July 8, 2002

The Problem With the Whole Christianity Thing
Spathi

First off, the only reason that EVERYBODY seems to be making connections with christianity and LOTR is because we learned to do it in high school (remember Lord of the Flies? **sigh**).

Second, there is so much stuff in the world that there are bound to be similarities in anything and everything we produce. After all, our bodies are similar to one another no matter where you come from, and our brains are made of the same substance. Eventually people think similar thoughts, and perform similar tasks, write similar stories. There are comparisons going on all over the place with other things too. The one that really makes me mad however, is the Star Wars comparison, and I won't even get started because I could go on to write my own epic in this very forum on how stupid of a comparison that would be (or has been). For those who are book lovers, I think a comparison should be made with Dune and Star Wars - Gee, whose idea was it?

Anyway, back to my point, we could find similarities to LOTR in everything if we looked hard enough. To me, it's definately important to make those associations, that way we can apply the lessons learned into our own lives, and draw strength from the characters we've grown to love. Yet I don't think it's good to narrow the vision of his story to a single element of his life. Many long hard years of experience and research were put to work during the formation of LOTR, and not necessarily biblical study.