[veddox]

If you think the Lord of the Rings is one big trope, you really haven't given it enough consideration. Yes, Tolkien has very clear moral and social ideals, but using this as grounds to portray LotR as "two-dimensional" absolutely does not do it justice. There's so much more nuance to it!

The Shire is idyllic, but no paradise. Its inhabitants are lovable, but petty and smallminded, they squabble and feud and betray each other. Good and evil exist, but aside from Gandalf and Sauron, all "good" characters have faults and mixed motivations and all "evil" characters are at least potentially redeemable. The stories of Middle Earth are shaped by Tolkien's (conservative, Christian) worldview, but he definitely did not write a utopia.

[efitz]

I never said LOTR is one big trope. I said the Shire storyline re: Saruman was a trope.

I happen to love LOTR anyway and have read it many times; I just am not blind to the themes in it.