Historical fantasy author | Books make the best time machines | Christian, tea drinker, siege fancier | https://suzannahrowntree.site
Suzannah Rowntree
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I'd put it even more strongly in fact - a central theme of LOTR is that the world as it is *must* pass away, sad though that is, in order to give room for the new to come and the humble to be exalted. Galadriel & Gandalf must go *so that* Aragorn and the hobbits may come into their place.
"the old that is strong does not wither", but sometimes it chooses as part of its supreme moral test to fade and go into the West and refuse to cling to the power it has, and ultimately for Tolkien that's a good thing.
The poignant grief with which Tolkien writes this passing away of the world is the thing a lot of conservative readers latch onto without noticing that the theme of future glories is even stronger. It grows organically out of the theme of "humiles exultavit" that Tolkien identified in Letter 131.
"malinger" =/= "linger"
Suzannah Rowntree
Suzannah Rowntree
Frankish nobles watching the Mamluks engage a Mongol army near Ain Jalut in 1260:
Suzannah Rowntree
Suzannah Rowntree
Matt Ford
Tolkien is no progressive in disguise, but he knows that whether you like the changes it has wrought or not, you cannot arrest the passage of time.
A conservative may be someone who stands athwart history yelling "Stop!" but Tolkien is too stubbornly realistic to entertain such an empty fantasy.
