Characters from all across Middle-earth have faced off in the first few rounds of Middle-earth March Madness. And what was once a group of 32 contestants has narrowed to the Company of 16 and then again to the Fellowship of the 8!

At long last our journey approaches its final chapter, and the first three ages of Middle-earth Madness have given way to The Four of Power.

Just four pairs remain. The winners of today’s matchups go on to the championship!

Before the recap and matchups, here’s a reminder of our schedule for this tournament:

The Round of 32 began on 3/17

The Company of 16 was 3/20

On Tolkien Reading Day, Tuesday 3/25, I announced another giveaway!

The Fellowship of the of 8 was on 3/26

The Four of Power is today, 4/2

The Championship matchup will occur on Monday, 4/6

The WINNER will be officially announced Thursday, 4/9

Before we go on, special shout-out and thank you to Elinor S and Karen, who upgraded to a paid subscription to the Jokien with Tolkien: Extended Edition this week! This newsletter is possible because of supporters like you: thank you!

Want to join the Extended Edition yourself and get bonus content while supporting this newsletter? Consider upgrading your subscription today:

Subscribe now

ALSO, the Tolkien Reading Day giveaway is closed and I am contacting the winners! Thank you for all who entered: good luck!

“Middle-earth March Madness” — Round 4: The Four of Power

Here is our updated bracket for the fourth round:

Each of the following pairs has triumphed over their region. But now they go head-to-head against the other champions. Who will emerge as the One Champion Team to Rule them all?

Frodo and Sam vs. Merry and Pippin

Partners vs. Brothers (-in Arms)

It is perhaps fitting that the first four to embark on the quest to destroy the Ring are the last four standing in their respective regions. Frodo and Sam defeated Bilbo and Gandalf with a resounding 84 to 16 win, and Merry and Pippin had a convincing win over Aragorn and Éomer, 69 to 31. And now we face the almost impossible choice between Sam and Frodo and Merry and Pippin. Which pair deserves to advance to the final round?

Legolas and Gimli vs Beren and Lúthien

Unlikely Friendships vs. Destined Duos

Legolas and Gimli put a stop to Elrond and Durin’s Cinderella run, 90 to 10, while Beren and Lúthien triumphed over their descendants Aragorn and Arwen in a gem of a contest 59 to 51. This leaves six of our final eight total contestants as members of the Fellowship of the Ring and Beren and Lúthien as the only representatives of the First Age, The Silmarillion, and…well anything outside LOTR! Now the champions of the Unlikely Friends face the winners of the Destined Duos: who advances to the Championship round?

The only thing left following today’s vote is the Middle-earth March Madness Championship!! Look for the results of today’s matchup to hit your inboxes this coming Tuesday, April 1st!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Appendices

• This week Jokien with Tolkien passed 16,000 subscribers! I’m humbled and amazed: THANK YOU! And onward!

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 16,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines.

🤝 Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? View my rates and packages

Today I’m sharing with you all a piece he wrote on the meaning, function, and significance of gardens in Tolkien’s Middle-earth that I found insightful and fascinating. Enjoy!

Also, reminder that today is the final day to enter my Tolkien Reading Day giveaway and get 25% off a paid subscription to Jokien with Tolkien forever! More details below. See you later this week for the latest round of Middle-earth Madness!

Gardens in Middle‑earth

What Tolkien Teaches Us About Tending a Broken World

by

I keep returning to an illustration I painted back in 2018: In the Garden of Bag End. Not because of artistic quality, but because it invites reflection on the place of gardens in Tolkien’s world.

The illustration shows the conversation between Gandalf and Frodo in the chapter “The Shadow of the Past” when the truth about the One Ring is revealed. But I wanted to approach it from a different angle that how it has been illustrated: view it from the sunlit garden outside, looking through the open window into the room where Gandalf and Frodo sit in shadow, while off to the side, Sam Gamgee is trimming the lawn, eavesdropping (though there ain’t no eaves at Bag End, and that’s a fact).

As I worked on the illustration, I found myself thinking about gardens in The Lord of the Rings. They appear in many places and they are never merely decorative. And it is no accident that Sam Gamgee, whom Tolkien singles out as the “chief hero,” is not just a servant in the usual sense, but a gardener.

I have always liked that about Sam.

I myself love gardening, although of the two gardens that I have been partially taking care of, one is a small inner courtyard garden, just a shady patch of lawn and a few bushes between tall houses. We are very grateful for such a peaceful patch of nature in the centre of Prague, but it is not exactly the place for any grand gardening ambitions. The other is the garden of our cottage in the mountains. Although it is much larger, we only stay there for a few weeks a year, so gardening is mostly limited to preventing it from being overrun by the surrounding wilderness.

But Tolkien himself was a passionate gardener. His letters show his love of nature, especially trees and plants. In his Letter 213 he wrote: “I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands” which reflects his deep connection with gardens and simple, nature-based pleasures.

Hobbits and the love of “good tilled earth”

Already in The Hobbit we learn that Bilbo is very fond of flowers and he admires the gardens of Beorn. In the beginning of The Lord of the Rings Gandalf praises Bilbo’s garden and Bilbo confirms that he is very fond of it.1

It is striking that Bilbo and Frodo, clearly wealthy by hobbit standards, do not employ household servants. They keep their own pantries, cook their own meals, wash their own dishes and dust their own mantelpieces. But they do employ gardeners. We know Bilbo’s gardener was first Holman Greenhand, then Hamfast “The Gaffer” Gamgee, and finally Hamfast’s son Sam.

This tells us something about hobbit society. Gardening is not menial labour; it is a craft, a vocation, a point of pride. Tolkien says about the hobbits in the Prologue:

“They love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well‑ordered and well‑farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.”

We all know that hobbits like comfort and good meals, but they also value the steady work of tending and cultivating the land. A garden is a symbol of their ideal life: peaceful, fruitful, and lovingly maintained.

And this is recognised even outside the Shire. When Faramir meets Sam, he says with admiration: “Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardeners be in high honour.”

Faramir perceives that the Shire has achieved something Gondor longs for: a life where peace is so deeply rooted that gardeners are among the most honoured of people.

Gardens beyond the Shire: guarded places of rest

Once the hobbits leave home, gardens appear again and again, mostly in moments of respite and recovery.

The House of Tom Bombadil is described as having both a kitchen-garden and a flower-garden. They add to the impression of a peaceful place where hobbits can relax in complete safety between terrifying adventures of the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs.

In Rivendell, gardens blend with impressive natural scenery to create the overall impression of this protected refuge:

“Sam led him along several passages and down many steps and out into a high garden above the steep bank of the river. He found his friends sitting in a porch on the side of the house looking east. Shadows had fallen in the valley below, but there was still a light on the faces of the mountains far above. The air was warm. The sound of running and falling water was loud, and the evening was filled with a faint scent of trees and flowers, as if summer still lingered in Elrond’s gardens.”

The Mirror of Galadriel stands in a garden enclosed by a high green hedge on the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon.

And indeed the whole of Lothlórien feels more like a vast, enchanted garden than a wild forest. In Letter 339 Tolkien writes: “Lothlórien is beautiful because there the trees were loved.” It looks like an idyllic place, the ideal state of nature that any gardener can only dream of: “No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain.” It is cared for, maintained, and perfected by the elves and sustained by the power of Galadriel and her ring.

In Christian art, garden has often symbolised Paradise, the Garden of Eden. And Lothlórien seems very much like an earthly paradise.

But gardens in the Bible are also places of temptation. In the Garden of Eden, the first temptation led to humanity’s fall when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced the ultimate internal struggle while his disciples succumbed to the temptation of sleep.

And in Lothlórien, the characters must overcome their temptations: first, the members of the Fellowship when they are tested by Galadriel and then Galadriel herself when Frodo offers her the One Ring.

Among Galadriel’s gifts to the Fellowship there is also one garden-related gift for Sam, which will only come to fruition later in the story:

“For you little gardener and lover of trees,’ she said to Sam, ‘I have only a small gift.’ She put into his hand a little box of plain grey wood, unadorned save for a single silver rune upon the lid. ‘Here is set G for Galadriel,’ she said; ‘but also it may stand for garden in your tongue. In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there.’”

Ithilien, a fragrant land of herbs, flowers, resinous trees, and gentle slopes sheltered by mountains, is also called a garden in one of my favourite sentences of landscape description: “Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.” Although it is being invaded and damaged by the Enemy, it is still protected and it is a place where Frodo and Sam find a brief rest with Faramir.

Minas Tirith doesn’t have many gardens, as Legolas remarks when he visits the city: “They need more gardens, the houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad.“

The only large garden is about the Houses of Healing in the sixth circle of the city. It is here that Faramir and Éowyn recover from their physical and mental wounds, here they experience the fall of Sauron, and here they find consolation and love in each other. The garden becomes a symbol of renewed life after long darkness.

All these places share a common thread: they are enclosed, protected, and tended.

The very word garden comes from the idea of an enclosed space, something set apart from the wild, shaped by care and intention.2 In Middle‑earth, such gardens are most often places of rest, recovery and healing.

Even in The Silmarillion, we glimpse the Gardens of Lórien in Valinor, a place of rest and renewal even for the mightiest Valar. But it is telling that during the the long wars of the Eldar and Edain against Morgoth, doomed to long defeat, no gardens are mentioned.

Gardens and forests

Now, allow me to make a brief digression. There are some gardens mentioned in The Lord of the Rings that do not quite fit into this pattern.

When Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin how Ents lost their Entwives, he explains their difference:

“the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them). So the Entwives made gardens to live in. But we Ents went on wandering, and we only came to the gardens now and again. ... Many men learned the crafts of the Entwives and honoured them greatly; but we were only a legend to them, a secret in the heart of the forest. Yet here we still are, while all the gardens of the Entwives are wasted.”

The gardens of the Entwives are contrasted with the wild forests of the Ents. In Letter 163, Tolkien explains his idea of Ents and Entwives as “the difference of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.”

Contrasting gardening with unpossessive love sounds harsh but I don’t think Tolkien meant to say that the ways of the Entwives were bad. The problem lay in the separation of these two approaches to nature and in their inability to coexist, so that in the end neither could flourish.

We see this tension reflected in the conflict between the hobbits of Buckland and the trees of the Old Forest. The usually peaceful gardening hobbits exacted violent revenge for the intrusion from the forest:

“In fact long ago [the trees] attacked the Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned over it. But the hobbits came and cut down hundreds of trees, and made a great bonfire in the Forest, and burned all the ground in a long strip east of the Hedge. After that the trees gave up the attack, but they became very unfriendly.”

And in Sam’s case, his love of gardening is a path that the Ring tries to use to tempt him:

“at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.”

Fortunately, he has enough plain hobbit-sense to know that “the one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm.”

This shows that even the love of gardens must be rightly ordered; when it grows possessive or out of balance with wild nature, it can wound rather than heal.

After the fall of Sauron: the world as a garden restored

After the War of the Ring, the new peace is portrayed by expanding the garden imagery. When Gandalf and Aragorn ascend to a high hallow and survey the land, it is described as one vast garden:

“They saw the towers of the City far below them like white pencils touched by the sunlight, and all the Vale of Anduin was like a garden, and the Mountains of Shadow were veiled in a golden mist.”

Faramir’s wish for his future with Éowyn in the time of peace is to make a garden:

“if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.”

Even Isengard, once ravaged by Saruman, is remade by the Ents into a “garden filled with orchards and trees”.3

Whereas previously gardens were places of healing in the midst of a hostile world, now new gardens are becoming a sign that the world itself is healing.

But not everywhere is healed at once.

The Scouring of the Shire: Sam’s true vocation

When the hobbits return home, they find the Shire befouled. Trees cut down, holes dug up, gardens ruined.

Tolkien’s choice to make Sam a gardener, not a butler or valet, now reveals its full meaning. The War of the Ring does not end with the coronation of Aragorn. It ends with full restoration.

And Sam himself understands the task ahead:

“‘I shan’t call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘And that’ll take a lot of time and work.’”

Sam’s work begins the moment the fighting stops. The labour of repair goes on apace, and Sam is kept very busy, overseeing the restoration of his old home in Bagshot Row: “The front of the new sandpit was all levelled and made into a large sheltered garden, and new holes were dug in the southward face, back into the Hill”. Even the grave of the fallen hobbits at Bywater is honoured with “a garden about it.”

But he is especially grieved by the loss of many trees, as he knows that they grow slowly and cannot be easily replaced.

“Then suddenly one day, for he had been too busy for weeks to give a thought to his adventures, he remembered the gift of Galadriel. He brought the box out and showed it to the other Travellers (for so they were now called by everyone), and asked their advice.
‘I wondered when you would think of it,’ said Frodo. ‘Open it!’
Inside it was filled with a grey dust, soft and fine, in the middle of which was a seed, like a small nut with a silver shale.”

Sam uses this gift wisely. He plants the mallorn tree from Galadriel in the Party Field at Bag End in place of the felled Party Tree. He scatters the blessed earth from Galadriel’s garden throughout the Shire. And he is rewarded for his work:

“Spring surpassed his wildest hopes. His trees began to sprout and grow, as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty. In the Party Field a beautiful young sapling leaped up: it had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April. It was indeed a mallorn, and it was the wonder of the neighbourhood.”

Galadriel herself praises Sam for his work: “I hear and see that you have used my gift well. The Shire shall now be more than ever blessed and beloved.”

This is the heart of Tolkien’s vision: evil destroys, but good restores. Victory is not enough; the world must be tended back to life.

And the importance of that role is shown in Frodo’s prophetic words to Sam on their journey to the Grey Havens:

“Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere. You will be the Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history;”

Why gardens matter

For Tolkien, the garden was more than just a place of refuge. It was a symbol of good, of growth and renewal that counteract the inexorable decay of the world.

Gardens in Middle‑earth are not decorative. They are moral spaces. And Samwise Gamgee, the humblest of the Fellowship, becomes the greatest gardener. He refused the temptation of a garden swollen to a realm and he is rewarded by his beloved Shire blossoming into a beautiful garden under his care. His gardening is not a background detail. It is the thematic key to the ending of The Lord of the Rings.

The world is saved by heroes, but it is healed by gardeners. And sometimes they can be the same people.

Perhaps that is why Tolkien’s gardens linger with us: they remind us that renewal is slow, humble work and that the hands willing to tend the world are as necessary as the hands that save it.

Hey! Thanks for reading! Did you like this post? Then why not subscribe to Matěj's Substack, Visions of Middle-earth, to get more like it straight to your inbox?

Visions of Middle-earth

Exploring Middle-earth through art and reflections on lore, symbolism, and the creative process of an artist. Subscribe if you love beauty and enjoy stories behind the art and a deeper look into Tolkien's Legendarium.

By Matěj Čadil

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 16,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? E-mail me at jrrjokien@jrrjokien.com

Characters from all across Middle-earth have faced off in the first two rounds of Middle-earth March Madness. And what was once a group of 32 contestants has narrowed to the Company of 16 and then again to the Fellowship of the 8!

Each character who still stands can almost taste victory! This is the championship round of each region and the winners of these matchups will proceed to the Four of Power and then, just maybe, to the championship matchup.

