The journey begins
One ring to rule them all
one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them
Wouhouhouhou ! I always wanted to say that !
If we take this next step to talk about Lord of the Rings in a series on science fiction
Is it really the furthest from our thematic home? We've ever been
I'm not so sure
Mainly because of how it influenced the later science fiction authors.
Not only would you be hard-pressed to find a sci-fi author
That hasn't read it,
but there are so many
conventions that have become staples of the genre
that first worked their way into our minds with Lord of the Rings
that sometimes we forget about them and
And one of these conventions comes right at the beginning
Okay
Not at the very beginning with the song of Ainur
but at the beginning of Lord of the Rings itself
at a long-expected party
The opening chapter of the book
sees Bilbo preparing for a grand party for his eleventy first birthday
at the end of which he'll disappear
both literally and figuratively from the Shire
But before he leaves
he passes the one ring along to Frodo
this is a
symbolic and thematic act that not only determines the course of the book
but helps us understand something Tolkien wants to explore the passing of
Generations
the handing of the world from one generation to the next
All of the Lord of the Rings has a melancholy to it
a sad
wistful feel
and this theme of passing on is one of the principal reasons
as we see here and as we see a few chapters
Later with the elves heading west and leaving middle-earth for good
in the schema of Lord of the Rings
for the next
Generation to come into its own
and take its turn helming the world
The previous generation has to leave
has to bow out of the story
But before passing that torch
they need to present what gifts they have
What they've acquired along the way to help those who come after them?
some of those gifts are actually burdens
like the ring
some are earnest gifts
like a coat of mithril
or the elfstones and
Some are keepsakes
like the box of soil that will grow the last Malorne tree
but in passing along these gifts
the previous generation is also trying to pass on a piece of their world
a world that
can't exist anymore
a world that has to crumble and be reshaped by the next generation
so they can make it their own
And in truth
The whole tale is about one generation of the world
Struggling to put right the errors of the past that they inherited
but rather than making it quite so black and white
Tolkien also gives us the last remnants of the previous
Generation and show some of them coming to realize
how much harm their complacency has caused
and using their parting days trying to help correct
This theme of passing the baton of the change of generations
was really first brought to the fore in genre fiction by Tolkien
Before him and perhaps the shattered time. He lived through
this didn't come up in sci-fi or fantasy
but as Tolkien and brought it to us
he brought with him another theme which has become a staple of science fiction
the diminishing of generations
Being a great scholar of mythology
Tolkien latched on to a theme common in many myths cycles
and especially prevalent in greek myth
the lessening of the world
The idea that the world goes through ages and as these ages
pass a certain vitality passes out of the world
that lives become shorter
Heroes become less powerful
and people become more focused on the material world
rather than whatever spiritual or magical world may surround it
We see this with the elves.
We see this with the lessening of the lives of the númenórean kings
We see this in a realm where the dark powers were once thrown back by great armies
But now all hope rests on one from the least of the sentient races
and in exploring this idea
He borrows heavily. Not only from the Greek ages of man
But, especially with the númenóreans
From his own Old Testament background
where lifespans fall from Methuselah
venerable hundred and sixty-nine years
down to a normal human lifespan over the course of generations
But even in the borrowing of this lessening of the world idea
Tolkien is intentional
it's more powerful and Tolkien's work than in some of the later works that derive from Lord of the Rings because
Tolkien isn't just using it because it's a cool idea
But rather because of how it interweaves with some of his other themes
in this book
greatness is leaving the world
and we're supposed to feel a sorrow for what's being lost
and yet we have that central theme of
Generational passing and a world where the greater generations left their problems for the lesser generations to solve
In doing this he points out the lie to this idea of a great age, or in a more modern parlance, the good old days
But at the same time makes the reader realize that there is something being lost with the passing of this generation
That there are things worth preserving worth fighting for that those who came before us have built
qualities and ideals that we may lose if we don't consciously remember and try to preserve them as
Token meanders through this first section, which he totally didn't have planned out when he began to write by the way
It's clear that while he may not have had the plot down
These are the themes he wanted to explore from the passing of the ring to the legacy of the Dark Riders
From Tom Bombadil to the Barrow downs from the introduction of Striders quest for Rivendell and the last homely house
these themes of the passing of generations and the diminishing of the world are ever-present in the first book of Lord of the Rings and
And this theme this decay of humanity will see pervade in a lot of the dystopic and
Post-apocalyptic science fiction that we'll explore next season
but even when we talk about Dune in a few episodes we'll have that sense of the things that were lost and
humanity's struggling to become what it mythically once was
We'll also have the passing of generations come to the forefront in everything from Star Wars to the Red Mars series
but these are just a few of the themes that Tolkien gives us so join us next week my
PRECIOUSES
uh... oh... wow...
As we march on to the two towers and discuss what sweeping ideas await us there