Theologically (if the term is not too grandiose) I imagine the picture to be less dissonant from what some (including myself) believe to be the truth. But since I have deliberately written a tale, which is built on or out of certain ‘religious’ ideas, but is not an allegory of them (or anything else), and does not mention them overtly, still less preach them, I will not now depart from that mode, and venture on theological disquisition for which I am not fitted. But I might say that if the tale is ‘about’ anything (other than itself), it is not as seems widely supposed about ‘power.’ Power-seeking is only the motive-power that sets events going, and is relatively unimportant, I think. It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the ‘escapes’: serial longevity, and hoarding memory.

(Letter, Oct. 14, 1958, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Rhona Beare)

I’ll have to admit that I’ve always thought that The Lord of the Rings was about the temptations of Power, but Tolkien himself says, in more than one letter in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (which I continue to read), that the story is about death.

Sauron (if I remember correctly) is a Valar, an incarnate angelic being (fallen in his case). He is not the equivalent of Satan, but of a powerful lesser demon. A creature like he (again, if I understand it right) would ordinarily live till the end of the world. But Sauron, as a repeated rebel, has been “killed” and reborn more than once. He knows, or suspects, that if he’s killed again, he’s not coming back in Middle Earth – and he has no reason for hope where his spirit is going after that. He’s struggling to stay alive, even in the hellscape he’s made for himself in Mordor.

Smeagol has been enslaved by the One Ring, and was given (or suffered) extended life thereby – but the life the Ring imparts is not wholesome. Bilbo, who experiences the same thing, says he feels “stretched.” It’s an addiction too – as the pleasure decreases, the craving grows.

Aragorn, on the other hand, who was granted a very long life through his Numenorean blood, will voluntarily lay down his life before it runs out completely. This is regarded as a noble act (not, I’m confident, comparable in any way with assisted suicide).

The elves regard human death as a gift. It’s a mystery to them, but they envy it in a curious way.

These are matters worth pondering, for a man who, like me, is growing old. I can’t say that my whole Erling Saga is about death, but The Baldur Game certainly is. And I was aware of that before I read these letters.