Before the recap and matchups, here’s a reminder of our schedule for this tournament:

The Round of 32 began on 3/17

The Company of 16 was 3/20

On Tolkien Reading Day, Tuesday 3/25, I announced another giveaway!

The Fellowship of the of 8 is today, 3/26

The Four of Power will take place on Thursday, 4/2

The Championship matchup will occur on Monday, 4/6

The WINNER will be officially announced Thursday, 4/9

Before we go on, special shout-out and thank you to Paul F, Michael B, Cathy, Mary Lynn R, and Alison M who upgraded to a paid subscription to the Jokien with Tolkien: Extended Edition this week! (Also thank you to Erica B, Ronald J, and Dexter H for becoming patrons on Patreon!) This newsletter is possible because of supporters like you: thank you!

Want to join the Extended Edition yourself and get bonus content while supporting this newsletter? Hit the button below for more details (and get 25% off FOREVER through the end of this month):

Get 25% off forever

“Middle-earth March Madness” — Round 3: The Fellowship of the 8

Here is our updated bracket for the third round:

A quick survey of the duos that have advanced shows that eight of our sixteen remaining contestants (nine if you count Aragorn twice) are members of the Fellowship of the Ring!

Who is the one member who has fallen before the rest?

Boromir.

Life, as they say, imitates art. Be at peace, Son of Gondor.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s talk about what happened this past round region by region and the matchups we have as a result this week!

Partners

No upsets still in the ‘Partners’ region! Frodo and Sam continue their strong performance and send Bilbo and Thorin home with a final score of 93% to 7%. Bilbo’s not all that upset about it, though, as he’s also partnered with Gandalf in our tournament and advances past Gollum and Sméagol with a solid 71% to 29%.

Now the number 1 and 2 seeds are matched up as Frodo and Sam face Bilbo and Gandalf.

Unlikely Friendships

Our ‘Unlikely Friendships’ bracket had the closest outcome this round with our first upset as eighth-seeded Elrond and Durin continue their Cinderella run by defeating Beren and Finrod, 58% to 42%! (Beren is feeling fine about it, as he gets a second life later in our bracket. No such luck for Finrod, though.) In one of the more heartbreaking results, Bill the Pony can continue no further on this journey: Legolas and Gimli prevailed over Sam and Bill 78% to 22%.

Now it’s down to just two Unlikely Friendships between an Elf and a Dwarf: will the Second Age pair or the Third Age duo prevail?

Brothers (or Brothers-in-arms)

Both bouts in the Brothers Bracket (say that three times fast) were upsets, with Merry and Pippin bringing down Boromir and Faramir 69% to 31% and Aragorn and Éomer triumphing over Elrond and Elros 80% to 20%. Now the kings of Gondor and Rohan take on the Hobbit duo!

Destined Duos

Two of Tolkien’s great love stories come head to head in our final bracket, as the first and the third unions of the Eldar and the Edain advance to this round.

Beren and Lúthien defeated Tom and Goldberry 58% to 42%, and Aragorn and Arwen dominated against Galadriel and Celeborn 85% to 15%. Which love story will conquer all?

This week the Fellowship of the 8 will break and only four pairs will move on to the next round. Who will it be? See you next Thursday with the results and the final two matchups!

Also: my Tolkien Reading Day giveaway is open through March 31st, as is my sale on paid subscriptions! Enter to win the giveaway and don’t miss your chance to snag an Extended Edition membership for 25% off FOREVER! More details here:

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines.

🤝 Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? View my rates and packages

What is Tolkien Reading Day, you may ask? Well, according to the Tolkien Reading Day page on the Tolkien Society website:

Tolkien Reading Day is held on the 25^th of March each year.

It has been organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003 to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favourite passages.

Why March 25th? Because that is the day in Middle-earth history that the One Ring was destroyed and the Dark Lord Sauron was defeated.

In order to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day, I’m giving away a whole bunch of Tolkien’s works!

That’s right, dear readers, it’s time for another Jokien with Tolkien giveaway!

This year, I’m trying giving away a boxed set of The Lord of the Rings and also an illustrated edition of The Hobbit!

The Prizes

Second Prize: one copy of The Hobbit Illustrated by Jemima Catlin

First Prize: one copy of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Illustrated by Alan Lee Box Set

The Hobbit Illustrated by Jemima Catlin is the version that I just read to my boys. All of us adore it and I am excited to share it with you all. The hardcover book contains numerous illustrations in a style that perfectly fits the book and the age of the intended audience. I love the mix of full-page illustrations and smaller illustrations that are peppered throughout!

The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Illustrated by Alan Lee Box Set collects The Hobbit and each volume of The Lord of the Rings in a beautiful package that is filled to the brim with illustrations by renowned artist Alan Lee. I received this set as a gift from my wonderful wife and it’s my favorite edition I own!

Here’s how to enter

Enter the giveaway by clicking on the button at the bottom of this post!

You can complete various actions to earn additional entries detailed on the giveaway page (including sharing it on social media or via email). You can also find the contest rules there. No purchase necessary to win.

Some more details:

• The giveaway will run from today, March 25th, through Tuesday, March 31st

• The winners will be selected April 1st

• I will announce the winners after I get in touch with them to inform them that they’ve won and they claim the prize (likely in the championship Middle-earth March Madness post on April 6)

  ---

Tolkien Reading Day Extended Edition Sale

I’d like to say a special thank you today to all the paid subscribers to this newsletter. It’s your generosity that funds all the fun things like these giveaways that I host here on the newsletter as well as covering all the back-end support (web domain hosting costs, graphic design/logo expenses, etc.) and investment I do in this publication. This wouldn’t be possible without your generous support. Thank you!

If you would like to join the Jokien with Tolkien Extended Edition and help support this newsletter while also receiving exclusive access to the monthly Paid Subscriber features, full access to the Discord server, and more, I’m running a “Tolkien Reading Day” sale this week on paid subscriptions. 

For the majority of the year, the cost to join the Extended Edition is $5 a month or $50 a year. But during this sale, that goes down to $3.75 a month or just $37.50 for the year (which is is 40% less than paying $5 monthly for 12 months). And the deal isn’t just for one year: it’s good every year forever!

As an added bonus, new paid subscribers immediately receive a copy of my collection of paid subscriber essays from the first year of my newsletter (a $40 value!) free immediately in their welcome email!

I only run sales like this twice a year, so don’t miss your chance if you’re interested:

Get 25% off FOREVER by using this link to sign up!

Get 25% off forever

And here’s the link to the giveaway: good luck!

Enter the Tolkien Reading Day Giveaway

NEW Lord of the Rings Movie—“Shadow of the Past”—in development at Warner Bros.

Last night Peter Jackson and Stephen Colbert announced that for two years they have been working together on a new Lord of the Rings film with the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past. Watch the announcement here:

Colbert shared that he wanted to fill in some gaps (specifically from Chapter III “Three is Company” through VIII “Fog on the Barrow Downs”) that Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring never developed.

So essentially, we’re getting Tom Bombadil written by Stephen Colbert and produced by Peter Jackson!!

There’s a good chunk here in these chapters that didn’t make it to the screen in Jackson’s version, so I think there’s definitely potential to the story. Colbert is obviously a Tolkien super-nerd and seems to want both to stay faithful to the books and also fit in with the version that Jackson told twenty years ago.

Colbert also shared that he and his son (who is a screenwriter) worked out a frame for the story. Combine that fact with the synopsis and it sounds like there’s the potential to get some of the original Hobbit actors from The Lord of the Rings to return for this film as well: "Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo - Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began."

I’m excited about this (more so than for The Hunt For Gollum, actually). What about you?

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines.

🤝 Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? View my rates and packages

The dust has settled from the clash of characters in the first round of our Tolkien Tournament and 16 of our original contestants are moving on to Round 2.

Like the members of Thorin’s Company, these characters took various paths to “The Company of 16.” Many handily defeated their opponents, some prevailed in close contests, a handful won unexpected upsets over higher-ranked opponents, and one even was decided by almost a 50-50 split!

Here’s a reminder of our schedule for this tournament:

The Round of 32 began on 3/17

The Company of 16 is today, 3/20

On Tolkien Reading Day, Tuesday 3/25, I am planning to announce another giveaway!

The Fellowship of the of 8 will happen on Thursday, 3/26

The Four of Power will take place on Thursday, 4/2

The Championship matchup will occur on Monday, 4/6

The WINNER will be officially announced Thursday, 4/9

So let’s see who advanced and who went home defeated in Round 1!

But first, special shout-out and thank you to Dexter, LMel, Pauline S, Kirsten O, Brad N, and Jake T who all upgraded to a paid subscription to the Jokien with Tolkien: Extended Edition this month! This newsletter is possible because of supporters like you: thank you!

Want to join the Extended Edition yourself and get bonus content while supporting this newsletter? Hit the button below for more details:

Subscribe now

“Middle-earth March Madness” — The Company of 16

Partners

This region of the bracket was squeaky clean from a matchups perspective: every higher-ranked duo advanced against their lower-seeded opponent.

(1) Frodo and Sam took down (8) Celebrimbor and Annatar in a decisive defeat, 95% to 5%, which was fitting: the Ring bearer ending the work of the makers of the Rings of Power. Frodo and Sam take on (4) Thorin and Bilbo, who eeked out a victory against (5) Morgoth and Sauron 51% to 49% in the regions closest match.

(3) Gollum and Sméagol made quick work of (6) Saruman and Wormtongue (73% to 27%), who have slithered off to go try to Scour wherever Gollum came from in revenge. Gollum and Sméagol will will face a tough matchup though in (4) Bilbo and Gandalf, who have already dealt with (7) Sauron and Saruman 84% to 16%.

Unlikely Friendships

In this region, three of the four matchups were upsets! I saw one or two of them as possibilities, but having 75% go the underdog’s way was quite a shock!

This is only the third year I’ve been running this contest, but for only the second time in three years we had an eighth-ranked team knock out a favorite! (8) Elrond and Durin took down Lúthien and Huan 56% to 44% in a result I would never have guessed!

Luthien’s lover Beren fared better than she did (and they both did well together in another region, but I’m getting ahead of myself): (5) Beren and Finrod Felagund sent the Bow and the Helm (4) Túrin Turambar and Beleg home early, with a final result of 70% to 30%. Perhaps it’s for the best, as we know the longer Túrin sticks around the worse things get for him and everyone around him.

(2) Legolas and Gimli cruised by (7) Pippin and Beregrond 87% to 13%, and (6) Sam and Bill the Pony proved too much to withstand for (3) Elendil and Gil-galad, defeating them convincingly 73% to 27%.

Now Legolas and Gimli must face their fellow members of the Fellowship in Sam and Bill, while Beren and Finrod square off against Elrond and Durin looking for some revenge for Lúthien and Huan’s defeat.

Brothers (or Brothers in Arms)

Our Brothers region was split between upsets and expected results, with two sets of brothers and two sets of brothers in arms each advancing.

Boromir and Faramir made father Denethor proud (though Boromir a little bit more, let’s be honest) by making quick work of Orc Shagrat and Gorbag 91% to 9%. They will face (5) Merry and Pippin, who proved too much for Elrond’s sons (4) Elladan and Elrohir and defeated them 88% to 12%.

(2) Elrond and Elros (who, despite my typo in last post, were not sons of Elrond haha) defeated the Blue Wizards 79% to 21%. The poor Blue Wizards found no more success here than in the East on their mission to defeat Sauron.

Elrond and Elros now take on (6) Aragorn and Éomer, who dispatched another set of elven brothers (3) Maedhros and Maglor by a score of 85% to 15%.

Destined Duos

Our final region saw love conquer all, with four romantic pairings advancing on to the next round.

As expected, (1) Beren and Lúthien and (2) Aragorn and Arwen easily advanced past (8) Telperion and Laurelin and (7) Galadriel and Halbrand. But what I did not expect was (5) Tom and Goldberry to defeat (4) Eärendil and Elwing 80% to 20% and (6) Galadriel and Celeborn to take down (3) Sauron and the One Ring 54% to 46%!

This means Beren and Lúthien go up against Tom and Goldberry, while Arwen takes on her grandmother Galadriel and Aragorn and Celeborn get dragged into the family dispute.

Who will advance and who will fall in this Round? Find out next week when the Company of 16 narrows to the Fellowship of the 8!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? E-mail me at jrrjokien@jrrjokien.com

This month sees the return of the annual March Madness tournament in college basketball here in the USA. 68 teams from across the country play for the chance to become the champion. It’s a wild ride of emotion, excitement, and entertainment as legends are forged and history is made.

For the past two years I’ve run “Middle-earth March Madness” and have had so much fun each time that I’m continuing the tradition this year! The first tournament in 2025 focused on the Heroes and Villains from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, with Samwise Gamgee crowned champion when the dust settled!

In 2026, characters from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Rings of Power, and War of the Rohirrim faced off against each other. With Sam taking a well-deserved rest, Éowyn did what no man (or elf, dwarf, or hobbit for that matter) could do and conquered that year’s bracket!

For this year, I’m switching it up a bit. Instead of single characters, I’ve decided to go with famous (or infamous) duos from throughout Tolkien’s legendarium. These are the pairs that you can’t just seem to separate from each other, no matter how much you might want to in some cases! So read on to see who is squaring off against each other and also to vote on which pairs should advance to the next round!

3rd Annual Jokien with Tolkien “Middle-earth Madness” Tournament

In our tournament this year the four regions are Partners, Unlikely Friendships, Destined Duos, and Brothers (both biological and brothers in arms). Each region has eight starting duos, which I have seeded from 1 to 8 using a highly scientific methodology (i.e. what felt right to me)1 to rank them. I then placed them in the above bracket, which sets up the first round of matchups.

Here’s how the tournament will work: the winners of each round will be determined by your votes. The winners of each matchup will advance to the next round, where they will take on the next opponent in the bracket standing between them and the championship.

How should you vote? Strongest character? Favorite? “Most likely to succeed”? I’ll give a little guidance here: don’t just take relative power into consideration here. After all, “such is of the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”

This year especially, don’t consider just the power/effectiveness of the pair, but how iconic the pairing is and how much they help each other to do what they could not do alone.

Here’s the schedule of when to expect future rounds:

• The Round of 32 begins today, 3/17

• The Company of 16 will be this Friday, 3/20

• On Tolkien Reading Day, Tuesday 3/25, I am planning to announce another giveaway!

• The Fellowship of the of 8 will happen on Thursday, 3/26

• The Four of Power will take place on Thursday, 4/2

• The Championship matchup will occur on Monday, 4/6

• The WINNER will be officially announced Thursday, 4/9

Voting will last three days each round and at the end of it all, we’ll have our third Champion of Middle-earth Madness!

A note before we begin:
I’m sure you’ll either disagree with where I’ve “ranked” a duo above or be upset a certain pair wasn’t included. I’m sorry! But there simply isn’t room for every pairing and I’ve tried to rank them both in a way that reflects their importance and—at times—uses some creative license to set up some interesting matchups

So it begins.

