkien's greatest fears are realized. People who neither understand or sympathize with Traditional Catholism, waste time trying to deconstruct his work WITHOUT trying to understand the fundamental Catholism underpinning it. 🙄
He liked some of his fans. According to "News from Middle Earth", Tolkien was very happy when a Scotsman named Sam Gamgee contacted him. Friends of his had read the book and come across his name, and he wanted to know how Tolkien had come up with him. The professor wrote him a very nice letter with a short etymological treatise on the name Gamgee. And he assured him that Sam in the book was an extremely positive character. And then he wrote to him that his book had unfortunately become "quite expensive", but if Mr. Gamgee showed the letter in a bookshop, the publisher would be happy to send him a free copy. Well, Gamgee was Scottish, and the old gentleman Tolkien must have thought that he would find the book too expensive if he had to pay for it.🤣🤣
That is such a cool story, I wouldn't even mind if you just made it up.
there are few things more frustrating than having your words, actions or beliefs taken out of context and twisted into something they're not, i'm not surprised it bothered him i'd probably be furious if i were in his position. i don't know how much of it was deliberate or whether people really just misunderstood him that badly, but either way it's really disrespectful
I found it quite ironic.
@@TheOtakuKat it is kind of funny on the surface, but when you consider how important his beliefs were to him and the sheer number of people involved it's really not. imagine someone spread a rumour about you doing something weird, suddenly all your friends, coworkers and family think that you did it and even when you try to dissuade them they still believe it. now multiply how annoying that would be by a million and that's what tolkien was dealing with
I gather that Tolkien wouldn't have liked "Rings of Power".
understatement of the century
I am pretty sure he would have preferred Rings of Power over the movies. I love the movies to pieces, but RoP is more mature and sticks closer to Tolkien's themes and the philosophical and spiritual questions of his books.
@@anni.68 😆
@@anni.68 🤡
@@anni.68 Uuuuh no, Rings of Power breaks the lore. Barrow Wights aren't suppose to exist until after the Fall of Arnor, yet they appear. That's just one example.
Makes sense. Most fans are insane. I wonder how he would feel about how people act in regards to media in today's age.
This made Tolkien even more sympathetic to me, since he took that serious what he tried to tell us with his works, even when many did not get it.
If you watch the trilogy with spiritual eyes you'll see the story is all about fighting sin or 'binding the strong man' from within.
'One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them'
I think that's what the binding ring is all about; the binding of the strongman. That is, if we are bound by sin, then our house (our spirits) and our peace will be spoiled. See Luke 11 : 21, Matthew 12 : 29, & Mark 3 : 27 in the KJV.
This is exactly the kind of comment
tolkien would've hated.
@@Nio744 Can you explain why?
@@Nio744how? He’s a making a Christian interpretation of the story; I’d say he’d be fine with it
@@Nio744 Gave you a week to explain your view, I guess all you had was a baseless opinion....
i saw someone recently call another person "blasphemous" for having *checks notes" a different opinion on lotr.
Calling people's differing pop-culture opinions blasphemous is just a gag that largely plays on the self-aware knowledge that it's silly and therefore funny to use such a strong word for such a weak reason.
Poor guy would be horrified about the number of antichristian black metal bands inspired by the lord of the rings
I think the band who really "gets" LOTR the most is probably Summoning. I feel like Tolkien would be appalled at people like Varg using his work to make their worldview sound good
@@Psalmist6693 I'ma have to check them out
He would probably be horrified by black metal in general, but as for them using orc names, he might think it appropriate :)
@@meduseldtales3383 Tolkien wasn't a pearl clutching 18th century lady, he fought in WW2, he probably would think the music sucks but happy people was inspired by his work in their own ways.
Indeed. I think the only musical group of any kind he would be happy about singing his songs would be Clamavi de Profundis.
I completely agree with Tolkien.
Fans would agree with him no matter what he said
@lmatt88 No I totally disagree.
Even the author does not get to be a gatekeeper
Milk drinker
@@langreeves6419it’s his work, he had a right to protect it
Tolkien was very very friendly with many people's and groups who enjoyed his work and carried on a large correspondence with many fans. He just didn't like the crazy ones and those who used his work to symbolism something that it didn't.
