The thing about The Return of the King is that the king, well, returns.
Despite his professed love for J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, David French seems to have missed this aspect of Tolkien’s conclusion to The Lord of the Rings. Writing for The New York Times, French grandly declares that “the proper interpretation of [Tolkien’s] work has geopolitical implications.” The impetus for his assertion is that the left has noticed that Tolkien’s books are popular on the right, especially among younger, post-liberal types. French is eager to show that these “New Right” Tolkien fans who “embrace[] state power as a means of fighting and winning the culture war” are “getting Tolkien wrong, and the way in which they are getting Tolkien wrong matters for all of us.”
French is correct that Tolkien’s tales are not just for the right. The Lord of the Rings is an exciting and deep story that has inspired and resonated with people from conservative intellectual Russell Kirk to rock stars such as Led Zeppelin and Rush. Tolkien’s stories do have deep themes that can be drawn out and analyzed, and French is eager to do so to use them as ammunition against Tolkien-loving conservative adversaries. But his efforts miss the mark.
He mistakenly equates the temptation of the Ring with power, asserting, “Throughout the story the ring calls out to the heroes, speaking to their hearts, telling them that only by claiming power can they defeat power. In a very real way, the will to power
