The Denethor contrast is super insightful. The piece nails how he can perceive others' thoughts but still lacks true empathy, turning that insight into manipulation ratherthan connection. What's interesting is how this mirrors modern leadership failures where people confuse reading data about human behavior with actually understanding it. I saw sometihng similar in a company where the CEO obsessed over metrics but couldn't grasp why morale tanked.
Frodo's kinship with Gollum leads him to feel pity. Not kinship of race or friendship, but the kinship of being damned by the evil ring. Frodo tried to save Gollum for the hope of being saved himself.
Great piece. I had forgotten how Gandalf talks about Eowyn in that moment, lovely. I recently wrote about empathy in the context of an Old English poem that influenced Tolkien deeply, I need to reflect on how emotions in LOTR might have a particularly medieval aspect to them.
The Denethor contrast is super insightful. The piece nails how he can perceive others' thoughts but still lacks true empathy, turning that insight into manipulation ratherthan connection. What's interesting is how this mirrors modern leadership failures where people confuse reading data about human behavior with actually understanding it. I saw sometihng similar in a company where the CEO obsessed over metrics but couldn't grasp why morale tanked.
Frodo's kinship with Gollum leads him to feel pity. Not kinship of race or friendship, but the kinship of being damned by the evil ring. Frodo tried to save Gollum for the hope of being saved himself.
Really enjoyed this, an aspect of LOTR I hadn't thought much about before. Looking forward to the second part. Thank you.
Great piece. I had forgotten how Gandalf talks about Eowyn in that moment, lovely. I recently wrote about empathy in the context of an Old English poem that influenced Tolkien deeply, I need to reflect on how emotions in LOTR might have a particularly medieval aspect to them.
https://open.substack.com/pub/nikolasgunn/p/the-wanderer-an-old-english-lyric?r=2arsrg&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay