Lord Of The Rings: 10 Things Only TRUE Fans Understand
3. The Story Is NOT An Allegory To World War II
After The Lord of the Rings was published, it wasn't long before critics and readers were scouring to find hidden meanings in the story. Over the years, many fan-theories have been formed but the most common one is that The Lord of the Rings is an allegory to World War II.
At first, this sounds like a reasonable conclusion. The story shows the ugliness of corruption and how war forces allies and friends to turn on one another. Furthermore, Tolkien himself was a soldier and the book came out several years after WWII ended.
But Tolkien started writing The Lord of the Rings in 1936, which was three years before WWII. Also, Tolkien fought in WWI, not WWII. Tolkien hated allegories and regularly mocked his friend, CS Lewis, for his Chronicles of Narnia series for being a thinly veiled allegory for Biblical parables.
Unfortunately, this didn't stop readers from concocting far-fetched theories that the story was filled with religious metaphors and political symbolism. Tolkien was so annoyed by these misconceptions, he clarified in a new foreword for the book that there was no subtext. According to Tolkien, the story's theme was humanity's obsession with cheating death. That's it.