Salman Rushdie's opinion on LOTR

[Niniel]

Today this article appeared in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is written by Salman Rushdie and in it he gives a quite interesting opinion about wars in films (LOTR and Gangs Of New York) as comapred to the current situation in tye world.
This link shows the English version as it appeared in The Guardian on Jan. 3, 2003.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,868339,00.html
His main point is that in LOTR there is a very sharp distinction between good and bad: people are either wholly good, or totally bad. In Gangs Of New York, he claims, there is no such distinction; everybody has good and bad sides (mostly bad, he seems to think). He dras a parallel between these two films and the political suituation in the world. He blaims President Bush for making the same good/bad distinction as is made in TTT: the USA are good, and everbody who does not support them is bad. Rushdie would like to see more of a nuance in international politics. But, he admits, the people want to see who's good and bad, after all LOTR is successful and GONY less so.
I do not agree with Mr Rushdie's idea about LOTR: Tolkien has made it quite clear that there is good and bad in everybody. Take Gollum for example: the perfect example of someone tossed between good and evil. Even the Orcs are not completely bad, although this idea seems a bit gone on the film version of LOTR.
What are your opinions about this? Has Mr Rushdie understood LOTR at all?

[Samweis]

I agree with you Niniel not to agree with Salman Rushdie!
:)

[Thorin]

Originally posted by Niniel
I do not agree with Mr Rushdie's idea about LOTR: Tolkien has made it quite clear that there is good and bad in everybody. Take Gollum for example: the perfect example of someone tossed between good and evil. Even the Orcs are not completely bad, although this idea seems a bit gone on the film version of LOTR.
What are your opinions about this? Has Mr Rushdie understood LOTR at all?

I agree with Rushdie. Despite that there are some who struggle and are overcome with temptation (like Gollum, Denethor and Boromir) there is a distinct line drawn between good and evil. Any semblance of evil in a person is because that external evil has come into their lives, which is a great moral statement about good vs evil.

The characters who are good are wholly good in their nature despite the possible corruption that may occur. The evil are evil with no redeeming qualities to them.

This, I feel, is the difference between something like LoTR and Harry Potter.

[Ithrynluin]

I also agree with Rushdie. TLOTR (and other works by J.R.R.) is very black & white, except for those few characters that waver, but ultimately pick one of these sides (Saruman - evil, Boromir - good, etc...). This is not the case in life of course, there are endless shades of grey in people, I don't believe that any one person belongs WHOLLY to the white or WHOLLY to the black.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy Tolkien's work, quite the contrary- I admire and even worship it to some extent. I just see the black & white of LOTR as an idealized vision of the world.

[faila]

im not sure about tolkiens works, but i believe here on earth their are good and bad. Obviously their are levels of good and bad, but a line can be drawn, their are no in between. So the president may be wrong in saying all those who arent for us are bad, yet at the sametime he may be right.

[FoolOfATook]

The response, I think, to the rather common criticism that Tolkien's work is too morally polarized, is that the good characters of LOTR can imagine being evil- Gandalf and Galadriel are the two most obvious examples, while the evil characters (with the exception of Gollum) have either forgotten how to be "good" completely, or never even imagined the possibility of being "good".