Editing The Lord of the Rings (section)

=A Mythology for England?=
Now, you might be wondering why Tolkien bothered to do all of this in the first place. What motivated him? The answer is generally held to be, that he wanted to give England its own mythology. Tolkien had noticed that almost all other civilizations had them: Greek Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, Norse Mythology, Native American Mythologies, etc. But England seemed to be the exception. So Tolkien took the Thanos approach and decided "Fine, I'll do it myself". And the rest is history.

What this means though, is that Middle-Earth is technically not a fantasy setting totally separate from real life in the way that something like [[Warcraft|Azeroth]] or [[Pathfinder|Golarion]] is. It ''is'' our world, but in a distant past that's details were ultimately lost to time, causing it to become legend. This is an aspect of the franchise that's often overlooked, but it is there when you remember what Middle-Earth was intended to be for Jolly Old England. Tolkien intended to run with the idea even further, tying Middle Earth to Dark Ages Europe where a 5th century Welsh mariner discovers Tol Eressia and learns of the ancient shared history of the elves and men, as well as tying in existing legends like Saint Brendan's voyage. The novels that we have today (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion) were to be surviving stories from this forgotten age, either being retold by ancient Welsh explorers or directly copied from the Red Book of Westmarch. He also considered having Eru (the God of the setting), pulling a Jesus and appearing on Middle-Earth in mortal form, but discarded this idea for being a little too on the nose. Instead this is merely implied in a conversation between Elves and Men as being the reason behind the strange gifts and fate Eru assigned to men.

This ''also'' makes the Tolkien Purist's insistence on absolute, 100% fidelity to the source material at all times somewhat ironic, since that isn't how mythologies work: they change with each subsequent retelling. So we should really be a lot more accepting of changes to lo--{{BLAM|HERESY!}}

Do note that in modern scholarship, the question of Tolkien's purpose in writing the ''Lord of the Rings'' and the wider ''Silmarillion'' is up for debate. Many believe that Tolkien's work evolved away from the "mythology for England" origin after his failure to get ''The Silmarillion'' published, and that Tolkien had left-wing anarchist viewpoint be anathema to the modern fanbase that glorifies monarchism, racism, and Eurocentrism. Fans generally argue that such people are full of shit and only making these radical claims in the interests of getting published and securing tenure.