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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 2 2024, 4:14pm
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What do you make of Eru?
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I've been thinking about Eru's significance in Tolkien's works. And rather than trying to produce something of essay-like length and coherence, I thought I'd ask you folks what you thought.
Some suggested starting points:
1) Eru as a consequence of Tolkien being a Christian.
I have a couple of quotes for you, both from Letter #131, to Milton Waldman, written 1951 (I am working from Letters 1e here).
a) Tolkien comments on how the Arthurian myths didn't satisfy him as the sort of distinctly English type of fairy-story he wanted to write.
“Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its ‘faerie’ is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days.
[my bolds]
b) Then, turning to a synoopsis of and commentary on what will eventually become the first chapter of the Sil., Tolkien comments on his scheme of a pantheon of Valar, subordinate to a single god (or God):
On the side of mere narrative device, this is, of course, meant to provide beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the ‘gods’ of higher mythology, which can yet be accepted–well, shall we say baldly, by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity.
I suggest that this means that on the one hand we should not think of Eru as a manifestation in the story-world of Tolken's God in any straightforward way (c.f. Aslan in Narnia). I also don't, myself, think Tolkien intends to push a Christian message through the medium of fairy-story (c.f. CS Lewis, again writing Narnia, or his science-fiction works). The Arthurian quote above is just one of many quotes I can think of that suggest Tolkien was deliberately avoiding Christian allegory or apologetics.
However, I conclude that having Eru rather than just the Valar seemed better, more correct, more conforting or whatever to Tolkien.
Maybe some of Tolkien's monotheistic readers like having Eru there for the same reason.
2) Eru's effect on the fairy-story
It stikes me that there are some parallels beween what the character, Eru, does inside Tolkien's imaginary world, and what Tolkien the inventor and storyteller does, residing on the outside (and writing the stories amid having to mark exams, pay school fees, go to the pub etc.).
Tolkien (obviously) invented Arda, and then spent a lot of care ane effort getting things to go to (mostly) happy endings, after suitable amounts of setbacks and adventures. Eru's Music is similar, I think - within the story it sets the universe going as a marred creation, which will over time correct itself until there is an eventual 'happy ending'.
I notice that one of the merits Tolkien finds in fairy-stories (in his lecture and later essay On Fairy-stories) is that tendency for a happy ending.
Tolkien repeatedly hints or states that Powers are at work nudging things along helpfully, or at least giving our heroes access to chances. When it is percieved "as a drama (that is in the fashion we percieve a story composed by some-one else)" * this is being done by Tolkien, as one of the natural duties of every storyteller.
But If events are being percieved as reality (we're imagining what a character might think of it, or playing the game of imagining Arad as real), then it is presumably Eru or some agent of Eru's.
3) What is that sound I hear? It's like the ghostly and disapproving sucking of a Professorial tobacco pipe?
I strongly suspect that Tolkien would have found question (1) ether impertinent, uninteresting or both. He wasn't one to dwell on the sources of things or excessive anlaysis.
Two quotes from On Fairy-stories:
First, an amusing note of general caution about excessive analysis (of which, of course I am very guilty):
The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of the traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gate should be shut and the keys be lost.
Then a suggeston of something else to do:
“So with regard to fairy-stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent’s words I would say: ‘We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.’ Though, oddly enough, Dasent by ‘the soup’ meant a mishmash of bogus pre-history founded on the early surmises of Comparative Philology; and by ‘desire to see the bones’ he meant a demand to see the workings and the proofs that led to these theories. By ‘the soup’ I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by ‘the bones’ its sources or material–even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup. I shall therefore pass lightly over the question of origins.”
So, if you wish, please do discuss what Eru adds to 'the soup', rather than what his source material might have been
----*I'm quoting Letter #131 again, just before the passge "On the side of mere narrative...." that I've already given.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Jan 2 2024, 4:17pm)
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 3 2024, 5:12pm
Post #2 of 43
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I'd say Tolkien did a far better job as a Chrisitan writing fantasy than Lewis did writing Christian fantasy.
Even by age 12 I found Aslan tiring. As for Arthurian legend, 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' did a good job pointing out the silly bits.
Avoiding allegory does not mean avoiding Christian ideals and sensibilities. Nor is monotheism unique to Christian belief.
Tolkien engages readers with moral and spiritual elements without off-putting didactic allegory.
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Jan 3 2024, 5:43pm
Post #3 of 43
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OOC (Out-of-Canon - i.e., real world)
Tolkien wrote an interesting story with depth where Eru created great character challenges to overcome. Classic.
IC (In-Canon)
Eru is an extremely flawed Creator who intentionally makes a bunch of capricious jerks for gods when he really could have done far better. It's a little bit like a child playing with a magnifying glass and an ant hill on a bright, sunny day.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 3 2024, 6:33pm
Post #4 of 43
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Tolkien's "in solution" solution
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Hmmm - I have no idea whether Tolkien might have been thinking of CS Lewis and Narnia when he wrote:
For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days.
Letter #131, as before
But it's certainly true that Lewis' anvilicous approach to things was something I tired of too, when I was old and wary enough to detect it. I think it isn't the inclusion of the real-world Christian God as such, but that including it means including (and insisting upon Lewis' own personal take on it (or Him, I suppose).