Partners

The Partners region is filled with those who helped each other achieve great deeds. Frodo and Sam, whose quest was to destroy the One Ring, begin by taking on the pair who got all the Ring making started in the forges of Eregion: Celebrimbor and Annatar. Bilbo and Gandalf face off with Sauron and Saruman, who may be too busy scheming against each other to bother with the Wizard and his Hobbit companion. Gollum and Sméagol: is there any closer pair among the rest of the field? They have their work cut out for them as they take on Saruman and Wormtongue, as to Thorin and Bilbo, who unluckily have drawn the Goth Lord and More Goth Lord themselves, Morgoth and Sauron.

Unlikely Friendships

These pairings cross some sort of line that makes them unlikely or surprising: ancient hatreds, different species, or something else tried to keep them apart, but against the odds here they are! We begin with Lúthien and Huan, the most beautiful of all of Ilúvatar’s children and the greatest wolfhound to ever live, drawn together by Beren’s quest for the Silmaril. They face off against Elrond and Durin, whose friendship in Rings of Power helped bind Elves and Dwarves closer together for a time. Another (and perhaps the) Elf/Dwarf pairing in Legolas and Gimli square off versus Pippin and his Minas Tirith companion Beregond. Elendil and Gil-galad of the Last Alliance find Sam and Bill the Pony standing in their way, while Túrin Turambar and Beleg take on their kin Beren and Finrod Felagund.

Brothers (or Brothers in Arms)

These Brothers (or brothers in arms) contains comrades from armies and orders throughout Middle-earth. Boromir and Faramir kick things off taking on some Orcs from Mordor, Shagrat and Gorbag, who have dreams of a life beyond the rule of Sauron. Founders of Rivendel and Númenor Elrond and Elros Half-elven take on the Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, who hope to have more luck here than they seem to have had on their mission to the East to fight Sauron. Maedhros and Maglor turn their attention from the quest to recover their father Fëanor’s Silmarils just long enough to take on Aragorn and Éomer. Finally, Cousins Merry and Pippin hope to sneak past Elrond’s sons Elladan and Elrohir.

Destined Duos

Our final category is those united by love, destiny, fate, or other cosmic forces. Beren and Lúthien, perhaps Tolkien’s greatest love story, face off against the two great trees of Valinor, Telperion and Laurelin. Aragorn and Arwen take on Rings of Power’s Galadriel and Halbrand. Sauron and the One Ring to Rule them all face off against the one whom he perceived would be his chief adversary and obstacle in Middle-earth2 …and her trophy husband. And Eärendil and Elwing, or the Star and the Bird, take on Tom and Goldberry.

Thanks for voting! See you for the next round this Friday, where I’ll reveal the winners of this round and we’ll vote on the next round!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure of experiencing something I’ve been looking forward to for decades: reading the Hobbit with my children for the very first time.

In the leadup to Christmas, I saw a deal on the edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin and quickly snagged it. I felt that it might finally be time to embark on the latest of countless personal treks to and from the Lonely Mountain, only this time with my own Hobbits in tow. Christmas morning came and the boys opened their presents. To my delight (and also a bit of relief) The Hobbit was met with much excitement and eagerness, and we began to read it together that very night at bedtime.

In the interim (and then constantly between that day and now), the boys pored over the illustrations, soaking in the images and the promise of adventure they evoked.

Each night we journeyed a bit further with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves. Along the journey, my boys met the Elves of Rivendell, encountered Trolls, Goblins, Spiders, and the Dragon, and watched Bilbo grow into a traveler, burglar, leader, and adventurer.

Just last week we finally came to the end of the tale, coming home with Bilbo to the Shire and completing their very first journey There and Back Again.

I wanted to take today’s newsletter to share some reflections on the experience: what were some of the highlights? Did I choose the right time to introduce the story to our boys? How did reading the story with my children as opposed to just on my own affect my own experience of the tale?

But while I’ll still be speaking without getting too detailed, I’d prefer to keep even these details behind a paywall to help protect my children’s privacy. Thanks for your understanding, friends.

To join hundreds of members of the Jokien with Tolkien Extended Edition and read the rest of this paid essay (plus over 50 posts in the archives of Extended Edition content), upgrade your subscription today for just $5 a month or $50 a year!

Subscribe now

Read more

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Josh: Well, hello, Kaitlyn! Welcome. I’m so excited to have you in this issue of Jokien with Tolkien to focus on your new book. Can you introduce yourself? I’m sure some readers are already familiar with you and who you are, but there are also readers who won’t be. So tell us a little bit about yourself and the Tea with Tolkien community and anything you’d like to share about that.

Kaitlyn: Well, thank you for having me, too. This is really exciting and I’m super hyped to talk about all of this in the book! My name is Kaitlyn, as you stated, I am a huge Tolkien fan. I’m also a wife and a mom. And I’m pretty much a stay-at-home mom. Tea with Tolkien is what I do in my free time, and so to be able to have it grow in this way has just been insane.

But the Tea with Tolkien community is an online community founded on the idea that we love Tolkien and we want to carry the principles of Middle-earth into our own lives. So I say that we’re inspired by the works, the life, and the Catholic faith of J.R.R. Tolkien. And, of course, anyone’s welcome in our community, but those are the things that we love to talk about.

We mostly do a book club. I would say that’s the core of our community. We usually do a couple different big book clubs every year. But other than that, we’ve become a pretty tight-knit group that we all go through life together. So I have a Discord server, and that’s like the hub where everything happens. And we’re all just hanging out and doing life together.

I appreciate how you phrased it that it’s about the works, the life, and the faith of Tolkien and that those are the distinctives of your group. There are a lot of people out there who enjoy Tolkien and love Tolkien and appreciate different aspects. But those are the things you’re zeroing in on.

Yeah. And it’s great because as our community grows, there are so many people who join. And we all have different perspectives and different niche interests and levels of expertise about Tolkien. And we all bring that to the table. And I have learned so much from other people in my Discord. Like, one of my moderators is super, super knowledgeable about when Tolkien was changing his mind on different things. So we’ll be talking about something in the Silmarillion. And then he’s like, “Well, actually, in 19 blah-blah-blah he actually had this draft.” And so that adds so much depth. And it kind of is like that in every aspect.

Like I know a lot about Tolkien’s faith and his life to an extent. But then someone comes in who’s an expert in Norse mythology and they bring so much more. So, yeah, it’s really cool to be collaborative. And really, it is just a community. I’m the organizer of it, but it’s not about me.

Right, exactly. It’s not the Tea with Kaitlyn community. It’s Tea with Tolkien. And you’re setting the table. You’re inviting people to have that conversation about him.

Absolutely. Yeah, I like that way of putting it.

You’ve got a book releasing today called Into the Heart of Middle-earth! So congratulations on that. Can you tell us a little bit about the book? What’s the book about, if you were to distill it down into a core message?

Into the Heart of Middle-earth is a spiritual journey for the Tolkien fan who wants to dive deeper into the themes and virtues of The Lord of the Rings in order to carry those lessons into their own daily lives.

A lot of us want to memorize facts about Lord of the Rings or learn about the lore. But the way that I see it is, what’s the point if we aren’t taking that and then bringing it back into our own lives in some way?

Because I think Tolkien can really teach us so much. He has so much wisdom written into his stories. And so we want to be transformed in a way. I think all literature can be transformative. And Tolkien is the best. He can really change your life.

The book explores basic themes of The Lord of the Rings like fellowship, discernment, courage, light and high beauty. But then it also goes into some deeper topics like, what does it mean to be a Hobbit at heart? What does it look like to be a steward? How can hospitality be life-saving? How can I anchor myself in hope amidst darkness? And how can grief be transformative?

So you’re going through Tolkien’s stories and wrestling with your own self as you go and exploring how Middle-earth can change your own life.

I’ve read the book, and first of all, it’s fantastic! I really enjoyed reading it. And you pull in a lot of stuff from The Silmarillion and from Tolkien’s life and from his letters. And that could be overwhelming to somebody. Like, “Wow, this is too much.” But I didn’t feel that. In reading it, it was a very pleasant read. I wasn’t like, oh, I can’t keep track of all this. You were very good at bringing all that information but not overwhelming people.

And I appreciated, like you said, that focus on applicability. It’s great to learn all this, but what does it mean for me? And you intentionally gave space at the end of every chapter with the sections that are called “The Road Goes On, like with “A Walking Song.” Is that what kind of what you were tying into?

Yeah, and it’s like, you’re stepping out onto the road and you’re sitting down to read the book. But then I want you to get up and have some action and movement at the end of each chapter. I really wanted it to be like, you don’t just read the book, but you have these…it’s not necessarily a to-do list, but it’s something to get your thoughts going of, like, what can I do? How can I apply this? So these are little suggestions.

I’d love to hear how the book came to be. Could you share a little bit about how having your community and your own personal love of The Lord of the Rings translated into writing a book in general? And then why this book? Why not some other book?

Well, the concept of writing a book was very terrifying. And it was never something that I was seeking out because I’m so busy at all times. And so I kind of try to be very passive in my life with opportunities. I don’t necessarily seek things out. I’m almost like Bilbo just chilling. And then, you know, a wizard’s knocking on my door like, “Hey, do you want to write a book?”

And so really what it was, was an editor from Ave Maria Press, my publisher, emailed me and he was like, “Hey, do you want to write a book?” And I was like, well, you know, I probably shouldn’t say no. And then I worked with my editor to come up with like four different book ideas. And then he helped me narrow it down and find something that would be a great introduction to my community. Because I feel like my book is like the culmination of all my work from the last 9-10 years with Tea with Tolkien. And so it’s almost like something you can package and say, “Hey, do you want to get involved in Tea with Tolkien? Here’s this book.” And instead of having to comb through years and years of articles or videos on my website, it’s like kind of in this compact, easy to digest product. And so I love that it feels like my message and kind of what Tea with Tolkien stands for just like boiled down in a nice, happy little book.

It’s been crazy, though. Not something that I would have chosen to do. I never would have been like pitching publishers just because it’s a big commitment to write a book. But now that I’ve done it, obviously, I’m so happy that I did.

I see that alignment when you talk about the values of the community, like Tolkien’s life, Tolkien’s works and Tolkien’s faith and I admire your openness to those things. Like you said, you’re not necessarily seeking these things out, but if they come, if they knock on the door, it’s like, “Why, why would I say no? Why shouldn’t I say yes?”

Well, that’s really how it’s been with like everything with Tea with Tolkien and pretty much every opportunity I’ve gotten. I just try to keep my head down and do my work and kind of do what I feel like is my purpose. And then I get emails from people, like, even with like the Rings of Power stuff with Amazon, like, do you want to come and do this thing? And I’m like, well, I probably shouldn’t say no, because it seems like a good opportunity. And it’s the same with when I got to, I got to interview some of the actors on the red carpet. They asked me if I wanted to, and I actually said no. I was like, no, I’m too scared. I can’t do that. And then I’m like, no, like I should be brave. It really does feel like I’m like Bilbo and I’m, I don’t want to leave my house, but I kind of have to.

I just feel like this is what I’m meant to be doing, talking about Tolkien and sharing resources about Lord of the Rings, making it more approachable for people, because I feel like Tolkien’s changed my whole life and the way that I view the world. And I feel like he can for others too. So I feel like that’s like one of my life’s purposes, even though that seems a little dramatic, maybe.

I don’t think it’s dramatic at all! I think it’s wonderful.

And how many people search for something where they feel like that, you know, and you found it and you want to share it too, to be functioning as that, as like this guide. That’s kind of the role in the book that you play is you’re guiding people through like the story of The Lord of the Rings. I think you do a very good job of it both in the book and in the community in general too and I love that the book is an extension of all of that.

You spend the opening chapters of the book describing how to cultivate the Shire of your own heart before branching out into the outside world. Why is that so important to do before moving out?

Well, I mean, it almost reminds me of like when you’re on the airplane and they say like, if the life masks are coming down, put yours on first. In order to go out and help the world, you do need to do some work internally.

And I think, especially in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the Shire is this foundation for the story, for the characters, but also for the readers. Because as you’re immersed in all of this goodness and this beauty and kind of this quaint, simple life, you see that it’s nourishing, it’s beautiful, but it’s also something that’s in peril. Spending so much time in this at the beginning, as we do in The Lord of the Rings—and I kind of tried to mirror that same journey in my book—it strengthens us for the journey ahead because we have this foundation and so much goodness, but it also helps us understand what’s at risk and what you’re fighting for.

Because if you didn’t, if you weren’t familiar with the Shire in The Lord of the Rings, you wouldn’t really feel Frodo’s commitment to it and understand the gravity of what he’s having to let go of and how much he loves it. I really wanted to kind of follow a similar framework because it’s so foundational to the story.

What does being a Hobbit at heart entail in your view? And how does it connect with the journey that you’re guiding readers through in the rest of the book?

Being a Hobbit at heart is about honoring these things that make Hobbit life beautiful while also recognizing that sometimes in order to protect these things, it means giving them up.

Frodo had this deep love for the Shire and he knew he had to be willing to lose it in order to save it. And even after the Shire is saved, he still has this deep loss. And there are many, many ways that this can translate into our own lives.

It comes down to the fact that we need to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of others. Bilbo is not wanting to go on an adventure because they make you late for dinner. Sometimes we have to be late for dinner and that’s just a part of living your life and kind of caring for others. And that’s such a huge part of life. We—especially, I think, in the US—we are so individualistic and we only really want to care about ourselves. We don’t even know our neighbors. And that is just not good. Society can’t exist in such a way for long. And it’s just so important for us to embrace this spirit of being a Hobbit at heart because there are people who need us and we have these special gifts. Each of us has our own special perspective or talent or way that we can contribute to society. And if we just serve only ourselves, that isn’t really going to end well.

That’s so important to be willing to be inconvenienced—or worse—for the sake of other people. Because like you said, we do have things to share things that people need just in general. And then the things that are particular about ourselves, the ways that we’re able to bless other people if we would just let that happen and be open to it.

Both Bilbo and Frodo are called to something outside of themselves, something greater than themselves. That’s just so tragic too, about Frodo and his sacrifice: he has that awareness before even leaving the Shire. He says it to Gandalf: “I should like to save the Shire…I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.” I don’t think I appreciated until more recently that he’s counting the cost and he’s willing to pay it partly because he has that foundation. And so how do we move in that direction?

And the thing that I find really striking too, with The Lord of the Rings is Frodo actually does, he does lose the Shire. Like you would think a lot of times in a story, someone thinks they’re going to have to sacrifice. It happens in movies all the time. Someone sacrifices their life, but, oh, they didn’t, they didn’t actually die. Frodo truly does lose the Shire. And even though he does get to go to the Blessed Realm later, that’s not what he wanted. He wanted his ordinary Hobbit life and he truly had to lose that. And so it’s really tragic, but it’s also so beautiful and very inspiring. He’s a great example for all of us.

I want to switch gears a little bit because we’ve talked about the story itself that you’re guiding people through and some of the things that you want them to pick up from it. But Tolkien’s life and faith are a focus of the community and they’re a focus of the book. Would you share some about what it means to you?

You’re a Catholic yourself and you’re able to identify with Tolkien in that way. I’ll just preface it by saying I am a Christian, but I’m not a Catholic. And so there’s ways that I appreciate Tolkien’s faith in general. But then there’s ways that I do feel not an outsider, but there’s a little bit more of a distance from me as a Protestant.

So if you could share about that for your own life? What is it like to be able to empathize with Tolkien, identify with him in that way?

