Tolkien's HARD LOVES

Lhunithiliel said:

I open this thread to seek your attitude towards love.

But perhaps I’m going to disappoint those who have expected to find a discussion on matters of that cheerful and lighthearted feeling that love can often be.

I would like to provide this place for an open-hearted and open-minded discussion of difficult love relations – the way they are considered by Tolkien and the way we, as men an women of our days, understand them.

Tolkien is often said to have created a man’s world. Men ruled, men fought, men became heroes or traitors, men perished for glory or for loyalty to high causes… Only a few are the names of those women that had some serious impact on the history of ME.

Of love between those ME men and women is spoken not much. ME seems to be a place where love was not an issue to be much taken into consideration.
Yet, when Tolkien writes about love relations, almost all of them seem to be difficult, or impossible, or forbidden – hard loves!

For those of you who have read the Tale of Aldarion and Erendis (UT) here is my first topic:

Who is right and who is wrong, when two people, deeply in love with each other, still can become their worst enemies? How come that one loves and still allows him/her-self to most fiercely hurt the one who is loved?
What do you think of the hard love between these two?

And for those who haven’t read this tale yet, you’ll be most welcome to share your own attitude…….

So, let’s speak about hard love!

Click to expand...

You know something, I've thought about this often. I guess, as a young person in high school and a middle schooler the idea of love being forbidden or harder than (honestly it should be) made it that much more exciting. The idea of a fictional world with so many rules and traditions made it seem more real to me, as a kid.

Now I'm an adult at the age of 28 and a love that seems so hard, or forbidden actually makes it seem more fictional to me. Like Romeo and Juliet.

But, hard loves have always been apart of the works of fiction. Whether it be Anna Kerririna and Atonement are brilliant examples of this. Where "forbidden love" are the main points. Granted, Atonement it was less forbidden had the lie had not taken over I don't think Cecelia would have been forbidden to visit Robbie in jail. And Anna Kerrinia was forbidden because of Anna's marriage, although in the very beginning it raises questions, like how come men can cheat and there seems to be no consequences? which isn't right by any means. Of course religion plays a huge role in Anna K.

And maybe since Tolkien was an openly religious man this plays a factor. It's a way for his characters to question rules, or religion without doing anything violent or hurtful towards another being. This is always a strong, suspenseful theme in fiction though and personally I'm not shocked that Tolkien finds a fascinating love with forbidden or hard loves.

As for the fact "it's a man's world" I do not think that was his initial intent, but mind you he was writing these histories and tales, myths and so on just as such. It's not to say his races and species wouldnt evolve from what we read, but to say these are meant to be seen as "tales of old" And to be fair, Galadriel seems immune to this notion of it being a mans world and she does go as far as being apart of the council and influencing the fate of ME.

You're right though because she seems to be the only woman to do this.

I think part of this is "hard loves" make for interesting stories.

I believe the purpose of putting such obstacles is to prove how true the love is. I mean, love is a very easy word to throw around - when you have everything, no problems, no stress, no real hardship - even I can fall in love. However, if there are problems - real hard ones that make you choose, make you seem insane to choose, and then you make your choice and it is still unclear whether it is the right one to make or not - then that love is put to the test. Anything that passes through fire gets purified. Love is supposed to be pure. If you can stand it after enduring so many trials - then it's real.