Matthew Dickerson, in his first chapter of Following Gandalf (FG), defends J.R.R. Tolkien from the curious - not to mention spurious - charge that the author glorfies war in his history of Middle-earth and especially in the War of the Ring. In this post, I will summarizes Dickerson’s arguments - which sufficiently refute the accusation - but also discuss Tolkien’s philosophy on war as reflected in The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and his other writings. As a veteran of World War I, Tolkien had first-hand knowledge of the horrors: several friends died in unnamed trenches in Europe during that war. Just over three decades later, as a father of two sons involved in World War II, he suffered through the long nights of a parent wondering about the well-being of his children. Thus, as a soldier and as a parent, Tolkien knew war far too well.

Undoubtedly some of my own thoughts, influenced as they especially have been of late by Tolkien, will find their way into the discussion (most of my own ideas, however, will be the subject of a subsequent post). Since I believe many Christians have an incorrect, inadequate, or incomplete understanding of war - I would include myself in this group for most of my Christian life - working through this issue is critical. Trying to come to a biblical perspective on war has been a pursuit of mine for more than three decades. I have tried to keep in mind my own personal biases and not be blindly affected by my experiences during the time of the Vietnam War; my goal in this, as in everything, is the impossible one of trying to discover the mind of God on this matter.

Hobbits and War

To effectively rebut the charge that Tolkien glorifies war, Dickerson looks at significant battles recorded by the author in The Hobbit(TH) and the LOTR. There are five battles that are considered, beginning with the Battle of Five Armies at the conclusion of TH and continuing on to the Skirmish with the Southrons, the Battle of Helm’s Deep, the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and the Battle at the Black Gate.

Dickerson identifies two keys to understanding Tolkien’s view of war: the first is the perspective of hobbits; the second is the nature of the battle itself.

A hobbit is present at four of the five battles (there is no hobbit present at Helm’s Deep) and it is from the hobbits’ thoughts that we see Tolkien’s own attitudes come to the surface. Bilbo, of course, is present at the first battle but Tolkien does not provide the reader with much in-depth detail of the fighting nor even allow the reluctant hero to witness, much less enjoy, the victory that takes place. He does the former by a literary shift and the latter by a clever incident in the plot. Dickerson notes,

At this point the battle begins in earnest, and as it does, The Hobbit takes an interesting turn in its narrative voice; Tolkien temporarily abandons the omniscient view and begins to describe the battle from the very limited viewpoint of Bilbo, the Hobbit:

    ‘It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo’s experiences, and the one which at the time he hated most - which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.’ - TH, p 253
    ‘On all this Bilbo looked with misery . . .

    “Misery me! I have heard songs of many battles, and I have always understood that defeat may be glorious. It seems very uncomfortable, not to say distressing, I wish I was well out of it.”‘ TH, p 255

Bilbo does not find much glory in the battle unfolding before him. Tolkien uses words like “terrible,” “misery,” “distressing, “dreadful,” and “hated” to describe the hobbit’s experience of war. Then, through a simple, well-aimed projectile, Tolkien does not allow Bilbo to see the victory unfold:

He gave a great cry: he had seen a sight that made his heart leap, dark shapes small yet majestic against the distant glow.

“‘The Eagles! The Eagles!’ he shouted. ‘The Eagles are coming!’

“Bilbo’s eyes were seldom wrong, The eagles were coming down the wind, line after line, in such a host as must have gathered from all the eyries of the North . . .

“‘The Eagles!’ cried Bilbo once more, but at that moment a stone hurtling from above smote heavily on his helm, and he fell with a crash and knew no more.” - TH, p 256

Dickerson finds no small amount of significance in this blow to Bilbo’s head, seeing it as a means for Tolkien to distance himself from the so-called glory of war:

As we know, of course, the battle does not end in defeat for Bilbo, but in victory. Tolkien, however, altogether avoids describing the victory, because his narrator is knocked unconscious before the battle ends! . . . This is rather significant. If one were to glorify war at all, the victory is the ideal moment to do so. Yet Tolkien doesn’t even let us experience victory.” - FG, pp 22-24

The same pattern of switching from an omniscient to individual perspective of the narrator is found in subsequent battle scenes where hobbits are present. Pippin before the Battle of the Black Gate and Merry in the Battle of Pelennor Fields share Bilbo’s distaste for the realities of war. It is Sam, however, who perhaps best summarizes all of the hobbits’ feelings about the horror of war.