I think my discomfort is very well put by Francis Spufford:
“Some people feel got at by the Narnia books. It isn’t just that the allegory of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe propagandises for Christianity, or that Lewis smuggles in his prejudices against the modern world in the guise of mocking at adult foolishness, so that children’s laughter is enlisted in causes they don’t necessarily understand. Or even that a streak of misogyny a hundred yards wide runs through the series. Every adult woman who is not a mother is an idiot, or a witch liable to turn into a giant snake; Susan is forbidden to return to Narnia because ‘she’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations’. It’s something more continuous, and perhaps more helpless on Lewis’s part. The seductive voice of the stories is also a bully, pushing you into feeling, overwhelming resistance with strong words. I was a very willing reader, but if someone had said this to me when I was eight or nine, I would instantly have known what they meant. It was never exactly comfortable reading the Narnia books. The intensity of the experience always came accompanied, for me, by the faint aura of embarrassment that tells you that you have been taken a little too far, or that at any moment you may be.”
...“Lewis keeps returning to the situation in which guilt has to be brought to Aslan, to be judged and purged. These moments–when Edmund has to face Aslan for his treachery, and Aravis for being cruel, and Jill for making Eustace fall off a cliff, and Eustace for generally being an obnoxious, self-centred, spiteful, greedy little so-and-so with vegetarian parents to boot–these moments were at the very heart of my embarrassment.”
— The Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 3 2024, 6:47pm
Post #5 of 43
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I'd have said that the Valar are tedious paragons of conventional virtue compared with "the ‘gods’ of higher mythology" if by that Letter #131 quote Tolkien meant the Hellenic pantheon or the Norse one.
Compared with Zeus et al or Odin et al, :- Where is the (frequently non-consensual) sexual affairs with mortals --who then end up, as part of a nasty one-two, being the target of a grudge from their immortal lover's / seducer's immortal partner?
- Who in Arda gets directly blasted or turned into something 'unnatural like' for hubris (Or having slept with, say, Elbereth at her insistance and so annoyed Manwe that you're a constellation or a tree now)?
- Where's all the mahem in Middle-earth caused by valar on valar tiffs and scheming?
All that happens in the Greek or Norse myths.
Also - I may have missed it but - I don't think Zeus et al or Odin et al are managing a universe-improvement project for their charges. They seem more like super-humans having a super time.
Instead, the valar are -- at a quick inspection at least -- exceptionally cautious and often ineffective. To me it seems they mostly mean well, but don't know what to do and so are reluctant to wade into Middle-earth affairs. I suspect that's deliberate on Tolkien's part, and pushes fixing things back onto the Free Peoples (plus the odd air-evacuation by eagle).
But is that what you meant by 'jerks' perhaps? Or I have misudnerstood you completely?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Jan 3 2024, 6:49pm)
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jan 3 2024, 8:05pm
Post #6 of 43
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Even by age 12 I found Aslan tiring.
Same. One read of the Chronicles was enough. Entertaining but average in the scheme of things. And I never liked Aslan, personally: too remote and judgemental. In every book I was waiting for his "human side" to show up and it never did.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jan 3 2024, 8:51pm
Post #7 of 43
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1. Arthur: I will admit that my American understanding of Arthur is a boy destined to be prince and make England great again, then a king with a Round Table whose wife cuckolds him. And some very under-described Lady of the Lake gives him the sword and reclaims his body. I'll take Tolkien at his word that it's too Christian and too non-English, but I just can't see that myself.
I'm not sure what he would have decided was "English enough," but couldn't he have made more of Alfred the Great? I always liked his story: the youngest son of a brood of sons sent off to the Church because he has no chance of inheriting anything, then surprise! He's King of southwest England and fights off the Easterlings (Danes) to preserve Gondor. Back before the First Age I read a biography on him and I was impressed by the mundane but important decisions he made as a ruler.
2. Eru: I think I read LOTR 2-3 times before I read The Silmarillion, and pre-Sil, I had no idea there was a monotheistic being ruling the cosmos, nor did I know that the Valar existed or that once every few thousand years they intervened in the lives of mortals, so I would say Tolkien did a good job of burying the religion in LOTR, or at least he hid it from me. The problem of a too-prominent god is some readers have a sense of responsibility and project that onto him and will ask why he doesn't lift a finger to protect mortals (and immortals) from the evil beings he permits to wreak havoc in the world. He's like your neighbor who lets his dog bark all night and not an object of veneration.
Eru as ruler cosmic ruler is therefore disappointing to me, but Eru as creator is just so cool. Creating the universe out of music? Such a wonderful notion. And the whole bit about the Ainur's singing bringing their own creations into existence is stirring, along with Melkor abusing the system and introducing strife, which Eru first tolerates, hoping it will go away, but then has to bring a hammer down on it and stop the show. The drama in that sequence of events is first-rate.
