In a lot of stories, it’s easy to hope for happy endings, especially at the end of a hard-won war. Good triumphs over evil, and the heroes finally have the chance to celebrate. Right?
But neither “The Lord of the Rings” nor World War I itself had any of that for the normal people who were forced to fight. Not the soldiers on the front line, or many of the main characters in the novel. In essence, many of J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters pull their qualities from the people he served with, particularly the resilience to just keep going, to see the war through to its inevitable end. There was incredible courage to keep fighting, but also a kind of stoicism, a refusal to give in to anger. In short, the soldiers in the trenches were admirable, and the characters of Middle Earth prove themselves admirable in the exact same way.
None of it was pretty, though, and those same honorable soldiers rarely saw the glorious side of military victories. All they could really do was wait for the next battle, stewing in the futility and fear. It’s an experience communicated through Merry and Pippin in the aftermath of the Battle of Pelennor Fields; the men of Gondor and Rohan are singing and celebrating their valor, but the reader saw the fighting through the eyes of the hobbits, who had a front seat for battlefield horrors. They feel no glory in that, in much the same way as World War I soldiers.
