"Fellowship's" message

[nasty]

This may seem like a very simple question, but, here it goes. I really enjoyed Lord Of The Rings, but, am trying to decide the hidden message. Is it just your classic good over evil? Or, is it, be strong, brave, and live life to it's fullest? Or,(This is my theory,)is it a combo of the 2?

 

[seXieleXie]

nasty, you gotta read the books. tolkien spent his whole life on those books. he created worlds, languages, every minute detail. it would be very difficult to distill all that into one message.
however the movie really drove home the point about "absolute power corrupts, absolutely" so if i had to pick the one prevailing theme that would be it. i don't think that's really a hidden message though

 

[JazzManJim]

Well, from the mouth of Tolkien himself, it's just a racking good adventure story. He always believed in that Good beating Evil made a good story, and that's about it.

The cool thing is that, when the books were written in the 1940's, there was one hell of a correlation with the world situation during World War II. Tolkien always denied the comparison, but it did map remarkably well. He always just chalked it up to coincidence and that much of WW II was drawn in a Good vs. Evil way, too, like his books were written.

 

[nasty]

I kinda thought it might have been just a good vs evil story. It also made other interesting points. Like Gandalf said to Frodo, "The trick is to figure out what to do with the time we have." And, when he speaks of Gollum, he says, "Pity? Pity is what made Bilbo yeild his hand,(Sword.)" So, in other words, "never judge a book by it's cover."

 

[Azwed]

I had always thought it was an allegory to Christianity just like the Chronicles of Narnia were. I mean C.S. Lewis was his friend and one of the supposed reasons he wrote The Lord of the Rings was because he though Lewis did not do a good enough job on Narnia.

I don't think Fellowship is as obvious an allegory as Narnia was but I still think it is there.

 

[wolfie69]

I thought it was Good vs Evil and a good dose of
'you have to do the best you can do with what life throws at you"