Hey man. Tolkien first published The Hobbit, then LOTR.

No one claimed otherwise.  If you care to think about it, perhaps that is why I listed the books in that order.

Another poster here said that the "God figure" is mentioned in the Silmarillion, a posthumous work which came out in 1977.

So the 4 main books make no mention at all of this "God figure."

The other poster is correct that the creator-god of the Lord of the Rings mythology is named in The Silmarilion, however, there are indeed references to the creator-god of the mythology in The Lord of the Rings.  

I thought it reasonable that, if this God figure was prevalent in Tolkien's 4 main books (which it turns out it isn't) then Jackson would probably include it in the movies, even though of course movie adaptations change a lot of stuff and details.

I think your response is over the top and unwarranted because there is no such God figure in the 4 main books.

First, perhaps you should see a few of Peter Jackson's other films before making any assumptions about how Peter Jackson would adapt The Lord of the Rings to film.  In any event, I'm not sure anyone suggested the mythological creator-god was prevalent in the books, just that it is referenced and part of the mythology while in the Harry Potter series this is not the case at all or that such references are to Black Masses and modern occult and pagan practices.  

No, i will not read any of these books. I already attempted to do so years ago when i was in the Novus Ordo, when the movies came out and all the hoopla over them was in rage, and i found them boring.

Fair enough.  If your reading and comprehension skills and taste in literature are such than you do not desire to read the stories that is your affair.  You shouldn't ask a question about which you have nothing to base an opinion and then dispute the absolutely reasonable answers you get.

I once heard a critique by an SSPX priest of Tolkien's books and i thought it was good. It was all negative of course. I don't remember the priest's name or the name of the talk either. Perhaps someone here knows.

I once heard a critique by an SSPX priest of Tolkien's books that were positive.  

I have read the entire series (Hobbit + Lord of the Rings + Silmarillion + Children of Hurin + Tales from the Perilous Realm) less the books of notes; and, had I the time again, I should fling them all on a pyre and say the Little Office of Our Lady several times in the wasted time.

Firstly, I regard fantasy literature as essentially sinful, the equivalent in our times of the chivalric nonsense that Ignαzιo de Loyola stuffed his head with before becoming St Ignatius. Has not Holy Church a hundredfold more pure, real wonders than the vanities of a corrupted mind? Let us use our time in sincere prayer and loathing of our rotten flesh.

There is at least one case of impurity (the dwarf Gimli's ''courtly love'', or syruped and begowned adulterous lust, for a married woman, presented entirely positively, indeed praised),  indeed these fester through Mediaeval writings and Wagner's operas. The Children of Hurin has a case of (admittedly accidental) incest uncondemned. Such filth ought never be mentioned: have we not the Lives of the Saints to read?

The cosmology of the Silmarillion is essentially Gnostic; and it is worth pointing out that the contradictory accounts of the dwarves and elves are given without condemnation of one or the other, a grave relativism.

Taints of paganism  are present too, Gandalf described as an 'Odinic wanderer'', ''dwarves'' and ''elves'', which are essentially wicked and pagan, regarded positively. His Modernistic ideas on myth  and his distaste for allegory, long used by the Church Fathers, both were used in an article I once read to make a case he was a Gnostic.

His presentation of Purgatory (implied) in ''Leaf by Niggle'' is essentially humanistic, a more or less pleasant time of self-knowing and hard labour, not the blazing agony that awaits us poor vermin for our sins -- as we richly deserve.

I have never seen a revolutionary or other enemy of Christ make good use of an untainted work. The Breviary has never inspired a sordid fantasy novel! Thus, I regard it as deeply tainted and to be avoided.

At the end of the day, what benefit is there in reading these books? What? What contribution do they have towards Catholicism, devotion, piety, spirituality? What advantage do they have over traditional official Catholic works? Writings of Saints and Catechisms?

Tolkien didn't intent to write a pro-Catholic, pro-Church, quasi theological story.  He wrote a good, ol fashioned campfire tale which children could relate to, which taught the evils of greed, love of power and the 'end justifies the means'...and which taught the goodness of virtue, humility, and doing the right thing in the face of hardship.

It's not meant to be Catholic; it's meant to be a story with catholic symbolism.

Quote from: TKGS

Quote from: Disputaciones

I saw all the Peter Jackson movies and there is not the slightest hint at any sort of "God figure" anywhere.

