D&D General Settings of Hope vs Settings of Despair

[môrgondír]

One of the neat things about Tolkienian cosmology is that other philosophies can be applied to it better than or as well as Catholicism - there's a cyclical nature, and recurring motifs in many of the stories that could easily fit Buddhism/Stoicism/Existentialism/Epicureanism.

The beautiful and optimistic is expressed by the characters, even in the face of despair or change-in-the-world. The characters can resist Sauron's domination of the world, but the events that mark Sauron's end also mark the beginning of the domination of Men.

There is a certain inevitability to these various cycles, which reminds me of entropy.

 

[Hussar]

For anyone interested in the dichotomy I've talked about, I cannot recommend enough pretty much anything by Dr. Amy H. Sturgis. Fantastic stuff. To be honest, that's probably where I picked up the terms Wellsian and Vernian.