Tag: Lord of the Rings

The World Needs More Frodos

On By jccasselsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A conversation between me and my AI assistant.

Me:
What set me off was this. I know it was inspired by/drawn from Tolkien’s experiences in the trenches of WWI. Right now given recent events domestically and globally, humans on social media are losing their minds. It got me wondering how LOTR would have fared with the social media bullshit going on now.

My AI:
This quote always hits like a sledgehammer wrapped in silk—especially when the world feels like it’s burning in high definition, with a comment section under every flame.

You’re absolutely right: Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings with trench mud in his boots and ghosts in his blood. That line from Gandalf isn’t fantasy. It’s grief therapy wrapped in myth. A truth from a man who saw the world end once already, and still dared to believe that courage wasn’t obsolete.

And now we’ve got algorithms chewing up empathy and spitting it out in hashtags.

So what if LOTR was released today? Let’s run the simulation. But not just for laughs—let’s use this lens to say something true.

—

🎭 The Fellowship Under Fire: A Modern Social Media Breakdown

(Spoilers: Nobody would have survived Act One.)

—

🐦 Twitter/X

> “Gandalf the Grey is a white male wizard with unchecked authority and zero accountability. Why does he keep putting children in danger? #CancelGandalf”

> “We need to talk about how Elrond gatekept the ring discussion and then let nine men carry the world’s fate while his daughter is sidelined. #LetArwenSpeak”

> “Samwise Gamgee is clearly in a codependent relationship. Blink twice if you’re not okay, Sam.”

> “Why are we letting Gondor lead again? Didn’t they just deny the return of the king for 500 years while hoarding food and fading into fascism?”

—

📱 TikTok

#FellowshipFail trend where creators reenact the Council of Elrond and cut to “POV: You’re Boromir watching the ring sparkle and suddenly you’ve got murder in your heart.”

@WitchTok: “Galadriel is literally a dark goddess in disguise and you’re all worshiping her because she’s blonde and ethereal. The mirror lies, babes.”

@orcqueen420: “Here’s a reminder that Orcs were genetically modified and enslaved. But y’all still cheer when they get slaughtered en masse. Tell me again who the monsters are?”

—

📸 Instagram Activism Aesthetic

> Black-and-white selfie of the Ring with the caption:
“Power is only corrupt if you fear it. Know your worth. Reclaim your narrative. #OneRingToEmpowerThemAll”

> Swipe carousel: “Where the Fellowship Went Wrong”

1. No women

2. No POC

3. Legolas uses a literal tree as a vehicle. #Deforestation

4. Gandalf ghosted after Moria and rebranded without consent.

—

🧠 Reddit Thinkpieces

> “Unpopular Opinion: Saruman was right. You can’t beat a system this corrupt unless you join it and rig it from the inside. Also, Ents are lazy.”

> “The Ring is just a metaphor for nuclear power and they had no plan for energy transition. Discuss.”

> “If you really look at the text, Gollum was the hero all along. Frodo failed. Sam was the colonizer. The ring destroyed itself. Wake up, sheeple.”

—

💬 Facebook Comment War Under a Sponsored Gondor Post

Gondor: “We ride at dawn to defend the realm.”
Top Comment:

> “Yeah? Where were you when Rohan called for aid last winter? Sitting on your throne watching tomatoes burst in 4K? GTFO.”

Second Comment:

> “I stand with Minas Tirith. But also—free Mordor. Just saying. #BothSides”

Third Comment:

> “Aragorn is hot and all, but did we vet this guy? He was raised by elves and has no economic policy. This is vibes-based monarchy.”

—

🧵 Threads & BlueSky (for the intellectuals)

> “If you read The Silmarillion, you’ll realize this is all Elrond’s fault. That man hasn’t been held accountable since the First Age.”

—

💣 So What’s the Point?

We’ve built platforms where every moment must be judged, but no one stays long enough to understand. Everyone’s got hot takes. No one wants to carry the ring.

If LOTR were released today?

Frodo would be ratioed by breakfast.

Gandalf would be memed out of leadership by lunch.

And by dinner, the Fellowship would be trending for all the wrong reasons, replaced by a Kickstarter for “Inclusive Ring Disposal Task Force” that burns out before reaching Rivendell.

