#related tag:

[child-of-hurin]

Outside of the faithful/kings men/Sauron situation is there even much explicit religion in there? “Earendil/Aragorn/Frodo is Middle Earth’s Jesus” isn’t that literally eru, think it’s in the athrabeth

Anon, I have so much on my mind about this topic in general, it really became a full ramble and I'm not sure this is useful to anyone besides me. These are my thoughts:

I don't think there is a Jesus-like figure anywhere in Middle Earth, at least not in a way that matters. The son of god, born from a virgin, who teaches a new doctrine, gathers apostles and is betrayed by one of them, goes though abuse and murder by the hands of the state, redeems mankind from original sin by his death, then is reborn three days later; is alive in heaven waiting at the end of time to judge mankind. That's Christ. You don't get that in Tolkien, in fact you don't even get anything remotely resembling the framework that would allow such a figure to arise.

We can see traces of a framework akin to 'original sin' in some extra-canon stuff, like in the tale of Adanel, and some references Andreth makes in the Athrabeth. In the tale of Adanel, Men fall into thrall of Melkor and thus invent, among other things, slavery, and, as punishment, lose their immortality/long life. This is undeniably a narrative of "fall". If you incorporate it in your understanding of the Legendarium, even if not as a cosmological truth, but as a story that exists within the story and that is part of Edain culture, then it's really very easy to imagine that much later, in Númenor, that lost mortality is what the King's Men, their descendants, are trying to reclaim.

This is not, like, /completely incompatible/ with the published Silm, it's just irrelevant: the published text puts immortality as something the Dunedain covet and decide to conquer by force, and associate with the material Aman, not something they think originally belonged to them, that they are reclaiming. King's Men do not understand themselves cosmologically as "fallen men" -- on the contrary, they are men on the rise.

Middle earth has no Jesus, Middle earth needs no jesus, because there is no original sin in Middle Earth. Noldor have more of a narrative of "fall", but even so it's sketchy at best, and their "redemption" doesn't come from Jesus. I mean: Earendil isn't sent bu Eru to die for the sins of the Noldor after teaching them a better doctrine. Earendil is not even Earendil, he is Earendil and Elwing.

There isn't much religion explicit in Tolkien's legendarium in the sense of an organized religion with rites, but I'm also not sure how much it is fair to dissociate magic and lore in M.E. from religion. Some 'religions' in this world have no gods or worship. Many amerindians, for example, have an extremely complex and ritualized, even political, cosmology -- is it religion? Is it religion when a shaman has a spiritual conversation with a leopard? But going further: is it religion to believe in ghosts? In the evil eye? That fasting and positive thinking can cure cancer? etc. IRL the key "religion" needs to be conceptualized every time we open a discussion about a specific topic; it is a conceptual tool, right? So I think to talk about "religion" in Middle Earth we first need to assess what we are trying to discuss, and conceptualize "religion" and its opposite, "secular". If Middle Earth is not Religious, then is it Secular?

You see my point? Like, I'm not trying to be difficult: I don't think there is religion in the Legendarium in any analogue sense to Christianity, period. The closest thing we have to christian religion in the Silm is Sauron's temple to Melkor in Númenor (lol!).

But at the same time, Tolkien populates his world with a historian's understanding of lore, the past, and by consequence, the future. Aragorn talking about Beren and Lúthien is, at the same time, history, art, folklore, AND a spiritual belief in a certain afterlife, a certain organization of the cosmos and of life. When Sam sings about stars in Cirith Ungol, is that a prayer? What do you think?

It's funny to me that I'm complicating this when it would serve me better to just tell you: there is no religion in Tolkien! Because I am an atheist and because I am bothered by fans who, in their eagerness to defeat Christianity, end up shoehorning it where it literally has no place.

[child-of-hurin]

source with title and brief description of works in this post

Gwen Raverat (British, 1885-1957)

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[drakenathan]

[reikacchan]

don't give up

[aphel1on]

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

[professionallyunstable]

so i started to think about some stuff. never doing that again.

[celesteablack]

The secret to being a private person is to overshare dumb shit so people think you are an open book but then not tell them any of the important details of your life.

[nothatsmi]

The foxhole court, chapter five

First books monsters were something really.

On an aftg reread, which is very useful to survive school these days. Currently into the raven king, i'll make more fanart cause this brings me so much joy (which - idk what it tells about my mental state). If you have suggestions on what I should draw next I'm taking em.

[ebi-noodle-doodles]

Miku art compilation

Commissions open: xixiriima.carrd.co

[notherpuppet]

@/coma_0423’s cursed cat alastor will bring you happiness ♥️

Lulu scolds the cat

[kenchann]

🎤🎶.

[the-chosen-half-of-one]

[nyanrial]

making little snowmen ⛄⛄

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[mangozic]

archivist be upon ye