Talking Tuesday: "The Long Defeat"

I will state at the outset of this post that I am not a die-hard Tolkein fan.  I really never got into the Lord of the Rings series that much.  I read The Hobbit a few times, and got about 1/2 way through the first of the trilogy, but it didn't capture me as much as it should have, given the material.  I did see the Peter Jackson movies, as well as the 1970s animated Hobbit and enjoyed them very much.   We do plan to read the books to the kids when they are old enough, and after reading the latest from Brian Kaller, I think I need to revisit the series sooner rather than later.  Please do read the whole post--it isn't very long and is worthwhile, but this passage in particular stood out to me:

National Geographic

"Lots of people are quietly heroic in every era - there are heroes all around you that you don't see -- but when life is comfortable, the stakes aren't as high. When things fall apart --- and they do for everyone, sooner or later – people face emergencies, and need to be heroic. In the Lord of the Rings world, the elves have seen that happen many times – maybe that’s why they’re so good.

“But they’re really powerful,” she said. “When terrible things happen in their world, why don’t they do more to stop them?”

Occasionally they do, I said, but generally they don’t try to control others; too much of that and they wouldn’t be good anymore. Instead, they set an example for others to follow, and they take care of their part of the world as long as they can. Remember what Galadriel said about her part of the woods? ‘…through all the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.’ They know they’ll fade eventually, but that doesn’t matter; what matters is they maintained their part of the world and kept it wholesome. That was worth living for."

~Brian Kaller, Restoring Mayberry Blog, Reading Tolkein, January 6, 2015