Fiction-Stories

The Return of the King

by J.R.R. Tolkien
BBC Audiobook

This book brings about the trilogy’s climax – when the ring leaves Frodo’s hand into the fire of Mordor with a special literary twist. However, this climax occurs relatively early in the third book. Like most wars (or football games), the victory is apparent much earlier than the end. The tale must continue as all of the intricate details must be tied up. Such is the case with The Lord of the Rings, too.

The four hobbits must return to the Shire. Gandalf must leave on his own. “Normal” life must resume. Tolkien weaves his tale masterfully (as always) onward to the resumption of a “new normal.”

Some see in The Lord of the Rings a religiosity and even a theology. I don’t see these so much as a story of good versus evil on the backdrop of two world wars. Certainly, theism plays a role in such things, but it is not the central or defining aspect – certainly, less so than with The Chronicles of Narnia where theism is blatantly obvious. Both are good tales first and foremost.

This trilogy reminds us that history ebbs and flows. It’s a relatively non-linear process that many try to make linear or to control. Good does ultimately triumph over evil – at least so it seems in the twenty-first century. Peace does come about in the land, as it has in the West since 1945. However, the peace is always tenuous and must be rightly managed lest it give way to evil pestilence. These are good reminders for our day as well as Tolkien’s. If one must read theism into such a message in order to maintain its coherence, so be it.