Middle Earth was a place where we Tolkien fans had our own elitism. At the school I went to as a teenager in the early 1980’s, there were probably 1600 – 1800 students in attendance. I would say that there were probably 20 – 30 students there who had read Tolkien and played roll playing games. It was a secret club whose members all knew each other. My closest friends were from this group and we will always be members of this club. Stephanie Zacharek (I hope I spelled her name correctly) wrote in Salon.com that she was afraid that this film was going to be a film for Tolkien fanatics. Well Ms. Zacharek doesn’t seem to have realized that the movie would have gone nowhere if it would have been accessible solely to the fanatics. There just aren’t that many of us out there.

And what about those early attempts at trying to bring Tolkien to the Silver Screen? It’s well known that Tolkien had sold his film rights to LOTR in 1968. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, one letter, dated September 7,1957, tells of his reaction to an animated film offer for LOTR being made to him, so we know that from the “get go” that people were interested in making a film rendition of LOTR.

In 1978, Ralph Bashki made a stab at making an animated film of the first half of LOTR. It was a stab in the dark. Bashki used some of the better effects that were available at the time to try to pull off the making of the film, but viewing it now would surely reveal the film’s age. More to the point, there were a lot of real story related issues that made the film seem lame. The film was a 2 hour effort which attempted to cover roughly the first half of LOTR, ending with the Battle of the Hornburg. The film, if I remember properly, left out Bombadil and Old Willow, just as Jackson has done. It’s explanation of how Middle Earth got into the mess it was in was terrible. More to the point, the film seemed to trivialize Tolkien’s work, and that my friends is the Ultimate True Unpardonable Cardinal Sin that anyone who dares try to make a film of LOTR could commit !!! We were, and always will be, the keepers of the Secret Fire.


Nonetheless, not all was lost from Bashki’s efforts. Very few now seem to know or remember that there was a cool booklet that viewers received when they went to see the movie. Too bad I eventually lost mine. More importantly, I came away convinced that any future film rendition of LOTR would have to be at least 10 - 12 hours long with, perhaps, 1 hour or so of explanation buried within the film to have half a chance of telling the story properly. Forget about the details all of you Balrog Wingers, those type of concerns are not important. What is important is trying to capture the majesty of Tolkien’s work on screen and to do that that you need Screen Time! Using that type of reasoning, I also dwelled on how the background explanation was set up in Bashki’s film, and I came away thinking that how one filled in the background to the story for those millions who haven’t read the books (or who perhaps read them years ago and had forgotten them) was much more important to any LOTR film than showing whether the Balrog had wings (notice the small “w”) or not. Ultimately, I came away thinking all those years ago that LOTR simply could not be filmed. The story was too long, too boring, or would not be able to capture the imagination of the movie viewing public, much less be able to do the special effects needed to do the film properly. Not for the first time did I misjudge the ambitions of my fellow men …

In the meantime, I found a bit of solace with respect to Middle Earth in the fact that a board game, called War of the Ring came out about this time. The game was a 2 or 3 player game where players could play either (1) the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, (2) The Dark Lord's forces along with Saruman's forces in Isengard, or (3) alternately a third player could simply play Saruman. The board game was played on a hexagonal board superimposed with a map of Middle Earth on it. Players alternated turns and each turn represented one week of the years 3018 - 3019 of the Third Age. There were event cards that were drawn by players on each turn which could be played or held from play. For example, there was a card labelled "Ents Vent Rage" which could be played by the Free People's / Fellowship player against either the Dark Lord player or the Saruman player that could be used in Army combat or to Reduce Isengard to ashes.

The game had pieces that represented characters in the story as well as pieces that represented armies of various sizes. Some armies were on foot, while others were on horseback. Individual character pieces could, in most cases, lead armies into combat. Such characters had ratings which represented their ability to lead armies in battle. At the start of the game, all players had relatively small armies under their control. This state of affairs changed as the game moved on for a number of reasons. In the case of the Saruman and Dark Lord players, their armies would automatically mobilize at certain points in the game. Event cards could also determine whether players could mobilize their armies. If certain key characters, such as Gandalf, entered certain realms, such as Rohan or Gondor, then those realms would automatically mobilize their armies.

What about victory and defeat? For the Sauron / Dark Lord player, if that player found the One Ring and transported the Ring back to Baradur successfully, then that player automatically won the game. The Dark Lord could also win the game via a military victory where the Dark Lord essentially overran Gondor, Rohan, Lorien, Rivendell, the Shire, and a few other sundry places. The Saruman player could potentially win the game if Saruman successfully obtained the Ring. What would then happen is that on each successive turn, one Nazgul would "defect" to the Saruman character until all of the Nine defected to Saruman. At that point, Saruman would be deemed to win the game. The Fellowship player could win the game by (of course) destroying the One Ring, or by holding out (or defeating) the military forces of the other player(s).