My goodness.  This is, perhaps, the most ignorant statement every to be posted on CathInfo and, perhaps, the entire internet.  Peter Jackson's movie is not Tolkien's work, it is Peter Jackson's story that he bases on the books.

Read The Hobbit and then read The Lord of the Rings trilogy and, if you are still unable to understand what is being said here then you can simply put yourself in the "blooming idiot" category of human being.  As it is now, your comment above merely puts you in the "idiot" category.

Hey man. Tolkien first published The Hobbit, then LOTR.

Another poster here said that the "God figure" is mentioned in the Silmarillion, a posthumous work which came out in 1977.

So the 4 main books make no mention at all of this "God figure."

I thought it reasonable that, if this God figure was prevalent in Tolkien's 4 main books (which it turns out it isn't) then Jackson would probably include it in the movies, even though of course movie adaptations change a lot of stuff and details.

I think your response is over the top and unwarranted because there is no such God figure in the 4 main books.

No, i will not read any of these books. I already attempted to do so years ago when i was in the Novus Ordo, when the movies came out and all the hoopla over them was in rage, and i found them boring.

I once heard a critique by an SSPX priest of Tolkien's books and i thought it was good. It was all negative of course. I don't remember the priest's name or the name of the talk either. Perhaps someone here knows.

They are in the original four books though. It's not explained until the Sillmarillion. The Sillmarillion was post human work because it was Tolkiens uncut first draft. The son published it because it made money. But the God figure is referenced throughout the book in a manner one might use God. "God help us!" etc.

I have read the entire series (Hobbit + Lord of the Rings + Silmarillion + Children of Hurin + Tales from the Perilous Realm) less the books of notes; and, had I the time again, I should fling them all on a pyre and say the Little Office of Our Lady several times in the wasted time.

Firstly, I regard fantasy literature as essentially sinful, the equivalent in our times of the chivalric nonsense that Ignαzιo de Loyola stuffed his head with before becoming St Ignatius. Has not Holy Church a hundredfold more pure, real wonders than the vanities of a corrupted mind? Let us use our time in sincere prayer and loathing of our rotten flesh.

There is at least one case of impurity (the dwarf Gimli's ''courtly love'', or syruped and begowned adulterous lust, for a married woman, presented entirely positively, indeed praised),  indeed these fester through Mediaeval writings and Wagner's operas. The Children of Hurin has a case of (admittedly accidental) incest uncondemned. Such filth ought never be mentioned: have we not the Lives of the Saints to read?

The cosmology of the Silmarillion is essentially Gnostic; and it is worth pointing out that the contradictory accounts of the dwarves and elves are given without condemnation of one or the other, a grave relativism.

Taints of paganism  are present too, Gandalf described as an 'Odinic wanderer'', ''dwarves'' and ''elves'', which are essentially wicked and pagan, regarded positively. His Modernistic ideas on myth  and his distaste for allegory, long used by the Church Fathers, both were used in an article I once read to make a case he was a Gnostic.

His presentation of Purgatory (implied) in ''Leaf by Niggle'' is essentially humanistic, a more or less pleasant time of self-knowing and hard labour, not the blazing agony that awaits us poor vermin for our sins -- as we richly deserve.

I have never seen a revolutionary or other enemy of Christ make good use of an untainted work. The Breviary has never inspired a sordid fantasy novel! Thus, I regard it as deeply tainted and to be avoided.

Half of these claims are assumptions and many are debatable at that. But my issue with this is that you in essence are saying we should all do nothing but study the Church, writings of the Saints, etc. While we all probably should be doing that, lets be honest. The vast majority of Church essays and docuмents are dry and difficult to follow. It's the literature for scholars. Not a thing you curl up with next to a fire on a rainy day. Church doctors STUDY and RESEARCH this things implied. They don't casually read them. So we all can't just become a Church scholar at a moments notice. You don't pick up a 4000 page essay on transubstantiation and read for fun. After a long day of living some people just want to sit down and read.



Tolkiens books may have implied some things that you may find offensive, but he isn't a heretic and there is a reason it is called a FANTASY (the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.). He isn't claiming dogma or even implying truth. He wrote a novel for entertainment. A novel of the likes which you won't find in modern society. He uses a vast understanding of English that I haven't seen in any literature I have come across including many Church/Saint writings. He is one of the only fantasy writers that implies the concept of ONE God instead of many, and he condemns worship of the dark lord in his book.

His literature is also largely unedited because he wrote the books so late in life so many of these offenses you describe could have been missed.





