Class consciousness and self-perpetuating inequality in "Lord of the Rings": a study in cultural imperialism

Or, Why Frodo Sucks

(Fragment of a scholarly treatise published by sociology researchers at the University of Rivendell)

----------------------

The story of the quest to destroy the One Ring, which is familiar to most of us, has recently been called into question as a perpetuation of upper-class repression theory. As well-known warrior hero Darius Longshore* was heard to remark recently, "You know what sucks about Tolkien? The basic message that nobody can succeed on their own and we all need our little servants to help us out."

Although this viewpoint may seem obvious, the startling theory has now been advanced that the quest of the Ring may have been hindered, and brought near failure at many points, by blind adherence to an outmoded class system. As Longshore noted, "Sam has to [deleted] CARRY Frodo most of the way up Mt. Doom, then when they finally get there, Frodo totally fails to do the ONE THING he was tasked to do in the entire [deleted] quest, and Gollum has to come along and bite his finger off."

The real lesson we learn from the story of the Quest is that the upper classes are about as useful as a broadsword made of cheese.** Inherited wealth or status is viewed as more important than ability, skill, intelligence, endurance, or having more than one brain cell. (For more on this topic, see the related volume entitled "How Some Guy Who Spent His Whole Life Knocking Around In The Woods By Himself Became Ruler Of The Free World".)

On examining the makeup of the Fellowship, we can see that only one person (Sam Gamgee) derives from the working classes. Of the rest, two are from royal families (Aragorn the heir of Isildur, and Legolas the son of King Thranduil), two are connected with the highest nobility of their races (Boromir of Gondor and Gimli who is related to the lords of Moria, the Lonely Mountain and the dwarf kingdoms of the north), three come from a high socioeconomic group among their people (Frodo Baggins, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took) and the last, Gandalf, may or may not be some sort of actual freaking god. Among such a company, it is truly remarkable that an uneducated gardener should be the single person who consistently makes all the right choices and saves the day time after time, insisting all the while in a hearty rural dialect that Master Frodo knows best.

It is now estimated that, in between being rescued by Tom Bombadil, being rescued by Glorfindel, being carried unconscious from the mines of Moria, being kidnapped by Faramir, being dragged across the Dead Marshes by Gollum, being poisoned by Shelob, being captured by orcs, being carried across Mordor by Sam, and finally being flown back to safety by eagles, the amount of time Frodo actually spent actively carrying out the quest under his own power was something in the nature of sixteen minutes. Moreover, fifteen of those minutes were spent in tortured internal debate about the problems of bearing this terrible burden all by himself.

This thesis proposes that the quest of the Ring would have cost less lives, taken far less time, and generally been safer in every way if Sam had just been given the ring in the first place, along with a firm lecture on self-esteem, a map of Mordor and a packed lunch. The other eight members of the Fellowship could then have stayed safely in Rivendell arguing about how old Gandalf really is, secure in the knowledge that the only really sensible person in the story would sort it all out and be back by next Tuesday at the latest.


*Or possibly an unknown person using his name.
** Although the world hardly needed more proof of this.