If The Lord of The Rings is a Cautionary Tale, Then it Was Lost on JD Vance

NYTimes

 

By Jamelle Bouie

The New York Times

It is just my luck that the week I was on vacation also happened to be one of the most consequential weeks in recent American political history. In addition to the attempt on Donald Trump’s life and the subsequent Republican National Convention, there was also President Biden’s decision to stand down from the presidential race and hand the baton to his vice president, Kamala Harris.

I have a lot of thoughts about all this, but for now, I want to talk about one of the minor characters in this saga — JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president.

That Vance, more than two weeks after the convention, is still in the public eye as a subject of controversy over his remarks condemning childless women is evidence enough that he is, so far, a burden to the Trump campaign and not an asset. But at the moment I am less interested in the ways that Vance has adopted the tropes of online “manosphere” influencers than I am in the stories he tells about himself and his ideology.

A few days after he received the nomination, Politico published a story on his deep affinity for “The Lord of the Rings,” the series of fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien that were adapted, about 20 years ago, into blockbuster fantasy epics. Vance has, according to Politico, “pointed to Tolkien’s high fantasy epics as a window into understanding his worldview.” 

Although Vance does not seem to specify the precise manner in which “The Lord of the Rings” has influenced his conservatism, his allies have taken it upon themselves to offer some explanation. “Vance’s appreciation of Tolkien is not unrelated to his conversion to Catholicism in 2019,” Luke Burgis, a professor at the Catholic University of America, said to Politico. “Of the many ways that Tolkien’s work exemplifies the Catholic imagination, one is the relationship between the visible and the invisible. I think it’s fair to say that Vance believes there is real spiritual evil in this world, and it can become embodied in rites and rituals.”

Vance, he continued, very likely took away from Tolkien “an apocalyptic frame of mind” reflecting the story’s concern with the battle between good and evil.

I am also a lifelong fan of Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings” and the wider world of Middle-earth. And if Burgis’s gloss does represent Vance’s views, then the Ohio senator has missed the point of the story.

As I’m sure many of you know, the quest that structures “The Lord of the Rings” is the quest to destroy the One Ring, the Ring of Power forged by Sauron and created to subjugate the peoples of Middle-earth. Contrary to what many people believe, the One Ring isn’t a MacGuffin; it isn’t an otherwise meaningless object that exists only to advance the plot. It is, instead, a real force in the world of the story. It is the essence of evil, a presence that can only poison and corrupt.

As the medievalist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey explains in “J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century,” “The ring is deadly dangerous to all its possessors: it will take them over, ‘devour’ them, ‘possess’ them.” Worse, this is not just a physical takeover: “There is no one who can be trusted to use it, even in the right hands, for good purposes: there are no right hands, and all good purposes will turn bad if reached through the ring.” 

Moreover, the ring has a will of its own, of a sort, and it uses that will to tempt those who might be attracted to its power. Drawn to the ring, Boromir sees a vision of glory for himself and Gondor as he uses the ring to overthrow Sauron and save his people. When Frodo, burdened by his task, offers Galadriel the Ring, she admits that she is tempted by its power. “I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I have pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands.” Even Gandalf, among the most powerful beings on Middle Earth, is not immune to its allure. “Do not tempt me!,” he says to Frodo, “For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself.”

The ring, in “The Lord of the Rings,” represents power in all of its terrible glory. And Tolkien’s message is clear: The will to power — the desire for power — is as dangerous and corrupting as power itself. (My colleague David French makes a similar observation in his newsletter on this same topic.) Some of the most memorable antagonists of the series are the Ring Wraiths, the nine kings of men in an earlier age whose bodies have rotted away to nothing and whose souls desire nothing but the ring.

Tolkien provides other examples, beyond the ring, of the danger inherent in the desire for power. It drives Saruman, one of Gandalf’s peers, to cooperate with those he knows are evil, out of a misguided belief that he can use them for his own ends.

How does this all relate to Vance?

In the years since he came on the scene as the author of a best-selling memoir, Vance has transformed himself from a stalwart opponent of Trump to a MAGA acolyte. Where once he denounced Trump as an opiate, he now hails him as the best, last chance to save America from decline and ruin. Vance has jettisoned old friends and old beliefs in a bid for power and influence. He will do and say whatever it takes to reach the point where he holds the power to shape the world. He will save Gondor.

If “The Lord of the Rings” is a cautionary tale about the desire for power and the use of power, then it is a cautionary tale that was lost on JD Vance.