philPROVEÑCE

LOTR is arguably the single greatest example of moral realism in all of literature. Injecting moral relativism into Middle Earth fundamentally misunderstands Tolkien and flies in the face of everything he stood for. And don't come at me with 'moral complexity.' Relativism isn't complexity. It's confusion. It's a collapse of distinctions that has nothing to offer but meaninglessness and despair. In order to have meaningful 'moral complexity,' you have to establish a distiction between light and dark, right and wrong, good and evil. The complexity arises among characters that must navigate a world where both forces act around, upon, and within them. What modern Hollywood calls 'moral complexity' is actually just the erasing the distinction between good and evil. If a story can't show you light and dark, it can't say anything meaningful about them. Classic storytellers understood this. Modern Hollywood has completely memory holed it.