But I think that's part of the point. It's not particularly personally challenging to explore the mind of an evil so great that it is utterly untempting to you. Very few of us are (thankfully) ever going to face the temptation to be Stalin. But facing and exploring all the little sins and selfishnesses that you…

I wasn't. The original poster said all of Tolkien's characters had no personalities.

I think it was pointed out. They apparently had a "haters" video up at one point. So, some hope for humanity?

I thought he said interesting things about the love of country/culture and patriotism in The Four Loves. Didn't agree with all of it, but he had some good points about how love of this kind gets warped.

Thorin was. And Gimli.

Good point. Air Force probably seems less romantic from directly below.

He was totally stuffy and old fashioned. He had this weird intense dislike of the Air Force for example…

And yet, though they've supposedly wanted this "for decades" they've only gotten around to it now…

True, but they aren't so childishly comical. I don't think Tolkien was against comedy so much as infantilization. He hated Victorian cuteness in fairytales for example.

Tolkien's religiosity seemed very inward from what I could tell. When it came up in his letters for example it was mostly directed at his own conduct. He differed a lot from Lewis in that sense. Not the Lewis didn't consider himself, but Tolkien didn't delve much into apologetics and I think it was because he had…

The current effort to eviscerate the EPA? Immigration policy? The connection is as strong as the tenuous one you've drawn to Maddow.

Maybe not them. But that's different from "all" his characters. Feanor's selfish, destructive genius and co-dependency with his father is definitely a "personality." Merry's intelligence and curiosity are different from Pippin's impulsive thoughtlessness.

He was? He seemed like a pretty nice guy.

So Trump let's whoever he is listening to at the moment make policy but we're not supposed to care that he listens to Alex Jones? And Trump just listens to him at random and not because he's been directed there by the shadowy people who make the policy for him?

All classic children's lit describes food in loving detail. It's an odd little wrinkle about writing for kids. Think of Harry Potter and all those feasts in the early books…

I read his letters. He seemed like a nice guy who loved a very specific corner of literature and history.

We must not have read the same books.

Did these people actually read the essays the authors wrote on fairytales? One of the things Tolkien resented was that the fantastical was so often side-lined into childishness and comedy. That it was seen as something adults shouldn't like. I don't think it had anything to do with commercialism per se.

Really? I thought that was brilliant. How evil expresses itself in the silly petty lives of people who think they are "good people."

You think we're positioning troops on the Russian border because of Maddow? I suspect it's because Russia is a super-power with conflicting interests. The notion that we'd be in a different place if we just left scary, old Russia alone is loony.