In Response to a Question

Sometimes evil is a little overwhelming

(I recently received a comment on my post Tuor, Gondolin, and Our Life Mission that said the following:)

Hi there!
An interesting application to our life..I am christian as well and I have been quite big fan of Tolkien earlier when I was younger..than I just thought..all these stories are really great and well written and catchy but somehow dark or tragic..dont you think? I mean the life of Tuor is an exception i guess but …

– Sam

(My reply got a little long…so here is my open response to Sam – )

Hey Sam, thanks for the comment! I have been thinking about the question you posed, and here are some of my thoughts:

It’s true that Tolkien wrote many stories that contain lots of tragedy. I mean, he really puts his characters through the ringer:

• Frodo never really recovers
• Theoden’s son dies (and then he dies)
• Turin’s life is basically a study of how much one dude can suffer
• And literally everything bad happens to Elrond (ask me about it sometime)

Grander events in Middle Earth are also tragic: the elves are in decline and leaving Middle Earth, the great stories of the past are being forgotten, grand cities and nations and peoples are destroyed. Evil empires wage war against peace-loving peoples.

Evil seems to win a lot.

This guy…

I don’t think this was just Tolkien being ~dark~ and ~brooding~. I think he did this on purpose. Life is often very tragic, no matter how you look at it. Sam, you’re a Christian – just look at the lives of Christ and His Apostles! Bad things happen all the time to good and bad people. This is no secret. This is something humanity has been dealing with since before Day 1.

BUT (and this is a big but) – that’s not all that is going on. Evil is not the only force at work.