[Amezarak]

Tolkien was not of the opinion that war propaganda represented absolute truth.

Here's an example of his thought on WWII:

> 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-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well – you and I can do nothing about it. And that shd. be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. 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 triumphant: 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?

http://www.tolkienestate.com/en/writing/letters/letter-chris...

If you read his full letters, you will discover that davidy's ideas about what Tolkien thought, and what he represented in LotR, are tremendously wrongheaded.

[vid]

I haven't said anything about what Tolkien thought or his wartime experiences. What I have commented on is his fantasy stories and similar types of story, which are staples for some audiences (and in this case apparently beyond reproach). They are separate things. Tolkien may have been a great, balanced humanist in his letters, but his stories are about good and evil, surviving grim circumstances, glorious battles and magical kingdoms. It's very likely his books were moderated by his publisher, who would specifically ask that nuance be removed.

There are plenty of examples of nuanced war stories, with more consideration and without requiring the use of "evil," for example by Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller. But the path of reading those books starts in adulthood.

[Amezarak]

If you read his Letters, you will understand that you are absolutely not correct. Tolkien's views are bound up entirely with his stories. He explains precisely how and provides interpretations on many occasions. You are seriously misrepresenting his fantasy works, not just his personal views. To all appearances, you are speaking whereof you know close to nothing. I apologize if this comes across as adversarial, but this is a serious mis-reading of a man who felt very deeply about the subject.

> more consideration and without requiring the use of "evil,"

Unfortunately, whether you like or or not, there is a such thing as evil for most people. You appear to like "nuance", which appears to be code for some sliding relativistic scale. Yes, dehumanization is bad, but that's not what Tolkien is doing when he talks about evil, whether you think so or not. That's why, for example, torturing information out of Orcs is unjustifiable in-story regardless of circumstance - because to engage in such an act is to be an Orc, which is a mode of being (alluded to in the Letter I quoted)- or why taking up the Ring causes good to be perverted into evil.