What do you think Tolkien means, in Letter # 195, when he says that Frodo was
NOT a pacifist?
One point: Frodo's attitude to weapons was personal. He was not in
modern terms a 'pacifist'. Of course he was mainly horrified at the
prospect of civil war among Hobbits; but he had (I suppose) also reached the
conclusion that physical fighting is actually less ultimately effective than
most (good) men think it! Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman
Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat'
-- though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly)
some samples or glimpses of final victory.
That's the entire letter. It puzzles me because Frodo does seem, by the
end of LotR, to be what I would call (and you have been calling) a
pacifist. Is Tolkien making a distinction between thinking fighting is
wrong and thinking fighting is pointless? Or something else? And is
Tom Bombadil a different sort of pacifist than Frodo?
I'd be interested to hear
opinions.
When November came round we did not feel like getting to work, and we were rather slow and so have been rushed at the end. Also it has been unusually warm for the North Pole, and the Polar Bear still keeps on yawning.
--Letters from Father Christmas