Each character had a set of attributes that belonged to that character. Magic Items were represented as cards, and items could be distributed in ways other than those listed in LOTR. In other words, Sting could go to somebody other than Frodo. Monsters in the story were also represented by cards, and they too did not necessarily need to be located where they were in the story. You might have encountered Shelob in Moria, or the Balrog outside of Moria.

So, how did the game play test? Amongst my friends, we must have played the game perhaps 25 times. In general, the game was in the Fellowship / Free People’s favor, especially if that player could mobilize his / her armies before the Sauron / Saruman players could. The main reason for this was that armies that were defending all fortresses or citadels fought at a level that was three times their actual combat strength. For example, if the Dark Lord was trying to storm Minas Tirith with 600 army units of strength, the Fellowship player could defend Minas Tirith with 200 army units and the battle would be even. Army combat outcomes were decided by dice rolls where players looked up on tables what percentage of units they lost in battle. Players could break off combat or fight to the death. What all of this meant in general was that the Dark Lord player, despite having a large superiority in forces, would have to have some luck to win the game via a military victory because there were such a large number of citadels to storm. The Fellowship player also possessed enough player characters (such as Aragorn, Gandalf, Theoden, Faramir, etc) whose magic items, individual strength in character combat, and in leading armies into combat often were able to make a difference. On the other hand, the Saruon / Dark Power player usually had to rely on a strategy where they simply guarded Mount Doom in an effort to prevent any Fellowship character from approaching the volcano with The One Ring.

What finally spoiled War of the Ring for me was the same thing that spoiled many other games for me – the potential for cheating. Some people I played with had a tendency to turn the game in their favor by doing things such as shuffling or stacking the Event cards in their favor, or using weighted dice so that they could get favorable dice rolls. Not too much fun all of that.

As Time wore on, I faced a new problem with reading fantasy which I came to see was the same problem that I faced with playing wargames: I was now an Adult. My perspective on Life was changing. What about my Career? What about Women, Babies, Shelter and all of that? Like it or not, all of these questions demanded answers – answers that were not likely to be found in the pages of Fantasy books or in playing Games. Some who know me well could argue that I have not even entirely answered such questions fairly or squarely, but that is another set of issues all together.

My reading changed. I started reading about issues of this world. I have gotten involved in political issues here and there. In the past 4-5 years, I have leaned more and more towards reading World History, the Classics, and some Philosophy. Nonetheless, even in my adulthood, I found myself on a few occasions still turning to Tolkien. I have read the stories perhaps 3 - 4 times in the past 15 years.

One thing that has changed about my attitude towards the story is my attitude towards the various characters in the story. As time has worn on, I find myself attracted more towards the villains in LOTR, particularly Saruman and Denethor.

I am attracted to Denethor because it has become clear to me that Denethor is someone who wants the world to stay the same. He wants Gondor left in peace and he wanted to keep the Stewards of Gondor in power. Of course we know these things aren’t happening, as Gandalf himself tells the men of Minas Tirith as he enters their city before the city falls under attack. I have also thought much about Denethor because a very close boyhood friend of mine committed suicide in May 1999. I had not seen him in some years, so I only have some ideas as to why he may have done it. Nonetheless, the character of Denethor resonates with me.

I wish Tolkien had written more about Saruman. One of my favorite stories Tolkien ever wrote about Middle Earth was found in his Unfinished Tales edited by his son Christopher. The story is called The Hunt for the Ring and concerns the efforts of the Nazgul to try to gain the Ring in T.A. 3018. Tolkien writes that Gandalf was giving an account to Frodo after the War of the Ring of their movements.

There are several different versions of the story. But they contain accounts of where the Nine are told by Sauron to ride to Isengard because Sauron thinks that Saruman might know where the One Ring is. The Nine halt before the Gates of Isengard and the Witch – King issues threats. Saruman sees them at the Gates and projects his great oratory powers via ventriloquism to convince the Nine to go away. He uses a combination of truth and lies to do so (depending on which version of the story Tolkien wanted to be the truth), but not everyone has the power to convince the Nine to go away and leave them alone.

I have often been tempted to write some of my own fan fiction of Middle Earth using Saruman in his days of greatness. It would illustrate how much more there was to Middle Earth (Tolkien seldom wrote about the Rhun and other areas East), and I would strive to write it in such a way as to show how far Saruman fell in his last years. I have often been upset that Tolkien wrote almost entirely about Saruman’s downfall and not of his greatness.

I would read LOTR because it would be a mood I found myself in. When I lived in China, the trusty Ballantine Books went with me, and boy was that a good decision. Visiting Middle Earth was especially poignant when I was in China because living in Zhouxian often felt like living in a kind of prison. As conservative humorist P.J.O’ Roarke has accurately pointed out in a number of his writings, what the West discovered when Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe was that these regimes turned their own lands into a kind of Mordor. Well folks, as you may be able to see through looking at some of my photos of Zhouxian, the Chinese Communist regime has also done a pretty good job in matching the deeds of its fellow Communist regimes by turning the Middle Kingdom into its own Mordor as well.