Sam’s first experience of war and battle is when he witnesses the brief conflict between the men of Faramir and some men of Southron who were found trespassing in Ithilien. Far enough away from the battle to be safe from harm (although not far enough to avoid discovery), he and Frodo watch as Faramir leads his men in a rout of the servants of Sauron. At one point a Southron is slain and falls at the feet of the wide-eyed hobbit, prompting a Thomas Hardy-like reflection by Sam:

It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.” - LOTR, p 646

But it is not just in the words of Tolkien’s characters that we discover his feelings about war: his letters to his son Christopher, written during WW II, are even more direct in revealing Tolkien’s thoughts about war. As mentioned above, Tolkien served in WW I, receiving a commission in 1915 with the Lancashire Fusiliers. “He served as an infantry subaltern on the Somme from July to October 1916, and in that year lost two of his closest friends, killed outright or dead of gangrene,” writes Tom Shippey in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. “He was then invalided out with trench fever,” Shippey says in his brief summary of Tolkien’s war years.

Following are excerpts from two of numerous letters written to Christopher Tolkien (who read the manuscripts of LOTR and became editor of his father’s works following J.R.R.’s death; Christopher’s crowning achievement was the publication of his father’s much-beloved The Silmarillion). Both quotes are from letters written in 1945 as the war was coming to an end. In the first, dated January 30, the elder Tolkien wrote:

I have just heard the news . . . Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation, mainly (not solely) created by Germany, be necessary and inevitable. But why gloat! We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crown hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes . . . Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter - leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing thiumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?” - Letters, #96, p 111

Little more than six months later, in a letter dated August 9, Tolkien says:

The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men’s hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ‘this will ensure peace.’ But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we’re in God’s hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders.” - Letters, #102, p 116

But Tolkien was not a pacifist, understanding the horrible necessity of war because of unseen realities. Two passages from the LOTR reveal Tolkien’s attitude towards war: the first provides the “what” and the second the “why” of his position. The former is declared by Faramir, one of the wise of Middle-earth and one of the most noble of characters. Faramir explains to Frodo,

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend . . . ” - LOTR, p 656

It is because of the Fall and the sinful nature of mankind, Tolkien might say, along with the designs and devices of Satan, that make wars inevitable and even necessary. But wars are simply means to an end, as Faramir declares, not ends in themselves. This is also clear from the “why” of Tolkien’s position on war.

In one of the aforementioned battles Tolkien provides more detail and dialogue than he does in others. This occurs in the Battle of Pelennor Fields and, specifically, in Éowyn’s conflict with the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl. Dickerson provides insight into why Tolkien focuses on this confrontation more than others:

Unlike many other battles, in which the reader is given very little graphic description of the fighting, this battle is described in great detail: the ’swift stroke’ of Éowyn’s ’steel-blade’; the fall of the Nazgûl-Lord’s mace; each word spoken between the combatants; even to the shivering of shield and breaking of bone. Why the difference? Why the sudden level of detail?

“One thing to beconsidered here is that Éowyn is not facing a foe of flesh and bones. The Nazgûl whom she destroys is not a mortal being - it is not a physical enemy - but a spiritual foe: a wraith. Thus, though the battle between the two takes place in the physical world with physical weapons, Tolkien may be giving us a glimpse of the deeper nature of reality. There is both a physical plane and a spiritual plane: both a physical part of reality and a spiritual part of reality. Since the eye cannot see the spiritual plane, Tolkien visualizes it in the physical realm. We might well conclude that since the only foe we see close up on the Pelennor Fields is a wraith, the real enemy that must be faced in Middle-earth is a spiritual enemy.” - FG, p 30

We have begun to see, in the battle of Éowyn and the Nazgûl, that something is happening at the unseen or spiritual level that is as significant as what goes on in the seen physical world.” - FG, p 45

It is this perspective of an unseen reality which (in my opinion) is more significant than what transpires in the physical realm that sets the stage for the next post in the series. In that post, we will explore the nature of Christian experience and “the war in which we find ourselves.”



Namárië.