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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9715461" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Er...doesn't...Frodo actually succumb to the temptation of the Ring?Hard to call that "Christ-like" when he literally did choose to be the Dark Lord at the end (even though that 100% guaranteed would have meant the Ring betrayed him for someone more powerful), and the world was only saved because of Gollum's legitimately insane greed. That's what leaves Frodo a broken, hollow man afterward--he has to live the rest of his life with knowing that he, unlike any of the other paragons in his life, both little folk like Sam and Merry, and great and powerful people like Aragorn, Gandalf, and Galadriel.You want someone Christ-like, you have to look to Aragorn. That's part of why it's so terrifically important that Aragorn isn't the main character of LotR. He is the Big Good, the All-Loving Hero, the True Prophesied King, Incorruptible Pure Pureness, etc., etc.Tolkien's moral complexity is not in "lots of people do horrible horrible things and just sort of vibe with it", but then again, I've never seen that as being particularly morally complex. His moral complexity comes in how good people legitimately struggle against temptation, and several times only barely pass--or, occasionally, don't pass at all. Denethor's corruption through the Palantir, for example, or the physical and mental poisoning of Theoden."Selfish person does a heroic thing" is far from the only form of complexity. For goodness' sake, the DCAU Superman is a morally-complex character, and he's straight-up 100% unquestionably a paragon among paragons who only ever did intentional wrong when he was mind-controlled by Darkseid into thinking that his actions were just and righteous. But he still manages to be morally complex because a person who is absolutely convinced that what they're doing is the right thing to do but they're wrong is a huge bundle of, as my generation likes to put it, "Ho don't do it."Also...redemption is now not morally complex? Really?</blockquote>

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