# How to convince my mother to let me read LOTR



## Margaret Shirley (Jun 9, 2017)

Hi. I really want to read LOTR this summer. I do not think my mother would approve of my just reading it and her finding out. I am 12,almost 13. My mother is extremely anti violence. My plan is to ask her in a few days when we won't have internet so she can't look up a summary. Do you have any advice as to how to get her to let me read it without spoilers? Please do not spoil anything I really want to find out as I read. Thanks, Margaret


----------



## CirdanLinweilin (Jun 9, 2017)

Well, this is a predicament. 

J.R.R Tolkien, as a matter of fact, was against a lot of violence, such as what's deemed "Total War" and The Atom Bombs dropped on Japan. 

]*Total war*
Tolkien criticized Allied use of total war tactics against civilians from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. In a 1945 letter to his son Christopher, he wrote:



> "We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well,—you and I can do nothing about it. And that [should] be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter—leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines.[119]"



He also reacted with anger at the excesses of anti-German propaganda during the war. In 1944, he wrote in a letter to his son Christopher:



> ...it is distressing to see the press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. ... There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.


[120]

He was horrified by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, referring to the scientists of the Manhattan Project as


> "these lunatic physicists"


and


> "Babel-builders".


[121]



So, you see, Tolkien didn't agree with a lot of violent tactics himself, maybe you could tell your mother that? Understanding an author is the best way to understand his writings.

Hope this helps, and if it doesn't, let me know, and I'll think of something different.

Good Luck!
CL


----------



## Phuc Do (Jul 19, 2017)

I don't know what to say. I personally don't think it should be a problem with your mom because the books don't have a lot of sex and violence in it.


----------



## basti255 (Aug 8, 2017)

Any update? Are you reading it? Do you like it?


----------



## The Elvish Minstrel (Aug 21, 2017)

Honestly there really isn't much violence in the books... some here and there, but even when there's a battle, it's not like the killing is really played out, if you get what I mean. Honestly, my mom didn't give me LOTR until I was an older teen too, and the Hobbit as well, and I gotta say I wish I had read them sooner. So I hope you can convince her.


----------



## Margaret Shirley (Sep 5, 2017)

basti255 said:


> Any update? Are you reading it? Do you like it?


Hi. I'm sorry I haven't replied in so long. It turns out I was worried all for nothing. When I asked her she acted like it wasn't even a question! It turns out she is only selectively anti any violence. I might have turned her on to it by telling her beautiful quotes from the Hobbit. Whatever the reason, she happily let me read it. I had prepared this whole argument to convince her and I didn't even need it! Anyway, I actually finished it just last night. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, but the book was amazing! I will never forget it. Thank you all very much for trying to help , especially CirdanLinweilin. " Deeds will be not less valiant because they are unpraised."


----------



## CirdanLinweilin (Sep 5, 2017)

Margaret Shirley said:


> Hi. I'm sorry I haven't replied in so long. It turns out I was worried all for nothing. When I asked her she acted like it wasn't even a question! It turns out she is only selectively anti any violence. I might have turned her on to it by telling her beautiful quotes from the Hobbit. Whatever the reason, she happily let me read it. I had prepared this whole argument to convince her and I didn't even need it! Anyway, I actually finished it just last night. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, but the book was amazing! I will never forget it. Thank you all very much for trying to help , especially CirdanLinweilin. " Deeds will be not less valiant because they are unpraised."



Isn't it funny how that works? 

Yay! I am so glad you were able to read it!!!! That's so exciting! I am very glad I was able to help. It really is a breathtaking work!

CL


----------



## The Elvish Minstrel (Sep 8, 2017)

Oh wow, I'm sad glad for you!  And yeah, it's funny how that happens with parents sometimes!


----------



## Phuc Do (Sep 19, 2017)

I am happy for you that you can enjoy the true art that is Tolkien's writing. I remember plunging into these books in my teen. Damn that was good times.


----------



## The Elvish Minstrel (Sep 21, 2017)

Phuc Do said:


> I am happy for you that you can enjoy the true art that is Tolkien's writing. I remember plunging into these books in my teen. Damn that was good times.


I know this feeling exactly lol!


----------

