Word: lordly
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Like a sleepy Balrog in the depths of Moria, fantasy fever is stirring again. In 1997, voters in a bbc poll named The Lord of the Rings the greatest book of the 20th century. In 1999, Amazon.com customers chose it as the greatest book of the millennium. The Tolkien revival began when the Internet bubble was bursting, the market for consumer electronics was nosediving like Harry Potter chasing the Golden Snitch, and America's long summer romance with technology was fizzling. "Change and technology are so pervasive a part of daily life that for the most part there...
...wish we were fighting--a struggle with a foe whose face we can see, who fights out on the open battlefield, far removed from innocent civilians. In Middle-earth, unlike the Middle East, you can tell an evildoer because he or she looks evil. The Lord of the Rings also plays to America's view of itself as a reluctant warrior. As Peter Jackson, director of the Rings trilogy, remarks, "On some level most of the people watching these movies regard themselves as peace-loving, gentle people who would rather stay out of trouble and who are forced to deal...
...this fantasizing really good for us? Should we worry about all these strapping men poking each other with sharpened phallic symbols? After all, on the political correctness meter The Lord of the Rings is radioactive. Where are the women? Peter Jackson filled out Liv Tyler's role for the movies (it's much less prominent in Tolkien's version), but the Fellowship is still as much a boys' club as Augusta National. And whiter too. Don't let all the heartwarming Elf-Dwarf bonding between Legolas and Gimli fool you. The only people with dark skin in Middle-earth...
...indulge in fantasy? Or are we escaping reality just to find it again and wrestle with it in disguise? Not everything is as simple as it looks, as Gandalf found out when he tried to open the door to Moria. Let's not forget that the characters in The Lord of the Rings are themselves nostalgic for an even earlier age. The novels are set in the waning hours of the age of magic, with all those rather attractive Elves departing the scene, leaving men to their mundane, Mugglish devices. If The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy...
...core, The Lord of the Rings isn't a story about frilly shirts and talking frogs; it's a tale about temptation. Frodo isn't a knight in shining armor; he's not even a wizard in a pointy hat. His only claim to fame, his sole superpower, is his uncommon ability to resist the seductive, corrupting temptation of the all-powerful Ring he carries. And as hard as he fights against that temptation, in the end he fails...