This is something I have considered ever since as a child when I first read Tolkien's work, when later I grew in understanding and knowledge; It has always seemed obvious to me that Tolkien's legendarium represents his personal, perhaps not entirely rigorously, not a 1:1 polemic perhps, of how the world works. But certainly it has always seemed to me, to be adjacent to that, to be Tolkien's, perhaps tentative, perhaps somewhat self-conscious view of his resolution of things like, 'the problem of evil' , in the Christian sense. In his work, we have a monotheistic god figure, the only 'real' god of the story, the only being that can create life. We have an amalgamation of the pantheistic classical greco/roman religion, of a mount Olympus and the gods of nature and so on, who are combined with the Christian monotheistic view. We have a Satan figure, who rebels against the overgod, but who is told that "For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”
This all creates a sense, to me, of a deeply Catholic Christian religious writer, who, through his fantasy and fiction, attempted to resolve these issues in some way, these 'problems' in his religion. Now I don't share his beliefs, but I don't need to, his work, as I think he always intended, transcends such raw and simple consideration. He set out to create a work, a story that could be applicable to many, to all, perhaps, and I think he succeeded. That is the real legacy of Tolkien, to me.
His message, such as it is, his theme of his greatest work, is universal, regardless of his own religion and beliefs, he tapped into universal human experiences and ideals, and that is why his work is so enduring.
Tolkien in a word, was the best of Traditional Catholic. And that's the highest praise I can give him. 🫡
Tolkien didn’t “hate” the fans, he just had boundaries.
So interesting! Never knew any of this. How precious ( no pun intended) his work was to him. It truly was an extension of himself.
Thanks for your research & insight.
Tolkien - Anti modernist ❤
The thing is "modernity" doesnt mean for Tolkien what it means for you dorks.
@@MailrobotIt actually does. Human nature doesn't change
@@Mailrobot Are you on the side of dark satanic mills?
@@doedelzak3914
You’re human, so that means you’re flawed and corrupted too. Or do you not count because you are one of those “rare special people” who are beyond the corruption of desire, hate, anger, fear and so on. Be honest, you self destruct yourself more often than you think you do.
Every conservative is a former liberal unhappy that the bus didn't stop.
Please stop with the "Tolkien hated" video titles
Agreed. Everyone knows Tolkien hated clickbait.
He seems to have carried alot of hatred in his heart, seeing as so much is subject for hate.
@@MoonwalkerWorshiperhe hated things not people, but I could've misunderstood your comment, if I did, sorry
@@Jakov-or7fp How can you misunderstand a perfectly simple point?
Most brits seems to be willfully miserable and love to hate and judge.
Wow imagine being a world famous best-selling writer and your home phone number is listed in the directory. Different times.
i'm fully aligned with Tolkien and fully agreed with him, i'm catholic also.
A person making a goblet with the One Ring's words written on it reminds me of people hosting glamorous parties based on the Great Gatsby. Kind of misses the point LOL! Points for effort though! XD
Toxic fandom, it existed in Tolkien’s day and age too, that’s all.
Tolkien would despise his current fan base. People that think Sauron is someone to look up to. It’s a shame.
Lol what??? Nobody thinks that...
??? Who thinks that? I've never, in my 55 years, met anyone who idolizes Sauron. Much different from many Star Wars fans who claim "The Empire wasn't wrong"...
Funnily enough I watched a recent video by whatifalthist talking about how the Soviets literally saw Sauron as the good guys while the elves, dwarves, and human kingdoms as the evil bourgeois. I thought it was just a joke but then I read the sources and I can't believe it was true and that people legitimately believed that and see themselves as Sauron
He would’ve despise his current fanbase more if he knew how protective of his work they are. And what I’m referring to is the actual gatekeeping by a bunch of vitriolic snobs who will bully you for liking the movies or shows and gaslight you for daring to call them out for their rotten attitude, saying that “we are the greedy and ignorant ones”. Tolkien would hate hate HATE the fans of today.
@@ulfberht4431
The Rings of Power is pure dogshit and evil. The movies are good. Gatekeeping is good.
Interestingly, in Italy Tolkien's work was adopted by the exact opposite of the crowds it attracted in the US. Meaning fascists. The MSI (Italian Social Movement, composed mainly by former members of the fascist Republic of Salò during WW2) organized "Hobbit camps" and "Shire gatherings", which were basically meetings, rallies and festivals of the youth branch of the movement, from 1977 up until the 2000s. Our current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni is an avid Tolkien fan exactly because she used to go to these rallies, being a former member of the MSI. Today, in Italy, Tolkien is still widely seen with suspicion by the left, having been widely weaponized by neo-fascists movements. I doubt Tolkien was aware of this (or anyone outside of Italy for that matter), but I very much doubt he'd have approved.