 

Disputaciones

Your question has been thoroughly answered, and your premise, that LotR and HP include the same amount and quality of witchcraft, proven as false.  Maybe you could carry out your intellectual exercise of finding something else wrong with Tolkien or his works on your own, then report your findings back here?  I'm embarrassed for you at the way you're going on.

Consider also that "Lord of the Rings" is simply the most popular and well-known saga of events within the Middle Earth universe.  Tolkien created a fictional universe where there exist a plethora of different creatures, lore, languages, histories, etc.  The events which occur in the Lord of the Rings, while significantly impacting that universe, probably don't even amount to five percent of the history of Middle Earth.  Tolkien was a scholar in his own right with a particular penchant for languages and mythology; this shows in his own work and in his desire to leave behind tales of folklore for English speaking peoples.  So don't get too excited at the chronology of publications; the scope of Tolkien's work and imagination is considerably-- even indescribably-- vast.  The man created multiple functioning languages* for goodness' sake.  You don't just publish it all in one fell swoop over the course of a few summers.

*Not even to stand on their own, but simply as supporting elements in fictional folk-lore universe where he also created the cartography, history, relationships, etc.  Take a second just to stop and appreciate the immense and intellectual feat here.  Another element which separates Tolkien from Rowling :)

Peccator Marison

What you have to say is strikingly familiar to a sort of essay I read on a forum once, where two parties were arguing back and forth (in great, admirable detail) about whether or not the ethos of Tolkien's work was essentially gnostic or Christian/Catholic.  Naturally, the observations you've made are very similar to the fellow in that thread who argued that paganism informed most of Tolkien's work.  I wish I still had a link to that.

While confident in your assertions, I don't find any of them to be particularly moving.  As Pax Vobis said in this thread, Tolkien wasn't re-creating the gospels and just re-setting them in a fantastical universe.  He was creating new folk-lore.  As a Catholic, his Catholic sense informed his work (probably most notably-- or at least accessibly-- Gandalf, who is a Christological figure in an abundance of different ways) but his work was not a literal transplant of the Gospels to Middle Earth.

Anyways, I'm assuming you referenced Gimli's love for Galadriel.  There was nothing sultry about it.  In fact, I always understood Galadriel--more than any other woman-- to represent the Blessed Virgin.  Understanding also that dwarves at least colloquially represent Jєωs, I always read their interaction as the softening of a hardened heart, by the interior and exterior beauty of a revered maiden.  Gimli was changed after he met the Lady Galadriel, and not because she satisfied his lust.

If my memory serves, Niggle was more of a fictional essay-- not part of Lord of the Rings or Middle Earth.  More of an insight into the creative process, yeah?  The creative process does usually involve self-introspection and hard labour, for better or worse.  In either event, isn't there a certain melancholy to purgatory?  The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel?  I don't find there anything essentially objectionable that Tolkien focused on this, since Niggle is fiction and mythology-- not spiritual reading.

As to the allusions to paganism, more specificity is required.  Tolkien was influenced by mythology, and Northern European mythology in particular.  Beowulf, Thor, etc.  It seems that you find this objectionable as such, but I'd have to disagree:

Approaching Fiction

Mythology has long been part of a classical education.  The lessons taught and learned through different mythological sagas are of the transcendent type: heroism, love, loss, betrayal, etc.  Expressed usually in an entertaining and engaging way, not intimidating the reader but of enough interest to make an impression.

Peccator, it seems to me that your thoughts on Tolkien (and mythology too) are informed by an unspoken premise that fiction, as such, is inherently undesirable if not actually evil.  And I don't think you're alone in this thinking-- if I wrongly presume, feel free to ignore everything else I have to say.

The argument I'd expect, would go something like this: with a finite amount of time on earth and an urgent end goal (salvation) combined with the obvious knowledge that spiritual reading and content which is explicitly Catholic is superior to that content which is not, why ever spend time consuming any other type of content?  And from this rhetorical question, one might even conclude that it's inherently vain, superfluous, or even wrong to consume anything other than explicitly Catholic material.

But the Church, at least not to my knowledge, has never condemned any particular brand or medium of fiction (obvious caveats like pornography, snuff films, etc. excluded).  Certainly not for the laity.  And in fact, priests and Catholic lecturers tend to have a pretty sturdy foundation in classic fiction.  Greek plays, northern mythology, Shakespeare, etc.  I think if nothing else, this shows that the Church through immemorial practice, has shown herself to at least tacitly approve of the natural lessons taught through and by classic tales of morality.

