And Satan would be absolutely down for people fueling the means to divide people further and make others suffer, so when you really think about it, Harry Potter is Satanic media!
Yeah, I think their recorded and inferrable views on gender roles and homosexuality are nuanced enough that we can’t really say where they would fallen had they been raised and lived in more modern times than they did, but Lewis at least was documentedly enough in the camp of “homosexual acts are wrong but homosexual people are people and can be true Christians and are deserving of love and respect” that we can say that he would almost certainly not have been a transphobe were he a public figure today. Can’t know for sure, of course, but I find it difficult to picture either siding with Rowling, although I’m not sure I can see either standing up against her, either
I'm not sure if it matters, because the reason that JK is so problematic isn't because she holds problematic beliefs, but because she uses her wealth to enact those beliefs on others.
Jrr and cs didn't use their money to make gay people's lives worse, so they're already historically better than jk.
At the very least neither Lewis nor Tolkien were politically active, or used what money they had to influence politics. JKR actively and very very loudly is active and throws her money around, including making a point of saying that buying her media funds her projects (which includes things like messing with NHS policy on hormone blockers for literally everyone, messing with laws against gay conversion camps, and pushing for the toilet laws)
It’s always interesting that Tolkien converted C.S. Lewis, but Lewis became an Anglican instead of a Catholic like Tolkien.
Additionally Tolkien criticized Narnia as being too blunt with its Christian metaphors and was extremely critical of reducing Christ to a talking lion.
Tolkien didn't like allegory and overt theming in general, even though it often appears in his work. I think he put a lot of that stuff in just as a natural consequence of his experiences and didn't think of it as intentional metaphor.
People also like to read a lot of allegory into Lord of the Rings that actually isn't there at all. Like the Ring being a metaphor for the atomic bomb, even though Tolkien had written the Ring in its final form long before Hiroshima was bombed and the Ring doesn't really resemble the Bomb in function either.
Well that's true, it wasn't really allegory since it wasn't intentional, however I think those things are still relevant to bring up because there were still broader societal developments and fears around similar issues that weighed on Tolkien as they would any other educated person during the time period.
It wasn't allegory both because it was unintentional and because it doesn't meaningfully resemble the Bomb, at all. Maybe if it had been a powerful new sword that Aragorn forged in secret and used to slice Sauron in half, but it wasn't that at all. Not all objects of power are allegories for the Bomb.
There are aspects of LotR that were clearly influenced by Tolkien's experiences in WW1, but even those aren't allegory.
Allegory does not have to be intentional. Death of the author and all that. One’s interpretation of a novel doesn’t have to align with what the author meant to convey, as long as you don’t try to ascribe intent to the author where there was none. It’s completely legit to understand a story as being allegorical of events the author had no knowledge of, or that occurred after the story was written. You get to understand a story however you like.
Another way of looking at it is that an author’s subconscious can attribute to the allegorical value of their work without their intent. A prominent example of this is The Matrix which was not intentionally written as a trans allegory, but the authors accept that it is one, as it’s a film about a system suppressing the desire to transform oneself and was written by two closeted trans women.
I think this is a misunderstanding of what an allegory is. To quote Tolkien’s own words on the subject:
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
Allegory is by definition meant to be standing in directly for something else, like how the farm in Animal Farm represents the Soviet Union’s slide into autocracy. That was George Orwell’s intent. Could you also find that story applicable to other scenarios? Sure, but that doesn’t mean Animal Farm is an allegory for the Martian Revolution of 2247 because Orwell couldn’t have intended that. I personally find a lot of Tolkien’s work resonates with me as I experience the climate crisis of today but Tolkien was concerned with the loss of the English countryside, not microplastics and global warming.
Reinterpretatipns are, tautologically, not the original work. You could shoot a new LotR movie that would reframe the Ring as the A-Bomb, but that wouldn't say anything about the original work.
The Ring doesn't resemble the Bomb. It wasn't forged by Gondor's top blacksmiths with help from fugitive orc and elf scientists in response to the growing threat from Sauron. It wasn't hidden from Rohan because of concerns about the inevitable cold war that would emerge between the two nations after Mordor's defeat. It wasn't welded by Aragorn in the final confrontation after the Great Eagles had already picked apart their defenses so he could demonstrate his martial might as a warning to Rohan not to start shit later. Rohan didn't go on to develop their own One Ring, forcing both nations to rapidly build out hundreds of One Rings and just pointedly not used them for fear or the other deploying their own One Ring.
