Lord of the Rings is driven by grief. Every step forward means leaving something behind, and the friendships and sacrifices that matter most are precious because they don't last. Tolkien balances fantasy's hopeful tone with a dark current of loss and impermanence.
The thing that really strikes me the most about Lord of the Rings is everything in it circles around this grief and sorrow and this sort of idea that for every step we take forward, we leave something behind. It's something that kind of stops me in my tracks every time I think about it. And no story I've ever read besides this really captures that for me. And it's funny because this is such a Like a hallmark of the very positive fantasy, but it could go dark so, so quickly because it's kind of about the diminishing returns and how we're always looking backwards. But he hits so hard on, that means the things that are happening right now matter so much more because they're not infinite, and because the people that we're with and the things that we carry aren't gonna last forever. So we have to admire them and appreciate them. And I always find that so relevant.
