January 26, 2025
I was thinking about Lord of the Rings the other day. Specifically, I’m thinking about an element of the books that did not make it into the movies. It’s the kind of thing that simply does not translate well from prose to the screen. “Show, don’t tell” is a piece of writing advice that is repeated ad nauseam, but there are some things you can do with a narrator to explain things that you can’t really do any other way.
The Lord of the Rings movies show a big, scary army threatening the heroes. There’s orcs and monsters and all kinds of nasty looking spiky things. More, unspecified, bad things will be unleashed if The Enemy, Sauron gets the Ring back. Those are in the books too. But Tolkien makes it very clear, states and demonstrates multiple times, that the most dangerous weapon Sauron uses is despair. Hopelessness.
The odds really are long. The threats are real. But giving into despair turns a likely defeat into a certain one.
I’ve seen various critiques of the movies, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone talk about how much they are hurt by this exclusion. I think it is a very unfortunate one. It’s a major part of the work. The Lord of the Rings may not be an allegory (famously), but there are still messages and morals in it.
Just some random thoughts today. No idea what prompted them…
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