Its happened in other countries too: Swedish Neonazis (notably once infamous youtuber The Golden One) used Tolkien's work as 'evidence' or blueprints for modern absolute monarch ethno states, and online in English speaking Tolkien circles you can definitely still find groups that mix fantasy fiction with extremist talking points (both fascist and fundamentalist christian).
Its seems like in Tolkien fans on one side have always been the hippies, rockers and artists and on the other the hyper traditionalists, fascists and religious fundamentalists.
I don't see how fascism and hobbits are a natural match. Hobbits were the least authoritarian people of Middle Earth.
They were basically hippies.
@@kenofken9458 Not really hippies, more like english countryside farmers (like Tolkien's brother was), but I see your point. I think the MSI was more interested in the whole "men of the west fighting evil from the east" thing, and called the rallies "hobbit camps" just to make them more inviting. Either way, fascists aren't known for their intelligence and literacy.
@@Golwen_ There is a sort of theme or undercurrent in the stories relating to the idea of a more "noble race" of men ie the Dunedain/Numenoreans who were supposed to be physically, intellectually and, at least at one time, morally superior to other humans.
The men of the east, by contrast, were depicted as generally corrupt and under the sway of evil and the enemies of "free peoples", so I can see where those interested in white supremacy or at least a kind of cultural chauvanism about "The West" would find something to latch onto there. I just don't see how they came up with tying all that to hobbits and shires. Maybe because the hard right has historically idealized agrarian societies.
There's even a kind of ethno-nationalist hierarchy among the elves in LOTR. The silvan/woodland elves are sort of depicted as almost Appalachian vs the Noldor who were sort of the New England bluebloods.
I got to say, as an introverted Filipino Catholic nerd with more traditionalist views, I relate a lot to Tolkien in every regard here. His works have been viewed and used in ways far different from what he originally intended, and that applies to both the popular works we enjoy like the films and the…less popular ones, while many fans choose to disrespect or remain ignorant of his world views as well, while paradoxically revering him and his work too much. Nevertheless, there are plenty of great fans, Catholic, Christian or not, who respect him while also not obsessing over his work above all else.
I like his works, I hope more comes out, however I'm not a die hard fanatic. I'm not the guy to hover around a single storyline and worship it. New is great, different is great, the old is great but I don't day dream about anything and I greatly do not respect his Nationalist views. My understanding of what that is makes me think about the makeup of his fan base. Nationalists. Imperialists...
@@scottiestarcher409 I don’t think it’s fair to label him or the fanbase as predominantly nationalistic. At the end of the day, remember, Tolkien was Catholic (like, super Catholic) and not Anglican like C.S. Lewis (Tolkien was the reason he became Christian at all as they were friends). That meant he actually didn’t see the current royalty of England the same way as the Kings and Queens of old. He was also staunchly anti-imperialism. Like I said I’m a traditional Catholic myself and while we’re huge fans of Tolkien we don’t obsess over him and his work over God. The obsessed fans in the end are those like in the video who don’t hold to his ideologies or respect them at all.
Gods ain't real
@@NickHurr-ss3po go tell someone who gives a damn
I.e. those elements of the fandom didn't take him seriously enough. The real joy is in not devaluing it as 'mere phantasy'.
The best we can draw from anything is how it helps us go through life.
I am currently becoming catholic, and I would have loved to talk to this man about my new faith and his works.
One of those fans was Christopher Lee (who played Saruman in the movie). He became so starstruck when he met him (at a pub) that he could hardly utter a sentence 😊.
Tolkien was a rare example of Genius Recognized In Its Time. I'm not religious, but I'm a die-hard Middle-Earth fan; the Catholic undercurrents in the work don't bother me (in the way that they do in Lewis' Narnia Chronicles). Tolkien did what nobody else (except Herbert) was doing at the time and he did it for the purest of reasons, not for material ones, and THAT is why I think his legacy endures despite any regressive properties. His M-E work is a masterpiece of imaginary and scholarly thought and it's also an example of how someone's beliefs can motivate them to do Great Things that span the course of time and find an audience in each generation.
That is why his work was both co-opted but also passed on throughout the years: it's THAT accessible, meaningful, and potent.
