An earlier version of this essay was written and posted on Tumblr in response to Some excellent thoughts by warrioreowynofrohan.
The Ainur are the only beings (that we know of) inside Eä during the Ages recorded in the Legendarium who have also seen Eä from the “outside.” From the Timeless Halls, the Ainur first experienced Eä (and Arda within it) as a vision of a universe in potential. Thereafter, as a thing in and of itself—as “actualized” as the Ainur were, but apart from them, and viewed all at once in its totality. This original and utterly inhuman perspective towards Arda is one of distance, (limited) authorship and the kind of deep familiarity that comes with it, but perhaps also a kind of pseudo or even faux objectivity. How might these circumstances affect how the Ainur interact with Arda once they are inside of it, especially when it comes to interaction with The Children?
The Blue Marble
In 1948 astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote “once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available, a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.” In 1987, well after humanity had a few such images under its collective belt, author Frank White published The Overview Effect, a book inspired by his interviews with astronauts about the cognitive shift they experienced after seeing the Earth from space for the first time. This perspective—recently reemerging in the public consciousness due to William Shatner’s comments after experiencing a short flight into space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin—supposedly inspires in those who experience it profound or even life-changing feelings: sometimes a newfound sense of connection between the viewer and the whole of the world, sometimes an intense sense of the preciousness of life, sometimes anxiety and deep existential dread over the precariousness of our planet’s situation (as seems to have been the case with Shatner).2
Regardless of the specifics, it appears to be the sudden shift from an individuated “ground level” perspective to one of distance and perceived objectivity that leads to the overview effect. But that “ground level” perspective is a necessary part of the whole—one of two sides of the same coin: any good that comes from the cognitive shift lies in the overlap between the two. Perhaps for an Ainu, who began with an “overview” perspective, something like its inverse would be of benefit—a commitment to moving from a distant, objective stance to a humble and subjective one. And as it turns out we have just such an Ainu in Gandalf, the Grey Pilgrim.
The perspective Gandalf—the of the Ainu, Olórin, while at work in the form of one of the Istari in Middle-earth—maintains through his transience is not just that of the wideness of the world taken as a kind of whole, but of the many individual pockets of the world and the people in it. In Letter 53 (to his son, Christopher) Tolkien expresses his fear that the globalizing world will override and erase the varieties of human language and culture, smashing it all into a kind of mass-produced sameness, not unlike a Middle-earth where everything becomes an extension of Sauron’s will: “The bigger things get the smaller and duller or flatter the globe gets. It is getting to be all one blasted little provincial suburb.” A wide or long view, if too centered on the self and not tempered by the small, detailed, or variant, runs the risk of falling into this trap.
Gandalf’s “pilgrimage” over many thousands of years integrates the immediate and individual into the gradual and collective. From this vantage point, it becomes possible to see how deeply complex the systems and connections of the world are, and how potentially disastrous any move you make in it—if you’re sufficiently powerful enough—would be. At the same time, when seen sequentially up close the immediate suffering and sorrows of others—and the uniqueness of their individual viewpoints—inspire compassion (or so one hopes). This compassion, with luck, inspires action carefully moderated with care and consideration for the value of the sovereignty of these various viewpoints (in theory, shall we say: this certainly has a mixed track record in the real world).
Such a perspective would be valuable for anyone, but proper perspective for the lofty is incredibly important. It is perhaps ironic when we consider the poor track records and outcomes for those in The Lord of the Rings who view Arda quite literally from their high towers (able to “see” everything) but lack such perspective on both its fullness and variety (Sauron, Saruman).
The Problem of Isolationism
Something similar is at play with Aragorn and his wide travels in the guise of someone of a deceptively low station. Here is a Man, raised by Elves, whose youth and young adulthood were specifically spent traveling to the far reaches of Middle-earth, serving and protecting various peoples without recourse to the status and authority afforded to him by virtue of his birth.
This process is frustrating for Aragorn, who for all his wisdom, gentleness, and fantastically long life is still a Man and subject to the impatience that comes with that status. He is especially frustrated, deeply, with the ignorance of people—and of the Hobbits of the Shire and the Men of Bree in particular—about what is being done without their notice to keep them safe and to allow them to live their lives simply and unmolested by the largeness, danger, and complexity of the outside world.
And yet less thanks have we than you [Boromir]. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. “Strider” I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.
The Lord of the Rings, “The Council of Elrond”
There’s a lot to unpack in there, of course, but I think it’s important to point out the lack of perspective (of a sort different from a Sauron or a Saruman) evident in the small-mindedness of some of Tolkien’s more relatable and prosaic characters, even those we count as heroes.
