J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, had some great things to say about the spiritual ideas behind his novel. Peter Jackson, the director of the film series, and his writers -- Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh -- also have some interesting things to say. The following is a review of a few topics comparing their comments with Tolkien's. The filmmakers' comments are taken from interviews in New York in December, 2002.
Peter Jackson on Enslavement: ?Tolkien is very much saying that -- do you allow yourself to be enslaved? The book, the value at stake is your free will and your freedom. Even the Ring, you know, it?s not just the freedom -- saying, look -- you know these orcs are going to invade and make you prisoner and enslave you, which is one aspect of it -- but obviously the Ring as well. The Ring is like the metaphor for enslavement.?
Tolkien on Enslavement: "The spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and many-headed in its incarnations that there seems nothing more to do than personally to refuse to worship any of the hydras? heads..." (Letters, no. 312, to Amy Ronald, 1969)
Philippa Boyens on Evil: "No one is ever wholly evil. It's not about Good vs. Evil in a continual conflict. It's about belief, and it's about faith.?
Tolkien on Evil: "The power of Evil in the world is not finally resistable by incarnate creatures, however ?good?..." (Letters, no. 191, to Miss J. Burn, 1956) "In the individual lives of all but a few, the balance is debit -- we do so little that is positive good, even if we negatively avoid what is actively evil." (Letters, no. 69, to son Christopher, 1944) "It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome -- in themselves..." (Letters, no. 192, to Amy Ronald, 1956) (Letters, no. 96, to son Christopher, 1945) "We are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring... The penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs." (Letters, no. 66, to son Christopher, 1944) "There are human creatures that seem irredeemable short of a special miracle..." (Letters, no. 78, to son Christopher, 1944) "...our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ?exile...? As far as we can go back, the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb [Old English for kinship], peace and good will, and with the thought of its loss. We shall never recover it..."
The Bible on Enslavement: "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey -- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. " (Romans 6:16-23, NIV)
The Bible on Evil: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (John 3:14-21, NIV)
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