3. Existential dread: I can still read the early chapters of LOTR and feel a vague sense of dread that there's a malicious ghoul just behind my sofa, bigger than me, meaner than me, out to disturb my peaceful and happy life with its evil schemes and harsh intents. And it's not just a ghoul on its own but part of some big, abstract cosmic Badness, whereas I just want to live my quiet life in the Shire and gossip at the pub and blow smoke rings in the garden. The way the Black Riders stalk Frodo on his way from Hobbiton to Crickhollow--I think Tolkien very effectively resurrects childhood fears of the dark when you're sure there's a monster under your bed. So given that context, I think the deployment of Gandalf as the parent figure (wise, powerful, trying to stay one step ahead of The Enemy, looking out for your welfare, possessing powers you lack, etc), and the way Gandalf is an emissary of the Valar who in turn are representing Eru: it's a good way to balance the scales of fear and confidence. Having said that mouthful, I would say more succinctly: Gandalf plays the part of Eru without a reader really knowing it.
And to loop back to Tolkien and allegory: it's understandable that he doesn't like force-feeding readers. "This is Aslan, and he is Jesus, son of God." Isn't one of most fundamental pieces of advice to fiction writers to do more showing than telling? It makes the reader work more, but we're not as lazy as we seem, and we enjoy the work of interpreting clues from authors. They make you construct a whole world in your head that wouldn't be built there otherwise. I think that's why Tolkien sticks with so many people and why Narnia is easy to forget about. Come to think of it, I remember the talking horse in Narnia was kind of fun, but that was entirely an invention of CS Lewis's rather than an import from the Bible, so maybe that underlines my point about author invention and reader self-construction.
(This post was edited by CuriousG on Jan 3 2024, 8:53pm)
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 3 2024, 11:28pm
Post #8 of 43
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I enjoy books more than film. Have always thought it's because I enjoy participating. The author is the primary creator, sure, but the reader is creating too. The best stories offer enough information to stimulate imagination, encourage that participative imagination to develop, and keep the reader engaged (and not disappointed!) to the last. And beyond, which is what we're often doing here.
With allegory, well, if I already know the ending there's less point in going there. Further, I especially don't want to be scolded or lectured, which is my simplistic version of the Francis Spufford comment on Narnia.
If I can read Tolkien and come away liking Eru Eru as creator is just so cool then I'm buying into the values of his world. The tension Curious mentions Eru as ruler cosmic ruler is therefore disappointing to me is very like the tension many people experience when they are introduced to the Christian God.
Why does God permit evil and suffering?
Why doesn't Eru send the Eagles to fly the Ring to Mt. Doom?
So while not a didactic allegory, readers are exploring thoughts in the fantasy world that they may also encounter in the real world.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 4 2024, 12:54pm
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Participation, consent and more Spufford on Lewis
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Firstly:
I enjoy books more than film. Have always thought it's because I enjoy participating. The author is the primary creator, sure, but the reader is creating too. The best stories offer enough information to stimulate imagination, encourage that participative imagination to develop, and keep the reader engaged (and not disappointed!) to the last. And beyond, which is what we're often doing here.
I feel that way too, but have never articulated it anywhere near as well. So thank-you for that. I'll return to this point about participation before the end... I think I know what you mean about Lewis scolding and lecturing. Spufford has an interesting story about how Lewis might have come to need to dominate his fantasy stories so much:
in his books of apologetics–defending and popularising Christianity to a public made eager for religion again by the moral crisis of the Second World War–he thought that he was building an edifice that rested on proof. He thought he had a watertight (so to speak) guarantee of the existence of the richer state of being beyond the boundary.
After Miracles was published in 1947, Lewis took part in a head-to-head debate over its central argument with the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, at a meeting of an Oxford society called the Socratic Club. This, as Lewis’s biographer A. N. Wilson describes it, was home ground for Lewis: a forum in which he regularly administered a logical trouncing to a visiting atheist, to the applause of Oxford’s evangelical students. Unfortunately for him, Anscombe was not a naive non-believer, but an extremely sophisticated twenty-eight-year-old graduate student of Wittgenstein’s who also happened to be a committed Roman Catholic, and she trounced him. Opinions vary about how traumatic Lewis found his defeat on emotional grounds. Anscombe herself doesn’t remember him being particularly upset, while some of his friends talked at the time of him being brought ‘to the foot of the cross’ by the experience. A. N. Wilson suggests, interestingly, that having the intellectual carapace of his belief stripped away in public by a powerful woman made him feel like a child caught out in a game of make-believe.”
The Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
On the one hand I find this story darkly funny: man sets up gladatorial arena for Christian lions to devour hapless athiests; lions (and man) get a taste of their own medicine. Serve him right.
On the other it's rather sad. I wonder whether Lewis was so angry at his earlier athiest self that he needed to beat up a proxy. Or perhaps his new faith was really rather wobbly and he couldn't really hold on to it unless he could see himself winning, and hear the cheers of the audience? Then again, maybe the Socratic Club set-up was fundamentally about Power and a bit of cruelty excused by self-righetousness. I see a lot of Power and submission to it in Lewis' writing - both Narnia and other things.
