Books
Is The Lord of the Rings about the nuclear bomb? Tolkien revealed his true inspiration in 1968
The father of modern fantasy spoke about real-life inspirations for his books and stories, which somehow also include nuclear warfare.
The fantasy genre was not always as popular as it is today. Currently there are authors of the stature of George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson, which sell millions of copies around the world. However, none of them would have gotten where they are without the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien. The creator of ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ changed literature forever, but what inspired him to create his most important work?
The answer can be found in an interview which the writer granted to the BBC in 1968. In it, Tolkien denied that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was based on the nuclear bomb, since many people believed that the One Ring was a kind of allegory about this weapon. Actually, the book is about death, the inevitability of death; and to delve into it, he used a quote from the writer Simone de Beauvoir that perfectly captures the keys to her own work:
“There is no such thing as natural death: nothing that happens to a man is natural, for his very presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident, and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”
The key to ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is death
With these words, Tolkien made it very clear that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is not a mere story about the struggle for power, but rather it is a deep reflection on the human condition and mortality. Although of course it is also worth noting that there are other elements that influenced the author when writing his novel; He would never have written this work without his previous experiences in the First World War or without the influence of the Industrial Revolution.
Fifty years after his death, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ no one can deny that J.R.R. Tolkien continues to be a great reference for fantasy. Without him, we would never have had ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Mistborn’, or ‘The Stormlight Archive’.
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