Only a Slave Can Be Truly Free - Paradise Lost

Only the eyes of the heart perceive

That the deaf and blind can hear and see

That insanity’s saner than sanity

That only a slave can be truly free

-“Through the Eye” Michael Card

I tend to prefer the epic to the commonplace. While Shakespeare’s tightly plotted tragedies and comedies are hardly everyday fare, compared to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, they’re as familiar as an alarm clock in the morning. Because really, Paradise Lost is high fantasy. Fantasy based on fact, but still legendary in scale. Peopled with fantastic creatures and transcendent beings, colossal settings and astounding descriptions, Paradise Lost consists mainly of Milton letting his imagination run wild as it fills in gaps between the first few chapters of Genesis.

Milton doesn’t just try his hand at description; he also takes a shot at theology. Obviously, anyone who creates a fictional story puts their characters in a world where the author’s views are Truth. For instance, judging the bulk of literature, one concludes that most of humanity (consciously or unconsciously) believes in an ultimate Happy Ending, and longs for the triumph of Justice.

“…and they lived happily ever after.”

The main ideas that jump out in Lost (really, the TV show wasn’t very true to the book), are those of justice, pride, freedom, gratitude, and forgiveness. Milton certainly isn’t a universalist. He correctly understands that every time God forgives, he must do so at the expense of his justice. Of Jesus he said:

I Liked White Better - or: Saruman and Social Darwinism - Part Two

Continued from I Liked White Better - Part One.

Saruman stands in stark opposition to the doctrines of Christianity. They teach that the weak and the poor are the ones that have the most to teach us—and, because of that, we should care deeply about how they are treated. God himself came to our world and was willing to be viewed as the bastard son of a poor carpenter from an underprivileged town which everyone (even inhabitants of the equally despised region of Galilee) shunned and avoided. He never attempted to get in the In Crowd; he never tried to look like one of the Wise.

Instead, he was firmly on the side of ordinary people, rather than those with Much. He was, theologically, a hobbit—one of the little people from a fly-over state. He was against the rich, but not just those Communists call bourgeoisie, the rich in material goods, but those prosperous in smarts or special talents. Not that possessing those things is bad (after all, he did give them to us), but not admitting that they are a gift is a great sin—akin to “blasphemy against the holy spirit.”

"Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

(Matthew 19:23-24 ESV)

I Liked White Better – or: Saruman and Social Darwinism - Part 1

“‘For I am Saruman, the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!’
“I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
“ ‘I liked white better,’ I said.

“ ‘White!’ he sneered. ‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’

“ ‘In which case it is no longer white,’ said I. ‘And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’”
"Book 2, Chapter 2: The Council of Elrond" The Fellowship of the Ring

For many years, The Lord of the Rings has been my favorite book. Sir Peter Jackson’s film adaptation has, for nearly as long, been my movie of choice. In so many ways, the films perfectly capture the tone and story of the books, but, still, as requirements of the medium, a good chunk of the original had to be sacrificed.  Most of the changes are understandable. Tom Bombadil’s absence, for example, can obviously be attributed to the sheer difficulty of a faithful portrayal.

But there are things I miss, and chief among them (closely followed by a non-goofy Mouth of Sauron scene) is a brief snippet of conversation between Gandalf and Saruman deep in the stony bowels of Orthanc. It is in this scene that Saruman (pun intended) shows his true colors. Unlike in PJ’s adaptations, Saruman did not stay “the White” for long. Instead, he seeks to improve on the original design, making himself  “Saruman of Many Colours."