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JR.R. TOLKIEN REALLY DISLIKED allegory (really disliked may be too weak), “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.” It is possible he would totally reject this essay. I want to own that. But I think we can read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as type and fulfillment, unfolding the meaning of typology. Thus the universe Tolkien created is not an allegory of Christian Theology (as Narnia is for Lewis) but rather a meta teaching: an allegory on how to read the Bible so that it becomes possible to understand the Bible differently. To do this we must start at the beginning of Middle Earth and go on til we come to the ring’s destruction.
In the Beginning was the Word
The stories of Middle Earth arise from Tolkien’s work in language. He was inventing languages – and then writing backward, as it were, creating a mythos for those languages. In the case of Middle Earth, it is literally true that “in the beginning was the word”. I wonder which word of elvish was first, but that’s a rabbit warren. We needn’t go down it. I have cited before how the name Ēarendel, used for Christ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry, inspired Tolkien to create his Earendel/Morning Star storyline – and thence all the Halfelves. It’s the words that come first.
The speaker of the word is Tolkien himself. Eru Illuvatar is, by analogy, not our God, but Tolkien. Indeed, under God, the artist is always the creator. So what Tolkien is doing in Middle Earth is – in its entirety – an allegory on our world. And, because Tolkien is a Christian, it cannot be otherwise.
If you have not read the part of the Silmarillion called The Music of the Ainur or The Song of the Valar here is a video of a major part of this text.
The important things come in the middleish when Melkor arises and starts his own music – over and over – his music is conquered not by being destroyed but, in fact, by being woven in. Eru – that is Tolkien – is the all-powerful one who can take even attempted rebellion and weave it into a plan that was deeper and always there.
The Author as Allegory of God
OK. Tolkien is that Eru, is able to see all the plans (which the Valar, even Melkor, cannot see) and Eru – standing outside of time, like Tolkien, from the Middle Earthlings’ perspective – is able to weave them all the themes into the music; even the ones that seem to be coming from elsewhere, that seem to be rebellious, are, themselves, revealed to be more of the plan unfolding. Everything is brought together into the final chord. This how God works, even in our world: what really is free will is also, really, God’s will in action.
OT=Hobbit NT=LotR
I’m sorry if you find spoilers here, but I doubt you’d have read this far without knowing most of what I’m about to say:
Bilbo meets Gandalf and the Dwarves. Bilbo leaves home. Bilbo encounters trolls. Bilbo makes it to Rivendell. Bilbo encounters Orcs and, underground encounters Gollum. Bilbo finds the ring. Returning above ground, after another battle with Orcs, Bilbo goes to the house of Beorn, a magical person who helps inestimably in the story. Bilbo journeys through Mirkwood where he is parted from his company. Bilbo makes it to Laketown on the Running River. From Laketown he makes it to the Lonely Mountain which he enters by a secret way. Going down a tunnel through a door in the mountain, he encounters the fire-breathing dragon, Smaug. He gives to Bard of Laketown the secret to conquer the dragon. The latter kills the dragon. Then there is the Battle of Five Armies which begins as a war without hope – all against all – and ends as a war of good versus evil which the Eagles help win. There is then a denouement. His house is being broken up and distributed to his friends and enemies, but he – after a good bit of trouble – clears things up. In later years, Bilbo retires from public life by going to live with the elves.
Frodo meets Gandalf and leaves home with his friends. (Some things happen.) Frodo encounters the statues of the trolls. Frodo makes it to Rivendell. (Some things happen.) Frodo encounters Orcs and, underground encounters Gollum. (Some things happen.) Returning above ground, another battle with Orcs, Frodo goes to the house of Galadriel, a magical person who helps inestimably in the story. Frodo journeys through Lothlorien and the southern stretches of the Great River where he is parted from his company. Frodo makes it to the men’s camp/fort on the Great River. From the camp, he makes it (after some things happen) to Mordor which he enters by a secret way. (Some things happen.) Entering Mount Doom through a door in the side he goes down a tunnel where he fights Gollum over a fire. Eventually (some things happen). Meanwhile, Aragorn is leading a war without hope – all against odds, a death mission that’s a mere distraction – a war of good versus evil which, in the end, the Eagles help win. There is then a denouement. His village, indeed his whole country, is being broken up and distributed to his enemies, but he – after a good bit of trouble – clears things up. In later years, Frodo retires from public life and then goes to live with the elves and the Valar.