Sure. That’s a great question. It’s not really something I thought about before, but I feel like I can almost see him as a mentor type of figure in a sense, because I’m a convert to Catholicism. I’ve been Catholic for like 12 years now. But before I became Catholic, I didn’t know a single Catholic. We didn’t have any Catholic friends. I went to a Protestant school. So everyone there was not Catholic.

And so Tolkien felt like the first Catholic person that I kind of quote unquote knew, because I felt like I had learned so much from him growing up as a teenager reading The Lord of the Rings. And when I learned that he was Catholic, I was like, wait a second. This is a guy I really respect. And I feel like he gets it. When I would read Tolkien, it was like the philosophy that was underlying the book made things click for me.

And so it was really because of that that I then started looking into Catholicism. So he’s almost like a Gandalf figure for me, where I’m following him along. And of course, it’s not like in a sense where he becomes an idol, but he’s always pointing me to the truth and the beauty and goodness.

And so for me, that has been super cool. And just so encouraging, especially when you get to more kind of things that Catholics do that Protestants don’t, like the Blessed Sacrament. He’s super big on that.

And so as I’m learning about that and kind of seeing echoes of it in like Lembas, for instance, it’s just been super cool and encouraging, really. I see him as almost like my patron saint, even though he’s not technically a saint.

As you were recently looking more into Tolkien’s faith for this book, and specifically the Catholic element, did it have an impact on your own faith?

Well, I learned a lot about some different saints. And there are some saints I hadn’t even heard of that Tolkien had written about.

He actually has a poem about St. Brendan the Navigator in The Notion Club Papers. I had never even heard of this guy. So I got to learn about him and his life. There’s a story about the voyages of St. Brendan in Ireland. And it’s more like a fantastical story, not necessarily realistic. But that was super cool.

And I also didn’t know that he had translated some portions of the book of Jonah and Job for the Jerusalem Bible. So seeing Tolkien bringing his own interests and gifts and talents, it was almost like a bridge between his literary life and his faith life with him using what he knows to kind of pour himself into that project.

And I thought that was really cool and inspiring because you can see him pursuing his passions to the fullest extent and doing everything he can in the same way as Frodo does or Bilbo. So I found that really inspiring.

Can you share something that you learned or appreciated anew about Tolkien himself, about Middle-earth, and about yourself in writing this book?

So for Tolkien, definitely learning about his faith and all of the different saints. I also didn’t realize quite how much reading he did just in general, but also related to religion. I found this book called Tolkien’s Library by Oronzo Cilli. And it had tons and tons. Like Tolkien was reading biographies of the saints. If he wasn’t writing, it seemed like he was reading. And so that was really cool to see all of these different stories that he’s read. I feel like it gave me another perspective into his life that I wasn’t aware of. Because I’ve read a lot of his letters. But getting to know the other things that he read was really cool.

About Middle-earth, I would say I think the biggest thing for me was reflecting on the theme of discernment in Galadriel’s character. And the way that Lothlórien is so pivotal in The Lord of the Rings. I kind of, and maybe this is just from watching the movies so many times, just took it for granted how everything goes down there.

But not only is Galadriel offering Frodo and Sam this choice to either turn back or to go into the road ahead that’s shrouded in darkness. She gives them the opportunity to choose between a path that is known, like a clear path—and that’s to go home—or they will have to choose a path that is in darkness, that they don’t know what they’re going to get into.

And in seeing that Galadriel is going through her own discernment in rejecting the Ring. It’s something that she had thought about for a long time. Tolkien says that when, I think this is in a letter, that when she did finally reject the Ring, it was like she had decided a long time ago that she was going to reject the Ring. But that moment of final rejection was pivotal for her. And so that was something I hadn’t thought about or appreciated it that much until I was writing about it.

I would say the biggest thing for myself was that I realized that I can still be a Hobbit at heart, even though I don’t bake sourdough bread and I don’t have any chickens.

Because I used to almost feel not like a fraud, but like I wasn’t doing a good job because I’m not like I’m not the perfect homemaker. You know, I don’t have that like cottagecore life. And so coming to the realization that it really is a way of living in your heart. It doesn’t really matter if you kill all of your houseplants. You’ll be a Hobbit at heart. So that was very freeing for me because this whole time I’m writing, and it occurred to me like three quarters of the way through the book. I was just feeling bad about myself the whole time. I was like, “I’m not good at any of this. Why am I writing this book?” And then I had a moment where I was like, “Oh, wait: like, yeah, none of that stuff matters.” It’s really a disposition of the heart.

Who better to write about it than in that case, you know, because you’ve really learned it and you’re putting it into practice!

Anything else about the book just in general that you want to share with us?

I’m just so excited for it to finally be out there because it’s been like a two-year-long process of writing and editing and to actually imagine people reading it is just the greatest gift. And I really hope people like it and get something out of it.

I really tried to be very open and welcoming to anyone, especially people who are not religious. My goal with the book is like, this is who I am. And then I want to share with you about who Tolkien is. But I want you to look into your own heart, into your own values. What do you hold dear? What do you feel like your purpose is? And I want to use Tolkien stories to guide you and help you along your own journey because you know who you are. And so I’m not trying to push anything onto anyone, but it’s more like, let’s do this together. And so that’s my goal. And I hope it translated well into the actual book.

I’m confident people who love The Lord of the Rings and want to know more about Tolkien are going to love it. You’re an amazing guide through it.

How do people get a copy of it?

You can go to my website, teawithtolkien.com/book. And I have all of the links like you can get it from: Amazon, my publishers, Ave Maria Press. I saw that it’s on the Barnes and Noble websites on bookshop.org. It should be on Blackwell’s website too. But yeah, so I have all of the links on my website just to make it easier for people.

But you can also just Google the book name and I’m sure it will come up.

Thank you so much, Kaitlyn, for sharing about your book. I really enjoyed it, and I admire it also. I think it’s a worthy effort and I want people to experience it and to go journey into the heart of Middle-earth together with you!

Thank you.

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos areprecisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? E-mail me at jrrjokien@jrrjokien.com

Thanks to this month’s newsletter sponsor, Tea with Tolkien! Check out Kaitlyn’s forthcoming book, Into the Heart of Middle-earth, which releases this Friday! And be sure to preorder a copy!

Extended Edition Council: February ‘26

Mae govannen, all!

The world is full of love. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. For this past weekend…was Valentine’s Day.

Naturally this makes my thoughts turn to the many love stories found throughout Tolkien’s Legendarium and how they compare with one another.

But this is far from the only holiday this week. Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent in the Church Calendar. Ramadan also began yesterday, and—as if that wasn’t enough—Chinese New Year fell on the same day!

So whether you have observed some or all of these holidays this week, today I’d love to hear answers to some (or all!) of the following questions from you:

• What’s your favorite love story from Middle-earth?

• Do you observe Lent? Are you giving anything up this year?

• Do you have any personal experience with Ramadan?

• This Chinese New Year marks the beginning of the year of the horse. And it’s not just any year of the horse: it’s the year of the fire horse! You will not be surprised at all to hear that my association of “Fire” + “Horse” is “The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid” 🔥 and “And Rohan will answer!” 🐎. What’s your association with Chinese New Year and the Year of the Horse, if you have one?

Of course, you can also share an introduction if you’re new to the Extended Edition or other thoughts inspired by this post.

Thank you, friends!

Namárië,

Josh

PS—Comments in Extended Edition Councils are for paid members; you can upgrade/manage your membership here any time. Thank you so much for reading Jokien with Tolkien!

Read more

Thanks to this month’s newsletter sponsor, Tea with Tolkien! Check out Kaitlyn’s forthcoming book, Into the Heart of Middle-earth, and be sure to preorder a copy!

Hello everyone! Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so in honor of the occasion I’ve made some more Lord of the Rings Valentines for you all! Please enjoy them and feel free to use and share them as you see fit! Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Lord of the Rings Valentines

And here’s a few of my favorites of mine from previous years:

You can find the rest here:

Volume I:

Volume II:

Volume III:

Leave a comment

Share

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? E-mail me at jrrjokien@jrrjokien.com

Thanks to this month’s newsletter sponsor, Tea with Tolkien! Check out Kaitlyn’s forthcoming book, Into the Heart of Middle-earth, and be sure to preorder a copy!

Mae govannen, friends! Josh here with a guest post from Stuart D. Brooks. Stuart is a fantasy author close to finishing his first book—The Green-Roofed Tower—which is the first of a planned trilogy (You can read the prologue here).

He is a husband and father who loves to use the poetic language of myth to tell the true tale of the King at the center of the tapestry. Stuart is in love with the Beauty of God, and paints and sells art and merch too.

Today I’m sharing with you all a piece he wrote on The Power of Beauty in Tolkien’s Works. If you like it, you can read further thoughts in a series he is continuing on his Substack, .

The Power of Beauty in Tolkien’s Works

by Stuart D. Brooks

After Gandalf fell into the shadow and fire of Moria, the Fellowship was crestfallen.

“What hope do we have without you?” Aragorn mourned.

“We must do without hope.”

Miserable path—

They wept.

Gimli lamented aloud, “Long shall I journey ere I have joy again.”

It is an appropriate thing to say at such a time, but almost immediately something challenged his words.

You see, Gimli sees Durin’s Stone and recalls that Mirrormere is nearby. Despite his misery, even the thought of it sparkles in his eye.

He tells Frodo tale of the magnificent sight—of a lake clear as crystal, gems showing like stars within—or stars like gems? He gets excited about it, for a moment forgetting his grief.

“We cannot pass without turning aside for a moment to look at the wonder of the dale.”

So he and Frodo did. You should go with them:

Frodo followed slowly, drawn by the still blue water in spite of hurt and weariness; Sam came up behind.

They stooped over the dark water. At first they could see nothing. Then slowly they saw the forms of the encircling mountains mirrored in a profound blue, and the peaks were like plumes of white flame above them; beyond there was a space of sky. There like jewels sunk in the deep shone glinting stars, though sunlight was in the sky above. Of their own stooping, no shadow could be seen.

“O Kheled-zâram fair and wonderful!” the dwarf shouted upon seeing the glory.

Now, surely it did not heal the wound of Gandalf’s passing, but it did do something. We do not often think of it, but movement itself is tied to hope.

“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
—Blaise Pascal

All movement seeks happiness, even if unconsciously.

Someone who has dealt with depression will know what I mean. In the deepest despair, there is no movement, for it is a shadow of death. It is cold and still, like Inferno’s deepest ring, all except the endlessly winding wings. There, one only wishes they could want something. Before that lowest ring, one will still move toward what they think will save them. But without hope at all, one finds no reason to leave a bed or to attempt anything, but the smallest hope may stir us if we heed the call of life.

A hope for food, for a shower, the face of a friend, or the Sun on our face—like that voice always calling,

“Lazarus, Come Forth,”

raises back to life.

Despite Aragorn’s fitting word, hope is necessary in order for them to keep moving at all: even if it is a hope so small it is invisible to ourselves. For this dwarf, the desire for beauty moved his feet to step toward joy.

On a subconscious level, to “turn aside” is fundamentally bound to hope. Gimli turned aside after the hope of Beauty, and he found it.

This is the movement of hope and life.

The Fair Paths of Lórien

As the Fellowship continues on through the forest, Legolas and Aragorn express the gladness they feel that they will soon see the golden trees of Lothlórien.

Even as they draw near the Silverlode river, they already see preludes to the wonder of Lórien.

Day came pale from the East. As the light grew it filtered through the yellow leaves of the mallorn, and it seemed to the hobbits that the early sun of a cool summer’s morning was shining. Pale-blue sky peeped among the moving branches. Looking through an opening on the south side of the flet Frodo saw all the valley of the Silverlode lying like a sea of fallow gold tossing gently in the breeze.

But before they fully arrive, they have an interesting conversation with Haldir, the elf.

Merry confesses to him that he wonders whether he should have had the heart to leave the Shire at all.

Haldir replies, “Not even to see fair Lothlórien?”

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

The encouragement that there is still beauty in the world is fundamentally a statement aimed at hope. It means there is something out there even perhaps worth leaving the Shire for.

It dawns on me then—hope, whether in The Lord of The Rings or here in this place, shines on us through beauty. The fact that beauty exists means that there is hope—that perhaps the future is not dark, but bright—perhaps very bright.

This is where the longing comes in. Like Gimli, suddenly struck with the longing for Mirrormere, we too are moved. Even the thought of distant beauty inspires a movement out of despondency and out infinitely into…

something else.

Tolkien’s good friend C.S. Lewis liked to refer to this longing by a German word, “sehnsucht.” He sometimes referred to it as “joy” since he could not find an English word fitting to the yearning. In a way, however, it hits it right on the head. Joy is the opposite of despondency, after all—and as in Dante’s Paradiso, the ascent into the infinite joy of God is a movement.

It begins when Christ descends as a seed into the tomb of our heart—and then sprouts forth—but the journey is an upward movement toward the Good and the Beautiful. For these are beams of his light, and they are of his source and substance. The movement of life and hope is to follow them home.

So, when Frodo lays eyes on Lórien’s splendor, something deeper, further reaches out from its Beauty.

“Out of it, it seemed to him that the power and light came that held all the land in sway.”

Now, if we ask “From where?” one answer does not suffice. But something about Lothlórien holds power and light over the land, and because of it, Frodo “longed suddenly to fly like a bird to rest in the green city.”

Frodo is drawn out of himself—to follow the Beauty to its heavenly abode.

But when they arrive and come to Galadriel and Celeborn, it is required of them once again to relive and retell the tragedy of Gandalf.

But Legolas says something unexpected.

“We almost forgot our grief for a time,

as we walked in gladness on the fair paths of Lórien.”

Tolkien cast seeds like this one all along these fair paths that we may know and understand the power of beauty—and then at their flowering know the light of Eärendil which calls the weary from Moria.

The Light of Estel

I think it is right to see the ascent from Moria to Lothlórien as something cosmic—to rise from what is a tomb, whatever Gimli says about it—from a haunt of goblins and the domain of a great fiery demon, on up to somewhere heavenly.

Lothlórien is a place where gifts are bestowed on a grief-shaken Fellowship. I think a good way to see Tolkien’s point in this ascent is to see what they came to find there ultimately.

Now, some of the gifts feel like they were given because they did not know what to get them.

“What does Legolas even like?”

“Ehh, well he likes bows and arrows, right?”

Pippin and Mary are given belts of silver leaves, and Boromir a belt of golden leaves. Perhaps this is because their fates were entwined, but honestly, I would be happy with either gift personally. Perhaps they were too.1

Gimli gets three strands of Galadriel’s hair, and he leaves with a surprising and profound devotion to her beauty.

Sam receives a box of good soil and a mallorn seed—for a tree of Lothlórien to plant in his place of choosing. This starts to get at the hope side of these gifts because at the end, Aragorn plants one new tree, and Sam another, echoing the great trees of Valinor which once filled Middle-Earth and gave it light (in the Silmarillion). It is a symbol of a new age and the pattern of a new unplanted beauty.

Aragorn is given a scabbard for Anduril—a permanent home for the sword of the King—and the Elessar gem, a green gem in the setting of a silver eagle. Aragorn is called Elessar by the elves as rightful King, and so it is a symbol of the hope of his return to the throne.