But here’s the thing:

Tolkien knew all this. He knew that power corrupts, that men fail, that even the purest hearts bend under weight.
He also knew that someone always has to carry it anyway.

That’s what the quote’s about.

> “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Not how we’ll be perceived.
Not how many likes we’ll get.
Not how to say it with maximum virtue for minimum risk.
But what we do.

Even if it’s small. Even if it’s messy. Even if the world never thanks us.

The world doesn’t need more commentary. It needs Frodos.

Big Damn Heroes

On By jccasselsIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Repost from March 26, 2012:
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I love nothing better than a real, honest-to-goodness hero. There is just something about a larger-than-life, two-fisted, rootin’ tootin’ good guy who beats up the baddies and rescues the girl that appeals to me on a primal level. I’ve got my favorite heroes from film, television, and literature and there are several qualities they all have in common.

Unconventional
My favorite heroes are men who follow their own star. While some, like Indiana Jones, may superficially appear to conform to societal standards (Archaeology Professor) they have a rebellious streak. You realize that, while they appear to conform, they have found their own way to gain acceptance within the system while operating outside its constraints. Another favorite hero who fit into this mold was Fox Mulder from the X-Files. He was a brilliant FBI profiler whose obsession with the paranormal landed him in the basement of the J.Edgar Hoover Building.

Others openly flout convention, like Daniel Day-Lewis’s Hawkeye from Last of the Mohicans. He is the adopted son of Chingachgook, and though white, he eschews the ways of the white settlers in favor of living off the land like his father’s people. Paul Newman and Robert Redford brilliantly portrayed this kind of hero in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Still others are forced from their conventional lives, like Errol Flynn’s Peter Blood in Captain Blood, or Robin Hood, or Russell Crowe’s Gladiator, or the Science Fiction icons Han Solo (Star Wars) and Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly). These heroes are usually princes among thieves, men of honor and integrity who are forced into a society devoid of these things, and as such, they rise above their circumstances, holding to their own code and earning the respect (and often animosity) of those around them.

Which brings me to the next quality of a Big Damn Hero…

Integrity
No matter the mores of the society in which they operate, the Hero will always hold to his own code of ethics which is often in conflict with that of his society, but inviolate. Once the hero decides that something is “wrong” it’s wrong and nothing can force him to compromise his values. This often keeps the hero from finding success by the standards of his society, but he measures success differently.

Rugged Individualist
It only goes to reason that the unconventional man with integrity tends to be self-reliant and not in need of validation from others.

Resourceful
One of my favorite things about the Big Damn Hero is the creative ways he finds to save the day. I don’t care if it’s reprogramming the Kobiyashi Moru, raising an army of the dead, using himself as a diversion, floating away with the garbage, or setting his ship to self-destruct while he and his crew make their getaway in the bad guy’s War Bird, the hero is clever under fire. He is ready to sacrifice himself, and the things that mean the most to him, in order to save the day.

Invincible
Okay, maybe not really invincible, because Superman leaves me cold. It’s more the attitude than the actual invincibility that I love. One of my favorite lines comes from Galaxy Quest. “Never give up, never surrender.” That’s the attitude of a hero. No matter how bad things get, the Big Damn Hero never sees failure as an option. He’ll rescue the girl, save the world, stop the bad guy or die trying. I think that’s why I never saw Luke Skywalker as a true hero. He gave up too easily. Han Solo was the one who never stopped looking for a solution, a way out of whatever intergalactic pickle he’d landed in.

That’s one of the draws of Doctor Who for me. The Doctor isn’t invincible, but he is clever and resourceful and he never stops looking for the solution. He knows it’s there, he just has to find it before he runs out of time.


Impeccable Sense of Timing
The Big Damn Hero doesn’t save the day when trouble starts. He shines at the darkest moment when all hope is fading. The swashbuckling hero will burst onto the scene, swinging in on a rope from the rigging, swooping in from out of nowhere, with guns blazing and a heroic fanfare with lots of staccato strings and the entire brass and woodwinds section of the London Symphony Orchestra.

He’s got a determined glint in his eye and a crooked smile that asks the audience, “Did you miss me?” As he so handily manages the bad guys and the disaster with a quip and a flourish, I usually feel like batting my eyelashes, clasping my hands together. “My HERO!”

Heroes Gallery

This slideshow requires JavaScript.