Many of the peoples of Middle-earth express provincialist attitudes or even isolationist tendencies, with the hobbits of the Shire being the most prominent example in the text. The ignorance of characters like the Gaffer is not hidden from view, and Tolkien is not afraid of critiquing his or even Sam’s less favorable characteristics (particularly in some of his letters), despite the high regard in which he holds Sam more generally.
Gandalf’s “pilgrimage” over many thousands of years integrates the immediate and individual into the gradual and collective.
Aragorn, however, masters his frustration at people like Barliman or Sam. He does not leverage the power he has at his disposal relative to Frodo or the other hobbits. Like Gandalf he generally acts with the understanding that he cannot force the choices of others. As Gandalf is Sauron’s opposite in many ways, Aragorn proves to be, too, earning him the right to ask permission of the citizens of Minas Tirith to enter their city and take his place as King.
Geographical, social, and cultural transience on the scale of Gandalf or Aragorn is not (and cannot be, practically speaking) necessary for everyone in the cultivation of compassion and humility. Engaging other viewpoints nearby must be enough to ignite humility as a start (and in fairness I’m sure the Gaffer is far more likely to enjoy a good laugh at himself than Sauron would be!). But perhaps we could say that, in the Legendarium (or at least in The Lord of the Rings), the degree of necessary perspective adjustment in order for one to act justly and with humility, must be relative to the scope of one’s interface with the rest of the world—politically, socially, or intellectually. A would-be king and a demigod have a lot further (and farther!) to go to be able to locate their viewpoints with humility and compassion, than, say, a gardener does, and this is very much in line with the way personal scale affects one’s relationship to The Ring.
Humor in Humility
The comments that inspired this essay (see note at top) were about humor, and specifically about Gandalf’s propensity to laugh at himself. Perhaps being able to laugh at yourself in good humor shows you’ve attained the ability to navigate the image of yourself relative to the world at both scale extremes: to both take yourself not seriously at all and very seriously indeed. At its endpoint what might such perspective be but to view yourself (and via compassion everyone else who has ever lived) as both infinitesimally small and fundamentally irreplaceable. This type of tension repeats in a sense with a wide view of the world as a whole. At its greatest distance the world is at once immensely horrifying, utterly ridiculous, and indescribably beautiful. And what could possibly be a more natural response to seeing this in its fullness than to release the pressure valve on all that mental/emotional tension…and laugh?
Tolkien, himself, may have exemplified this in his life, as explained by Humphrey Carpenter:
He could laugh at anybody, but most of all himself, and his complete lack of any sense of dignity could and often did make him behave like a riotous schoolboy. At a New Year’s Eve party in the nineteen-thirties he would don an Icelandic sheepskin hearthrug and paint his face white to impersonate a polar bear, or he would dress up as an Anglo-Saxon warrior complete with axe and chase an astonished neighbour down the road. Later in life he delighted to offer inattentive shopkeepers his false teeth among a handful of change. ‘I have,’ he once wrote, ‘a very simple sense of humour, which even my appreciative critics find tiresome.’
J.R.R. Tolkien, A Biography
Between such stories of his antics, so very contrary to the image of a stodgy Oxford don, and the absolute seriousness and sincerity with which his children recalled he treated their childish questions and concerns, one can’t help but feel he had a healthy capacity for that very humor and humility, himself.
Lastly, even the plot structure and choices of character viewpoint in The Lord of the Rings force the reader to wrestle with perspective and humility. We journey from the small to the large and back again, but (importantly!) not to return as conquering heroes. As “great” as the hobbits have become, their greatest acquisition is the perspective and humility they have gained from their adventures, and their return is not an occasion of joyous fanfare, but a gut punch in which they get to see the horrors they have already witnessed on a wide scale, repeated in miniature on a small one. It tickles me to no end that Tolkien (however unconsciously at first) uses the opportunity afforded by the popularity of the previously mostly disconnected Hobbit to construct this delightful and otherwise entirely impossible bridge between the high and low, the near and far, the wide world and the little people in it! There are hobbits with hairy feet craving six meals a day and (totally anachronistically) worrying about postal delivery while stumbling through the last passages of a mythological saga which represented the pinnacle of Tolkien’s own life’s work.
Put another way: even his story laughs at itself!
Notes
- I will be using “Ainur” here to refer to any of the angelic/demiurgic beings in Tolkien’s Legendarium regardless of when or if they ever entered Eä and regardless of their potency relative to others of their “species.”
- https://grist.org/climate/overview-effect-view-of-earth-from-space-astronauts-climate-change/
- I would like to draw attention to both words here, “Pilgrim” and “Grey,” because I think they both have something to say about transience.
- Some of his remarks in this letter are worth critique though doing so is outside the scope of this essay.
- The elephant in the room here is of course Manwe (and Varda) on Taniquetil.
- Yet another Valarin elephant in the room.
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