Galadriel herself is a most fair jewel, as the heart of the Beauty of Lothlórien. When Frodo finally comes to her, she gives to him the light of Eärendil.

But what is the light of Eärendil?

It is a long story, but so is Lord of the Rings. It is a good story.

Eärendil, who was Half-elven, once sailed into the heavens on a boat like a swan and placed there in the sky a Silmaril (a gem and the preserved but fading beauty and power of the trees of Valinor).

There, the Silmaril stays, as a star called “Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope.”

Yet the name Gil-Estel itself still has more to give. There is a word for simple hope in Sindarin (grey-elvish), which is called amdir. This is just good expectation.

Estel rather means “trust in Eru the Lord everlasting, that he is good, and that his works shall end in good.”

The phial Galadriel gave to Frodo was made with the light of this star Gil-Estel and the waters of her pool.

“It glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand.”

Then she told him, “It will shine brighter when night is about you.”

Now, perhaps the light and power of the land was Galadriel’s own, and the ring by which she preserved Lothlórien—but could it have to do with this light—the light of Eärendil? We probably think that anything that can be held in one’s hand is of a limited power or consequence—that, because it is something wielded by us, it must be smaller than us. But this is a shining piece of the original glory—a divine light from above—the shining power of Eru himself.

This, I think may be the light and power Frodo felt in the place called Lórien—something which will later sustain and defend him in his darkest moment.

At the beginning of the fair paths of Lórien, they had to do without hope.

But the movement of the soul toward the inner heart of Beauty is movement of the heart toward hope—a light that shines when the night grows the darkest.

As the fellowship passes the peak of ascent, I believe they leave in swan-shaped boats for a reason.

If they have gone out past the peak of Lothlorien—like Eärendil, sailing on a swan into the heavens—like Dante off the peak into Paradiso—then whatever shadow of death they may pass through, their path is into a good and shining hope forever.

Hey! Thanks for reading! Did you like this post? Then why not subscribe to Stuart's Substack, Sowing Wonder, to get more like it straight to your inbox?

Sowing Wonder

By 𝐒𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫

Subscribe to Jokien w/ Tolkien

• Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines and send me a pitch!

• Special thanks to Marlon S for becoming a paid subscriber this month! If you too want to help support this newsletterth, consider upgrading today for just $5 a month or $50 a year!

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🤝 Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? View my rates and packages

MORDOR—Cafe Mordor is experiencing heavier than usual traffic after adding meat back to the menu. Hoping to avoid further confusion and consternation, management would like to remind interested diners that reservations are required in order to guarantee they get to experience the revamped menu instead of the maggoty bread that was formerly on offer.

“One does not simply walk in to Cafe Mordor,” notes Mordor expert and foodie Boromir son of Denethor. “And as for the common—and frankly racist—misconception that Orcs wouldn’t know what menus are, well I am just tired of correcting all the so-called “fact-checkers” on this. Your average Orc is as formidable in an eating contest as they are across a battlefield. Stick a fork in me, I’m done!”

Still, Cafe Mordor is not without its detractors. Differences of opinions have disrupted even the closest of family bonds. Denethor son of Ecthelion, Steward of Gondor, and all-around-disgusting-eater left a one-star review on Palantír Maps, citing a gross lack of cherry tomatoes and the dismal atmosphere and decor.

When reached for comment, the Mouth of Sauron replied, "My master, Sauron the Great, bids all welcome to Cafe Mordor, the one Cafe to rule them all!”

Leave a comment

Share

Appendices

• Special shout-out and thank you to Elizabeth O for upgrading to an Extended Edition membership this week!
  This is a reader-supported newsletter and Jokien with Tolkien: Extended Edition members help keep it coming to everyone’s inboxes week in and week out. If you too regularly get value, entertainment, encouragement, or inspiration from this newsletter, consider upgrading your subscription too!

  Subscribe now

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor an issue? Email me at JRRJokien@JRRJokien.com

Today he’s got the second of two pieces on ‘The Wisdom of Empathy in The Lord of the Rings’ that I’m sure you’ll find both interesting and inspiring.

Miss part 1? You can read it here:

The Wisdom of Empathy in ‘The Lord of the Rings’—Part 2

How Empathy underpins the virtue of Pity for the Wise of Middle-Earth

by Benjamin Wheaton

In the first part of this series, we looked at how, for J.R.R. Tolkien, the virtue of pity is dependent on the presence of empathy as its fuel. Empathy-fuelled pity is a characteristic of the Wise in Middle-Earth, most fully exemplified in Gandalf, but also shown by Galadriel and Aragorn. Empathy is not simply discerning what someone else is thinking, but feeling along with them and being moved emotionally. This then drives the action of pity, which causes one to act (or refrain from acting) in such a way as to disadvantage oneself. In The Lord of the Rings, such empathy-fuelled pity not only characterizes the Wise, it also results in both spiritual and temporal success. Those who show the ability to empathize with another are ennobled, and rewarded. The quest to destroy the Ring cannot be successful, as we will see, unless empathy is felt and pity is shown. In particular, the empathy shown for Gollum by various characters in The Lord of the Rings is central to the plot for two reasons: first, it directly results in the successful completion of the Quest; and second, it is a key aspect of the ennoblement of the wisest of the hobbits, namely Frodo.

The Empathy of Bilbo

Gollum is shown empathy first by Bilbo in The Hobbit, the motivation for his act of pity in the tunnels of the goblins:

He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.1

This passage was written after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, as part of Tolkien’s revisions of The Hobbit to bring it in line with the later tale. And it is significant that this extensive description of Bilbo’s empathy, “a pity mixed with horror,” echoes the descriptions of the empathy that Gandalf, Frodo and (eventually) Sam have towards Gollum. Bilbo’s empathy is the first in the long chain that spares Gollum’s life, and results in the Ring’s successful destruction. It also leads to Bilbo’s eventual deliverance from the Ring, since it caused him to have pity on Gollum and so start his possession of it by an act of virtue.

The Empathy of Frodo

Gandalf’s sparing of Gollum out of pity, refusing to allow him to be put to death by the Elves of Mirkwood, has already been described. Part of this was motivated by Gandalf’s empathy for Gollum’s plight, though part too was the wizard’s feeling that Gollum had some role to play yet in the Ring’s story: “He may play a part yet that neither he nor Sauron have foreseen,” he says at the Council of Elrond.2 But Frodo fails to grasp the wisdom of this at first: “Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”3 It is therefore a key moment in the story when Frodo, finally seeing Gollum in the flesh, is able to empathize with him and thus to pity him: “If we kill him, we must kill him outright. But we can’t do that, not as things are. Poor wretch! He has done us no harm.” Frodo then recollects his conversation with Gandalf about Gollum, and responds at long last as Gandalf would have desired: “I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.”4 Sam thinks this is foolishness, but Frodo recognizes something at this point that Sam does not: his empathy drives a sense of pity that has a value in itself, and true wisdom is taking into account the spiritual world and the rules governing it. As Tolkien writes,

At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum would certainly betray him…To ‘pity’ him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity even if disastrous in the world of time. He did rob him and injure him in the end – but by a ‘grace,’ that last betrayal was at a precise juncture when the final evil deed was the most beneficial thing any one could have done for Frodo! By a situation created by his ‘forgiveness,’ he was saved himself, and relieved of his burden.5

Frodo was saved from his final succumbing to the power of the Ring by his wise act of empathizing with, and then pitying, Gollum—much as Bilbo escaped from the Ring’s power due to his act of empathy-fuelled pity.

The Empathy of Sam

Sam is most resistant to pitying Gollum, and struggles the most against having empathy for him. By no means does this mean that Sam doesn’t perceive part of what Gollum is thinking; when Gollum offers to lead them to Cirith Ungol rather than try to enter in at the Black Gate, Sam rightly guesses Gollum’s motives:

Sam’s guess was that the Sméagol and Gollum halves (or what in his own mind he called Slinker and Stinker) had made a truce and a temporary alliance: neither wanted the Enemy to get the Ring; both wished to keep Frodo from capture, and under their eye, as long as possible – at any rate as long as Stinker still had a chance of laying hands on his ‘Precious.’6

Yet something critical to empathy is lacking to Sam’s shrewd perception: an ability to feel with Gollum. And at the point of the story that Tolkien thought was perhaps the greatest tragedy in The Lord of the Rings, Gollum’s near-repentance spoiled by Sam’s harshness, this lack of empathy had dire consequences. We are given a vision of what that empathy should have looked like from the perspective of the narrator:

“For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.”7 Sam did not experience this empathetic vision, and so Gollum was irrevocably lost.

But Sam did eventually come to exercise the virtue of empathy, just when it was most necessary for the success of the quest. On Mount Doom, when he has Gollum at his mercy, at last he appreciates his plight and spares his life:

It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. He himself, though only for a little while, had borne the Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again. But Sam had no words to express what he felt.8

Sam has not progressed as far as Frodo on the path of wisdom; the fact that he did not know how to put his feeling of pity into words is proof of that. Frodo, the friend and student of Gandalf, did know; but as for Sam, Tolkien wrote:

Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo…It prevented him from fully understanding the master that he loved, and from following him in his gradual education to the nobility of service to the unlovable and of perception of damaged good in the corrupt.9

Sam’s moment of empathy leading to pity thus comes too late for Gollum’s salvation, and is imperfectly perceived by Sam himself: “Sam had no words to express what he felt.” What Sam required before being able to empathize with Gollum was a taste of the same experience with the Ring’s power; a taste that is fairly inchoate: “dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind.” Yet it still comes as a moment of moral growth—and of grace—that enables the quest to come to a successful conclusion.

Empathy as Mark of Moral Growth in Frodo

Sam is the only real “commoner” in The Lord of the Rings, and his dim grasp of empathy is just the start of his progress towards wisdom, as part of his association with the “great” of Middle-earth and their affairs. The other hobbits, Frodo in particular, are “aristocrats,” but an aristocracy of a “common” people, whose association with the “great,” Gandalf in particular, elevates them. The juxtaposition of the “common” with the “great” is one of the key themes of The Lord of the Rings. As Tolkien wrote:

This last great Tale [The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in ‘world politics’ of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, forgotten in the places of the Wise and Great…a moral of the whole…is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.10

More to the point, common characters can develop into greatness in contact with the noble: “There are of course certain things and themes that move me specially. The inter-relations between the ‘noble’ and the ‘simple’ (or common, vulgar) for instance. The ennoblement of the ignoble I find specially moving.”11 Empathy leading to pity characterizes the Wise, as we have seen; and a key element in the ennoblement of the wisest of the hobbits, Frodo, is mastering this virtue.

Though skeptical of Gandalf’s pity at the beginning of the story, Frodo learns to empathize with Gollum and show pity. This results in the successful completion of the Quest, but it also results in his being numbered among the Wise of Middle-Earth. He is greater than the other hobbits precisely because of his ability to empathize and show pity, a virtue that the others still lack in full. This becomes clear near the end of the book, when the Shire has been taken over by Saruman’s ruffians thanks to being invited in by Frodo’s relative Lotho Sackville-Baggins. After the hobbits have dealt with a small party of men trying to arrest them, it is Frodo who grasps what has really happened:

“Well, we’ve come back none too soon,” said Merry.

“Not a day too soon. Perhaps too late, at any rate to save Lotho,” said Frodo. “Miserable fool, but I am sorry for him.”

“Save Lotho? Whatever do you mean?” said Pippin. “Destroy him, I should say.”

“I don’t think you understand things, Pippin,” said Frodo. “Lotho never meant things to come to this pass. He has been a wicked fool, but he’s caught now. The ruffians are on top, gathering, robbing and bullying, and running things or ruining things as they like, in his name. And not in his name even for much longer. He’s a prisoner in Bag End now, I expect, and very frightened. We ought to try and rescue him.”12

Pippin cannot grasp what Lotho is feeling: all he can see is his crimes. But Frodo, with his greater wisdom and therefore greater ability to empathize, can pity him and desire to save him from his predicament.

The climactic revelation of Frodo’s wisdom is not, however, in his realization of Lotho’s plight, but in his sparing the life of Saruman. After the fallen wizard has gloated at the door of Bag End about the ruin he he wrought in the Shire, Frodo orders him to leave, much against the will of the other hobbits, who wish to kill him. Frodo can pity Saruman for his moral decay: when Saruman says, “I have already done much that you will find it hard to men or undo in your lives. And it will be pleasant to think of that and set it against my injuries,” Frodo replies: “Well, if that is what you find pleasure in…I pity you.”13 And when Saruman tries to treacherously stab him, failing only because of Frodo’s mail coat, pity is still the order of the day:

“No, Sam!” said Frodo. “Do not kill him even now. For he has not hurt me. And in any case I do not wish him to be slain in this evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it.”14

Frodo grasps Saruman’s thought, which leads him to pity. Thus he is now among the Wise, a fact which Saruman recognizes; and as one who used to be Wise, he should know: “Saruman rose to his feet, and stared at Frodo. There was a strange look in his eyes of mingled wonder and respect and hatred. ‘You have grown, Halfling,’ he said. ‘Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel.’”15 From the hobbit who told Gandalf that Gollum deserved death, Frodo has grown into someone who strikes an angelic being like Saruman with awe – and his ability to empathize and thus show pity is at the core of this growth.

Conclusion

The fact that empathy characterizes the Wise does not mean that they are passive towards evil, or that they are unable to contradict those with whom they empathize. Gandalf empathizes with Gollum and pities him, but this does not prevent him from being harsh when the need arises: “I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit.”16 Gollum is also put in prison by Gandalf and Aragorn, who recognize the danger he poses: “I for one am glad that he is safely kept by the watchful Elves of Mirkwood. His malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed in one so lean and withered. He could work much mischief still, if he were free.”17 Aragorn empathizes with Éowyn, but this does not mean he marries her, or lets her go with him to the Paths of the Dead, but rather reminds her of her duty: “But as for you, lady: did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord’s return?”18 And Frodo, though he empathizes with Gollum and pities him like Gandalf, nonetheless also threatens to use the Ring to force Gollum to kill himself if he should try to betray them:

In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.19

Empathy is but one of the virtues exercised by the Wise; among other things, they practice daring and bold initiative. Pity that springs from empathy does not entail minimizing someone’s wickedness, nor does it prevent bold action. But it still matters, and is still a risk taken by the person displaying it.

