We’ve spent the past three Friday nights watching The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. I read The Hobbit for the first time when I was nine years old and found The Lord of the Rings a couple of years later. From junior high school on, and well into adulthood, I would read the entire series pretty much every year.
So it came as a relief to me that the movies were so well done, bringing vividly to life a world that had lived in my imagination for so long!
At this point I view the movies knowing which brutal parts I can skip watching, while looking forward to the many incredible and uplifting scenes of bravery and self-sacrifice, of transcendence and triumph, of true friendship and kindness.
But something new occurs to me after this latest viewing. I find myself reflecting on the contrast between the nobility of fictional characters such as the king of Gondor (Aragorn!) and the king of Rohan versus the current British royals. I mean, I’m sure they are all lovely people in their way, but not exactly heroic.
Of course, you can’t really compare the times we live in with those of Middle-Earth, but I can’t help but feel that nobility of spirit is more and more lacking in our culture.