Lord of the Rings Links Page

Links Page

Art, Pics, Movies, & Graphics:

The Official Movie Website - I used some images from this site

http://www.john-howe.com/- 1 of the 2 major LOR artists. Some really awesome LOR art here, I used several of his art pieces on my site

DailyDigest.net/preview ROTK - another source of many good photos, some of which I have used

LOR Maps - another awesome art site, some of which I have used

Lord of the Rings Merchandise Shop Maps - another site with great LOR maps, some of which I have used

LOR Wallpapers and graphics - some of which I have used

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins by Leonard Nimoy

Moviebloopers.net's list of LOR movie bloopers

Another version (U.S.)? Moviebloopers.net LOR page

FOTR Trailer Downloads

TTT Trailer Downloads

ROTK Trailer Downloads

LOR Online Stores:

Gandalf's Tower - This is a website that sells LOR stuff, even classic items from before the movies came out.

Newline Cinema Studio Store for LOR - The company that made and produced the movies. Many LOR items for sale.

Lord of the Rings Toys and Movie Merchandise by All-Movie-Toys.com

TolkienTown.com

Lord of the Rings Merchandise Shop

LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE STORE

LOR Collecting Sites:

The Green Dragon: Middle-earth Collectible Heaven - my favorite Collectors Site, some photos of which I have used

Tolkien Collecting Resources

CollectTolkien.com

LOTR Action Figure Storybook

LOR Game Sites/Pages:
since I a big game fan, I have extra links for games, you can find more game links on my Game Collection Page as well

CollectTolien's game list

GameFest look at LOR games

Board Game Central's list of LOR games

Lord of the Rings Merchandise Shop's list of games & puzzles

BoardGames.com's list of LOR games

Tolkien computer games pages - free LOR computer games

Other LOR Pages:

Hollywood Jesus LOR Page - Another christian LOR site.

Fans Outraged at New Character in The Return of the King

LOR Urban Legends

TheOneRing.net - a big & popular LOR fan site, some photos of which I have used

Rule-Them-All- another fan site, with all kinds of stuff, action figures, art, desktops...

Lord of the Rings Merchandise Shop list of action figures

Lord of the Rings Fanatics Site

Tolkien & LOR Christianity:

Tolkien led C.S. Lewis, the great protestant author, to Christ:

http://crosswalk.com/news/1109734.html

It was Tolkien who, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford University, led a colleague to embrace Christ in 1929. The colleague was C.S. Lewis, who would go on to become a stalwart apologist for the Christian faith. Lewis also wrote a Christian fantasy series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," along with apologetic works such as "Mere Christianity," and "The Problem of Pain."

It was Tolkien's view of myth -- that it is always grounded in the reality of the transcendent God, (even if subtly) -- that ultimately shattered the barriers to Christianity for Lewis.

"Tolkien did not mean by 'myth' that it is defined as 'non-historical,'" Parker said, "but that it exhibits certain characteristics, certain ideas, recurring themes such as the dying and rising God, the sense of the moral universe behind things.

"Lewis said when he read the Gospels, he felt like he was reading a myth because it contained mythical elements. But ultimately, he knew it was fact. This was the 'true myth' that was absolutely true and historical."

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wcd/tolkien.htm

English 321: Tolkien & Oxford Christianity

Department of English
Rutgers University, USA

Oxford Christianity: Tolkien and the Inklings

Finally, as a way of trying to solve the puzzle of Tolkien's work as "religious narrative without religion," the class will spend a good deal of time on his relation to the group informally known as the Inklings -- Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and others -- and called by some modern scholars the "Oxford Christians."