For Tolkien, empathy is the main requirement for pity, which both characterizes the wisest inhabitants of Middle Earth and drives the success of the Quest. It is a critical weapon in the arsenal of virtue that is deployed against Sauron by Gandalf and the forces of good. But why is this? Empathy makes the characters who experience it do things that are against their better judgment: letting Gollum live was, objectively speaking, a foolish act, and Tolkien says so: killing Gollum was, “the only safe thing to do,” as Sam admitted to himself before deciding to spare him on Mount Doom. Yet doing the right thing, even when our self-interest and mundane reason rebel, is precisely what the Wise do: and not because of mindless principle, but because what we see is not the deepest reality. God governs the world, both in its seen and unseen dimensions, its physical and spiritual arenas; and acting rightly is the only wise and prudent course of action in the spiritual world, which is at all times and in all places the more important realm. “Pity or Mercy…is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God,” as Tolkien wrote.20

How is a man to judge what to do? “As he ever has judged; good and ill have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part do discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”21 Gandalf, when he sacrificed himself in Moria to save his companions, was doing something foolish, seen in terms of the earthly realm. But not in the spiritual realm. As Tolkien wrote in a letter to a friend about Gandalf’s death in Moria:

In his condition it was for him a sacrifice to perish on the Bridge in defence of his companions…for all he could know at that moment he was the only person who could direct the resistant to Sauron sucessfully, and all his mission was vain. He was handing over to the Authority that ordained the Rules, and giving up personal hope of success. That I should say is what the Authority wished, as a set-off to Saruman…Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned.22

Gandalf, to act rightly, had to sacrifice himself: it was he who had led the Fellowship into Moria against the better judgement of Aragorn, and so it was his moral responsibility to get them out safely, regardless of the bigger picture of his own importance to the resistance to Sauron. By conforming to this wisdom, he was rewarded. So it is with empathy that leads to pity.

Empathy appears to weaken us, it is true; at least in the sense that it might lead us to fail to consult our own perceived interests and judgements and humble ourselves. But seen in true perspective it can never truly weaken us, because there is a God in heaven who governs all things in justice and righteousness. Our obedience to his commandments, of loving God and neighbour, is what he desires. And part of loving our neighbour is pitying them, which requires empathy. We should imitate God in this respect, because he himself shows empathy that leads to pity: “Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.”23 To the Denethors of this age who argue that empathy is gentleness, and that gentleness leads to death, we should respond with Faramir: “So be it.” And we can be confident we will be rewarded, because that is true wisdom.

Subscribe to Jokien w/ Tolkien

• Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines and send me a pitch!

• Special thanks to Ed S, Coffee W, and Spark for becoming paid subscribers this month! If you too want to help support this newsletter and also get bonus content, consider upgrading today for just $5 a month or $50 a year!

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

Mae govannen, all!

It’s January 16th already, which means that today is the first day the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy returns to theaters!1

I thought I’d take this opportunity both with the start of the calendar year and the return of the extended editions to resurrect something I’ve done in the past but never quite mastered: “Councils” for Extended Edition Members to discuss with each other on a regular basis.

So today I’d love to hear from you:

• Are you planning on seeing the films in theaters this month? (If yes, please feel free to come back here afterwards and share about your experience!)

• Do you have a particular memory of seeing them (either during their original theatrical release or in the years since) you’d like to share?

• Which of the trilogy is your favorite? (In case you missed it, here’s my answer)

• Are you at all excited about The Hunt for Gollum and other potential films from Peter Jackson and Warner Bros. in the coming years?

Of course, you can also share an introduction if you’re new to the Extended Edition or other thoughts inspired by this post.

Let me know also if this is a feature you’d like to see continue!

Thank you, friends!

Namárië,

Josh

PS Comments in Extended Edition Councils are for paid members; you can upgrade/manage your membership here any time. Thank you so much for reading Jokien with Tolkien!

Read more

Today he’s got a piece for us on what it means to be numbered among the Wise in Tolkien’s Middle-earth and why empathy a key component to wisdom. This is part one of a two-part series: the second part will come next week. I’m excited to share this with you all, so I’ll go ahead and let you get to the good stuff!

Before we dive in, a quick note of thanks to everyone who completed the reader survey in the previous newsletter. Haven’t had a chance yet? You can complete the quick survey here: Jokien with Tolkien 2026 Reader Survey

The Wisdom of Empathy in ‘The Lord of the Rings’—Part 1

How Empathy underpins the virtue of Pity for the Wise of Middle-Earth

by Benjamin Wheaton

The Lord of the Rings is usually recognized as the foundation of modern fantasy literature, but it is also a great Christian moralistic text. In it, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a profound and sustained reflection on the inherent wisdom in acting virtuously, done not through lengthy discourses but in the bones of the story itself, through the decisions and actions of the characters and their results. In Tolkien’s universe, acting virtuously is true power and true wisdom. The noblest and wisest characters are so because of their virtue, because they discern what is good and choose to do it, and in so doing are rewarded by the hidden hand of Providence. “You chose amid doubts the path that seemed right: the choice was just, and it has been rewarded,” Gandalf says to Aragorn when they meet again in Rohan.1 Becoming great is to become wise, and the successful outcome of one’s actions is dependent upon acting wisely—which means virtuously.2

Pity is a vitally important virtue in the world of The Lord of the Rings: it is pity that enables Bilbo to escape the worst effects of his possession of the Ring, and pity that leads Frodo and Sam to spare Gollum’s life and so enable the successful completion of the quest. Pity is also a characteristic of the noblest and wisest characters. What is it, exactly, for Tolkien? In its most basic sense, pity is being moved emotionally by someone else’s negative condition. But for Tolkien, pity also inescapably results in action—or deliberate inaction: “Pity must restrain one from doing something immediately desirable and seemingly advantageous.”3 At the same time, Tolkien makes clear what kind of pity is truly virtuous, since like all virtues pity can go wrong. Virtuous pity, good pity, is almost always preceded by empathy: by feeling what the object of pity is feeling, and being moved by it. This is not the same as discerning someone else’s thoughts and feelings and scorning them, or sitting in judgment on them, or using this knowledge to manipulate them. Denethor the Steward of Gondor, who is characterized by neither pity nor empathy, is also described as a man possessing keen insight into the minds of others: “He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men,” Gandalf warns Pippin in Minas Tirith.4 Yet empathy is not merely perceiving someone else’s thoughts, but allowing yourself to be affected by another’s emotion, and to allow your actions to be affected in turn.

The pity resulting from empathy is what Tolkien refers to when he talks about the virtue of pity. In the remarkable text Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, written by Tolkien some time after he published The Lord of the Rings, this distinction between “good” pity and “bad” pity is made explicitly. The elven prince Finrod, in conversation with the human wise-woman Andreth about mortality, expresses it like this: “Yet pity is of two kinds: one is of kinship recognized, and is near to love; the other is of difference of fortune perceived, and is near to pride.”5 Recognizing one’s kinship with the object of pity requires empathy: without it, pity is not a virtue but a vice. Pity recognizes that we are all fallible and in need of mercy: “We are assured that we must be ourselves extravagantly generous, if we are to hope for the extravagant generosity which the slightest easing, or escape from, the consequences of our own follies and errors represents.”6 The humility that pity requires is also required for the empathy from which it springs—a humility that seems to result in folly, but in fact is necessary for good to triumph. In the first part of this essay, I will examine how empathy is a character trait in the wisest characters in The Lord of the Rings. In the second, I will explain how it is critical to the success of the quest to destroy the Ring.

Galadriel and Empathy

Let us start with the greatest of the elves, Galadriel. In the Unfinished Tales, she is described in this way: “From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding.”7 Galadriel demonstrates this empathy in The Lord of the Rings in her encounter with Gimli in Lothlórien. When her husband Celeborn implies that the Dwarves stirred up the Balrog for no good purpose beyond their own nostalgia, Galadriel gently rebukes him: “Do not repent of your welcome to the Dwarf. If our folk had been exiled long and far from Lothlórien, who of the Galadhrim, even Celeborn the Wise, would pass nigh and would not wish to look upon their ancient home, though it had become an abode of dragons?”8 Galadriel displays understanding for Gimli’s desire to see the ancestral home of his people, and affirms it as something that she and her husband would feel as well.

Then she adds something that is a direct echo of Gimli’s own words on two occasions. First, when he sees the landscape around Moria while the Fellowship is still west of the Mountains, he exclaims, “Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram…and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may seen them soon;”9 and second, when in Moria itself he sings a song about it, one verse of which runs:10

The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin’s Day.

Galadriel says to Gimli: “Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.”11 The implication is that Galadriel knows the song as well as Gimli, and appreciates its emotional force for the Dwarf. She then smiles at Gimli, and he perceives her empathy: “And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him the he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding.” His response shows what empathy can achieve, seen from the perspective of its recipient: “Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer.”12 His devotion to Galadriel springs from this moment, a devotion that also leads to his friendship with the elf Legolas—because of empathy shown by one of the wisest inhabitants of Middle-earth.

Aragorn and Empathy

Now we turn to Aragorn, the greatest man in Middle-earth. The greatest leader, with the greatest lineage and the strongest will: but also one of the Wise. Legolas considers Aragorn after his victory at Pelargir over the Corsairs, and states: “In that hour I looked on Aragorn and thought how great and terrible a Lord he might have become in the strength of his will, had he taken the Ring to himself.”13 Sauron recognizes this too, which is why after Aragorn shows himself to the Dark Lord in the Palantir he rushes to destroy Gondor, since he fears that Aragorn wields the Ring and knows he has the innate power to do so effectively. But Aragorn is also wise, and thus cannot be a tyrant: “But nobler is his spirit than the understanding of Sauron.”14 A core element in that nobility and wisdom is his capacity for empathy.

His treatment of Éowyn displays this. She falls in love with him and Aragorn cannot return that love—but he is still affected by her emotional state. When he rides to the Paths of the Dead, he refuses her request to ride with the Dúnedain and leaves her distraught: “Then he kissed her hand, and sprang into the saddle, and rode away, and did not look back; and only those who knew him well and were near to him saw the pain that he bore.”15 And at the Houses of Healing, he reveals the extent of his perception of her state of mind:

When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? Her malady beings far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?16

Aragorn displays a greater understanding for Éowyn than even her brother Éomer, who views her unreturned love for Aragorn as the cause of her distress. Aragorn acknowledges this part, and states:

Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man’s heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned. Sorrow and pity have followed me ever since I left her desperate in Dunharrow…and no fear upon that way was so present as the fear for what might befall her.17

He is affected by her grief, not scorning it, but sharing in it. Aragorn understands Éowyn, and allows himself to be affected by her mindset; thus, when she has been healed at the end by the love of Faramir, he says to her: “It heals my heart to see thee now in bliss.”18

Aragorn also shows empathy in how he deals with those under his leadership before the last battle at the Black Gate. The hideous landscape around the entrance to Mordor causes some of his soldiers to utterly lose their nerve, and renders them unable to continue. Rather than driving them on ruthlessly, as Sauron does with his soldiers (“Where there’s a whip there’s a will!”19), Aragorn instead pities them: “Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath.”20 This pity is spurred by his empathy for their plight:

For these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.21

Aragorn lets them depart if they wish, and this empathy-spurred pity of his causes some to overcome their fear and go on with him, and others to leave and try to seize a lesser fortress and so retain their honour. The soldiers with whom he empathizes are encouraged and healed, not shamed.

In his possession of this quality Aragorn shows he is an eager student of the wisest being in Middle-earth, Gandalf. In the “Tale of Aragorn and Arwen,” Tolkien writes: “He became a friend of Gandalf the Wise, from whom he gained much wisdom.”22 This friendship makes Aragorn more like Gandalf, as Frodo observes to Gandalf in Rivendell: “He reminds me often of you. I didn’t know that any of the Big People were like that.”23 Aragorn indeed resembles Gandalf in many things, from his ability to appreciate and associate on equal terms with the weakest beings in Middle-earth (his joking with Merry in the Houses of Healing is a good example), his being “quick at times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly,” (“What do you fear that I should say: that I had a rascal of a rebel dwarf here that I would gladly exchange for a serviceable orc?” he snaps at Gimli after looking in the Palantír24) and above all in his inner hope. “His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from the rock;”25 as it did in Gandalf, as Pippin saw in Minas Tirith: “In the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.”26 Gandalf is the teacher of Aragorn, who seeks to mold himself in the wizard’s image; and this includes the profound empathy that characterized Gandalf’s character.

Gandalf and Empathy

Gandalf’s empathy is displayed in many places, as a necessary part of his mission: “All worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care.”27 Worthy things like Fangorn forest: “Yes, I know him: the only wizard who really cares about trees;”28 like Bree and the Bree-folk: “ʽYou don’t know much even about them, if you think old Barliman is stupid,’ said Gandalf. ‘He is wise enough on his own ground. He thinks less than he talks, and slower; yet he can see though a brick wall in time (as they say in Bree);’”29 and like the Shire, and Hobbits: “Among the Wise I am the only one that goes in for hobbit-lore: an obscure branch of knowledge, but full of surprises. Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots.”30 His care for these things entails knowing about them, and liking them; perceiving how they see the world, and feeling along with them. Thus Gandalf was “not proud, and sought neither power nor praise, and thus far and wide he was beloved among all those that were not themselves proud.”31

Gandalf’s empathy is clearly displayed as well in his understanding of Éowyn. He says to Éomer in the Houses of Healing:

My friend…you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him fall into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on…who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?32

His keen perception of Éowyn’s feelings, and his recognition of their measure of truth, is part of his generous and empathetic character—part of his wisdom. And he enables Éomer to realize more fully what Éowyn has suffered in the years leading up to the War of the Ring.

This ability to perceive what someone else is feeling, and to be moved by it, is of particular importance to Gandalf’s treatment of Gollum. People having empathy for Gollum is central to the success of the quest to destroy the Ring, as we will see, and it is Gandalf who participates in this process, and his wisdom in seeking to understand and be moved by Gollum’s feelings is vindicated. But it is also fully in character, something he would do even if Gollum had no connection to the Ring. In his discussion of the history of the Ring with Frodo in Bag End, Gandalf shows how he is pre-eminent in empathy among the Wise of Middle-earth. After he relates Gollum’s story of finding the Ring in the river to Frodo, the hobbit exclaims, “Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-creature that Bilbo met? How loathsome!” To which the wizard responds: “I think it is a sad story…and it might have happened to others, even to some hobbits that I have known.”33 Unlike Frodo, who has yet to learn empathy, Gandalf can be moved by Gollum’s plight.

And he also appreciates that Gollum is not yet wholly ruined: “He had proved tougher than even one of the Wise would have guessed – as a hobbit might…It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.”34 Gandalf can see that Gollum’s moral state is still conflicted. While acknowledging Gollum’s wickedness and how far he is from being “cured,” he does not give up hope. He also realizes that Gollum’s lust for the Ring and his hiding from the Sun in the depths of the Misty Mountains was itself a cause of suffering: “The thing was eating up his mind, of course, and the torment had become almost unbearable…He was altogether wretched. He hated the dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the Ring most of all.”35 Gandalf, realizing the power of the Ring over Gollum, and realizing too Gollum’s diminished moral responsibility due to his being overcome by something too great for him, is able to perceive the painful effect this had on him and be moved by it. Thus when Frodo remarks, “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!...I do not feel any pity for Gollum,” Gandalf responds, “You have not seen him…In any case we did not kill him: he is very old and very wretched.”36 Gandalf can pity Gollum because he understands and empathizes with the psychological and moral torment he is enduring.

Yet for all that empathy, and the pity it fuels, is evidence of wisdom, its role in The Lord of the Rings is more important than merely an attribute of the Wise. In particular, the empathy shown for Gollum by various characters in The Lord of the Rings is central to the plot for two reasons: first, it directly results in the successful completion of the Quest; and second, it is a key aspect of the ennoblement of the wisest of the hobbits, namely Frodo. We will explore these in the second part.

Enjoy today’s newsletter? Here’s a few from the archives you may also enjoy:

Subscribe to Jokien w/ Tolkien

• Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines and send me a pitch!

