It is a highly believed theory that the Lord of the Rings series is an allegory for the tragedies that happened in WWI and WWII. The similarities between the two are extremely interesting. How the characters and the scenery paint the image of war stricken Europe leads you to believe that this could be a fact. J.R.R. Tolkien was in fact a soldier in WWI. Even though he did enlist late he still saw some of the gruesome images that happened in the war. He wrote, "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute.” These gruesome incidents could have possibly led to one of the most famous books in the world.
It could be just a coincidence but the characters in the movie not as individuals but as entire races seem to be based on the separate nations and parties. The Hobbits could represent the French. They were taken over by the orcs who could represent the lower ranked German soldier. The main group of hobbits including Frotto and Sam could represent the French resistance who escape to Britain represented by the elves. The French resistance and Jews were chased by the lower ranked S.S. soldiers, the Uruk-Hai. The city of Minith Tirith has very similar qualities to the Russians and their leader Joseph Stalin. The Ruler of Minith Tirith was not the true king as Joseph Stalin stole power from Trotsky as Denethor was not the true king of the city Aragon was. These little coincidences make this theory very believable.
Two of the biggest character relations for me are the similarities of Adolf Hitler and Sauron and the use of the eagles at the end of the movie. Sauron was an evil ruler who made his own power and killed thousands if not millions. He created the witch kings, who could represent the S.S. leaders, as his loyal servants who do his bidding and patrol the land in search of the ring as the S.S. would run the camps and search for the Jews. But as soon as Sauron’s eye is destroyed representing Hitler’s death everything collapses, the fall of the German empire. Also the use of the Eagles seems to represent the United States. They were not there in the beginning but come out in the end to save Frotto and Sam, the French resistance, and after that all of the orcs and other bad guys die or run away, this seems awful familiar to how the Germans abandoned the concentration camps and many killed themselves.
Although J.R.R. Tolkien denies that one of his greatest works is based on the war, he does admit that the landscape was influenced by it. For some it is easy to believe that the events in the Lord of the Rings could somehow be influenced by the events in WWII. But even if they are not it just makes it that much more interesting to believe it.
I really didn't want to put you on the spot because when I read the title for this post, it seemed interesting. Your spelling of the characters names is horrible, which leads me to believe that you didn't even bother Googling them. You need to read the books, and not half-watch the movies and pretend to see the similarities. There aren't many. Lord of the Rings is an epic trilogy that if anything has similarities to The Inferno (you know, that book we're reading right now). It even has similarities to the Odyssey, but unfortunately, the similarities between this series and WWI or WWII are almost non-existent. If you wanted to make similarities, you should have made them with Star Wars, which is actually based on WWII.
ReplyDeleteI can see in a way Stephen that they are closely related, but you have to go pretty far to link the two together. I for one as a Lord of the Rings fan am insulted in your spelling and pathetic summary of the trilogy. Reading this makes me want to puke! I am almost completely agreeing with Dom here and think you should do a little more research and just to please readers like me! Other than that I agree that it would be much more interesting to believe they are related because I like to see events that happened in the past and brought to the movie screen.
ReplyDeleteDom is coming at your neck. But on a good note, i enjoyed your post. It is interesting to make a connection between the series and the world wars. Although he admits that he didnt base the series off of the wars, it's hard to believe that the wars were only enough to inspire the landscape for the series and not the entire series in itself. Lastly Frotto is spelled Frodo.
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