Theme Spotting
It jumped at me all of a sudden, when you translate the ending of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' into real-life terms, Frodo is committing suicide.
Looking at it through the lens of Tolkien's own experiences in the war, Frodo is the soldier who can't bear the experiences of the war any longer and he ends his life. And the way it's done leads towards another element in Tolkien's life; his Christianity.
He criticized Lewis for drowning his novels in the christian message and indeed compared to Aslan's resurrection this is a subtle reference to Christianity, but Gandalf still speaks of a blissful afterlife with silver shores and rapid sunsets and Frodo's smiling back at his friends as he steps aboard that deck, basically telling them: 'it's okay. I'm in a better place now.' The boat to the western lands symbolizes death. The elves and Gandalf step aboard because it's no longer their time and Biblo too steps aboard as he ends this chapter in his life. Change. Death. Then it's time for Frodo to die. In real-life terms, he's committing suicide.
Bilbo's reply, "I'm quite ready for another adventure. " reminds me of the famous Peter Pan quote, by J. M. Barrie. "To die would be an awfully big adventure."
Reepicheep also at the end of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" opts for death as he paddles into the waves towards Aslan's city (who is known by another name in the world of the children *sigh*) where whoever goes there can never return (christian heaven: I told you the symbolism was obvious in Narnia). Again, another character who opts for death. They can't wait to die. An idea which I, as an atheist, find pretty disturbing.
This notion really changes the movies for me. I already spotted a theme of "excorcism" in 'LOTR: The Two Towers', where Sméagol drives away Gollum, Gandalf drives away Saruman from Theóden's mind, literally an excorcism and the entire movie is about beating your doubt and fears in the face of evil and to hold your ground.
And yet there's still so much more. Industrialism vs Nature (Saruman vs the Ents), the Ents only decide to take action when it personally affects them after endless tedious debate that ends up going nowhere (you might even call that a commentary on the UN or something) and finally there's the four boys who go to war to fight for their ideals and come back changed.
I hope I'm not confusing the books with the movies too much and I'm assuming they're not all too different. I've just rewatched the movies but it's been years since I read the books. But you can definitely see the effects of two world wars on Tolkien's fantasy epic.
The only thing I think he really did wrong was paint the Orcs in such a bad light. They're evil just because they're Orcs. So I liked it when in Paolini's "Eldest" fantasy novel had his Orc/Uruk Hai like beings change sides and join the good guys/the rebellion and we actually got to see some of their culture for a change. Which was quite a breath of fresh air. Tolkien could be a bit too black and white but he could write one hell of a fantasy history and he's still the author of one of my favourite and inspiring lines:
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
I love thinking about this stuff. Don't you?