Spufford goes on to outline the arguments made in that Lewis vs. Anscombe debate. I think we can do without that bit here. Then Spufford continues:
“Elizabeth Anscombe believed, herself, that beyond the natural world lay the God who created it. But until a better argument than Lewis’s came along, there would be no guarantee. So far as proof was concerned, the humble silence still held good that Wittgenstein had advocated in the Tractatus. Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent. Lewis, on the other hand–who in his flustered reply to Anscombe described his idea of a cause as ‘magical’–took a different turn after the shoot-out at the Socratic Club. With his intellectual justification gone, he asked story to hold the world beyond the circle steady. He took up a sketch he had begun in 1940 about a little girl meeting a faun in a snowy wood, and rapidly expanded it. Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must write children’s books.
Hmmm. Well, slow up one moment Professor Spufford. I think you might be right, but in fairness I note we don't seem to have a causual link here. Lewis gloses a debate. Lewis may or may not have been very upset. Shortly after, Lewis starts writing Narnia. Maybe, instead of Narnia being a consequence of losing a debate, it was just that one thing happened and then another unrelated thing happened? [The wikipedia article on GEM Anscombe currently has some relevant-looking references, for anyone who wants to research this further.]
But there is something horribly plausible about the idea of Lewis writing himself a world that was a spiritual safe place or pillow fort, in which he would always be right, and get his way, and his (to me rather creepy) version of God would be unquestioned (And there would be absolutely no clever young female philosophers, or other firghtening women). While it may not be uarenteed to be right, that's a plausible reading of Narnia, to me.
And that brings us back to oliphaint's 'participation' and the related matter of consent. When I was little I could participate in a story in which the storyteller took me firmly by the hand and told me all the wonders I could see. Provided I could follow the story and didn't get bored, that was all I wanted. Funny though it might now seem, all the Christian allegory went right over my head. But when I got old enough to see it? Then I had to agree to participate with that to enjoy the stories still. The storyteller's grasp of my hand began to pinch, and along with showing me around, he seemed to want of me something to which I did not consent.
The need for absolute security (and hence the power to maintain it and to defeat threats to it) that I'm seeing in Lewis is of course an absolute contrast to Tolkien. A recurring theme in Tolkien is that power beyond one's stature is as dangerous to the holder as it is to those they dominate.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Jan 4 2024, 11:17pm
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The Valar in the Christian cosmology correspond to the fallen angels. Lúthien's line would correspond to the Nephilim, but with Lúthien Tolkien inverts everything about the Nephilim. Lúthien is instead more like a daughter of Zeus, Helen of Troy, who possessed unsurpassed beauty as well as other abilities such as a keen eyesight and a talent for verbal mimicry.
The Valar may mean well, but their psychological acumen is clearly lacking. The Valar have a track record replete with bad decisions that have long-lasting unintended consequences for other beings. Much of the tragedy in Tolkien could have been avoided if the Valar had made different choices. There are even some implications that even Melkor might not have ended up such a disaster if the Valar had handled him better. The Valar as a group also indeed seem to give the world outside of their paradise as little care and effort as they possibly can. The Istari were a low-effort solution for the Valar with all the hard work delegated away.
Then there is the issue of the Valar crossing the border of making themselves into targets of worship. Melkor isn't the only one doing this. Elves sing hymns to Elbereth and pray to her for help against the forces of evil, and that's just based on the glimpses in the text. Tolkien probably would consider this all fine though, given his Catholic background... except there's that fallen angel thing, and it really does sound suspiciously like the Valar are acting on their own, given all the bad decisions they make.
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 4 2024, 11:58pm
Post #12 of 43
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I'm enjoying reading these takes on CS Lewis. Not that I have any desire to bash at him. I'll try and keep my thoughts relevant to Narnia and not get too distracted by all his other books. He was, as we all are, a product of his time, so simply revising him as a misogynist may be a mistake. Some people enjoy interpreting Tolkien as a misogynist. Plus, racist. Both Lewis, and Tolkien, and most other men.
For me, Middle Earth has endured and even grown more appealing with many years and much familiarity. Narnia never really had a chance to win my faithful affection. I was never interested in 'nylons and lipstick and invitations' but I lost interest in Narnia even before adolescence was in full swing. Lewis was pushy where Tolkien invited me in. Too bad, really, because I love the idea of the Wood. Did Susan lose interest in Narnia or was she shoved out?
So the point I really want to examine:
The need for absolute security (and hence the power to maintain it and to defeat threats to it) that I'm seeing in Lewis is of course an absolute contrast to Tolkien. A recurring theme in Tolkien is that power beyond one's stature is as dangerous to the holder as it is to those they dominate.
Both Tolkien and Lewis were second lieutenants in the British Army during WWI who experienced all the horrors of that war. And lived through WWII as well. They both turned towards faith instead of growing angry or cynical and turning away. They were both professors at Oxford and friends. So many similarities!
Do you suppose that the contrasting views on "power" you've identified were informed by different reactions to the horrible machinery of war?
Might Lewis's conversion led to a different view than Tolkien's lifelong adherence to his faith? Perhaps Lewis was working at being Christian (this is great! you will think so too!) and Tolkien was being who he'd been all along.
Which takes me to this:
Would we (germane to this conversation) be able to work out that Tolkien was Catholic or even Christian, just from his works if we didn't happen to have Letters and other biographical info? I'm not convinced.
