Leftists will be corrupted by the power of private property and refuse to destroy it, but then liberals, fascism, and climate change will foolishly grab for it and lead to its destruction?
Doesn't track for me
It kind of works as an allegory for well-intentioned socdems being radicalized into becoming actual leftists by watching how openly monstrous and ruinous liberals become as their system is placed under strain. The leftist distrust and opposition to liberals isn't idealistic, but rather is built on paying attention to history and looking past all the prevarication to the actual actions being done. Some people need to see that in action for themselves before they start to understand why leftists take the positions they do.
Nobody alone has the will to relinquish temporal power, but seeing someone else be destroyed by that power helps us remember our cause.
I think it's more like even the most ideologically committed and true Leftists will never be able to destroy the material reality of private property while benefiting from the comfort its power provides under capitalism (and presumably especially while within the imperial core, here it being Mordor where it was literally impossible to destroy the One while inside Mt. Doom). Instead liberals will inadvertantly destroy private private property by accidentally and inevitably plunging into fascism and climate change due to their very love of, and desire to maintain, private property itself. Thus, leaving a space open for us in the subsequent rupture.
I still don't think it makes much sense since fascism won't destroy private property or capitalism per se, just the mask of liberal bourgeois democracy, and climate change may kill us all off entirely which is also not great.
But Leftist LotR meme good.
Frodo is the global north leftist who won't give up material comfort built on the liberal order, while Sam, the real hero, is offscreen being the global South working class, beaten unconscious with a rock but without whom the revolution wouldn't have been possible.
I know It doesn't make any sense, too.
Not your point but Frodo is the real hero and martyr of LotR, it literally wouldn't be possible to destroy the Ring without him. Sam is great but Frodo is the GOAT.
Do @ me your bad, anti-Frodo takes. I'm a staunch Frodo enthusiast.
Lol I really have no horse in the race... I think the whole point of LOTR and most of Tolkien's work is about fate and doom: that things couldn't have happened any other way than the way they did. Done by a lesser author, it would've been kind of bullshit, but he manages to make it about what it is to be immersed in fate, to have its weight on your shoulders, and how it changes you.
It's far more interesting to see the character's reactions to this underlying force, how people grow, how they build and reinforce relationships, the scars and after effects of being thrown in the whirlwind of fate, and having come out of it alive. The ring couldn't have been destroyed without the fellowship, and they all paid the price, even with their lives, like Boromir. Sam and Frodo are good characters, but what to me makes the books is their relationship, the love they share for each other, and the unfailing courage they have, that couldn't have existed if either was on their own.
Agree that Frodo is the protagonist, the hero, and it's really interesting you call him the martyr, because it's really fitting. Frodo burned in the fire of being a ring bearer because he had ultimate faith in the cause, even if it was sprung on him unwillingly.
Oh, I completely agree with all of that. I'm just triggered by Samfans that can only praise Sam by disparaging Frodo. Hate that shit, to be honest.
I love Sam but no one could've done what Frodo did with the Ring, according to Tolkien himself, and no one could've cared for and been totally loyal towards Frodo the way Sam was, but it's a different strength and accomplishment.
I do think the movies made Frodo look a certain way that makes people think he's a useless idiot or something but the books definitely always made me feel like Frodo was an extremely tragic martyr.
Then I was glad to be with you. Here at the end of all things.
