Can Myth Still Speak?
The Rings of Power and the Problem with Allegory
Art in the Christian era is possible as long as the sphere of mythology is still attainable, as long as there are still ‘gods’ in the world.1 —Hans Urs von Balthasar
As Amazon premiers its lavish prequel series to The Lord of the Rings, expatriates of Middle-earth have expressed concern that The Rings of Power may not remain faithful to Peter Jackson’s film trilogy or, for that matter, to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original world. Such is the case whenever beloved works of literature are interpreted anew. But here the stakes are higher. What stands to be lost is more than internal coherence among plots and characters. What The Rings of Power is prone to get wrong is the art form in which Middle-earth first emerged from Tolkien’s pen: the form of myth.
Tolkien would have considered that particular error most egregious. Indeed, he may have been quite alright with others embellishing, expanding, and even altering his world. But to step outside the sphere of myth altogether is a sin he certainly would not tolerate. That is because Tolkien despised the alternative, myth’s backwoods cousin: allegory.
The problem with allegory, in Tolkien’s estimation, is that allegory is cheap. Allegory draws too simple a comparison between things that leaves too little left to the imagination. Tolkien preferred myth because myth creates a world unto itself. That world may rightly be interpreted at an allegorical level—that is, it may tell or teach us something about our world—but the world of myth always remains somehow other than our own. To put it another way, the realm of myth is always the realm of ‘Middle-earth’, in between our world and the world of pure fantasy: where both meet halfway, coalesce, and form a unique and fascinating place for us to escape from and enter more deeply into our own reality. Allegory, however, univocally identifies x with y; and once the ‘point’ has been grasped, the world in which the allegory lives no longer holds our attention.
A dear professor of mine once quipped: if you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and miss that Aslan is Christ, you have missed the point of the book. Not so for The Lord of the Rings. Glimpses of Christ can be seen in several characters but cannot strictly be identified with any of them individually or collectively. Middle-earth and Narnia are, in fact, different realms that operate at different metaphysical levels. And the chasm between them has greatly widened in the half-century and more since Tolkien and Lewis debated with their friends over pints at the Eagle & Child about the right way to tell a story.
At present, the stories that Hollywood tells are so far removed from either that the difference between Middle-earth and Narnia is hardly discernible. Tolkien and Lewis now stand as sentinels in stone, like the kings at Argonath, separating us from an era that is long past and wholly distinct from ours. That era, in Balthasar’s words, is when mythology was still attainable and there were still ‘gods’ in the world. I take Balthasar to mean that modernity has wrangled transcendence down into our immanent domain leaving nothing above or beyond what is plain and in front of us. Modernity has thus leveled Olympus and used allegory for dynamite. Allegory pulls the ‘gods’ down from the heavens and binds them in chains and forces them to speak. Held captive, these ‘gods’ fail to inspire, fail to challenge, and ultimately fail to matter.
What these ‘gods’ are often forced to say is what is classified today as ‘woke’. Allegory makes them the enslaved mouthpieces for political and ideological agenda routinely on the left side of the aisle. Fear that The Rings of Power will be ‘woke’ is a concern I have seen stated more than once. But wokeism is not the real issue. Modernity is. The problem is not that the series will try to speak to our current situation but how it is likely to go about saying it. The concern ought to be about means not ends. Hollywood today thinks the only way to make a point is to make it square on the nose; and allegory rarely admits subtlety. I, for one, actually appreciate subtlety and prefer to avoid as much face bludgeoning as I’m able. But I also think allegory is simply bad strategy and that myth provides a much better method.
Consider that The Lord of the Rings appeared in three book-length installments in the first half of the 1950s. Tolkien wrote during the Second World War and published in the midst of the nuclear arms race between the world’s leading superpowers. In the eyes of his readers, at that stage in history, the Ring could have stood for little other than the nuclear bomb. The whole plot turns on the destruction of this weapon before it falls into the hands of the enemy. Gandalf’s counsel against keeping the Ring and using it for good is as sharp a criticism of weapons of mass destruction then as it is now. But it would be ridiculous to say that The Lord of the Rings is a book of warning about the devastation a nuclear holocaust would bring. That is an application one may reasonably draw, but it is not the sum meaning of the book. Therein lies the real value of myth. Tolkien’s Ring is ultimately about power; and power is perennial a problem as any. In writing a myth about power, Tolkien has written a myth that can speak to any age and every. Once the threat of nuclear war passes (please God), the Ring will appear in another form and be called another name; and Tolkien’s myth will continue to speak.
Allegory is bad strategy because it blows away with the wind. As the issues change (and they change often), the allegories attached to them lose their relevance and are dismissed. Symptoms can be treated, mitigated, or even removed, but the wounds beneath the symptoms endure. Myth endures because it addresses wounds not symptoms. Myth does not mistake a flare up for the disease itself. Myth goes to the heart and speaks healing. Myth triumphs over allegory because it does what allegory aims to do but better. It keeps the ‘gods’ above and allures us into their world. And there we discover and confront our problems in a way that captivates and inspires us and sends us back to them with new hope and courage. Allegory never lets us out of our world or its problems and thus it fails to give a compelling way to deal with them.
I confess to you that I have raised this weighty question about The Rings of Power having seen little more than trailers of it. I leave it to others to judge whether we have been given myth or allegory. The role I have hoped to play is nothing more than Gandalf’s: to set the hobbits on their quest with conviction of its importance and enough help to get out the door but ultimately to leave it to themselves to see it through to the end.
But I should at least attempt an answer to the question itself. Can myth still speak? Tolkien believed in the enduring value of myth because he believed in the enduring goodness of the human person. That is a striking conviction for one who lived through and witnessed what forcibly suggests otherwise. But his belief rests not on humanistic optimism but on theological certainty. Tolkien’s faith in myth was coextensive with his faith in Christ. He converted Lewis by convincing him the Gospel is the one true myth. The myth of the Gospel teaches that the human person has been damaged by sin but not destroyed: “Though now estranged, man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.”2 Within him resides something that will always remain responsive to myth because within him is something that will always remain responsive to Christ. Hollywood may believe myth can no longer speak. But as long as myths are being told they will continue to speak nonetheless. And those with ears will hear.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Revelation and the Beautiful” in Explorations in Theology, Vol. 1: The Word Made Flesh, trans. A.V. Littledale and Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 108.
J.R.R. Tolkien, “Mythopoeia.”