comic-con 2002

adam, jonathan, sumir, and vince on 08/09/2002 12:19:51 -0700

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The panelists here included Atanielle Rowland (one of the first to write about Tolkien academically), William Stoddard (I'm not sure but I believe, among other things, he writes for GameBooks), Jefferson Swycaffer (a writer and all-around fan of the author), and the moderator Stephen Potts (a science-fiction/fantasy teacher at UCSD).

Potts started by quoting Edmond Wilson, who reviewed the trilogy in the 1950s and dismissed it as having a "simplistic notion of good and evil".  He stated that many people come to Tolkien with preconceived archetypal notions.  The panel acknowledged that much of the success of The Fellowship of the Ring might have been due to the parallels with the "war on terrorism".

The panel rejected Wilson's statement, pointing out that good and evil wasn't just portrayed in black and white in the series, but rather with elaborate shades of gray.  For example, Gandalf is probably the purest, most "good" character in the series, but he refuses to touch the ring because he knows he craves power.  Similarly, Gollum, who can be considered the most corrupt character in the series, isn't completely evil.  Sauron, who is pure evil, is kept off-stage... and even he started off as a good guy.  In fact, almost no one in The Lord of the Rings is just black or white; most of them categorize each other in those terms but only out of necessity to do so.  (You can't fight a war without truly believing that you are good and the enemy is evil... again, the "war on terrorism" parallels are clear.)  The panel let loose some amazingly insightful quotes at times.  I will try to paraphrase one of them now: not wanting to see blacks and whites is a rejection of responsibility to judge black and white.

The panel started to get a little more introverted and spiritual at this point.  Evil was defined as heedless, deliberate causation of pain by Swycaffer... a way to exhibit or gain power.  Saruman was evil for exacting revenge on the Shire, for example.  Tolkien was a Catholic and this came into play during the discussion.  One of the more important themes in the series is that the lust for things is the root of all evil (and the ring is merely an elaborate symbol for material goods and power).  More examples would be gold and treasure craved by the dwarves slowly corrupts them in The Hobbit (Thorin was a "bastard" for most of the book).  Smaug the dragon has the treasure just for the sake of having it... these is all evil.

Next, we encountered a small talk about predestination vs. free will that permeated the rest of the discussion.  One of the panelists pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of making the orcs completely unredeemable.

Two of the more interesting talks centered around major characters.  The first was Boromir who treated the ring as a "great gift" given to humans.  To tell a warrior that a weapon will corrupt you is very strange.  It is clear that Tolkien implies that Boromir is more concerned with his own glory and heathen desire to be a hero, but many in the audience - including me - felt that Boromir was one of the best characters in the series.  Ultimately, Boromir did redeem himself by saving Frodo and Sam.

The other interesting discussion centered on Saruman.  One of his evils was the desire for knowledge... in this respect, he is a 20th century man more than anything else (he was even compared to Heisenberg in Nazi Germany).  One of the panelists pointed out probably one of the stupidest things Gandalf said in the series: He who breaks a thing to understand it strays from the path of wisdom.  And indeed this is Tolkien's view of the world - except for linguistics, he was vehemently against science, choosing instead to preserve the innocence and child-like qualities exhibited by the hobbits.

Stephen Potts said that someone once said that The Lord of the Rings was an allegory of World War II.  Tolkien denied it, stating that if it was, the Forces of the West would have used the ring.  One of the final insightful statements of this panel was that the greater the mind, the more clearly they skew and stay toward one extreme (such as Saruman and Sauron).

On a personal note, I'd like to say that this was an amazing panel.  It was like being in a serious, meaningful English class.  I haven't had to take English in over 2 years, being an Computer Science major who passed out of all English requirements when I came to college.  This was very refreshing and it's wonderful to see the love these people have for The Lord of the Rings.

- Sumir

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