Tolkíenism Saturday
On The Decision to do what is right… no matter what.
“You cannot pass. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the shadow! You cannot pass."
-Gandalf
It has been said that Evil often tells you what it’s going to do to you, before it does do it. As though there is some kind of permission, or granted power, in the unseen spiritual world all about us, that rewards them for their truthful lies and insidious intrigues. Making their pulpy spider’s egg of hatching plans even more diabolical and powerful.
But, if so, then Tolkien masterfully demonstrates the Law of Doing What Is Right No Matter What. The opposite of the lies of the enemy. The Truth. No matter what. Clearly Gandalf knows that the Balrog has caught the Fellowship between a rock and a hard place. Surrounded by Orcs, they’ve brought out their “Heavy.” He tells The Fellowship that this foe they cannot face. Then, he goes out to die for them.
But as he does so he tells Evil right to it’s flaming, fiery whip wielding face, that… “it cannot pass.”
Does he know that? The battle isn’t fought. It’s not won. And it looks pretty bad at the moment.
Consider that what Gandalf is actually doing is, in this critically dark moment, is telling evil that it can never win. Even if it does seem to in this small fight. It can never actually “pass” into the West. Or, Tolkíen “Heaven.”
In fact, the Wizard is telling it that’s it’s damned and doomed to suffer for all time because of its alliance with the evil Morgoth.
He stands before the fiery demon and takes his shot in the physical battle, but before he does even that, he tells his determined foe… The Truth. What’s really going to happen in the end. It’s Gandalf’s only weapon, and it’s his greatest. Perhaps the sheer brazen act of standing up to the terrible thing stalls it on the bridge for the few seconds the Wizard needs to collapse the bridge, or get his friends just a few more feet toward safety giving them a chance to destroy the Ring of Power.
Both are wins in the fight for the Wizard.
It is powerful, even now for us to remember amid all this tyrannical OverState OverReach and March toward petty wars for globalist power and not right versus wrong or good versus evil… that our foes, the tyrants who use and abuse us… they will not win. They will not pass. Ultimately, even though today may be their win as all their lies and games bear foul fruits… they will not win. They will not pass.
And all we must do in this dire and bleak moment of small resources is remember we posses the weapon that breaks all others… all we must do is speak the Truth no matter what. The rest of it is beyond our control. But The Truth will win, in the end, It will prevail. Now…
That Last image is about the best thing ever. Gandalf standing against the Balrog in defiance of its strength and fury armed with the truth shows that without it, tyranny is nothing more than a house of cards waiting to crumble. Great post.
"Thus are we ministers of God's own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son did die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He has allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise, and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause." - Bram Stoker, DRACULA (Dr. Van Helsing speaking)