Thanks to Amazon, nobody is obsessing over his works anymore
This sorrows me as progressive Tolkien fan who recognizes Tolkiens world view and underlying catholic metaphysics and values in his works
I would call him my "favorite christian conservative", for even though if we ever met and had a discusssion, we would find some of our differing views awful. But what I could agree on, is what I will forever treasure in my heart forever and ever
I have discussed with Tolkien fans who just won't get it and have either simplistic or just plain wrong and ignorant vmway of understanding Tolkien's work
Tbf, a LOT of modern vocal “Tolkien Fans” can be a bit gatekeepy towards anyone who doesn’t fit their worldview. This is especially apparent when Game of Thrones fans engage with them acting like they are better and forgetting the fact that most of us (including Martin himself) are massive Tolkien fans.
I do often wonder what particularly progressives like about it. Is it the world and the themes that apply to all mankind? If so, which ones in particular? Forgive me if I'm being gatekeepy, but I think it's very hard to get to the very core of the story without understanding all of the Catholic symbolism and messaging, something that I coincidentally did not do until becoming Catholic. Before, I just thought of it as another world like Star Wars, except something somehow more special. Now I think of it as the greatest non-inspired expression of my faith and a marvel of "pre-evangelisation" as Tolkien called it. It just felt like Catholicism was the key to fully appreciating it, but maybe I just lacked something else that you don't.
He is a product of his time,
@@MrBulbasaurlover Plenty of catholics are progressive, thought, so even if we took your comment as being the truth (that you cant enjoy Tolkien to its full extent without being catholic), that would not exclude all progressives from enjoying it, and would actually exclude lots of conservatives from doing so (not all conservatives are catholic).
He reminds me of J-lo in the sense that he's one of those artists that takes their work too seriously. No one is perfect.
Imagine if he lived to see what Amazon did with his work, lol.
He would have hated Jackson’s take on his work, too. I suppose Jackson got most of the big stuff right (I guess) but Tolkien would’ve hated what Jackson did to the characters. I’m with Tolkien.
@@junglemoose2164then Tolkien should have had the movies made during his lifetime. Jackson did a phenomenal job and did change some things, but I’m not sure you could get better with the culture at the time.
@@adamb8317 He did a terrible job but you're right, I doubt anyone could have done better. Saying Tolkien should have had them made in his lifetime is lame. You know full well he couldn't have made them.
@@junglemoose2164 then he can’t complain and neither should you. Saying Jackson did a terrible job is pretty ignorant though.
@@adamb8317 Incorrect. Saying he did a good job is ignorant given we have the novels to understand just how bad Petey screwed things up. Your need to shut people down because they have a different opinion is weird.
It sounds like Tolkien never have been to a party in his life.
Thank goodness he isnt alive to see Rings of Power.
He wouldn't drink from a goblet because it was engraved with the made up words he wrote for the one ring? That's extremely bizarre. What a weird guy.
The words were evil, why would he drink from a cup that had evil words on it, even if it came from a story?
Because, let us be honest here, Tolkien was nlt the man that we always imagened him to be
"Art moves them and they don't know what they've been moved by, and they get quite drunk on it"
This statement nailed it. And not only for LotR. People constantly get obsessed in fictional works without even understanding the underlying themes, the messages, and the author's points of view.
He didn't call his fans "deplorable" he called his "cultus" (literally "worship" in Latin). Also despite the difference between Tolkien and the hippies there were commonalities a recognition of the spiritual and alienation from the modern & industrial world
Yes, thank you! Clickbaity video title.
On the band part. There was an actual band called Gandalf that came out in the late 60s. They only have one album to my knowledge
I was a big fan of LOTR when the movies came out, and then I became a bigger fan when I found out he was Catholic and the books were an expression of Catholic faith.
I guess that the phrase 'mental disorder' is considered 'hate speech'. Thank you TH-cam censors.
Wow, I feel for Mr. Tolkien, he makes an absolute masterpiece, and people don't get its purpose,or its meaning.Instead it is reduced to something of pop culture,a"fad" and is used for rich men to use to get richer. His life's work is thought of as a mere book,something on level with the much poorer rip-offs of our generation. It stinks. If I could,I would make a movie worthy of the books,something he would be proud of.
Sorry guys, I do love the Lord of the Rings Movies,but they have nothing on the book.
Our lives are richer for Middle-earth’s existence, however people came to know the stories whether by page or celluloid. No one with a brain or heart comes to this story leaves unenlightened or unmoved. And there are those who still study his writings to the best of their abilities.
