| > 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. |