• Special thanks to Richard R, Dan, Scott, Max K, and Erica M for becoming paid subscribers this month! If you too want to help support this newsletter and also get bonus content, consider upgrading today for just $5 a month or $50 a year!

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

As 2026 begins, it’s the perfect time to survey the things that were, things that are, and some things that have not yet come to pass…

By which I mean, of course, that in today’s newsletter we will review some milestones and the five most popular posts from Jokien with Tolkien in 2025 as well as look ahead to Jokien with Tolkien in 2026! (Plus, if you make it to the end, you’ll have the chance to participate in a reader survey to let me know what you’d like to see more of in Jokien with Tolkien)

But first, a very happy (belated) birthday to the Professor himself! J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday was January 3rd.

2025 Milestones and Accomplishments

In 2025, Jokien with Tolkien:

• passed 15,000 subscribers!

• Ran our second annual Middle-earth March Madness tournament

• Hosted a Read Along through The Children of Húrin for Extended Edition members

• Wrote a guest post for the Official C.S. Lewis Substack!

The C.S. Lewis Official Substack

The Four Laughs

Not every road that leads to Hell is obvious or easy to discern. How can you tell if you are on the straight and narrow path to Heaven or the broad highway to Hell…

Read more

8 months ago · 623 likes · 19 comments · C.S. Lewis and JRR Jokien

• Shared 64 newsletters (that’s an average of more than one a week!), including 8 excellent guest posts

None of this would have been possible without you who are reading this newsletter. Thank you! Thank you for reading, for your feedback and comments and input, for sharing, and for all your support. I love writing this newsletter and love that there’s folks out there like yourself who love reading it. I cherish the space you give me in your inboxes and in your week: thank you!

So what were the posts that you all loved the most? Here they are:

Top 5 Most Popular Jokien with Tolkien Posts of 2025

1. 🎥 All 10 LOTR and Hobbit Films Ranked

Far and away my most popular post of the year! Following the release of The War of the Rohirrim, I ranked the ten The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films from worst to best. A fun exercise that generated a lot of interesting conversation!

2. No Peace in Middle-earth As White Oliphant Gift Exchange Goes Terribly Wrong

2025 started off strong (the #1 article above was published Jan 9, 2025) and it also ended strong! My final newsletter of the year shot up to second on this list in seemingly no time at all as we all enjoyed a humorous take on the Council of Elrond with a holiday twist.

3. The Pony, The King, and The Hobbit

It’s always lots of fun when there’s a LOTR and The Chronicles of Narnia, as this post illustrates. Here’s a taste:

FRODO: Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a ranger.

BUTTERBUR: Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.

4. 10 Reasons Return of the King is an Easter Movie

This piece functions as a follow-up to my 10 Reasons The Lord of the Rings is a Christmas Movie and explores the connections between ROTK, eucatastrophe, and Easter.

5. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Wrangle over Worldbuilding

Remember what I said earlier about it always being fun to have a Narnia and Middle-earth crossover? Well the same can be said for my series of imaginary conversations between Tolkien and Lewis. This one takes aim at their decidedly different approaches to creating Narnia and Middle-earth:

Share

Top Guest Posts of 2025

This year we had some wonderful guest posts and I wanted to highlighting a few of them here (though be sure to check out all the Guest Posts here):

• ’s close reading of Éowyn’s character arc, Is Éowyn Alright?, struck a chord with readers, becoming not just one of the most-read and engaged-with guest pieces in JwT but one of the top posts in this newsletter’s history!

• wrote up her thoughts after seeing The Two Towers in theaters and encouraged us to “End with the Gritty Middle” by doing what’s right and true right where we are whether or not we think a eucatastrophe is coming.

• wrote a three-part series on Rejecting Despair and following Tolkien’s guide to defiant joy. You can find the first part here: Reject Despair, Embrace Folly

Call for submissions for 2026!

As this previous section makes clear, I like to occasionally feature guest posts here on Jokien with Tolkien and this is your annual reminder that I’m accepting pitches!

If you have an idea for an article for Jokien with Tolkien, I’d love to hear it. It can be serious or humorous (or somewhere in-between).1

If you’re interested, please review the submission guidelines and then follow the instructions to submit your pitch/draft.

Jokien with Tolkien in 2026

Now we turn to the future and what 2026 holds in store for this newsletter. I’ll keep it on the brief side since this newsletter already has a lot going on in it, but I still wanted to look ahead together some today.

In 2026, my goal with Jokien with Tolkien is to do less and do it well. The past few years I have held myself to a strict weekly schedule, with very, very few exceptions. But going into this year, I’m backing off that slightly.

I’ll still aim to have a minimum of one free newsletter and one paid newsletter a month. Some months I’ll send more and you’ll hardly notice a difference from now! But I also won’t send out a newsletter just to keep to an arbitrary goal that I’ve set for myself, especially if it comes at the expense of other projects I’m working on or doesn’t leave me enough time to work on other topics for this newsletter.

A few topics that you can expect to see again that are favorites from past years:

• More Lord of the Rings Valentines!

• The 3rd Annual Middle-earth March Madness! (Who will join Samwise and Éowyn in the club of champions?)

• A giveaway for Tolkien Reading Day (March 25th) and for Hobbit Day (September 22nd)

• Humor pieces and thoughtful essays

• A Lord of the Rings and Star Wars crossover for May 4th

• Rings of Power reviews (if season 3 airs this year…)

I’ll of course try some new things (or to resurrect things I’ve done or attempted in the past), but I also want to zero in on what you all enjoy about this newsletter.

And if you’re still reading, it means you’re invested in this newsletter and in this community and I’d love to hear from you! What do you want to see more of this coming year (or for the first time)?

Do you want another read-along? If so, what book(s) would you be interested in?

Do you have particular topics or scenes from Tolkien’s works that you’d like to see explored?

Any other insight or input for me?

Respond either by leaving a comment or by completing this Reader Survey:

Jokien w Tolkien Reader Survey

Leave a comment

Whatever else comes our way this year, I am thankful for you, friends, and for the love we share for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (and their adaptations).

Namárië! Go with goodness!

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor an issue? Email me at JRRJokien@JRRJokien.com

RIVENDELL—A local White Oliphant gift exchange went awry this Yule season when the assembled partygoers at the Company Holiday Party of Elrond devolved into a heated argument that left all present shaken and disturbed.

The trouble began when one of the attendees opened a gift that turned out to be the One Ring to Rule Them All.

Other guests quickly jumped in to try to steal the gift, even offering their sword, bow, or axe in exchange after the two-steals limit was reached. Arguments over whether the limit on steals should apply to the Ring or whether it should be removed from the exchange for violating the rules of the game in the first place erupted into bedlam.

“It is a gift,” shouted Boromir of Gondor over the din, “that clearly exceeds the 25 silver coin limit. I only brought a pint-sized ale tankard.”

Eventually the ruckus grew so loud that the Wizard Gandalf lost his temper and raised his voice in a harsh, ominous sounding language he would not utter in Hobbiton but had no problem uttering in Rivendell for some reason.

Hobbit Frodo Baggins was shortly afterwards revealed to be the one who brought the gift and thereby caused the ruckus. “I wish the Ring had never come to me,” he confessed. Looking around at the now ruined party, he continued, “I wish none of this had happened.” Judging by the faces of the assembled guests, so did all who lived to see such a time.

Asked for comment, his uncle Bilbo had the following to share: “The Ring was originally mine, you know. I gave it to Frodo as a gift. Don’t know that I appreciate him regifting it like that, especially at a party he knew I would be attending. Perhaps I don’t know him half as well as I should like. It was…precious to me. Obviously not to him, though.

As punishment for violating the rules of the game and ruining the merriment, Frodo was tasked with returning the jewelry to the shopfront from whence it came: Mount Doom Rings and Things. Success seems unlikely, however: neither Bilbo nor Frodo have the original receipt.

Leave a comment

Share

May this time be filled with hope, peace, joy, and love for you and yours! Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas to you all!

“The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy…There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true…”

— Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories”

P.s.—Here’s a bit more on what Tolkien meant by Christmas being “the eucatastrophe of Man’s history” in a newsletter from last year:

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor an issue? Email me at JRRJokien@JRRJokien.com

Today she’s got a fascinating piece for us on a concept found in both Tolkien’s Legendarium and C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy: the “Bent Way.” Intrigued? Read on!

Bridge from the Bent World

by

INTRODUCTION

Imagine that you are embarking on a long journey. Your quest will take you across winding rivers, through secretive forests, and over rugged mountains. You’ll encounter cities and cultures both familiar and foreign, and you’ll devote time, energy, and patience to your quest. Yet you will finish transformed—with both a wider view of the world and a more focused perspective of your place in it.

This imaginative journey is an apt metaphor for what it is like to read the seminal work of fiction by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion. One of the most brilliant and expansive works of mythology ever written, it is both sweeping and personal, sorrowful and exuberant, richly literary and still accessible. Wandering its copious pages is a journey, indeed—but an enriching and transformative one. This is because The Silmarillion is more than just a chronicle of Tolkien’s fictitious Middle-earth or a glimpse into his profound genius. It is a journey through truth itself, and how the ways that it is heeded—or ignored—shape our destiny. And in classic Tolkien style, The Silmarillion presents this dichotomy as a unique choice between the straight way, or the “bent” one.

This concept, while certainly creative, is not unique to The Silmarillion. It also appears in the writings of Lewis, particularly his Space Trilogy, and finds echoes of itself even in Scripture. Thus, a close examination of this concept will yield not only deeper textual understanding of these writings but also a practical approach for living out our own moments of decision.

THE BENT WAY IN TOLKIEN

To understand the concept of the “bent” path, it’s necessary to look at the Akallabêth of The Silmarillion, which tells of the tragic demise of the once wise and righteous kingdom of Númenor. Engulfed by the fear of death, the rulers of Númenor are bewitched by the evil power of Sauron, who persuades them that the heavenly rulers—the Valar—are keeping immortality from them by forbidding mankind to set foot in the Deathless Lands. Consumed by fear, inflated by pride, and bolstered by Sauron’s lies, the last Númenórean king, Ar-Pharazôn, summons a great fleet to besiege the Deathless Lands and obtain eternal life through violence.

Unsurprisingly, his plan fails. The cataclysmic justice dealt by Ilúvatar—the One—not only destroys Ar-Pharazôn and his army, but also changes the shape of the world so that Númenor drowns in an oceanic rift. His next step is to “cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.”

In other words, the natural and spiritual worlds have been torn apart. And this change is not only devastating; it’s also permanent. “Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said, ‘All roads are now bent.’”

Thus, in Tolkien’s universe, the “bentness” of the Earth is not merely topographical but also moral and philosophical. Indeed, in one of the saddest lines of the tale, Tolkien comments, “And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved.” In other words, the world has been irrevocably warped. Access to the Deathless Lands—and more importantly, the spiritual powers who reside there—has been cut off. Men are now doomed to endlessly circle the results of their own folly, because the entire creation has taken on the shape of humanity’s sin.

THE BENT WAY IN LEWIS

The reference in The Silmarillion is the introduction to this concept of “bentness.” However, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien’s friend and colleague, also explored this concept in his Space Trilogy, most notably in Out of the Silent Planet, which he was writing during the decades when Tolkien was endlessly reworking the material that would later become The Silmarillion. Whether the two men inspired each other’s treatment of this topic remains unknown, but it certainly appears to have held significance for them both. Lewis, though, took the idea one step further, claiming that it’s not just the cosmos that is “bent” by sin—it’s also human nature itself.

For Lewis, the term “bent” is given first mention in Chapter Eleven of Out of the Silent Planet, when the hrossa—intelligent otter-like extraterrestrial creatures—discover that the space traveler Ransom has not come alone to their planet: “No, he had come with two others of his kind—bad men (‘bent’ men was the nearest hrossian equivalent) who tried to kill him.”

However, as the narrative progresses, we learn that “bent” is far more than a simplistic label applied to moral disconformity. It is a sickness of both deeds and heart—producing not only flawed actions, but a flawed way of inhabiting and interacting with the world. For instance, the hross Hyoi connects bentness to a stubborn negation of goodness, saying, “It is a bent hnau [creature] that would blacken the world.” This cynicism breeds a malevolent cowardice, as Ransom later avers, “Bent creatures are full of fears.”

Yet it’s not until Ransom meets the Oyarsa, or angelic ruler of the planet, that the concept is expounded to its fullest. The Oyarsa explains that humans are “bent” not of their own will, but by the designs of a great enemy—the ultimate Bent One himself. In language obviously meant to evoke the Biblical fall of Satan, he recounts planetary history to Ransom: “Once we knew the Oyarsa of your world—he was brighter and greater than I—and then we did not call it Thulcandra [the “silent planet”]. It is the longest of all stories and the bitterest. He became bent. That was before any life came on your world. Those were the Bent Years of which we still speak in the heavens, when he was not yet bound to Thulcandra but free like us. It was in his mind to spoil other worlds besides his own….We did not leave him so at large for long. There was great war, and we drove him back out of the heavens and bound him in the air of his own world as Maleldil [Jesus] taught us. There doubtless he lies to this hour, and we know no more of that planet: it is silent.”

Thus, when Ransom’s evil captors are brought before the Oyarsa, he is easily able to recognize the proclivities of the old enemy within them. Yet he reacts with more grief than anger at their state: “I see now how the lord of the silent planet has bent you….A bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one.” It is no wonder that, filled with anguish at his new understanding of human nature as well as his firsthand observation of how it impacts this new world, Ransom cries out in despair, “We are all a bent race.”

A BENT RACE—THE PROBLEM

And so, the world is bent—both around us and inside us. Nothing is as it should be, on the macrocosmic or microcosmic scale. We can’t help but share Ransom’s broken sorrow, because we know his words are true: we are all a bent race. And in exploring this concept, Tolkien and Lewis were only taking literature where theology had already gone.

Scripture is replete with warnings regarding pursuing crooked or broken ways. “But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways, The LORD will lead them away with those who practice injustice” (Psalm 125:5 NASB). Proverbs speaks of those “who abandon the right paths to walk in ways of darkness…whose paths are crooked, and whose ways are devious” (2:13a, 15 CSB). And Scripture agrees with Tolkien and Lewis that this is not a problem humans can fix on their own: “What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Ecclesiastes 1:15 NASB). Yet like the wise and loving Oyarsa, God still mourns for His people: “They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks; they have made their paths crooked, whoever walks on them does not know peace” (Isaiah 59:8 NASB).

This association of internal corruption with “crookedness” or “bentness” can even be found in medieval Christian writings. While the definition of sin today has primarily narrowed to quantifiable evil actions, for earlier church leaders, as for Tolkien and Lewis, sin was more connected to internal disruption than external manifestation. Theologian Dr. Joel Muddamalle points out that humanity’s broken nature “connects to the concept that Martin Luther and John Calvin popularized in regard to the impact of sin upon our hearts. They used the Latin phrase, ‘homo incurvatus in se’, humanity curved in upon itself.”

This, then, is the curse under which we live. Writer Dave Benson sums up our condition: “There was a time…when all of humanity lived happily and flourished within the form given it by God. But we shut God out and spurned His love. With no definitions from outside, we turned inward and became the silent planet. Now we live in a time—let’s call it bent—when everything has missed its created purpose. It’s not that we’re as bad as we could be; rather, nothing is as good as it should be.”