The central figure in this group is Lewis, who spent most of his earlier years as a religious skeptic, and who, as most people know, was brought to a belief in religious truth through his talks with Tolkien. (The long conversation in Addison's Walk, on the grounds of Lewis's own Magdalen College, is a famous event in the history of Oxford Christianity. His partners in conversation were Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.)

http://www.cslewis.org/about/

1931

Lewis became a Christian: One evening in September, Lewis had a long talk on Christianity with J.R.R. Tolkien (a devout Roman Catholic) and Hugo Dyson. (The summary of that discussion is recounted for Arthur Greeves in They Stand Together.) That evening's discussion was important in bringing about the following day's event that Lewis recorded in Surprised by Joy: "When we [Warnie and Jack] set out [by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did."

http://www.mcjonline.com/news/01b/20011204b.shtml

"Lord Of The Rings" Based On Christian Beliefs?

Often overlooked, meanwhile, is the subtle Christian message underlying Tolkien's fiction.

In fact, Tolkien persuaded C.S. Lewis, who himself later wrote several Christian classics, to become a Christian. The two are credited with paving the way for a new genre of devotional literature, influencing authors like Charles Williams, T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesteron and Dorothy Sayers.

Tolkien omitted overt references to God, worship, prayer and Christianity in the 500,000 words of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It wasn't an effort to hide his Christian faith, he said. Rather, he believed the technique communicated Christian values more effectively precisely because they were less obvious.

According to Tolkien and his close associates, the writings were grounded in an unstinting Christian conviction that, at the end of time, God would finally and forever defeat evil. Tolkien rooted that conviction in his own faith in Christ.

Tolkien said that the only criticism of "Lord of the Rings" that ever bothered him, "was that it contained no religion." He described his fictional Middle Earth as "a monotheistic world of 'natural theology.'" The fact there are no churches, temples or religious rites and ceremonies "is simply part of the historical climate depicted" in his fiction, he said. "I am in any case myself a Christian," he said, even if his "Third Age" was not a Christian world.

Tolkien believed that eternal truths established in creation would be recognizable even in his fictional "sub creation."

"We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth which is with God," he told C.S. Lewis during their late night discussion that resulted in Lewis becoming a Christian.

Other Christianity within Tolkien's work:

http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/wood-classic.html

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings:
A Christian Classic Revisited

Yet it is a mistake, I believe, to read Tolkien's work as sub-Christian. Not by happenstance was Tolkien the finest Beowulf scholar of his day. His thesis about the Anglo-Saxon epic may also be applied to his own fiction. Beowulf is a pagan work, Tolkien argued, exalting the great Northern and heathen virtue of unyielding, indomitable will in the face of sure and hopeless defeat. Yet it was probably written by a Christian, Tolkien contended, who infused it with Christian concerns: "The author of Beowulf showed forth the permanent value of that pietas which treasures the memory of man's struggles in the dark past, man fallen and not yet saved, disgraced but not dethroned." So does The Lord of the Rings recount a pre-biblical period of the earth's ancient history -- where there are no Chosen People, no Incarnation, no religion at all -- yet from a point of view that is distinctively Christian.

For Tolkien the Christian, the chief question -- and thus the real quest -- is how we are to travel along this Road. The great temptation is to take short-cuts, to follow the easy way, to arrive quickly. In the antique world of Middle Earth, magic offers the surest escape from slowness and suffering. It is the equivalent of our machines. They both provide what Tolkien called immediacy: "speed, reduction of labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect" (Letters, 200). The magic of machination is meant for those who are in a hurry, for us who lack patience, for all who cannot wait. Sauron wins converts because he provides his followers the necromancy to coerce the wills of others, the strength to accomplish grand ends by instant means.

The noble prove, alas, to be most nobly tempted. Gandalf, the Christ-like wizard who literally lays down his life for his friends, knows that he is an unworthy bearer of the Ring -- not because he has evil designs that he wants secretly to accomplish, but rather because his desire to do good is so great. Lady Galadriel, the elven queen, also refuses the Ring of Force. It would make her enormous beauty mesmerizing. Those who had freely admired her loveliness would have no choice but to worship her. Perhaps alone among modern writers, Tolkien understood that evil's subtlest semblance is not with the ugly but with the gorgeous. "I shall not be dark," Galadriel warns, "but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"

The one free creature utterly undone by the lure of total power is Saruman the wizard. Like Judas, he is impatient with the slow way that goodness works. He cannot abide the torturous path up Mount Doom; he wants rapid results.

