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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 1212610" data-attributes="member: 5834">My interest in the actual characters varies. For some books, like Lord of the Rings I completely concur with your sentiment and I do want to know how the characters resolve the conflicts they face.For others, like a Forgotten Realms novel, I'm far more interested in the events that occur.If you a take a course on literature, you often get to read other people's analysis of a story. It is more often true of short stories. I have analyzed short stories by authors such as Maya Angelou and Mark Twain where there was an expected answer based on previous person's analysis. For some stories, I completely agree. I am saying that Tolkien, the author, did not intend the tome to be one you turn to for answering moral questions. That's pretty much it. I am not so easily swayed. I spend alot of time deeply analyzing morality based on cause/effect relationships. Books do not dictate my morality. Never have, never will.Information helps me make moral decisions. Books and print give information, so indirectly there have been a few books that have contributed to my moral develolpment. None of them fiction, save for possibly the Bible.Not fiction, in any form. Living life itself challenges my morality. I don't know about you, but I have led a trying life and have had plenty of opportunities to make moral decisions. Not to mention the macro-moral decisions required of you as a citizen of a nation. No way I trust fiction to influence my morality. I read fiction to escape to other places. One of the reasons I can understand a writer wanting to have no damn message or meaning whatsoever in a story. Sometimes a writer may make a tale just to get away from it all.I have always felt that Middle Earth was Tolkien's escape. He lived a hard life. He created a place for himself and explored that place through the written word.Alot of authors do the same without the intent to sway your morality one way or the other. Doesn't mean it can't happen, just means that the author didn't intend it to happen.I'm sorry. I misstated myself. I have read it so many times that it almost feels like I knew before I picked it up the first time.I already enjoyed the kind of traditional, idealistic morality Tolkien used as a basis for his character's actions prior to reading the novel. I never questioned its presence in the story.</blockquote>

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