Volume 19 Number 4 Article 2 Fall 10-15-1993 Nature and Technology: Angelic and Sacrificial Strategies in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Gwyneth Hood Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hood, Gwyneth (1993) "Nature and Technology: Angelic and Sacrificial Strategies in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 19 : No. 4 , Article 2. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Responds to critics who call Tolkien anti-science and anti-technology by showing that creatures of Middle-earth manipulate their environments, but in less obvious ways. Contrasts the “angelic” methods of elves with the “sacrificial” strategy of mortals. Additional Keywords Nature in J.R.R. Tolkien; Sacrifice in J.R.R. olkien;T Technology in J.R.R. Tolkien; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss4/2 P A .Q 6 6 IS S U E 74 ---- A.UTUCDKJ 1993 JWyTt>LoRe ANQellC AND SACRlfTlClAL STRATGQ1GS in xoLkieM's W e Lo r O o f W e k in g s GYNG t I} f t o o O olkien is often lightly accused of having a roman­ to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased" tic view of nature, in that he portrays the natural (Silmarillion 15-16). At the Second Music, all created beings environment as an embodiment of goodness, including Melkor, will learn, as Iluvatar says, that "no while technology is evil. Indeed, more than one theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in Hcritic has seen as an attack on modem me" ( 17). The Lord of the Rings Silmarillion science and technology. This view is more commonly However, this Second Music lies in the distant future. expressed word-of-the-mouth than in print, but it can be In the Third Age (the time of The Lord of the Rings), there found even there, with Lee Donald Rossi, in his disserta­ are still several patterns of nature coexisting, related to tion, classing Tolkien and Lewis as "reactionary fantasists" several themes in the Primal Symphony, working together who would "get rid of most of the machines and return to at once and sometimes seeming dissonant. These patterns a primarily agrarian economy" (2-3) and Walter Scheps can be related pretty exactly to the patterns described in noting that The Lord of the Rings sends an insidious message the Ainulindale. if taken seriously on the moral level since "evil creatures [Sauron and Sarum an]___ display an insatiable thirst for As the story is told in The Music of the Ainur, the One or knowledge" (43).1 As analysis of Tolkien's portrayal of Iluvatar first creates the Ainur or Holy Ones, some of nature and science within the context of the struggle be­ whom will later become Valar or Powers of the Earth. To tween good and evil, this is, of course, vastly oversimplied. those angelic beings Iluvatar teaches music, or a first Actually, Tolkien's portrayal of natural environments and theme. Then he asks them to play before him, elaborating the ways in which rational creatures interact with them is upon the theme as they choose. They do so, and all goes quite complex, and the critique of modem science and well for a while, until Melkor decides to "interweave mat­ technology, if there is one, is much more finely nuanced ters of his own imagining which were not in accord with than he is given credit for. Some of these complexities can the theme of Iluvatar; for he sought therein to increase the be grasped through a close reading of the trilogy itself, but power and glory of the part assigned to him self' (Silmarill­ they can be seen still more clearly when the trilogy is ion 16). The effect of this is, of course, disastrous; some examined in relation to some of the posthumously pub­ Ainur, on hearing Melkor's discords, lose touch with the lished material, especially in the short accounts of the harmony they were supposed to sing and fall silent. Others Ainulindale and the Valaquenta, published with The "began to attune their music to his [Melkor's] rather than Silmarillion. Through these works we can see that The Lord to the thought which they had at first." Some Ainur keep of the Rings portrays not one, but several patterns of nature, on singing in accordance with the original plan, so that the and within each of these patterns, rational creatures have music became "an endless wrath that would not be as­ different modes of shaping the environment. Their rela­ suaged" (Silmarillion 16). tionship with their environment to some degree shapes Not willing to let his creation be ruined, Iluvatar count­ their strategy against evil, with those in the paradise-like ers by interpolating a "new theme" which was "like and Elven environments resorting to what might be called the unlike" the other. But Melkor and his new allies only be­ "angelic" strategy, and those in the commonplace mortal come louder and more persistent with their discord until environments choosing the "sacrificial." The evil beings do "there was a war of sound more violent than before" leading not have remarkably different means of manipulating their once more to the despair and silence of many Ainur. * environment; they differ, rather, in the spirit with which they do so. Then Iluvatar responds with a third theme which is "unlike the others." It did not challenge Melkor's volume O f course, the statement that there are several patterns with more volume but was "soft" and "delicate" though it of nature within the trilogy needs to be qualified. Ulti­ gradually "took to itself power and profundity." It was mately, in Tolkien's universe, there is only one pattern of "deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with nature. This is the pattern which the One, or Iluvatar— the an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly Creator in Tolkien's mythology— has designed. It will not came." Melkor's discord continued, loud but monotonous, be completed until the Second Music of the Ainur, which "a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a will be made "after the end of days." Then finally, "the few notes." In the end, Iluvatar's third theme overcame themes of Iluvatar shall be played aright and take Being in Melkor's because the "most triumphant notes" of Melkor's the moment of their utterance----- and Iluvatar shall give theme "were taken by the other and woven into its own ^MvrfrLoRe i s s u e 74 ---- AUTUCT3N 1993 p * . q e 7 solemn pattern." Victorious, Iluvatar brought the music to of Galadriel's folk puts it, "we put the thought of all we an end. love into all that we make" (479). The Music having concluded, Iluvatar showed the Obviously the Elves, objectively speaking, do a lot of Ainur in a vision what the Music had meant. This was a controling of their environments, (or perhaps, under the vision of the history of Middle-earth, and here it was circumstances, we should call it "influence") and they do a revealed that the First Theme had to do with lands and great deal of crafting and making. But because the objects environments and animals, (which were in part disrupted they make are often deceptively simple, unobstrusive and by Melkor's discords). The Ainu called Manwe (or the beautiful, they apparently have failed to attract the atten­ Elder King in Bilbo's poem) was the chief instrument of tion of the critics who believe that Tolkien's message is the Second Theme (Silmarillion 21). This was apparently anti-technological. However, when you examine them resistance to Melkor's discord, which was overcome by closely, you find that Elvish technological powers are still more discord. The Third theme had to do with the rather remarkable. Among the objects made by the elves Children of Iluvatar— that is, with Elves and Men — who are the three elven rings whose bearers and natures are were a new creation of Iluvatar, unforeseen by the Ainur. revealed at the end of the story; food (the lembas) which Human and Elven destiny was also presumably distorted lasts almost indefinitely while keeping its flavor (Fellow­ and obstructed by Melkor's disharmonies, but they would, ship 478-9), grey elven cloaks which help the company to in unexpected fashion, ultimately triumph over him. walk, not quite invisibly but very unobstrusively all the same (Fellowship 479), boats with a resistence to sinking The Vision was interrupted before its end and then even when sailing unguided through in rapids (Towers made real.