Probably not, but we also couldn't work out that Tolkien was not Catholic or not Christian. Which is one reason his books have wide and enduring appeal.
Fiction that is openly anti-theistic sours me faster than Narnia did. Perhaps the creators are frustrated when their created worlds end up referencing a transcendent moral structure.
In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis writes:
The Moral Law, or Law of Human Nature, is not simply a fact about human behaviour in the same way as the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy objects behave. On the other hand, it is not a mere fancy, for we cannot get rid of the idea , and most of the things we say and think about men would be reduced to nonsense if we did. And it is not simply a statement about how we should like men to behave for our own convenience; for the behaviour we call bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behaviour we find inconvenient and may even be the opposite. Consequently, this Rule of Right and Wrong, or Law of Human Nature, or whatever you call it, must somehow or other be a real thing - a thing that is really there, not made up by ourselves.
At any rate, I find the 'transcendent moral structure' that permeates Middle Earth appealing because I find the characters and their relationships fascinating, and I feel invited to join them.
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Jan 5 2024, 1:26am
Post #13 of 43
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I like to be concise. So many words in these well-considered posts take too much time to write for people who already thoroughly understand the subject matter. So, brevity, and for example:
Tolkien is constrained by Religion and the need for evil. It makes for a more interesting story than "Everyone lives happily for all eternity."
Eru is complicit in everything Melkor does.
The Valar were awful. Posts around the web use far stronger terms that I can't quote here. A Reddit question asks "When it all comes down to it, are the Valar basically responsible for every terrible thing that happened in Middle Earth?" I think you all know their history - too much to enumerate here. Plus needlessly hobbling the Wizards in their mission; barriers to success.
One may argue that it is all simply long-term planning, and that evil was required for good to overcome and make a better world; it all worked out in the end. Horse hockey. Too bad for Numenor and all the rest.
But then it would be a boring story, eh?
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 5 2024, 1:40am
Post #14 of 43
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obviously
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(This post was edited by oliphaunt on Jan 5 2024, 1:41am)
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Jan 5 2024, 3:04am
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no obviously
Allow me to clarify:
"Everyone lives happily for all eternity" would be a boring story, eh?
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 5 2024, 2:01pm
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fallacious
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Jan 5 2024, 4:31pm
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I don't think Tolkien's tastes ran to the iyashikei slice of life, more like the opposite. So despite what some people find enjoyable media, a fictional world created by Tolkien could never be like that, and in the hierarchy of things Tolkien stands above his fictional creation Eru. I would even say that Tolkien is one of those authors who liked to set up goodness and beauty so that the reader would feel something when the tragic turn comes. Even Lúthien eventually dies of old age in the story.
Now of course Tolkien deals with the problem of the in-world theodicy with the explanation that Eru is still purely good because good will come of the evil in the end, but it's noteworthy that Tolkien (unlike Lewis with The Last Battle) never bothered to make a proper story about the final happy end. He only wrote an in-world prophecy that deals with the matter briefly, and that's not at all the same as the thing actually happening on page. As we all know, prophecies are prone to prophecy twists even when genuine...
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 5 2024, 5:23pm
Post #18 of 43
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Thanks for the clarification. Some thoughts on the problems the Valar face
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Thanks for coming back to clarify - I think one of the reasons I was puzzled is that I don't do any online fandom apart from this board. So I hadn't come across the criticisms you mention.
I think this discussion has already gathered a few points that could be used in the defence of the Valar.
1) One is something that might already be implicit in your post and mine and some others: I think stories tend to need obstacles, setbacks, dilemmas and challenges. Indeed, one bit of advice for new writers is to make things worse for your characters (it isn't just a magic ring, it is the One Ring. It's not just that you have to undertake a huge journey to destroy it, its that you can't let it go. Oh, and you can't even get out of the Shire without being pursued by Black Riders: all developments Tolkien added as he worked).
Over-powered characters who could fix everything perfectly with a snap of the fingers tend to wreck this*. Consider the trouble Tolkien got himself into with the Eagles. They give a few lifts (more casually I think in The Hobbit than LOTR or the Sil. ) and people quite understandably wonder why The Eagles can't also do this, that or the other thing. So have writers of adaptations - including the hapless "Z" who produced a film 'treatment' of LOTR. I don't know whther that treatment is something available to admire (or not): but it is known from Tolkien's irritated commentary on it in Letter #210 (June 1958):
"The Eagles are a dangerous ‘machine’. I have used them sparingly, and that is the absolute limit of their credibility or usefulness.
...would Z think that he had improved the effect of a film of, say, the ascent of Everest by introducing helicopters to take the climbers half way up (in defiance of probability)?”
Letter #210 (June 1958) - from Letters 1e (Interesting to note that Tolkien's objections to Z's extra eagle scenes is a writerly one - it's not that Eagles in Middle-earth can or cannot do this or that because of their necessary dorsal muscles, or lift/drag ratio or other [science stuff] ("I , your Author speak canon here")-- it's that it would spoil the story. And so it would.
