Light marks the good, but does religion?

Religion, power, and moral goodness are all essential elements in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. In these two trilogies, these elements cooperate with each other in almost diametrically opposite ways that illustrate the changes fantasy fiction has undergone in the last fifty years. Light and darkness, used literally and metaphorically, serve to characterize the "good" and the "bad" in various ways throughout each trilogy.

J.R.R. Tolkien taught Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford, and while he lived and worked in that area, he was for a number of years very close friends with C.S. Lewis. Biographies and letters have suggested that the two great writers engaged in many discussions about the function of Christianity in children's literature (which they were writing at the time): C.S. Lewis thought the role of Christianized religious themes should be evident and direct, whereas Tolkien opted for the understated use of religious themes. This, and various other disagreements about faith, literature, and the relationship between the two, ultimately led to the demise of the two literary giants' friendship.

What they didn't discuss was whether the correct portrayal of Christianity and spirituality in literature should be positive or negative - it's clear that both agreed it should be positive. Since he is directly relevant to our class, I'll examine how Tolkien fits into this. The overwhelming trend in his trilogy is a good-versus-bad binary, represented by those who wish to destroy the Ring and save Middle Earth versus those who wish to obtain the Ring and channel its power into destructive endeavors. The good side is staffed by the members of the Fellowship - Aragorn, a woodsman who turns out to be a king in disguise; the Hobbits Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry; another man, Boromir (although he wavers in his moment of greed, when he tries to steal the ring from Frodo); the wizard Gandalf; Legolas the far-seeing elf; and the dwarf Gimli - and those who aid them: the Elves, Theodan and Eowyn and various other members of the race of Men, and a few others. The bad side is staffed by Sauron (ephemeral and evil, lurking in Mordor while he plots to attain the Ring), his henchman the evil wizard Saruman, and ranks upon ranks of foul Orcs. Each side is characterized and categorized through motivation and colorization: the "good" side is motivated by the (relatively) unselfish urge to save Middle Earth from destruction - I say relatively because most of these characters have the invested interest of living in Middle Earth - and the "bad" side is motivated by the urge to overpower and destroy, through the aid of the Ring's limitless powers, hence their urge to attain the Ring.

I mentioned colorization, too, particularly the use of light and dark. The good side is consistently characterized by pleasent, warm and lighter colors, a reference to the light motifs in the Bible that characterize elements of Good. The Shire is a place of green pleasantness, pastoral and peaceful; Gandalf the White positively glows and is always a source of light, literal and metaphorical (through his enlightening intellectual guidance), in dark places; the Elves glow as they walk through Rivendell and heal the wounded travelers. This use of light functions as a metaphorical reference to the role of light as a marker of the good in the Bible: Christ refers to himself as "the light of the world," while the devil is frequently referred to as the "Prince of Darkness."

Light - metaphorical and physical - and dark frame and categorize the two clearly opposed sides in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, tying it back into the ideals and the divisions of Biblical Christian narratives. In Philip Pullman's texts, the divisions are very different: the Church is a force of pain, grief, evil, and destruction, is positioned opposite the main characters who are signified as "good" through their actions and motivations. However, I'll argue here that light still functions as an indicator of the "good" and the "bad."

The Church, a fragmented organization made up of a variety of committees and sub-groups, funds various endeavors including torture and painful experimentation on children. Priests who are trying to obtain information about Lyra's whereabouts make references to "going downstairs," a suggestion that pales the complexions of others and is a veiled reference to torturing individuals in order to discover said information. In the war that Lyra and Will are unwittingly involved in, the Church is the "bad" side, characterized by actions such as this. Lyra's cohorts, the Gyptians, the Witches, and the armored bears (among others) do not engage in torture, nor do they use the painful and vicious "intercision" operation to forcefully sever children from their daemons, as the Oblation Board of the Church is doing. By default alone, Lyra's side is idealized in comparison to the dark counterpart that the Church presents.

Light gently but persistently characterizes the "good" side of Philip Pullman's diametrically divided narrative, too. Lyra's Golden Compass is a lightly colored object that presents "illuminating" truth throughout the three novels; Lyra herself has blondish-brown hair that glows golden in the sunlight and gives her away as a non-Gyptian, since she is lacking in their characteristically dark hair; another necessary and pivotal magical tool, the Amber Spyglass, utlizes light to function; and, in the triumphant climax of the third book The Amber Spyglass, when Lyra and Will discover their love for one another, they return to Mary Malone coated in glowing gold dust, as viewed through the Spyglass itself. Pullman is not afraid to use the light-soaked imagery that, historically, connotes "good."

