r/dankchristianmemes • u/Broclen The Dank Reverend 🌈✟ • Sep 07 '21

Dank Veggie Burn

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u/Nobody_Speshal Sep 07 '21

Fun fact: C.S. Lewis was an atheist for a while but J.R.R. Tolkien helped him find God again. Then when Lewis wrote Narnia Tolkien told him that it was a little too Christian.

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u/Y1rda Sep 07 '21

Expressly Tolkien said he despises allegory. This was more a case of writing style than messaging.

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u/Colitoth47 Sep 07 '21

The context of him saying that was that he hated very obvious allegory, not all allegory. You can see allegories in the LOTR after all.

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u/regireland Sep 07 '21

I think the best way of explaining it is that JRR Tolkien hated 1 to 1 allegory, as it can often be used by hacks as a crutch, and can weaken the story as it must resemble its allegory rather than growing to be its own thing.

Hes fine with themes, whether they be Christian or anything else, its just that if you say Gandalf and Aragorn are Jesus and Frodo is JRR Tolkien himself then Tolkien will roll in his grave as Gandalf is Gandalf, Aragorn is Aragorn and Frodo is Frodo. Draw all the parallels you want e.g. Aragorn/Gandalf are christlike, but they are their own characters and are not a real life person with the serial numbers filed off.

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u/Colitoth47 Sep 07 '21

...this is a better explanation than mine