2) There's Silvered-glass' point that
Then there is the issue of the Valar crossing the border of making themselves into targets of worship. Melkor isn't the only one doing this. Elves sing hymns to Elbereth and pray to her for help against the forces of evil, and that's just based on the glimpses in the text.
It does seem plausible to me that more practical help the Valar give, the more they will be petitioned to give.
3) Related to that, what you might call the Paradox of Power:
The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others–speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans–is a recurrent motive.
Letter #131 (from a 1e copy)
4) Perhaps because they are aware (3), I think The Valar are acutely aware they don't know what to do. They hesitate, and often do nothing because they know they can't anticipate the outcomes of their interventions.
Now of course in the end it is just a matter of opinion and taste. Does this or that reader prefer the story like this (there are gods, but for many intents and purposes there might as well not be). Or does it diaspoint because there should be lots of chapters of the Valar wading into Middle-earth with vast armies? But whether or not we like what Tolkien wrote, we can hardly go and complain to Tolkien that he must do it all again, with more activist gods 
---* An overpowered character tends to have a black hole-like effect on every other plot and character. This is perhaps best shown as parody. For example, Paula Smith's "A Trekie's Tale" (1974) is a parody of Star Trek fan-fiction which skewers this hilariously (and is the source of the term 'Mary-Sue').
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Jan 5 2024, 5:24pm)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 5 2024, 6:06pm
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[let's just imagine I could think of a good or amusing title for this reply]
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Firstly - yes I agree: no general "Jack bashing". But if an author gives their work a message or meaning they can hardly complain if that message or meaning has been understood by a reader, who then dislikes it being there or disagrees with the author about it. And of course the reason we're talking about Lewis at all is as an example of the risks of putting your message or meaninig into your fantasy work.
"The need for absolute security" - is of course something I diagnosed, perhaps rashly. I think it is plausible, and more likely than Lewis being thoughless and domineering and feeling entitled to bulldoze anybody elses' opinions. Indeed, Lewis seems to have struck many as a very nice, kind and humane man: a bit paradoxical perhaps when one considers some of his fiction. Ursula K LeGuin:
There's a good deal of hatred in Lewis, and it is frightening hatred, because this gentle, brilliant, lovable, devout man never saw the need even to rationalize it, let alone apologise for it. He was self-righteous in his faith. That may be permissible to a militant Christian; but it is not permissible to a highly intelligent, highly educated man to be self-righteous in his opinions and his prejudices...
J R R Tolkien, Lewis's close friend and colleague, certainly shared many of Lewis's views and was also a devout Christian. But it all comes out very differently in his fiction. Take his handling of evil: his villains are orcs and Black Riders (goblins and zombies; mythic figures) and Sauron, the Dark Lord, who is never seen and has no suggestion of humanity about him. These are not evil men but embodiments of evil in men, universal symbols of the hateful. The men who do wrong are not complete figures but complements: Saruman is Gandalf's dark-self, Boromir Aragorn's; Wormtongue is, almost literally the weakness of King Theoden. There remains the wonderfully repulsive and degraded Gollum. But nobody who reads the trilogy hates, or is asked to hate, Gollum. Gollum is Frodo's shadow; and it is the shadow, not the hero, who achieves the quest. Though Tolkien seems to project evil into "the others", they are not truly others but ourselves; he is utterly clear about this.
...In Lewis...the enemy is not oneself but the Wholly Other, demoniac. This projection leaves the author free to be cruel, and cruelty is the dominant tone in several of these stories..
This review, entitled "The Dark Tower by C S Lewis" was originally published in The New Republic, 1977, and is anthologised in "Dancing at the Edge of the World (Grove Press 1989)I have posted this quote before, here and a good discussion came of it. A reply from Silverlode was very widely appreciated - here is it:
They're also two very different personalities and therefore have very different approaches to the world, which I think figures into this question.
I've always felt that CS Lewis was a pretty black-and-white thinker, and very definite and straightforward in his opinions and his expression of them, and I think that translates itself into his writing. His storytelling is direct and not very nuanced, as seen in the Narnia tales where the allegory is very pronounced, the mythology something of a grab-bag, and the authorial opinion asserts itself into the story quite directly in places as for instance the commentary on the folly of modern girls (Susan) or modern schools (The Silver Chair). I see many of the same qualities in the Space Trilogy, and in his theological writings. Lewis, after all, originally considered myth to be "lies and therefore worthless" even though "breathed through silver" until Tolkien showed him that they could be another possible presentation of "truth". When he converted to Christianity, he expressed his new theological opinions with equal directness and vigor.
Tolkien, on the other hand, has always seemed to me to be one who saw many facets and shades of variation in everything. Think of the individual leaves in Leaf by Niggle (his only allegory and tellingly, it's about himself rather than attempting to set up a morality tale to convince others). This attention to myriad details, subtle variations, and the effect of abstract ideas on people and events runs throughout his works, in stark contrast to Lewis. Compare the approach of The Hobbit to the storytelling of Narnia, which are both "children's stories"; not only the setting but the characters of The Hobbit have unexpected facets to them, and the story itself takes a quite unexpected serious turn at the end. And in contrast to Lewis' personal narrative commentary in the Narnia book, Tolkien's avuncular narrator doesn't spend a lot of time moralizing and telling the reader/listener what to think, but rather tends to point out the quirks of his characters and the humor of the situations (Thorin was "an important dwarf and might have gone on in this vein for some time without saying anything that wasn't known already").
