The Uplifted Heart– At West End Gallery
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!
–J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)
These were the final words of Thorin Oakenshield, the Dwarf King, to Bilbo Baggins as he lay dying after the Battle of the Five Armies, which was the conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil in The Hobbit. Thorin realizes in that moment that greed, much like his own dwarfish thirst for gold, was the cause of all the ills of the world, responsible for all the destructive wars of conquest. He understands that if the inhabitants of Middle Earth were all like Bilbo, leading simple, cheerful lives centered on the goodness of life, that evil would cease to exist.
Heroism, by extension, would no longer be necessary.
Tolkien wrote this in the mid 1930’s, during the rise of Fascism and Naziism in Europe, and the storyline mirrors that time.
That the world would be a better place without the overriding greediness for power and wealth that grips this planet might be a simplistic and unrealistic idea. It probably is.
But it is also an obvious truth and should remain fixed in our minds so that we might better recognize that type of thirst for domination when it raises its ugly head. Without it we are destined to never-ending repeats of the Battle of the Five Armies, where it will be us simple Hobbits who will have to screw up our courage and pay the price to once more quell those darker forces the face us.
It would be nice to not have to do this time and time again, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to focus on the simpler joys of this world? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to not need a hero except for those who pull kids out of burning buildings or cure disease?
I have no answers here, of course. Yeah, it would be great to not need heroes but the lust for power and wealth seems to be part of our DNA. Wish it weren’t so but we’re probably going to need more heroes in the near future. Most likely we’ll find that hero among those Hobbits forced at last to leave the comfort of their Hobbit holes. We surely won’t find that hero in Sauron’s Tower.
But it’s nice to think of a time when heroes are not needed. Sigh.
Here’s Tina Turner and her We Don’t Need Another Hero. You knew there was going to be a song, didn’t you?
Redtree Times 