Zhouxian Mordor was my home for 17 months in the World’s Largest Insane Asylum - complete with citizens who often seemed to have no cares or no life, just as Sauron’s slaves did not. Pay us all the same wages and we’ll pretend to work hard for the good of China. Even on clear and sunny days, the sun and sky seemed murky and dusty. The streets, replete with dust blowing in from the distant Gobi Desert as well as from soil erosion, were swept by little old ladies wearing face masks twice a day. The buildings were brown, drab, and often in dire need of a wash. The Chinese wore clothes that were functional, but never colorful. The water always was suspect and we had to boil it everyday. After a while, I had to get rid of my boiling pots because they crusted over with minerals which made the water gummy and hard to drink. I literally walked into the dwellings of some Chinese who were living in single rooms that seemed more like dungeons. Piles of coal often littered the streets and nearby businesses. When I ran workouts, I often would come back and blow my nose – only to find that the mucus coming out was of a blackish color. Thick smoke bellowed directly into the air just as it did in Tolkien’s England. No Clean Air Acts or Emissions Trading here – or at least no Acts that were being enforced. Nearby ponds were so replete with scum that it seemed that one could walk on their surfaces. Turn on the water for a hot shower and … no water comes out. When the Small things in Life are not working, that’s when you know that the Big things are really fucked up.

On the surface, one might think that what was needed was for the Ents to come in and clean out Isengard, but what was (and still is) really needed is for the One Ring to be destroyed. Of course, in this context, the One Ring is being wielded by the Chinese Communist Party and the CCP is none too interested in seeing the Ring reach Mount Doom.

Tolkien's political views have, of course, been the subject of much talk amongst the political punditry and chattering classes since Jackson's movie came out. I have enjoyed watching all of this with some relish. At a surface level, all sides of the political spectrum can make some claim that Tolkien is really one of them. Conservatives speak about Tolkien's Christianity, while Libertarians play up the fight of the Free People's for their freedom from tyranny. American Liberals can take solace in Tolkien's writings about Sauron's (and Saruman's) torture of the environment.


The good news for people like me (I am Libertarian by the way) is that although all of these views are in fact true, they can just as easily be countered by other aspects of Tolkien's writing. Conservatives may take solace in Tolkien's words that LOTR is "fundamentally a Christian and Catholic work", but in fact there is much Paganism in the work. Gandalf may have resurrected as Jesus had, but Gandalf was also patterned after Odin in the Norse mythology in his physical appearance. Libertarians may rejoice about Liberty, but Republics there aren't in Middle Earth. Kings and Bloodlines are what count in Tolkien's world, and even the good guys sometimes claim and conquer lands that weren't originally theirs (Gondor anyone?). Liberals may applaud Tolkien's seeming environmentalism, but they also get black eyed by the concentration of centralized power that is represented by Sauron, the Ring, and Mordor. American Liberals have always (and always will be) really ambivalent about America's Constitution, with all of that dispersed and atomized power everywhere. It's awfully hard to nationalize the rest of America's health care system with all of those pesky Republicans and interest groups in your way - even if you know better than the public does (of course you do, why else would you be a modern day Liberal?) what's good for them.

Since I am on the subject of Tolkien and political rule, I can’t help but slip in some real down to earth jibes at all of this: Since Tolkien’s work is meant to be grandiose and awe - inspiring, many ordinary everyday grubby details of living in Middle Earth are swept under the rug. Galadriel wanted her own realm to rule in Middle Earth. Fair enough. She is one of the Great and Beautiful, so maybe she should rule. But do we see her – say - issuing ordinances prohibiting the cutting of Mallorn trees between January and April? What are the penalties if her Elves disobey her? How much does Haldir get paid for guarding the borders of Lorien? Are there promotional opportunities? After all guarding borders can get boring after a while and Elves do have a lot of time of their hands. And do we see the Denethor telling his bureaucrats to do a better job at cleaning up horse manure on the ancient streets of Minas Tirith? Do we see Aragorn (or for that matter Orcs and Trolls) go to the bathroom in the Wild? Of course not. Just a thought!

But I digress again. Why is it that I laugh while watching the pundits strain to grab for Tolkien's hand? The real reason is because Tolkien belongs to all of us, and since Tolkien belongs to all of us, he also belongs to none of us. Tolkien was above all a simple storyteller. No Allegories - remember!

People are often bewildered after reading LOTR. What is this book all about anyway? In my view, the real genius of LOTR is that Middle Earth itself is the story. Middle Earth is indeed so broad and LOTR is so strong a story (in my view - I do have other criticisms of LOTR) that everyone can claim some aspect of it as his or her own in their everyday lives and for rest of us the story itself will indeed remain unharmed.


                   
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