Did Tolkien’s experience in WWI have nothing to do with the battles and nature of conflicts in his Lord of the Rings novel?
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mazingerz88 (
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February 19th, 2020
from iPhone
In all of the past occasions when I read something or watched something regarding Tolkien’s answer when asked about if his harrowing WWI experience losing close friends as having something to do with The Fellowship of the Ring and the battle between good and evil in his tales….his response was consistently…no, WWI had nothing to do with his stories.
Was there ever an interview or memoir written by him which indicated otherwise?
Also recently saw the movie “Tolkien” and the film portrayed without any doubt that the battles in the LOTR novel were borne out of real life war trauma.
Could this very well be the filmmakers merely exercising their rights to fictionalize some elements and events in his life or could it be based on an account by Tolkien attesting to the validity of their interpretation? Wondering which is which. Thanks.
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7 Answers
Not sure why you put this in Social and not General.
There probably weren’t any direct influence, such as reinterpreting what happened in WWI and what happened in the LOTR battles, The Urik Hai (sp?) were not footmen for Germany or fascist nations. but even more in the recent movies than in the books, I noticed the theme that those wanting peace or neutrality or just to be left alone, were in fact, enabling the evil forces with their complacency, by refusing to join in the effort to fight evil, or help their neighbors.
And, of course, that good triumphs when they unite to overthrow evil, and many make the ultimate sacrifice or self sacrifice for the greater good. Freedom to exist and to be free often comes with a cost.
Well, it sounds like he wasn’t consciously pulling from him WWII experience, but every experience plays into the things a person writes, whether it’s conscious or not.
And why do you say it should be in General @Yellowdog? I virtually never post anything in General, myself.
^^WWI it was. :)
And for @Yellowdog it’s Uruk hai I think.
It wasn’t just the filmmakers, but many saw long before the films that Tolkien had adapted themes and instances from WWII into LOTR.
But there is lot written about Tolkien’s WW1 experience in the Battle of the Somme and how it influenced much of his writing, how the horror of the Somme became the horror of Mordor.
Absolutely his experiences in World War I impacted his writing. There’s no way it could not have. More what Tolkien opposed was the idea, which many people have tried to interject over the years, was that the Lord of the Rings (or any of his writings) was an allegory for that war, or for World War II. People frequently tried to draw direct parallels such as “oh, this battle is obviously that battle set to fiction” or “the One Ring is obviously meant to symbolize the atom bomb” or “Sauron is obviously Hitler”, things of that nature. Tolkien hated such notions.
I would say that, to anyone who was in any battle from WWI, everything from eating cereal to walking down the street is informed by your experience in the Great War. You couldn’t possibly be unaffected.
And he definitely knew PTSD. You can see this in Frodo after their return to the Shire.
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