And yet, as Tolkien and Lewis and theologians throughout history would be the first to assure us, there is still hope.

THE STRAIGHT ROAD—THE SOLUTION

Even in his grief and anger at the way humans destroy themselves, the Oyarsa reassures Ransom about the fate not only of our planet, but of our souls: “We think that Maleldil would not give [Earth] up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One [there].” And in words that hearken to Númenor’s claustrophobic terror of mortality, he sighs, “The weakest of my people do not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were subjects of Maleldil you would have peace.” In other words, says the Oyarsa, there is another way to live—a way in which the terrible twist in human nature is finally straightened.

And Tolkien offers the same hope. The drowning of Númenor comes in the terrible final chapters of a book that has recounted great evil—not just from a single act of rebellion, but from the accumulated wickedness of “bent” people for millennia. Yet the book does not close on this dark note. Instead, it glimmers with hope that, in Tolkien’s style, is small, yet surpassingly bright: “Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world.”

In other words, all is not lost. The spiritual authorities who bore the brunt of mankind’s betrayal and rebellion have still left them one last way to come home. And indeed, the end of The Silmarillion sees Gandalf and the last of the Eldar sailing with Frodo and Bilbo along this road: “In the twilight of autumn [the ship] sailed out of Mithlond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs above the mists of the world it passed into the Ancient West.” As the days of the Eldar upon Middle-earth end, Frodo, Bilbo, and later Sam—prototypes of obedience and righteousness—are invited to accompany them out of the “bent” world in a merciful act of grace.

THE HOPE FOR US

And this “straight road” is the truth and hope for us as well. In the desperate days of the prophet Isaiah, God makes a precious promise to His wayward people: “I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16 NKJV). And thousands of years later, John the Baptist quotes this prophecy to show us its wondrous fulfillment—Jesus Himself (Luke 3:5).

Jesus solves the problem of our “bentness” in both Tolkien’s and Lewis’s usages of the word. He comes to a warped world and begins to make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5 NASB), promising to remake the cosmos in its original harmony. And even more importantly, he is bringing His Kingdom to our hearts. Indeed, Lewis considered this to be salvation in its most elemental form: “Each [person], if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not.”

So yes, Tolkien and Lewis were right. We do live on a silent planet, curved with our own curse. But there is a Straight Way—and He has a name. The God Who said, “I am the way” (John 14:6 NASB) has laid down Himself to be our bridge between this sad, sin-cursed earth and the glory of the deathless lands that await us. Let’s live in the duality of this powerful truth—recognizing our own “bentness,” but rejoicing that the Straight Road has already come.

Hey! Thanks for reading! Did you like this post? Then why not subscribe to Ashlyn's Substack, Wild Goose Words, to get more like it straight to your inbox?

Wild Goose Words

Celebrating the winds of wonder in this world and connecting with the true, good, and beautiful.

By Ashlyn McKayla Ohm

Subscribe to Jokien w/ Tolkien

• Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines and send me a pitch!

• The extended editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy will return to theaters next month to mark The Fellowship of the Ring’s 25th anniversary! Tickets are available now here: Fathom Entertainment Presents The Lord of the Rings

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can also find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🤝 Want to sponsor a future issue of Jokien with Tolkien? View my rates and packages

May this afternoon find you passed out on the couch after eating turkey and loads of carbs while your weird uncle hovers over you trying to tell you it’s time for pie:

I’m thankful for each and every one of you, readers! Happy Thanksgiving!

Namárië,

Josh

Black Friday Sale!

Today through Monday, December 1st, get 30% off a subscription to Jokien with Tolkien for a year! Get full access to the over 50 paid subscriber articles in the archive, get full access to the JWT Discord server, and help support all my writing endeavors!

Hit the button below for the deal!

Get 30% off for 1 year

Reader Submissions to Gift Guide

Every year I send out the Tolkien Gift Guide and every year you awesome folks provide some extra fun additions that I just have to share also!

Check out these Bilbo and Gollum figurines from Dark Horse Direct modeled after the Rankin/Bass 1977 Hobbit!

And be sure to check out the LOTR shirts, shorts, and ball markers from RSULTS:

Here’s the link to the Gift Guide by the way if you missed it yesterday:

📚 You can read more of my writing by reading my books! My latest is a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and more of Tolkien’s works (and their adaptations). You can find it and more of my books on Amazon or Gumroad

⚔️ If someone forwarded this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 14,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece like the above? Check out my submission guidelines. Want to sponsor an issue? Email me at JRRJokien@JRRJokien.com

Mae govannen, friends!

The holiday season is fast approaching and you find yourself looking for the perfect gift for that Lord of the Rings fanatic in your life (maybe that’s you!). If so, you’re in luck.

The Jokien with Tolkien gift guide is back and it’s better than ever!

I’ve expanded and updated the list from the previous two years, adding many new items and keeping some favorites from the past to assemble a wide range of gift options from many categories and for all budgets.

So read on to check out some ideas for gifts as perfect as the ones Galadriel gave to the Fellowship as they set out from Lothlórien on their journey.

Also, for Black Friday, I’m offering 30% off paid subscriptions for 1 year! Get that discount here:

Get 30% off for 1 year

A quick note: Substack is warning me that this post is “too long for email.” If/when it cuts off at some point, just open it in this newsletter Substack app or online or click “view entire message” and that should take care of it!

Table of Contents

Tolkien Books

LOTR Accessories

Tolkien Home Media

Splurges

Tolkien Books

Let’s start at the beginning. BOOKS. None of the rest of the items on this list would exist without the books Tolkien wrote. So what are some gift-worthy books by and about Tolkien?

By Tolkien

NEW RELEASES — Tolkien’s “satirical fantasy,” The Bovadium Fragments, was released for the first time. Additionally, a new boxed set containing Tolkien’s writings on “Myths and Legends” was released. Both would make lovely additions to any Tolkien collection!

The Lord of the Rings — there are many, many editions of The Lord of the Rings that would make great gifts. I love the Illustrated by the Author Edition of LOTR, which contains illustrations and sketched by Tolkien himself throughout. It’s especially great together in a set with the Illustrated by the Author Silmarillion and Illustrated by the Author Hobbit.

The Hobbit — in addition to the edition illustrated by Tolkien and new collector’s editions mentioned above, there is an edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin that would be perfect for younger readers. Also check out this 70th Anniversary Edition, which would make an excellent upgrade from a paperback copy. Finally, consider a 2016 Facsimile First Edition of The Hobbit. This version reproduces the 1937 1st edition, which includes several differences from all later version including the original version of the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter. That’s right, there are multiple versions of this chapter and you can read it for yourself in this version!

Hobbit/LOTR Box Sets — “What have I got in my pocket?” The answer could very easily be one of the volumes of this Deluxe Pocket Boxed Set with The Hobbit and LOTR. I love it as a gift because it’s affordable, looks incredible, and you can take any of the volumes with you wherever you go! This set of The Hobbit and LOTR Illustrated by Alan Lee (both on the covers and throughout) is also stunning. I personally received it as a gift a few years ago and it’s incredible!

The Silmarillion — for The Silmarillion, I love the gorgeous collector’s edition that has the cover with Telperion and Laurelin. If that doesn’t do it for you, I’d also recommend this hardcover edition of The Silmarillion with illustrations by Ted Nasmith.
Editor’s Note: want to go above and beyond for your LOTR fan? Do your research and hunt down a first edition Silmarillion for them! The first edition was a large print run, so they’re still readily available and don’t cost as much as you might think (less than $50 if you just want a general first edition, closer to around $100 if you want a first edition that’s a first impression as well as a first edition).

The Four Boxed Sets of The History of Middle-earth — This gorgeous edition of The History of Middle-earth is probably my favorite part of my (ever expanding) Tolkien library!

Collecting The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth’s 12 volumes, these four Box Sets would make an excellent gift this holiday season. Start them off with just the first set to get them started on their journey or give a kingly gift of all four sets!

Box Set 1 | Box Set 2 | Box Set 3 | Box Set 4

The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien — This set presents almost 200 works of poetry by Tolkien across three volumes, including more than 60 that have never before been seen. Together with critical commentary on the author and his work and packaged in a wonderful set, this collection would make a splendid gift!

The Great Tales of Middle-earth Box Set — though you can find versions of all three stories in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth, The Great Tales of Middle-earth collects The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin in one box set. These books contain not just the “final” versions of these tales as they appeared in The Silmarillion but also other versions from earlier or later in Tolkien’s life.

A new boxed set released this year: Great Tales Box Set

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded — this revised and expanded edition of Tolkien’s letters would make a wonderful gift for the Tolkien fan in your life who wants to know more about the Professor himself

About Tolkien

Into the Heart of Middle-earth — , also known as @TeawithTolkien, has written a companion volume to The Lord of the Rings on how to cultivate the Shire within our own hearts and uncover meaning and truth from the story to apply to our own lives. It releases in February, but you can preorder it now!

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Father of Modern Fantasy — , “The Obscure Lord of the Rings Facts Guy,” has written a book for Simon & Schuster’s '“Pocket Portraits” series that just came out this week. Check it our and support Don by getting your hands on this beautiful and informative volume.

The War for Middle-earth — historian Joseph Loconte focuses in this volume on how the catastrophe of World War II trans­formed the lives and literary imagination of Tolkien and Lewis. Perfect for the history buff who is also a fan of the Inklings

The Mythmakers — this splendid graphic novel depicts the friendship of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis with and examines how they shaped their stories, each other, and the world! One of my favorite books I read last year (and one of the most popular items in last year’s gift guide!)

Lore of the Rings Volume 1 — my book of collected essays is available on Amazon and would look amazing under the tree or in a stocking for any Tolkien fan! (ok, so I’m biased lol). Collecting ten essays previously only available to paid subscribers of Jokien with Tolkien, this volume is perfect for the LOTR fan wanting to go deeper into the lore of LOTR!

The Unofficial Lord of the Rings Cookbook — this volume contains over 60 recipes for Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, Supper, and Drinks, as well as stunning images.

Nota Bene: most of the above links are to Amazon, but if some of the books I highlighted above caught your eye and you don’t want to support the Evil Empire of bookstores, I have most all of the same titles available in a shop on Bookshop.org, where the profits from every purchase go to support the local bookstore of your choice! Check it out here: Jokien with Tolkien on Bookshop

LOTR Accessories

You’ve read the books, you’ve watched the movies, now you want something to take with you every day to help bring some of that LOTR-related joy with you!

Shire Post Mint creates officially licensed coins straight from Middle-earth. These fanart coins are well crafted from solid metals using antique methods, and the designs are intriguingly complicated. Find coins, necklaces, wax seals, and more! Their annual holiday sale runs from November 24 to December 3 this year, and the code is Foreyule25.

Shop their Lord of the Rings collection here: Shire Post Mint LOTR

Lord of the Rings Ornaments — decorate your tree with your choice of a Gandalf, Shire, or Gollum ornament!

Jokien with Tolkien Gear — Want to wear some Lord of the Rings gear and rep the newsletter at the same time? I’ve got you covered! Check out all the designs in my shop, but especially the most popular one by a mile, Another Reindeer

Shire Sweetgrass Candle — I absolutely love North Ave Candles for their lovely scents, premium ingredients, and delightful designs. This candle inspired by The Hobbit with “bright and lively scents of wild grasses, fiddleheads, lemongrass and clover” makes for a perfect Tolkien-themed gift!

Doors of Durin Cookbook Stand — speak ‘friend’ and enter indeed! mount your favorite cookbook (perhaps the LOTR one above??) on this gorgeous cookbook stand or just display it because, I mean, look at that!

Map of Middle-earth Throw Blanket — get cozy for your next Extended Edition marathon with this throw blanket that has the map of Middle-earth on it! Trace each step of the journey of the Fellowship as they take it on the very blanket you’re under

Speak Friend and Enter Doormat — one of the top gifts each year I’ve done this guide! Welcome visitors to your humble abode with a doormat inscribed with instructions for how to open your doors. Speak, friend, and enter (watcher in the water for your front yard pool sold separately).

Mugs and Tumblers — I absolutely adore this Lord of the Cats Mug. Does this mean the Eye of Sauron is a laser pointer? Is Old Toby catnip?? I also can’t get enough of this ceramic mug with the Map of the Lonely Mountain on it! (I got this one a few years ago and use it multiple times a week!).

Board Games — The Lord of The Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth and War of the Ring are both excellent games based on the world and events of Middle-earth. The former is a quicker game that takes 30 minutes or so while the latter is an advanced strategy game that will take hours to complete

No Admittance Except on Party Business Sign — hang wherever you’d like to minimize the pesky relatives and relations intruding

Tolkien Home Media

While everything began with the books, that’s hardly how it’s stayed! Here are some gift ideas from the various adaptations of Tolkien’s stories:

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings — upgrade your DVDs of these classic films to the 4K UHD trilogy (or the remastered Blu-ray trilogy)

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit — look, I’ve already said what I have to say about these movies…but if you want to give them to someone you know who loves them you can get them in 4K UHD or on Blu-ray

Rankin/Bass and Ralph Bakshi Films — the animated versions of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Return of the King are each charming in their ways. If you didn’t see them as a child you might not see them quite as fondly, but they’re worth seeing and all entertaining

The War of the Rohirrim — add the Blu-ray (or 4K or DVD) of this animated The Lord of the Rings prequel to your collection and revisit Middle-earth and Helm’s Deep!

Splurges / Collectables

Want to give a kingly gift whose worth is greater than the value of the Shire? Well, these aren’t quite as valuable as a shirt of Mithril, but they’re close.

The new LEGO Shire set joins the LEGO Rivendell and LEGO Barad-dûr sets and it looks like a set of special magnificence!

Deluxe Illustrated by the Author Editions of The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion — each of the editions of these books that has an “Illustrated by the Author” edition I mentioned earlier has a deluxe edition as well.
Find them here: Deluxe The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion

Prop Replicas from Weta Workshop — this is the ultimate gift for a fan of the Peter Jackson films: get a replica of one of the very props from the movies!

Get 30% off for 1 year

Subscribe now

Share

There we have it, my Tolkien Gift Guide for 2025!

Special shoutout and thank you to all the Extended Edition members! You all make work like this possible.

Thank you so much for reading! Hope that you find something you can give as a gift or that you can get yourself. I’ll be back in your inboxes soon. Farewell, friends. Go towards goodness!

⚔️ If someone forward this email to you or you found it through social media or Google, I’d like to invite you to join 15,000+ subscribers in the Jokien with Tolkien community: Subscribe here and get a free gift just for joining!

🏹 Chosen as a Substack Featured Publication in 2023

🪓 Official merch available in the Jokien with Tolkien store

❌ All typos are precisely as intended

🔗 Links may be affiliate, which is a free-to-you way to support this newsletter where I earn a small commission on items you purchase

📚 Check out my e-book store for downloadable guides to Tolkien and analyses of his works

🗃️ Can’t wait till next week for more content? View the archive

🎯 Interested in writing a guest piece? Check out my submission guidelines. Or want to sponsor this newsletter with an ad? Email me at JRRJokien@JRRJokien.com