> No. No. There is no allegory to LotR. None. Tolkien was quite clear on this. I was just going through my copy of Fellowship, and in his preface to my edition he rants about how much he despises allegory.

Whoops. My post accidentally got shut down when I was typing it, but I had addressed this issue in the original. I had meant to say that Tolkien said that he despised allegory (my words, coincidentally the same as yours) but how a reader could still find allegory present in the work. I suspect that Tolkien did this unintentionally (I doubt that he was a hypocrite) but he was a Christian, and so I suspect that the events of the story were influenced to some extent.

> It may so happen that LotR contains ideals that are *applicable* (Tolkien's term) to life, such as the importance of sacrifice, strength of character and the triumph of good over evil, but it was not intended to be read as an allegory of any sorts.

No argument here. I would try to get into the specifics why I thought some parts of the books were specifically allegorical, but it has been too long since I read them, and I wouldn't want to get any details wrong.

> Funny though. I just finished reading through the fourth Potter book, and I think that all those same ideals are lauded in Rowlings' series.

See, and this is why I refuse to judge the books before I read them.

> Stephen

Don Monkey