Now, all that being said-- just as the clerical and virginal state is superior to the married, explicitly Catholic material is objectively better than fiction.  And I believe this.  But similar to this relationship, though obviously not on a sacramental level, the Church understands the natural merit of fiction, especially for those who are not called to the religious life.  She understands that wholesome-- or at least not harmful-- distractions are helpful to the laity (in moderation, of course).  It's really at this more abstract level, understanding that leisure as such (sports, visual media, music, books) isn't objectionable, that the principle is proved, and from there it's logically reasoned that fiction as such, is not objectionable.

The only question then becomes whether or not a certain work of fiction is objectionable.  When it comes to Tolkien, I don't find your objections to bear scrutiny.  As mentioned previously, immorality exists in all works of fiction.  Judging a work (in part) depends on the purpose of the immorality.  In Tolkien's universe, immoral characters are foils and antagonists, not protagonists.  And the mythology angle, that there's something wrong with LotR or Tolkien's work as such because of its mythological influence(s)?  I don't find this convincing because the source material is without condemnation.  Consider also that when considering mythology, one considers stories occurring within a particular "universe."  Even if there is a particular irredeemable myth, other myths in the same universe are still judged on their own merits.  The scope of LotR would require it to be judged this way.  


At the risk of becoming (more) tangential, I'll more or less wrap things up here.  I apologize if this was a needless extrapolation, but I really sensed in your post an inherent contempt and suspicion toward fiction, which led me to believe that simply replying to your specific allegations against Tolkien would not be enough.  A final thought: spiritual and explicitly Catholic material is objectively superior to that which is not, so please don't see me as arguing that it is.  And one's station in life obviously factors in to things; a cleric or one called to the single life (which I think of as modern hermitage, more or less) will obviously have a more austere and strictly discerning approach to these things.  Maybe you fall into one of these categories-- just keep in mind that the vast majority of us do not.  My salient point in all of this, despite the verbosity, is quite simply: fiction, judged unobjectionable in its own right, is appreciable-- and Tolkien, according to this rule, also is (naturally as a matter of taste, one may simply not like it-- but that is entirely different from arguing against it from a moral view).

Quote from: Gag Hogan Ilium

Tolkien was a Freemason so I don't like either of them

Mr. Tolkien was not a Freemason.  This is pure calumny.

Quote from: Disputaciones

I saw all the Peter Jackson movies and there is not the slightest hint at any sort of "God figure" anywhere.

My goodness.  This is, perhaps, the most ignorant statement every to be posted on CathInfo and, perhaps, the entire internet.  Peter Jackson's movie is not Tolkien's work, it is Peter Jackson's story that he bases on the books.

Read The Hobbit and then read The Lord of the Rings trilogy and, if you are still unable to understand what is being said here then you can simply put yourself in the "blooming idiot" category of human being.  As it is now, your comment above merely puts you in the "idiot" category.

The post of Gag Hogan Illum & my response to it have both been removed....  :confused1:

Tolkien believed his own mother was a Catholic martyr for having been shunned by her own family after insisting on raising her children in the Church. I don't question the man's faith. The problem I do have is that he left the door open to interpretation in his works. He was so thorough in his world building and pseudo-celtic myth making that he neglected to strongly tie the story back to Christianity. Yes there are many archetypes that could be compared to Heavenly ones, but he never felt it necessary to firmly assert them as such.

Now as a result, generations of dead souls and dead imaginations have used his books as the foundation for the godless "medieval fantasy" genre. At this point, I don't see any way he could try to reclaim it as Catholic even if he were still alive. The ants didn't just settle for a few sandwiches, they went and took the whole picnic table! I like him as a person, but what happened to his legacy should be a warning to any creative Catholic writer who wants to put themselves out there: make sure that your work calls attention to and nurtures the Catholic faith instead of distracting from it!

We live in a world where "legitimate" and "professional" scholars pass, as published and institutionally financed theses, awfully blasphemous and terribly unhistorical and poorly vetted ideas regarding the relationships between Christ and some of his followers.  And these ideas are re-circulated and legitimized by their peers.

Considering that, I think we can be a tad forgiving to Tolkien for not having better "guarded" his work.  If the Gospels themselves can be hijacked and twisted so, how much more can the fictitious works of Catholic writers be?

Though, your word of warning is certainly noted and deemed prudent.