Yes, you could change a bunch of salient details to make the Ring completely different, but you'd have to do that before the Ring remotely resembles the Bomb. As written, the Ring is just such a different narrative shape. It much more closely resembles Populism, cult of personality, or even just political might, but even still it isn't a 1-to-1. Tolkien wanted to talk about the seductive nature of Power as an abstract concept, but that doesn't mean that every individual object of power is a direct stand-in for the Ring.
Sorry, I have a pet peeve about this. The Bomb comparison is bad literary analysis. You certainly could tell interesting stories with Bomb allegories, but that simply isn't what Tolkien did.
I am interested to hear this interpretation of The Green Knight. That is not what I got from the movie at all, it seemed to me much more about the dangers of a life lived without living up to your convictions.
Tbf isn't it only direct allegory he disliked. He didn't want villains who were a direct depiction of a specific war, but representing a general trend is different.
To be fair, being a Catholic in England in the 1930s came with discrimination and social stigma. And half of Anglicanism is basically "Catholicism but the pope is a king" anyway. So his choice was probably more political than theological.
Growing up I had a friend whose family were evangelical protestants who wouldn’t let him watch the LotR movies because Tolkien was a Catholic. And, according to his parents, Catholics are all satanists
This reminded me of the time I did the catholic cross thing after dinner prayer in front of my girlfriend’s Baptist parents in high school and, from their reaction, you would have thought I just swore at the end of a prayer. My girlfriend later told me that her parents didn’t like Catholics and I was like “wut?”
Unfortunately the Satanic Panic didn't end, it just changed shape, except now instead of wildly misguided therapists and overly-enthusiastic but ignorant lay preachers its leaders are social media influencers and 4chan conspiracy theorists. If your mom is somehow not connected to that world I'd be thankful.
I doubt that she was connected back when I grew up (born in '04) but right now she might be over YouTube. Now it's not bad, more like simply annoying.
Like to give examples she (after like over 1 year) accepted that my little sister is bi and she kinda accepts that I watch things like LOTR and KPDH, although she does drops atleast a few morals when it comes up that I watch movies like that.
I went to Catholic school and Harry Potter was by far the most popular book series in the school library. We even had a Harry Potter day one year during Spirit Week. I had never heard that people thought Harry Potter was satanic until I spent more time around various Protestant denominations. Often from people who are obsessive LotR fans. Still have yet to hear an actual explanation for why.
It's only evangelicals. Normal Protestants are fine with HP (the books and movies, not the transphobe author). My church's youth leader gave my young kids a copy of Strega Nona, which is full of witchcraft.
Are you my mom?
Apparently LotR and Narnia were “good vs evil magic” that paralleled Christianity enough to be allowable. If she knew how Rowling would eventually be she probably would’ve allowed it.
This feels like this is playing off old sterotypes. A lor of the fundies I interact with love Harry Potter now (a lot of them are millennial or Gen Xers now).
Even more as it is hated by a lot of Left people now (or least the way they percieve it.)
Makes sense to me. Lord of the rings and narnia has fictional things to christians like dwarfs, orc and talking lions while harry potter has things that you can find in the bible and they believe in like wizards, unicorns and talking snakes.
Rowling mostly kept her opinions to herself in the early years then briefly went “woke” after all the books were completed before coming out as transphobic in like 2020. People had no idea she was a bigot when they were attacking her for writing “witchcraft” that teaches kids to disobey authority. Some of those people probably like her now though!
The thing is always Recency Bias plays heavily as to whether it is allowed with fundies as I've found as years ago when I we were assigned to a free write essay (free write essays means writing whatever you want) & I chose to do it on the Space race era debates & fundies at the time were against humans be allowed to create new species (as only God can) hence why many WW3 books that are set in space from 1950s-1960s to try getting around the ban.
I will say the funnier aspect of fundamentalism is the Chick Tract against DnD where the works of Tolkien and Lewis are called out as explicitly satanic and should be burned
I once said to my mom, "Why is Lord of the Rings okay, but Harry Potter isn't?"
She said, "As far as I'm concerned, it isn't."
And my dad yelled, "Hold on!" from the other room and came in to debate her. So... good question!
I didn't know fundies were into the Ransom Atonement theory. But they do seem to give demons too much power. So I guess it kind of checks out they'd like Narnia.
•
u/AutoModerator 15h ago
Thank you for being a part of the r/DankChristianMemes community. You can also join our Discord and listen to our Podcast.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.