Salvation in The Lord of the Rings
I’ve been thinking about The Lord of the Rings a fair bit lately. This is probably due in part to playing Battle for Middle Earth II at Jason’s house and then buying my own copy along with a fresh new Xbox 360 the very next weekend. My pondering, though, hasn’t been tactical or adventurous in nature. No, I’ve been pondering the climax of the series at Mount Doom.
Frodo, in the end, is unable to save Middle Earth of his own accord. In the final confrontation between good and evil, he is powerless to act. But his prior good works, his right actions, create the conditions in which salvation can occur. No character in the book saves Middle Earth. Rather, it is saved in the passive voice—by the invisible hand of Providence, the ghost of an empty antecedent.
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