February 5, 2003

Mythology and Nature, Two Sides of One Coin
Philip Fontaine

I just saw TTT and was struck by Tolkien's reference to nature. Clearly his fight is between darkness, destruction (also called 'industry' in the movie) and the natural elements. Rohan's inhabitants are horse breeders and land farmers, Isegaard in contrast is built around a dehumanizing forge that produces aggressive, deformed humanoids. The seat of the powers of evils are two high towers, from where a supreme being manipulate and decide over the destiny of entire stretches of land, beings and nature. Evil has a centralized power structure with one clear leading being, a blind belief in one set of rules or in one God only. The powers of good are more decentralized and are based on alliances in diversity. This is not a coincidence... Tolkien puts us before of the mirror of human history and shows us the ugliness of monotheistic and uniformizing beliefs (call them Jahwe, Allah, God or Wall Street if you wish). In contrast, nature in all its life forms shows us daily how abundance and diversity produce rejuvenating growth and balance. Approximately two thousand years ago large parts of humankind turned their back on the worlds of myths and sagas of their own forefathers (be they Germanic, Greek, Roman, African or Asiatic). With Tolkien our forefathers are returning to claim their place in our memories... And believers or not, if we are honest we ourselves, deep down we know sun, moon, sea, earth, forests and mountains will all long outlive us and our children. Just how much longer depends on us...