Happy Gondorian New Year, my dear hobbits, elves, dwarves, ents, wizards, humans, and any other folk I’ve left out! Somehow, Tolkien Reading Day sneaks up on me every year, despite my best efforts to remember its arrival, close on the heels of spring. I’ll pretend that I’m writing this exactly when I mean to, neither late nor early, on this Tolkien Reading Day 2022.
The Tolkien Society chose “Love and Friendship” as the theme for TRD this year. Now, that is a theme that truly speaks to my heart. It is the love and friendship in the pages of Tolkien’s writing that really stick with me. These deeply human emotions are the framework on which Tolkien builds so much of the magic and meaning of Arda, expanding into the great themes of mortality, immortality, and sacrifice.
The Lord of the Rings, my personal favorite of Tolkien’s works, unfolds around the bonds of friendships both old and new. There are too many important friendships to count in LOTR: Bilbo and Gandalf, Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, Merry and Theoden, and more (I did say there were too many to count). Those relationships give us windows into the hearts, minds, and cultures of the folk of Middle-earth, while reflecting enough of our own world to entice us to invest in those characters and their world. We connect to the characters as our friends and come to care for them as if they are real people. Alongside them, we enter that world and share what they feel. We’re terrified in that dark dell on Weathertop, pummeled by horror and grief at the Bridge of Khazad-dum, suspended in time in Lothlorien. Our hearts soar at the wild horns of Rohan and break at the passing of Theoden. We crawl up the slopes of Mount Doom with Frodo and Sam. It’s friendship that gives us the lifeline to hang on to, the will to endure.
Love is a deep and powerful undercurrent in LOTR (and for my money, all of Tolkien’s work). Love is woven in the deep magic of Arda, infused by the song of the Valar that gave physical form to Eru Iluvatar’s thought. Love builds like sediment, layer upon layer, age upon age, in the fabric of Arda. It manifests in so many ways. Love truly is the core of Tolkien’s world, percolating outward in many guises into every layer of the story. We see love in those friendships that anchor us in that world and in Frodo’s choice to carry the Ring. Love for their homes and their creations permeates the stories of the Elves and the Dwarves, is part of the fabric of what it is to be a hobbit and fuels the seemingly hopeless war against the forces of Sauron. Romantic love appears in three different but equally moving and powerful love stories in LOTR: Aragorn and Arwen, Eowyn and Faramir, and Sam and Rosie. Each of these couples teaches us something different.
Love and friendship are so embedded in Tolkien’s work that, try as I might, I couldn’t pick a quote or two to focus on in this rambling of mine. My thoughts turned always toward the love and friendship that Tolkien has made possible in my life. Where would I be without my own Fellowships: the Middle-earth News crew (present and past) and my Dragon Con Tolkien family? You have enriched my life beyond measure, and we are eternally bound by friendship and love.
I’ve rattled on long enough. Thank you if you stuck this out to the end of my overly philosophical Tolkien Reading Day meditation. Now, go read some Tolkien!