In the unlikely heroism of the small and the weak, Tolkien's pre-Christian world becomes most Christian. Their greatness is not self-made.

Perhaps we can now understand what Tolkien meant when called The Lord of the Rings "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." Its essential conflict, he insisted, concerns God's "sole right to divine honour" (Letters, 172, 243). Like Milton's Satan, Sauron will not serve such a Deity. He is intent upon his own supremacy, and he reads all others by his own light. He believes that anyone, having once possessed the power afforded by the Ring, would be determined to use it -- especially the magical power to make its wearer invisible.

The animating power of this Company is the much-maligned virtue called pity. Frodo had learned the meaning of pity from his Uncle Bilbo. When he first obtained the Ring from the vile creature called Gollum, Bilbo had the chance to kill him but did not. Frodo is perplexed by this refusal. 'Tis a pity, he contends, that Bilbo did not slay such an evil one. This phrase angers the wise Gandalf. It prompts him to make the single most important declaration in the entire Ring epic:

"Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that [Bilbo] took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."
"I am sorry," said Frodo. "But ... I do not feel any pity for Gollum.... He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does," [replies Gandalf]. "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.... [T]he pity of Bilbo will rule the fate of many -- yours not least."

"The pity of Bilbo will rule the fate of many" gradually becomes the motto of Tolkien's epic. It is true in the literal sense, because the Gollum whom Bilbo had spared so long ago is the one who finally destroys the Ring. But the saying is also true in a deep spiritual sense. Gandalf the pagan wizard here announces the nature of Christian mercy. As a creature far more sinning than sinned against, Gollum deserves his misery. He has committed Cain's crime of fratricide in acquiring the Ring. Still Gandalf insists on pity, despite Frodo's protest that Gollum be given justice. If all died who deserve punishment, none would live. Many perish who have earned life, Gandalf declares, and yet who can restore them? Neither hobbits nor humans can live by the bread of merit alone. Hence Gandalf's call for pity and patience: the willingness to forgive trespasses and to wait on slow-working providence rather than rushing to self-righteous judgment.
The unstrained quality of mercy is what, I suggest, makes The Lord of the Rings an enduring Christian classic despite its pagan setting.

http://www.post-gazette.com/movies/20031217lotrreligion1217fnp2.asp

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy harbors Christian themes

The author of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien, was a devout Catholic whose faith pervaded his work. Some pastors are encouraging interest in the films, hoping fans will read the books and gain a sense of the Christian understanding of sin, sacrifice and salvation.

But while the trilogy reflects a Christian worldview, no one character represents Christ. The power of the ring -- which must be destroyed in order to save the world -- is analogous to sin. The elves' bread, lembas, has characteristics in common with the Eucharist. And the power of the evil lord Sauron is broken on March 25, the feast marking Christ's incarnation in Mary's womb. But the saga is not the gospel in disguise.

McGrath is grateful that someone explained that to him before he read the books in 1974. "That saved me from trying to find the secret decoder ring and figure out who Jesus is," he said.

But of the many themes, "Tolkien's Christian faith is the greatest," said Colin Duriez, author of "Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle Earth," and a commentator on the expanded DVD of the second in the trilogy, "The Two Towers."

In a 1953 letter, Tolkien wrote that his epic "is of course fundamentally a religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."

Although no single character in "The Lord of the Rings" represents Christ, there are strong Christ-like elements to Gandalf's death and resurrection, Frodo's humble bearing of the ring and Aragorn's kingship.

Tolkien believed that preaching should be left to the clergy.

"He had confidence that God would use the stories to help readers see the truth about the universe and about God.

Because Gandalf dies in his battle with the Balrog and later reappears alive and transformed, some Christian readers have identified him with Christ. But Tolkien viewed him as an angelic figure -- much as other wizards in the book are akin to the fallen angel Lucifer and his demons.