#also to be really pedantic i'm pretty sure some of the direct quotes op mentions are from movies and not the book

[fangirl-erdariel]

To be fair to him, I'm pretty sure what Tolkien was saying was not "the events of my life did not influence my writing ever in any way whatsoever" but rather "my stories are not a direct allegory of events in the real world that one cannot understand or meaningfully engage with without awareness of those events, and I'd appreciate it if you'd take five minutes to appreciate the story for its own sake rather than trying to find specific real-world equivalents for every single fucking thing in these books", which are two very different things.

Like, I mean, in the foreword of LOTR, he very much says: "An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience", and then goes on at some length about experiences that, I would say from that context, he is implicitly admitting influenced his story. Including the wars! He is not denying that those affected the story he told. What he's saying is that they were an influence of his writing in a more complicated and roundabout way, rather than LOTR being directly and specifically an allegory to/fantasy-flavored retelling of either WWII or WWI, and pointing out that there were like, you know, also other events in his life besides the war that influenced his story.

Like, if Jirt had actually been saying that the wars he lived through had no influence whatsoever on his stories, yes, I would certainly be calling bullshit too. But as far as I can tell, that just is not what he said. And on what he did actually say, personally I do have to agree with him - books can be influenced by things without being about those things, and while it is interesting to look at Tolkien's work within the context of his life and his experience, they are no less meaningful and interesting as stories in their own right outside of that very specific historical context.

(Honestly I'd be pretty annoyed too if I spent 10+ years writing a huge mythical fantasy story, set in an elaborate world I'd spent decades on spinning into being and weaving a whole net of interesting interconnecting fates for its characters, and it got published and got popular but then everyone would be insisting that it's solely and specifically an allegory to, idk, the covid-19 pandemic or me getting bullied as a kid or the rise of far-right groups and growing geopolitical instability in Europe or whatever the fuck. Like, bitch, no, those sure may have influenced my mindset and worldview and what I think makes for a believable and interesting world for the story be happening in, but that doesn't mean I was telling a story specifically about any of those events in themselves)

J. R. R. Tolkien: no, my books aren't about the war I experienced. It's just a story

J. R. R. Tolkien's works: you cannot go home, war ends entire bloodlines, you are mourning the death of your brother alone, you dug into the earth and permanently scored the land, you cannot explain what you have been through, you cannot go home, "that wound will never fully heal. He will carry it the rest of his life", leaving the women behind does not save them, the young die first, you cannot go home, the parent will bury their child, you have lost the wives and you will never connect with them again, "how shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?", you are not the same, you cannot go home, you can never go home, your father will only side with those he sees as worthy bloodlines and you cannot change his mind, it is more meaningful Not to kill, sometimes your sacrifice accomplishes nothing, you cannot go home