The rich buffoons and their stooges have missed the deeper meanings, but they have not buried them. If you truly think that Tolkien has been brought down to the level of modern day ripoffs and that the depth and emotion is no longer there, then you are letting Bezos and his cronies win.
Perhaps its not meant to be a movie or anything else than a Book and a views of Tolkien on our world emerged in a fantastical and very much generous work
There is already an incredible trilogy of movies released in early 2000’. To call those movies unworthy is delusion and a clear lack of knowledge on how to adapt a book into a movie.
@@tuba3000 They are the best possible adaptation we have and probably will have. However, the Book itself is sometimes different from the Jackson trilogy, nevertheless i'd argue we never will be able to convert tolkiens idea of middle earth on tv without using our own imagination in visualisation
@@oscarstainton Bezos won a long time ago. But as for modern rip offs, this is only the beginning, wait til they get rights to the First Age. And they will.
Hmm. Seems like he was not doing it for the fame. He disliked the glory some people like to take credit for. And then Rings of Power happened. Unbelievable.
Imagine Tolkien and Harlan Ellison in a conversation about fans haha
I feel like Harlan might have murdered Tolkien mid conversation, guy was really upset by default at everyone and everything (made for an excellent AM though, both in the short story and his voice acting)
The irony of a person being obsessed over largely due to their work which is primarily and importantly about the danger of obsession ...
Tolkien created Tom Bombadil and then complained that hippies liked his books.
Tom Bombadil is unironically some pagan nature spirit like Krakonoš or Radegast.
I don't think he was angry that hippies liked his books, I believe he was irritated because they used to it to promote/excuse/suppliment their deviant (according to the professor) lifestyle . You see, despite what "scholars" and some "fans" tell us, Middle-earth is not about drugs, or sex, or many other things folks seem hellbent on projecting on to it.
Tom Bombadil was a simple man enjoying his life.
Hippies are subversive outcasts who hate life so much that they need to fornicate and consume large quantities of mind-altering substances just to be happy.
Don't think he minded that hippies liked his books as much as he minded getting calls at 4 AM from tweaked out geekers in San Francisco
Tolkien would have a heart attack if he lived long enough to find out about fanfiction
There was in fact intersectionality between (progressive) 1960s Christianity and the "flower power" movement, although admittedly not much. In any case, it was inevitable that counterculturalists would embrace Tolkien's works. While there is undeniably a great difference between religion and mythology, the Tolkien cult was an antidote not just against the science fiction and dry realism of postwar literature, but the bland brand of Christianity that prevailed over more "spiritual" forms of faith in the contemporary secular and rationalist age. American Christianity had evolved to a place of Sunday picnics and ladies in white gloves and large hats, and a world of adventure that was both rough-and-tumble and mystical seemed to be a lot closer to what religion had been at the beginnings of civilization. (I am, of course, aware that while Tolkien was traditional, he was not THAT traditional. Post-Enlightenment conservatism and bohemianism both rebel against the modern world, but in very different ways.)
Tolkien apparently was also mildly xenophobic, having no affection for foreigners of any kind, not even for the ethnically French Normans that continue to make up a substantial part of the English pedigree. He wanted THE LORD OF THE RINGS to be a "pure Anglo-Saxon" foundation myth. Aside from the fact that English folklore is rooted in the more general Indo-European folklore, and that Anglo-Saxons are not the indigenous people of the British Isles anyway, there is no reason why Tolkien's books should be for ethnically English readers only. The English had long been just another minority group in America (albeit a still-influential one) by the time THE HOBBIT was written.
@@SeasideDetective2 I just think he wanted to create a story for the Anglo-Saxon people who aside from Beowulf, really didn’t have a mythology of their own, according to Tolkien. And, I see nothing contradictory about the Lord of the Rings being both a story with universal themes and messages and a story for the Anglo-Saxon people.
P.S. Also, I believe after 1,000 years of Anglo-Saxon habitation in Britain they became the main inhabitants. But that’s just my opinion. Peace ✌🏻
Refreshing to view a Tolkien video that doesn't involve broadcasting hate 24/7. That kind of thing really would have the kindly professor turning in his grave!
>writes several excellent pieces of fantasy literature
>gets concerned when those works make him famous
>elaborates a lot in his letters
>dies
We get it ya don't understand how people were before what you're used to being around
@@jacobj3933 Could you be more coherent, please? In all honesty I do struggle a lot to capture the flow of your thoughts.
Ahhhh ❤️. Bless his heart.