The story is the same but every time I added “(Some things happen.)” there is an unfolding, as it were. The story becomes larger, more involved, and deeper. From a writer’s or reader’s perspective, we might say that the author merely told the same story differently. What we learn in The Lord of the Rings informs what we know of The Hobbit. The latter has its own meaning but it is so much more once you understand that Bilbo’s ring has its own storyline that is moving through the entire history of Middle Earth. The ring is the fulcrum for good vrs evil in this universe though we had not known it. This storyline is moving, as it were, perpendicularly through Bilbo’s and Frodo’s lives.
There are other parallels, other prophetic fulfillments, but I think this is ample. And having found the Ring and its full meaning, Tolkien was able to unpack (or, one might say, re-pack) content in the Silmarillion, and in other parts of his ouvre. When he decides to write a children’s book for his own family, Tolkien harvests from Middle Earth a storyline that was not there previously – that of Bilbo Baggins and the journey to the Lonely Mountain, fighting the dragon, helping the dwarves, coming home. It’s a full-on epic quest.
When he is asked to write a sequel, he does so by finding a point of departure in the first story. And – as Eru – he is always telling the same story. When The Lord of the Rings begins to unfold in Tolkien’s mind, it is a fractal retelling of The Hobbit, a typological fulfillment of The Hobbit. The Hobbit was not a fortune teller, making predictions about Frodo, etc. Rather, the Trilogy is the same story as The Hobbit unfolded to all its fullness. Tolkien is fleshing out a fictional storyline, yes, but he’s doing so from within an entire linguistic universe that he has created. He was continually rewriting the universe as he uncovered new patterns. So that, as Middle Earth became more real, it was made so around the Ring and that storyline. Even the fall of Numenor, and later, the Fall of the Kings of Gondor – restored under Strider – was wrapped up in the Ring, in the Hobbits – which were not that at all “in the old lists” as Treebeard says. Hobbits showed up in the children’s book. And had to be added to the old stories later – when the rise and fall of everything hung on the actions and choices of hobbits.
Bible as Typological Text
From a Catholic or Orthodox perspective, the second story is a typological fulfillment of the first in exactly the same way that we read Jesus to be a typological fulfillment of the existing scriptures of the Jewish tradition. Since we, as readers of fiction, know that both books were written by the same man and, although in our world they were released in chronological order, in the mind of their creator they arose in a more organic way, and required rewritten back history. We are exposed to the Silmarillion after the author’s death as a mostly -rewritten work that even includes a backstory for the ring which wasn’t a thing at all until Bilbo found it in a Children’s Book that was never intended. For us experiencing the story in real time, the ring was clearly always there and intended. The author is in full command of the universe he is making.
God works that way, say Christians reading the Bible. The God who wrote the scriptures has only ever had one action: the salvation of man. Yes, we have free will and, yes it is really free, but God sees all time and all space at once. God is writing the entire story as one act of creation that is eternal. We can see and experience it as a sequence of events. It is unfolding that way for us – it is real. But the action of creating and sustaining the beingness of our space-time continuum is from God’s eternal now. We can see God in the now. We can only see God in the now. But the Lamb was slain before the Foundation of the World – just as the Ring, a tiny little trinket with a fun magic power of invisibility, became the central plot device once it was written into JRRT’s storyline. The author is in full command of the universe he is making but he has condescended to make it in love with us.
Using the word “allegory” here is a stretch, I realize. Tolkien’s objection to that form of art was my real reason: clickbait. Yet the pattern of Hobbit : LOTR : Tolkien seems to match Tanakh : New Testament : God, as I hope I’ve shown. Being able to see the pattern in Tolkien’s work of fiction can help one understand, perhaps, how the Church’s tradition unfolds the stories and words in the Torah, the Wisdom and History literature, and the prophets of the Bible. When we experience this world, in its moment by moment way, it helps to remember that the God who is love is writing our story to bring us all closer to himself: he’s writing it backwards – your last confession made even your sins, steps away from God, into steps you took towards God, all by grace.
God is love. The one Father of All. He calls you to himself and, if you will, he will teach you the secret of slaying the dragon. He’s already done the work in the future and the past. (Then some things happen.)
Orthoparadoxy 
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