Overall, I'd say that Lewis was a more "concrete" thinker and tended to make clear divisions, while Tolkien was more of an abstract thinker and a philosopher at heart. This is not to say that their ideas were not held with equal conviction, but they expressed them in accordance with their basic makeup. Where Lewis might see and describe Evil as a definite "other" thing to be fought, Tolkien describes, not only the fact of its existence but the abstract qualities of it - its cruelty in domination and its tendency to creep in and corrupt even the Good and the Wise, as well as the many different faces that it might take. And he also gives a range of possible reactions to it. And so in fighting Evil he gives us both the Battle of the Pelennor and and the Scouring of the Shire, which are direct confrontations on very different scales, and the Battle of the Black Gate and Mount Doom, both of which depend on sacrifice and and faith for success. Silverlode, in the 2014 conversation as above
I think your idea, oliphaunt, about different reactions to the horrors of war is interesting. I note both Lewis and Tolkien as children both endured the death of parents, whcih must be horribly traumatic. But in the end, who can say how character and personality interact with life events?
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Jan 5 2024, 10:10pm
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It really appears to be that a major, perhaps the defining, difference between Tolkien and Lewis lies in their level of subtlety. I'd also say that Le Guin also isn't the most subtle of authors and like many others misunderstood Tolkien's show-not-tell characterization as being about simple good and evil where both sides are clearly delineated. (I've talked about some of this before.)
Getting closer to the main point of this thread, Tolkien may have been intending to go somewhere with the Valar, but in the end he didn't, really. I think that harms every chapter with the Valar in it. The Valar all have detailed identifying traits, but little to no actual personality, which makes it hard to get a feel on their role in the world. As I've grown older I've grown to appreciate Tolkien in his landscape-describing "realistic" tone even more than before but his "mythic" mode has started to feel shallow.
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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Jan 5 2024, 10:28pm
Post #21 of 43
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...his "mythic" mode has started to feel shallow.
That's my frequent complaint about authors and especially directors who create ethereal landscapes or amorphous characters without solid definitions. I usually attribute this to lazy writing or cowardice toward the concrete, specific and grounded. While it works for some, I have no appreciation for leaving the answers to the audience. I prefer brave creators who take a chance and expose their opinions and beliefs to the audience, demonstrating their own strength of character. They are decisive. "But there are no easy answers in life," some will day. I get plenty of real life. I look to entertainment for something other than real life.
Christopher Nolan probably thought he was being clever, leaving the totem spinning at the end on Inception. I found it annoying and unfinished; a director who wouldn't take a position.
"Shallow" is a good word.
(This post was edited by DGHCaretaker on Jan 5 2024, 10:34pm)
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Jan 5 2024, 11:53pm
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I've been wanting to get to your second topic:
2) Eru's effect on the fairy-story
I'm going to start out with what I (as a reader) expect from Eru.
Based on Tolkien's own comments, I do not expect Eru to be identical to God as known by a Catholic. The mythology precedes the revelation of Christ. Also precedes Abraham. So no links to anything Old or New Testament. But I do expect Eru to be compatible with Catholic belief.
Eru is an omnipotent, good, sole creator. The Valar are not gods, they are supernatural created beings who have free will and are tasked with shaping, sub-creating. I don't see any problem there - after all humans can reshape the physical world and choose to create new life by reproducing. Aule's Dwarves are the extreme case, but Eru adopted them and gave them life of their own, solving that problem. While characters do petition the Valar (in prayer or in person), they are not worshipped. Pretty much the way faithful petition the Saints and Angels. Actually, worship of Eru isn't an everyday/everyman activity, especially after the destruction of Numenor. This was an authorly decision, to keep specific religious behaviors to a minimum. And I think a smart one.
Eru endows his children with freedom. They are not puppets or toys, like Aule's Dwarves would have been without Eru's approval. No conflict here either.
Eru sustains creation. Without the Flame Imperishable there would be a void. Another checkmark.
So, does Eru hold up as a fictional god in Tolkien's created mythology who is compatible with God in Christian mythology?
*** Middle Earth Inexpert ***
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 6 2024, 9:44am
Post #23 of 43
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Tolkien may have been intending to go somewhere with the Valar, but in the end he didn't, really. I think that harms every chapter with the Valar in it. The Valar all have detailed identifying traits, but little to no actual personality, which makes it hard to get a feel on their role in the world. As I've grown older I've grown to appreciate Tolkien in his landscape-describing "realistic" tone even more than before but his "mythic" mode has started to feel shallow.
I agree! I remember reading the bit near the start of the Sil. when there is a list of the various Valar, specifiying who each is married to and what 'portfolio' of duties towards the world each has. I remember thinking I do hope I'm not supposed to memorise all this. But as it turned out, many don't seem to do anything in the rest of the story at all. And none are fleshed out as characters in the way Gandalf or Eowyn are (or even as much as Feanor, Beren and Luthien are).
