I've been meaning to write this for quite some time but I kept putting it off because I knew it would be a long one. As I mentioned in the reading thread, I capped off our Second Apocalypse reread by going through Lord of the Rings again, in the time leading up to The Great Ordeal. After reading the two in such close proximity, I have to agree with Parsh that the differences come across more than the similarities. I've seen a lot of criticism that TSA is arguably too derivative of Dune and LotR but I've come to believe the series genuinely stands on its own - there's just too many scenes, characters, and themes that simply couldn't exist in Herbert's or Tolkien's writings. That said, I think Bakker ultimately uses the same narrative frame as LotR: an internal moral struggle set against the backdrop of a fantasy apocalypse.
Much like The Second Apocalypse, the Lord of the Rings is fundamentally about the conflict between meaning and nothing.
I think it's a misconception that the legions of Mordor are the primary antagonists - evil resolves itself in Tolkien's world with its fractious, self-deating narcissism. Although Sauron is the titular character of the trilogy, he never once physically enters the narrative. Similar to how many theologians view the devil, he isn't a material personification of evil but rather he exists as
rationalization, the way we trick ourselves into pursuing our own interests at the expense of others. There are several key plot points upon which the fate of the world truly hinges and it isn't the climactic battles but rather the struggle within the ranks of the protagonists. Tolkien time and again returns to a technique wherein he places characters at moral crossroads and they visualize the consequences of their actions. Whenever this happens, it's a red flag for the reader as to what's really going on and it reveals itself in these key events:
1. In the barrow downs, where Frodo is the only Hobbit who awakens and he considers escaping to save himself and doom his friends to the wights.
2. In Lothlorien, where Frodo offers the ring to Galdriel and she sees herself becoming the Queen of Middle Earth.
3. At the hills/waters of Parth Galen and Amon Hen, where Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo, becoming a powerful king in his own right.
4. Twice at Isengard, first when Saruman reveals his alliance with Sauron and again when he entreats Gandalf to come into the tower so they can discuss how to set the world to rights.
5. All throughout the Minas Tirith arc, where Denethor refuses the counsel of his allies and eventually resolves to euthanize himself and his son.
6. The series climax inside of Mt. Doom, where Frodo ultimately fails the quest and resolves to keep the ring for himself.
7. Throughout the entire narrative, when the Shire Hobbits, Wizards, Elves, Ents, Rohirrim, and undead army are reluctant to confront Sauron and Saruman out of their own mistrust for eachother.
At each of these junctures, the characters resolve to take matters into their own hands, under the rationale that what they are doing is somehow earned, righteous, just, in the interest of the greater good, or otherwise the only reasonable course of action. While all of these motives masquerade under the guise of meaning, purpose, and reason, the reader in fact knows these are empty rationalizations covering their pure, base, and animalistic impulse. Tolkien is intentionally invoking the nihilistic implications of Bentham's Calculus, Freud's Pleasure Principle, Nietzche's Will to Power, and Darwin's Survival of the Fittest. In Bakker's terms, it's the biological mechanism which often attenuates his Blind Brain Theory.
Tolkien explicitly uses the same words when describing the Eye of Sauron and the Windows of Minas Morgul as Bakker does to describe the Consult and its skin spies - a gaze into oblivion, nothingness and void. While Tolkien vehmently denied his works were an allegory for World War II, I personally believe they were at least a subconscious parallel to his experience in World War I, where grand boasts of nationalism and ideology were in fact a mask for the last gasp of imperialism. Much like the fractious Orcs of Mordor, WWI was a self-defeating venture, as it ultimately triggered the collapse of every participant's government and directly led to the decolonization of the third world.
The tracks between whim and brutality are many and inscrutable in Men, and though they often seem to cut across the impassable terrain of reason, in truth, it is reason that paves their way. Ever do Men argue from want to need and from need to fortuitous warrant. Ever do they think their cause the just cause. Like cats chasing sunlight thrown from a mirror, they never tire of their own delusions.
^ This is the opening to the first chapter of The Judging Eye and I believe it encapsulates what TSA and LotR are truly about.
TLDR:Christopher Tolkien once explained that his father was writing about the evil of what he called "the machine," the way people execute their will over nature and each other. So to bring it all together, I believe Tolkien was warning us about the morally destructive consequences of mechanized civilization in the 20th century and that Bakker took up his watch against the same threat as we embark on posthumanism in the 21st century. However, The Lord of the Rings ultimately argues that morality is in fact real, that there is more to humanity than self-interest and biological function. At this point, I'm not sure we'll get the same hopeful conclusion to The Second Apocalypse. Even if we don't, I nevertheless hold that Bakker has already succeeded, and will continue to succeed, in providing insights into ourselves as we continue on the perilous path technology has laid out for human civilization.
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