The genius of Tolkien is that his work transcends various narrow world views because it contains universal truths. I’m an old hippy & a Pagan, & a major Tolkien nerd. To me his Catholicism embraced not only what is good about that religious philosophy but also what the Catholic religion took from the old religions - the Religio especially.
Tolkien is against the Haladriel shippers
He seemed to be against anything. I think I’ve probably seen dozens of videos about what Tolkien would’ve hated, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard about anything he would have liked besides the artwork of a few illustrators. It seems like he hated more than he liked or loved. Or at the very least people seem to like painting him in this way.
@@AesirUnlimited That's also the impression that I get from him, and from Christopher too. They would've disliked anything that changed the original in the slightest level. Christopher, for example, hated Peter Jackson's trilogy for LOTR. I can understand it from the author's perspective, people who don't fully understand the work and appropriate it for a movie or other kind of media will be bound to change it, and thus they risk not only "dumbing it down" but also changing the message.
But on the other hand, come on, I'd be honored to have so many people like and connect with my work, even to the point of it becoming a movie or series. We could also look at Game of Thrones for example. I don't think George Martin enjoyed the last couple of seasons of the show. That's why I think the correct approach with adaptations is getting the original author/creator involved in the production.
@@AesirUnlimited Hate is a very strong word. He just did not care.
@@AesirUnlimited It's called having standards and good taste.
@@o00nemesis00o Tolkien was a legendary writer, and has my respect but his opinions and worldview are hardly the be all and end all. Tolkien passed away long enough ago that most people who complain about this stuff most likely weren’t even alive when he passed. Getting upset on behalf of a man who has been gone for 50 years is hardly a worthwhile pastime.
Tolkiens' work was on a mamouth scale. I mean, he even invented his own languages and wrote thousands of pages of lore and history on middle earth. It would have been pretty much impossible for anyone to measure up to his standards. To be fair to CS Lewis his books were aimed more at kids even though adults love it as well
Odd that he should use the word "deplorable" thus in his day, as presently we find ourselves in a time when modern deplorables watch Lord of the Rings and cheer orcs. Methinks his were the grandsires of ours, no?
I know through a different channel what a double-edged sword having a fanbase can be. On one hand, it's nice to know that people love your work. On the other hand, it's disheartening when they love it too much, when they don't want you to stretch your potential beyond the thing they already know that they love, at least in my case.
So I feel there are two sides to this. One aspect is the deplorable behavior of his fans towards him. Every famous person goes through this from what I've heard, but don't call people you don't know in the middle of the night or stalk them, or unsolicitedly send them self-crafted items, particularly ones you know they would only associate with evil and corruption. It's creepy and fans like that should be ashamed of themselves.
The other aspect is Tolkien's (alleged?) opinion of readers who diverge from his world view and apparently get something else from his work ideologically than he intended. He's entitled to his opinion, of course - but a writer who has a problem with his readers holding different world views than himself is a writer who has a problem, _period._ It is not my obligation as a fan of someone's work to adopt that person's world view. I enjoy literary works by people from the very far left all the way to the very far right, and from countless different religions, and I'm able to get something for myself from all of them. Am I supposed to agree to all of these vastly different world views simultaneously? My mind would explode from the cognitive dissonance. It's not just a false line of thought, it's also a dangerous one. It stifles responsible literary consumption and appreciation instead of encouraging it. I know Tolkien was a big moralist, but I have trouble believing that he actually had an issue with that. I'm pretty sure he knew better.
His problem wasn't that people with defferent views liked his work. Problem was that these people thought that he and his work are confirming their believes.
He would despise the LGBTQ movement with every fibre of his being.
You seem like a miserable, troublemaking person who will probably end up hating you.
@@DISTurbedwaffle918
@@DISTurbedwaffle918 You know, at first I wanted to say obviously. His Catholicism and cultural conservatism are very well-documented, so I assumed this extended to this question as well. But I always make sure to double-check, and after a bit of searching, it actually doesn't look all that clear-cut anymore. He was a big fan of E. M. Forster, who wrote the homosexual romance novel _Maurice,_ and he was also personal friends with Mary Renault and wrote in his letters that he heavily enjoyed her works - and Renault's books, just like Forster's, explicitly center homosexual relationships, both between men, like _Last Of The Wine,_ and between women, like _The Friendly Young Ladies,_ which Tolkien actually edited. Now appreciation for things in literature doesn't perfectly translate to real-life positions (although it can be an indicator and Tolkien was friends with Renault in real life too), and I'm definitely not one of those people who try to read homosexual subtext into Lord of the Rings. But also, there is little to no explicit statement by Tolkien on this issue at all from what I could find, which means we simply don't know that well. However, we do know one thing for certain: Tolkien despised people who spread hate towards their fellow human beings for whatever reason _way_ more than gay people.
