I am not overly familiar with The Lord of the Rings franchise, or fantasy concerned with magic, specifically. As a kid, I'd hear it mentioned around me, sometimes, but I didn't know what LOTR even meant. I gathered that it was to do with medieval sorcery and whatnot, but what the rings were, I had no idea. I just figured it meant, like ... Rings of Fire, or some shit; like a Rite of Passage, of some kind. So ... I've never read the books and only saw the movies just a few years ago. The first of which is very quaint & charming and the use of Celtic imagery, in particular, was very attractive to me. I was quite taken with Éowyn in the second film, but otherwise started feeling myself getting bored with the whole thing. As a completest, I watched Return of the King, but it failed to engage me, really.
As an Artist, I've always had difficulty with fantasy, because I don't get magical creatures and "magic," in particular. I gather that it has to do with tapping into the spiritual realm in some way, but as a genre ... fantasy really fails to engage me and that's always kind of bothered me. I felt my imagination might not have been as fertile as it should've been, or I needed it to be. Having recently revisited LOTR, in a peripheral sense, I was mostly interested in the imagery and how that came about. And then I discovered that Tolkien's books echo religious – specifically Catholic – themes. And suddenly ... I started to understand all of this hairy-faerie stuff and LOTR's become this sort of Rosetta Stone for me, in that sense.
So, I've been wondering:
Has J. R. R. Tolkien's use of religious themes had an effect on anyone else (more) familiar with his works in a similar, or a remarkably different context?
As an Artist, I've always had difficulty with fantasy, because I don't get magical creatures and "magic," in particular. I gather that it has to do with tapping into the spiritual realm in some way, but as a genre ... fantasy really fails to engage me and that's always kind of bothered me. I felt my imagination might not have been as fertile as it should've been, or I needed it to be. Having recently revisited LOTR, in a peripheral sense, I was mostly interested in the imagery and how that came about. And then I discovered that Tolkien's books echo religious – specifically Catholic – themes. And suddenly ... I started to understand all of this hairy-faerie stuff and LOTR's become this sort of Rosetta Stone for me, in that sense.
So, I've been wondering:
Has J. R. R. Tolkien's use of religious themes had an effect on anyone else (more) familiar with his works in a similar, or a remarkably different context?