Personally I find long stretches of Sil. a boring slog for exactly those reasons. I like the style much less that LOTR, and get less from reading it. I read it mostly as background to understand LOTR better, and don't expect I'll read it again. This is a matter of taste and opinion of course, not "I'm-right-you're-wrong". As far as my tastes go, it seems when I'm reading teh Sil )or LOTR Appendices) like I'm looking around Tolkien's vinyard and examining his vines - or at best tasting the fresh-pressed and nastily tannic grape juice that's not been fermented. It's OK, but I'd rather be enjoying a nice glass of Chateau Lord Of The Rings.
(Or, for an analogy closer to Tolkien's I'd rather have soup than chew on bones. But I'm having fun with my vinyard analogy....)
The vine/wine analogy works a bit further: the material that was finally published in the Sil. was initially Tolkien's private worldbuilding hobby: unpublished -- and he was told at one time, unpublishable. Later it nourished LOTR, but without becoming part of that tale itself.
Finally, when the world was probably ready to buy and read any Middle-earth thing whatsoever -- even if it was "Some Laundry Lists of the Baggins Family" -- Tolkien tried to get the Sil. to publication, but didn't manage it.
What I don't know is how far he felt he'd got. My impression is that Christopher Tolkien and Guy Kay had to work their way through a mighty muddle of notes and drafts and different versions, rather than having something that was, say 98% ready to go and just needed some tweaks.
If the Sil had been 98% ready to go, I have no idea what it would have looked like. I think that JRR's heartfelt wish was to publish the whole legendarium, and I feel sure that his son did all he could to honour that. My argument is not that Christopher Tolkien bungled it, but that maybe he was trying to honour an impossible ambition. By which of course I really just mean impossible to do something in the 'realistic' tone rather than the 'mythic' one.
But (getting back to our subject) I wonder whether Eru and the Valar are examples of things that belong to the vine, not the wine. You can enjoy them if you like vines and vinyard tours, or want to propagte a vine cutting of your own and have a shot at vinting. But as regards LOTR-like story ("Tolkien in his landscape-describing "realistic" tone") maybe Eru and the Valar are from the woody parts of the vine, and it's not going to end well to woodchip that stuff, bottle it, and expect it to be wine?
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Jan 6 2024, 1:44pm
Post #24 of 43
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I agree! I remember reading the bit near the start of the Sil. when there is a list of the various Valar, specifiying who each is married to and what 'portfolio' of duties towards the world each has. I remember thinking I do hope I'm not supposed to memorise all this. But as it turned out, many don't seem to do anything in the rest of the story at all. And none are fleshed out as characters in the way Gandalf or Eowyn are (or even as much as Feanor, Beren and Luthien are).
I think Tolkien would probably have had Ainulindalë as Appendix A and Valaquenta as Appendix B. The story of the origin of the Dwarves (which I remember was originally a different text inserted by Christopher into Quenta Silmarillion) would also be in the appendices rather than in the middle of the main text, and the origin story of the Ents would be a separate section. Of Beleriand and Its Realms would also be a part of the appendices, and so on. These would be very long appendices.
If the Sil had been 98% ready to go, I have no idea what it would have looked like. I think that JRR's heartfelt wish was to publish the whole legendarium, and I feel sure that his son did all he could to honour that. My argument is not that Christopher Tolkien bungled it, but that maybe he was trying to honour an impossible ambition. By which of course I really just mean impossible to do something in the 'realistic' tone rather than the 'mythic' one.
But (getting back to our subject) I wonder whether Eru and the Valar are examples of things that belong to the vine, not the wine. You can enjoy them if you like vines and vinyard tours, or want to propagte a vine cutting of your own and have a shot at vinting. But as regards LOTR-like story ("Tolkien in his landscape-describing "realistic" tone") maybe Eru and the Valar are from the woody parts of the vine, and it's not going to end well to woodchip that stuff, bottle it, and expect it to be wine?
As I've grown older and developed more narrative sense, I've started to realize that Christopher's insistence on a linear chronological order was a big mistake that stops the plot in its tracks multiple times for the sake of inserting tangents of background material that aren't necessary to understand the plot. Melkor and Fëanor are written as the real main characters in the early part of the story, but that gets muddied by all the additions. I think the Valar should have been portrayed as these mysterious entities who act upon the story but whose true natures are obscured by narrative distance and the inability of the later beings to have certain knowledge of what truly had happened in the primordial times.
I think the dialogue between Aulë and Yavanna having been inserted into the main narrative is the single worst thing that happened to the portrayal of the Valar. The dialogue makes the Valar into concrete characters but at the same time fails to give any of them an interesting personality. The same dialogue put in the appendices would not have presented the same problems, because the assumption would be that the in-world author was not writing an accurate report but more likely a dramatized version of earlier lore.
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Jan 6 2024, 5:05pm
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The Silmarillion and the Bible
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"Shallow" is a good word.
The Silmarillion is often said to be like the Bible, but having read both more than once, the two aren't really very alike at all. The Bible has a lot more depth and complexity, including moral complexity, and also dares to take moral stands while the Sil is prone to avoiding more difficult subjects. The Silmarillion is a lot easier to read though.
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