{"id":4965,"date":"2022-09-12T17:31:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T22:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=4965"},"modified":"2024-06-10T23:45:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T04:45:28","slug":"remembering-tolkien-and-his-cautionary-theme-about-the-lure-of-power-as-rings-of-power-series-debuts-opposite-house-of-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/remembering-tolkien-and-his-cautionary-theme-about-the-lure-of-power-as-rings-of-power-series-debuts-opposite-house-of-dragons\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Tolkien \u2013 and his cautionary theme about the lure of power \u2013 as Rings of Power series debuts opposite House of Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPower tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.\u201d
\n\u2013 <\/em>Lord Acton<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 (1834-1902)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOne Ring to rule them all,
\nOne Ring to find them,
\nOne ring to bring them all,
\nand in the darkness bind them.\u201d
\n\u2013 The Ring inscription in The Lord of the Rings<\/em><\/p>\n

Few Prometheus Award winners incorporate an anti-authoritarian theme with more haunting power than J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings,\u00a0<\/em>the 2009\u00a0Prometheus\u00a0Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.<\/p>\n

With Amazon Prime recently unveiling its mega-budgeted and long-awaited prequel to Lord of the Rings, <\/em>this is an apt moment to recall that theme \u2013 summed up so well in Lord Acton\u2019s famous dictum and symbolized so archetypically by Tolkien in his \u201cOne Ring to rule them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially timely when Rings of Power\u00a0<\/em>offers such a vivid contrast to House of the Dragon,\u00a0<\/em>the other super-expensive prequel to another landmark television-adapted fantasy, but one with a much different and more cynical view of power.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Such an intriguing comparison is precisely what Atlantic Monthly\u00a0<\/em>and NR <\/em>contributing writer David French offers in \u201cIt\u2019s Time to Remember Tolkien.\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“I\u2019m not here to compare and contrast the two shows…. Instead, I want to talk about the spirit of the two authors, and the ethos of their two worlds, and why America desperately needs to remember Tolkien again,\u201d French writes in his Substack column, the latest in his \u201cFrench Press\u201d blog.<\/a><\/p>\n

“…Perhaps the true rule of the game of thrones isn\u2019t \u201cWin or die\u201d but rather \u201cWin\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0die.\u201d The quest for power, unmoored from virtue, is the doom of us all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Tolkien is fundamentally different. If Martin\u2019s work is a mirror, Tolkien\u2019s is stained glass. When you walk into an ancient cathedral, aside from the sheer grandeur of the building itself, the first thing you notice is the stained glass, but not just for its beauty. The glass is a source of light, and the glass typically tells a story \u2014 the story of sin and redemption.”<\/p>\n

THE DANGERS OF POWER<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1940s (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“… there are deeper truths found in Tolkien\u2019s work. The first is his profound suspicion of power.<\/p>\n

“…One cannot truly defeat the enemy with the enemy\u2019s tools. The ends cannot justify the means, even if the cost of that virtue is ruin and destruction. Tolkien knew that the alternative, the grasp for ultimate power, meant that the contest between good and evil would be transformed into a contest\u00a0between <\/em>evils. The raw quest for power will corrupt all it touches.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the above excerpts only give a hint of the subtleties, insights and nuanced attention to detail in understanding Tolkien (and Martin).<\/p>\n

Some of French’s points parallel the Prometheus blog appreciation<\/a> of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

Especially with both Rings of Power<\/em> and House of the Dragon<\/em> now available for streaming respectively on HBO Max and Amazon Prime, French\u2019s whole essay is timely and worth reading in full.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s French’s latest careful and characteristically modest take on the multiple dimensions of America\u2019s moral and spiritual crisis from his \u201cFrench Press\u201d blog, which generally focuses on ethics and politics from a principled and nonpartisan Christian and conservative perspective.<\/p>\n

While French’s perspective is quite different from my own, I (and I think, other libertarian futurists will) find it intriguing because of the ways that it overlaps and echoes some libertarian insights about the dangerous seductions of power.<\/p>\n

French also can be thought-provoking to read because his columns often tend to incorporate and reflect a respect for the role of liberty (among other necessary prerequisites) in any culture and civilization that aspires to be healthy, moral and humane.<\/p>\n

TRANSCENDING THE SHADOW SIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Beyond his concern about abuse of power, French highlights even more the crucial role of love, faith and basic goodness in this and other essays:<\/p>\n

“Why does America need to remember Tolkien again? Because we\u2019re mired in Westeros, playing the game of thrones. When you hear words like \u201cfight fire with fire,\u201d or \u201cmake them play by their own rules,\u201d or \u201cpunch back twice as hard,\u201d or \u201cwield power to reward friends and punish enemies,\u201d you\u2019re hearing an ethos that declares, \u201cwin or die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTolkien wasn\u2019t naive. He knew that world. He\u2019d confronted it directly (in World War I and II). That\u2019s why characters like Boromir or F\u00ebanor resonate so strongly. In the quest to confront the enemy, you become the enemy. Yet faithful people understand, in Faramir\u2019s words, that they \u201cdo not wish for such triumphs.\u201d Instead, they fix their eyes on the \u201chigh beauty\u201d that is forever beyond the shadow\u2019s reach.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Writer David French (Photo: Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NOTE: David French is a senior editor at The Dispatch<\/em><\/a> and a columnist for Time.<\/em><\/p>\n

A graduate of Harvard Law School, a constitutional lawyer and an Iraq War veteran, French \u00a0is a New York Times bestselling author.<\/p>\n

His most recent book is Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPower tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.\u201d \u2013 Lord Acton\u00a0 \u00a0 (1834-1902) \u201cOne Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.\u201d \u2013 The Ring inscription in The Lord of the Rings Few Prometheus Award winners incorporate an anti-authoritarian theme … Continue reading Remembering Tolkien \u2013 and his cautionary theme about the lure of power \u2013 as Rings of Power series debuts opposite House of Dragons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,2423,1585,1863],"tags":[1674,1676,1678,1677,664,53,1675,1672,979,763,960,922,764,1673,825],"class_list":["post-4965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","category-fantasy","category-fiction-in-the-news","category-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-amazon-prime","tag-david-french","tag-faith","tag-french-press","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-george-r-r-martin","tag-hbo-max","tag-house-of-dragons","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-lord-acton","tag-love","tag-power","tag-power-corrupts","tag-rings-of-power","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1i5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4965"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4984,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4965\/revisions\/4984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}