@@tarvoc746
Cope. Out here making shit up to justify your evil lifestyle.
Most artists including Tolkien don't understand that any piece of art once brought into the public doesn't belong to you no matter how much you protest. Misinterpretation, added elements, weird obsession with the work or creator and other reactions people may have are beyond the artist's control and that's a good thing because the value of art comes from how people react to it and not what the creator intends or feels about it. For example, Tolkien was annoyed that people obsessed over the worldbuilding and characters missing some of the depth but when you spend so much time building one of the most detailed fictional worlds and mythologies what do you expect people to take from that. Readers understood better than Tolkien himself what the most interesting aspects of his work were, and it was not his philosophical questions or catholic message.
Nah you're missing the point. Christianity Is core part of The Lord of the Rings no matter how much people want to revision that It wasn't. Also he understood better than his fans.
@@edwinve4112 I'm not desputing that. LOTR is clearly a catholic story, almost allegory even though Tolkien hated allegorys. My point is that most people don't care about it being catholic. They care about the worlduilding and the characters. They care about dragons, orcs, elves, castles, epic battles adventures, the history and mythology of that fictional world simply because of how detailed and well crafted it is. The overarching themes of good vs evil and catholic morality are not the main appeal of his work.
So basically, Tolkein was based
8:00 I wonder what the exclusive information might be. Any more info on this?
A lot of it had to do with the languages of Middle Earth, which can be found in the Letters!!
Imagine his reaction to Rings of Power or other similar attempts to "modernize" (pervert and bastardize) his works. 😅
In a way, I'm glad he wasn't alive to see this.
Imagine his reaction to clowns like you who claim to be experts on what his works do and do not represent and depict. I think he'd honestly hate you more than the show.
Just like the movies?
@@icefarrow7959 in other words effeminate banter because how dare he say anything bad about a slop show that says hobbits, elves, dwarfs and gondorians had black skin, because ya know ya gotta project today's bs beliefs on to the past, especially on a dead man who's entire life was nothing like today, lived in a majority white society, where you wouldn't be caught dead insisting that England or any of the others in the UK were for "anyone can be english, Scottish!". Dumb a.s.s.s.s 😂
@@PraetorianG2004 "if you're gonna sh°° on my thing that I like then then gonna do the same with that thing too!" Stf, the most petty crap imaginable just to defend a slop show with mediocre writing, inserting different racial groups into western kingdoms because homogeneity is somehow a sin by today's standards, which Tolkien himself did not live in a time where that BS was being pushed. "Oh anyone of any race can be..." Didn't exist back then and you'd die of old age trying to find anyone who would say that sincerely.
People take the great traditional authors and grind them through jagged, modern lenses to satisfy their profane wants and diabolical goals. Tolkien understood the necessity for imagery and narratives to connect with the Sacred above all else.
Its a bit amusing that he obsessed over mythology and then got confused and frustrated when people obsessed over 'modern mythology' which includes his works. But since he hated anything modern I guess it makes sense he didn't appreciate people modernising his works.
Modernizing is bastardizig. A bunch of high, dirty hippies defiling Christian art.
@@AesirUnlimitedwould you rather have progressivism though? Tolkien was never against change he was against how society in general doesn't learn to think about the consequences of its actions and thinking newer is better rather than reflecting in the past what was good. Tolkien had seen how over industrialization had destroyed Britain and led to deaths of many of his friends during both world wars. Honestly Tolkien's works are a reflection of his journey through the horrors of the 20th century and finding hope and beauty in it.
@@AesirUnlimitednot every change is good, they were right
@@AesirUnlimited and not every change is for the good or better
@@AesirUnlimitedI think you have ro realize that change isn't inherently good, either way Tolkien didn't have to change his beliefs to suits yours
Awesome stuff
Didn’t know a lot of it
Thanks 🙏
Wonder what he’d think of us now 😢
Wow, one of the most famous linguists and storytellers in the world recognizes me! Such an honor, it is. ❤
poor fella wrote a whole series on how evil is bad yet most of the fans are metalheads who love Sauron and Melkor designs, who play half orcs on fantasy rpgs and most don't eve practive any form of religion
Religion doesn't make you a good person.