Contrary to Tolkien, Pullman's references to Christian religion are specific and unabashedly negative, as mentioned previously - interestingly, Pullman uses the light-dark vocabularly which is strongly rooted in the Christian tradition as he deconstructs its moral standing throughout his narrative. The elements he chooses to illuminate as good include curious, brave, and selfless characters, and as a general rule, consciousness, which is characterized as Dust or light-filled particles that settle on individuals who have passed through puberty. Doing so creates an interesting dialogue with Tolkien, whose Christian undertones preserved the "good" perception of the Church while he used light in some similar ways to Pullman.

Pullman Post

I have to say despite all the so-called religious controversy that Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials brings about, I love the series and his writing style.
Philip Pullman has an amazing way of writing for any age range and drawing that reader into the series so that they pick a favorite character and relate to that character throughout the entire story while still maintaining favor of many of the other characters. Yes, maybe he could have paced the second and third books in the series a little bit better but I found all of the series to be an enjoyable reading experience and it's even better to listen to on audio CD. His writing style not only draws you into the story but also makes the story and characters come alive.
The series itself has wonderful aspects. I find the controversy of religion to be one of the best things about the series. Not only was I able to write my final project off of that controversy, but I also greatly enjoyed debating with the class and myself over what the real meaning of Pullman's work is. Another aspect of the series that I loved was how the main character was a girl, most often the hero is a boy and this made the story a little bit more relateable, although I still like Urek and Lee Scoresby the best. Lastly, I found the plot and journey that takes place in the story so intriguing that it became more of a choice reading than an assigned reading because I found myself getting more and more drawn into the world Pullman had created.
Once again, this series was much better than the movie because of the amount of detail and description that was included.
Pullman's series was probably my most favorite series out of the entire semester.

Tolkien and Pullman: Major Authors of the Anti-Climax

Stories are always written to have an ending no matter how long it takes to get there, whether it be a trilogy or a massive series. No matter how long the narrative the reader is always waiting for that ultimate climax and is reading to have closure at some point. As a comparative blog for Major Authors, I'd like to compare the endings to the two trilogies from the (in my opinion) two major authors in this class: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Both of these trilogies seem to end on an seemingly anti-climax that should have ended a chapter or two earlier.

The last couple chapters in The Return of the King revolve around the Hobbits saying their goodbyes to their multi-racial friends and heading back to the Shire. As they return to the Shire we get an extended chapter that feels more like a short story as an afterthought to make the final book longer than it should have been. The Hobbits are forced to get the remainder of Sauraman's henchmen out of their land so that the Shire can be rebuilt back to their comfort zone. This isn't necessarily a bad chapter, but it takes away from the finality of the destruction of the Ring and the restoration of Middle-Earth. It seems as though Tolkien couldn't stand the thought of a short (compared to the previous two novels) final book and needed to tack on a light-hearted ending that forces the reader to return to the Shire one last time.

As I've stated in the discussion forum, I believe this final chapter seems to be more of a companion piece that could have been a separate short story released after the trilogy was published. It does not seem to serve a purpose other than to drag the reader through an anti-climatic ending when we have already had at least two different endings that suffice to end the trilogy on a high and optimistic note. We get closure when the Hobbits leave Rivendell and we also get it when the other main characters say farewell. The Shire saving chapter is nice and it fits with the world, but not the tone of the rest of the novel.

The Amber Spyglass could have done without a few things, namely the last ten or so pages. Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel have already killed the main bad guy about a hundred pages or more before this ending, which really takes away any chance of an ultimate climax, but seeing Will and Mary almost forcibly become friends and roommates, along with Lyra deciding to go to boarding school was not the most epic of endings. Perhaps the best way to end it would be the closing of the window, the destruction of the knife and Lyra sitting in the garden. No dinner scene, no Will and Mary becoming chummy, but a serene and somewhat open ended ending. We don't need a clear sense of what Lyra's future or Will and Mary's future holds, because Pullman is already going to apparently do that with future sequels.

Not knowing the future of a charter or characters always lets the reader do their own imagining of it, and it is much more satisfying than an anti-climatic and force-fed ending.