[davidy123]

The willful creatures in the story are representations of humans just as much as talking ants in a Pixar story. Or, the story has no real relevance at all because it's pure fantasy. You can say the stories are about the humans on one side of war, but there are better examples of war novels with balanced perspectives without the fantasy elements. LoTR probably mainly rose to prominance due to the Hobbit being sold as a children's tale, the provenance my comment starts with.

Another comment includes the phrase "orc-crowd" from one of Tolkien's letters. Perhaps Tolkien (to comment on him personally this time) decided to vilify certain behaviours, which is a common enough response.

[DonaldPShimoda]

> The willful creatures in the story are representations of humans just as much as talking ants in a Pixar story.

No, I disagree. Tolkien was emphatic that his stories were not allegories for anything at all.

If you were right, then why would Tolkien also have bad humans? Why not just make all of the enemy into orcs/trolls/etc? Why have the dichotomy if not to show that humans are capable of being both bad and good, thus separating them from truly evil creatures like orcs?

> Or, the story has no real relevance at all because it's pure fantasy.

Yes, that's correct. The story is pure fantasy; it doesn't serve to "teach" about anything. It's literally just a story.

> LoTR probably mainly rose to prominance due to the Hobbit being sold as a children's tale, the provenance my comment starts with.

I think LOTR became prominent because it literally invented modern high-fantasy and created a gigantic world the scope of which had never really been seen before. The Hobbit touched on it, but LOTR really goes into far more depth about many things than The Hobbit ever did.