@@silver4831 so ? your point being ?
@@alvaropinel7752 You seem to make out being without a religon is a bad thing.
@@silver4831 Lmao you learned nothing about Tolkien even after the video ? I said he'd be even more dissapointed.
@@alvaropinel7752 I really don't care what he thought. He'd be totally out of place in the modern world and not someone to take morals from. He forced his wife and friend to convert.
Honestly to all you guys in the comments: I guess Tolkien's own famous admonishment of interpreting his works means nothing when you get to point and go 'A good Christian boy!'
He wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as stories first, as literature first.
He despised all this philosophising in his lifetime, just because you see yourself on a high horse, doesn't change that the fantasy author is on record for describing his own work as being straightforward literature.
Honestly, just try applying this nonsense to The Hobbit and tell me how an entire chapter about the actions of the dwarven vanguard fighting goblins is actually holy revelations that everyone aught to listen to the Pope in Rome
It is clear these commenters use their obsession with Tolkien as a projection of other, less savoury, viewpoints.
@@zarrg5611 Yeah that sounds unfortunately accurate.
One of my first encounters with the online Tolkien fandom was The Golden One, infamous Swedish NeoNazi, making videos about how Tolkien's descriptions of kings (in his fantasy fiction) is evidence for absolute monarchy based ethnostates supposedly being the ideal government in real life.
Ive seen these awful vibes in other parts of the Tolkien fandom in the years since, and this channel seems to regularly attract them in their comment sections when just about every other Tolkien lore channel either does not or explicitly casts them out
@@Rynewulf dude no one gives a sh°°, if you're gonna try to bring up bs moral grand standing about "muh neo Nazis" go somewhere else.
@@RynewulfIt seems you dont want non-leftists to voice their opinions. Why do you want to make this an echo-chamber?
@@edwinve4112 Oh no, truly unless I tolerate the literal NeoNazi that I complained about that I must be the truly intolerant one!
Look my sympathy for people who want to recreate the circumstances of trying to bomb my grandparents and wanting to gas my child isn't high
Bueno... yo siempre he sabido que nunca le habría caído bien a Tolkien, y sé bien que me obsesiona su mundo, pero jamás habría tenido la osadía de molestarlo jamás.
I feel the exact same consternation and horror at the many fans of these kinds of works who just _embrace_ the villains and the dark side because they're "cooler". A lot of people say "come on, it's not a big deal, who cares, it's just a story, there's no actual good and evil forces like that" -- but that's the _problem,_ and one of the reasons I take stuff like that seriously. I think particularly of the _creators_ of the newest renditions of both LOTR and Star Wars, _openly saying_ that the Dark Side is cooler, and making their new works convey the idea that the dark side is "misunderstood", and not flatly wrong and evil. That idea comes from postmodernism, which is a belief that everything humans believe is just a societal construct, and that there IS no true fundamental right and wrong, or Truth. As a Christian, I think there is no more _dangerous_ philosophy to have. It's _very_ serious. So I'm right alongside Tolkien with being concerned about these crazy amoral "fans".
I have many acquaintances who fit your comment perfectly, just like the Professor feared. We all loved the books since our teenage years, but some (a minority, thankfully) liked them “the wrong way”, as childish as it sounds, haha.
Basically they enjoyed the destruction of Middle-Earth because they saw Sauron as a luciferian destroyer of the oppresive burgeois and their institutions, and the thing the liked the most about the ending was the Elves relinquishing their influence on ME.
Some of the best, most christian lessons on LOTR happens in the scouring of the Shire, and P Jackson just omitted it, sadly. That part impresses me profoundly. How the Hobbits are all for forgiving and for not trying to be too special after all their adventures. I just loved that
If he thought his fans were "deplorable," he should see the Star Wars fans. They are so horrible that Lucas literally decided to sell off his own franchise, just to get rid of them :D
I love the map at 7:54 where is it from?
J. R. R. Tolkien was someone who, by modern standards, would be called a "gigachad" or a "sigma".
It's not surprising at all that it was really easy to get under his skin - he had his standards straight.
its so cringe to use those terms, "gigachad" or a "sigma". do you have an Andrew Tate poster somewhere by anychance ?
@@MisterSiga so you are a beta
I don't think he meant his fans were deplorable. He seems to have said the the cult itself was deplorable. There's a subtle but very important difference.