My new found love for The Lord of the Rings

I’ve always considered myself a passing fan of The Lord of the Rings. When I say “passing fan” I mean that I enjoyed the Peter Jackson trilogy of films but, despite being an avid reader, I’d never read the books, never played a game based on the franchise, and never dived into the lore.

I often envied people of their love of Tolkien’s world - fantasy is a genre I enjoy, but the series never quite clicked for me. In fact, until recently I’d only ever seen the film trilogy once in entirety, when they first came out. I’d never watched the extended editions, and every year one of my friends will comment about how they watch them over Christmas, so I decided, during the break for the holidays, to set aside some time to watch them. All 11 hours of them.

Before I get into what happened during my marathon (of sorts, I did Fellowship of the Ring on Christmas Day and Two Towers, followed by Return of the King on Boxing Day) I want to preface this article a little more. Over the past year or so, I’ve learned a great deal about The Lord of the Rings. This mostly came from working here, writing articles about why the One ring possessed Sméagol at the speed it did, or news about upcoming projects from the Tolkien estate.

Some months ago, I began to feel the itch take over, making me want to absorb all the information and lore that I could. Oddly, it started with The Rings of Power season two. I’d watched the first season and enjoyed it well enough, but seeing Sauron embark on his master plan and forge the rings themselves, in the second season, had me wanting to know more.

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I began listening to the audiobooks of The Lord of the Rings narrated by Andy Serkis, I started searching Reddit for threads about characters like Gandalf and Tom Bombadil in the hope of learning more about them, and I bought the extended editions of the Jackson trilogy with a plan to watch them.

Which brings me to Christmas Day. I half expected to zone out and glaze over, it was after all a day of feasting and merriment, and by the time I put the film on I was several glasses of wine deep. Of course, I was enthralled. Obviously, I knew the story, I knew the characters and was well aware of story beats, but this was me coming back to the film after 23 years, it was like watching it for the first time.

Now, I’ll admit, I paused the film halfway through to watch the Doctor Who special and the superb new Wallace and Gromit film, Vengeance Most Fowl, then carried on after. During the little break, a nagging sensation of wanting to be back in Middle-Earth began to work its way through me.

By the end of Boxing Day, as Aragorn was telling the hobbits “You bow to no-one” in Return of the King, I was sobbing into another glass of wine. Shuffling closer to the edge of my seat, I sniffled as Frodo said his goodbyes and boarded the ship for Valinor alongside Gandalf and Bilbo.

Now, if you’ll allow me a moment of deep thought and personal experience, I want to first make an admission and secondly explain myself. The admission is that after this festive watch of the films I understand the passions of others and these works, I also join the ranks of those who love them. My reasons for this new-found love run a little deeper than just “they’re very good stories.”

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When Frodo says goodbye to his friends and sails off to Valinor, a place of eternal life, a place that would keep him alive despite his nagging wound from the Witch King, I was taken aback by my own emotions. Tolkien vehemently stated in the foreword of the second edition of The Lord of the Rings that, “It is neither allegorical nor topical.” He didn’t intend for the work to be an allegory, but of course, we all take something different from the works of art we enjoy. I saw the act of Frodo leaving as an acceptance of living with the traumas he experienced as he journeyed to Mordor.

As I came to the end of 2024 I was reflecting on the summer, when I completed a course of therapy for C-PTSD, or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was brutally hard work looking over my traumatic experiences and accepting that these things happened to me. I found a small connection to Frodo, along with the weariness and brutality of a traumatic experience. Seeing him sail away was knowing that you can still go on to live a meaningful and fulfilling existence, even if that means leaving some behind on the shore.

Beyond this personal connection to a subtext that my mind conjured, I was swept away by the scope of Middle-Earth and its people. Of course, this is a testament to Tolkien getting carried away and endlessly writing and revising his work. His meticulous details, which I’m now being fed by Serkis’ tremendous audiobook narration, have kept me rooted in this fantasy world and I don’t want to leave.

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As an aside, I was struck by how damn good the practical effects still look. Perhaps this is because the CGI now looks a little dated, but the makeup and costumes throughout are still a masterclass in using practical effects. Oh, and Sean Astin should have won more awards for his performance as Sam he acted his prosthetic feet off.

Since my movie marathon, I’ve restarted my deep dives and begun falling down more rabbit holes to find details. I wanted to know more about Gimli and the dwarf people, so I followed what I could. I devoured information on the previous ages of Middle-Earth because there’s a hunger to know more. Certain concepts sit in my brain and never cease, like the origins of the Istari, and now I find myself ordering a copy of The Silmarillion.

There’s a comfort in this world of Middle-Earth and while I knew that I enjoyed the core story of The Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit) I didn’t quite estimate just how much I would come to love it and connect with it.