It took me a week to secure a foundation for this column, and I hope that time has not been wasted. In keeping with the spirit of thanksgiving stemming from the aptly-named approaching holiday, my editors have challenged me to write a Tolkien column based on this principle. When I first read this assignment, I scoffed. Thankfulness in the Lord of the Rings? Those books are about fantasy battles, good versus evil, etc.  But as the week dragged on with an empty page on my computer, it came to me that the characters in Tolkien's novels had much to be thankful for, as did Tolkien himself.

Perhaps first in my mind is the final scene of The Lord of the Rings, before the hobbits return home. Aragorn tells Frodo that "in all the lands of the West there will be a welcome. And though your people may have had little fame in the legends of the great, they will now have more renown than any wide realms that are no more." Even after Aragorn has been made king and good made triumphant, the shining knights of Middle Earth do not forget to give thanks where it is due--in this case to the humble hobbits who had made victory possible. Though the film adaption does take some liberty with Tolkien's books, I believe one scene in The Return of the King captures this thankfulness perfectly.

Aragorn has just been crowned, and his love returned to him. After all the strife and suffering, everyone is ready to throw off the veil of darkness. As the gathered crowd cheers and looks on, all the loose knots are tied: Faramir finally gets things settled with Eowyn, Eomer gets to be king, Aragorn gets to rule Gondor, and Arwen gets to marry her very own Beren. (See the Silmarillion.) As Aragorn walks down the aisle, parading in triumph, a feeling of near-relief sets in. I feel happy that everything has turned out right, but something is missing. Finally, Aragorn comes to the end of the aisle where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin stand. The Hobbits look on expectantly before bowing in homage to the one they believe has brought all this about. Instead, in a moment of humbleness and gratitude, Aragorn spreads his arms and says, "You bow to no one." As the entire assembly bows before four stunned and overwhelmed hobbits, I realize what has been missing until now--the giving of thanks where it is due. That scene still puts a lump in my throat every time I watch it.

Thankfulness is not the main moral of the of the story in The Lord of the Rings or in The Hobbit. Tolkien's works are primarily focused around the ultimate, unexpected triumph of good over evil and the return of society from a Death-Winter to a living, eternal Spring. However, if one looks closely, it becomes apparent that the theme of thankfulness lies cleverly stashed next to the theme of triumph. No character in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit accomplishes an ordeal without getting his due in the end. From Thoren Oakenshield begrudgingly thanking Bilbo for helping him reach the Mountain to Aragorn publicly honoring the hobbits, every heroic deed is rewarded with thanks and gratitude. As in real life, where we give thanks to God for providing us with all we have, the characters of Tolkien's books give thanks where appropriate--and they do not scrimp.

Tolkien himself, the creator of these stories, had plenty of opportunities to thank God for His great workings in the life of the humble writer. One particular instance comes to mind--that of the creation of The Hobbit. One day when correcting exam papers at Oxford, Tolkien noticed that one of his students had left an answer space blank. In an obvious turn of God's screw of fate, Tolkien wrote the immortal words "in a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit." We will never know what it was that possessed the man to write such a strange and random sentence. The very randomness of the happening and the great things that came from it show that God clearly had a hand in Tolkien's destiny, as He does everyone's. I am certain that when The Hobbit turned out to be such an astonishing success, Tolkien remembered that boring day when he first thought to himself, "What on earth is a Hobbit?" When he thought about that, he most likely did what a good Christian must by principle; he got down on his knees and thanked God for His hand in our lives.