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The Lord of the Rings: Ents and Ecology

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The Lord of the Rings has many themes throughout its three books, but the one theme that I find to be most prevalent is that of ecology. Nature is, if not the strongest, then one of the strongest images Tolkien uses in The Lord of the Rings, he shows us a world that he calls “green and good” and we see the people of Middle-Earth fighting to save this world. In this paper we will be looking at one of these books; The Two Towers. Also we will be looking at the film version directed by Peter Jackson. We will examine the theme of ecology through two of the main characters of both this book and film. Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys Davies) is the eldest of the Ents; he is the chief representative of nature in Middle-Earth (where the Lord …show more content…

We can feel the conflict shaping, surrounding these two opposing views. We can see the brewing of a war. On one side, we have Treebeard and all of the Ents and on the other side are Saruman and his army of Orcs. In both book and film one thing is quite clear, in Saruman's bid for power and destruction he chose the right army. Orcs are the antithesis of harmony with the natural world. They are violent creatures meant only for destruction and war. Orcs are unnatural creatures, counterfeits made by Sauron in imitation of the elves, and thus they clash with the natural world, (Tolkien 91). They are at odds with nature, being outside of it and meet it only with senseless violence and destruction. Treebeard explains this in the film version. "They come with fire. They come with axes. Knawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning, destroyers and usurpers. Curse them," (Jackson). We see the Orcs as emotionless and merciless creatures, except for their insurmountable rage and hatred for all that is good. That is to say that they do not love the living things or the growing things, such as everything. The Orcs tend to be viewed as mindless weapons, they are but an extension of Saruman’s “white hand” and the driving force of Saruman’s push to destroy the forests and end the world of men. The battle of Treebeard and Saruman is a small conflict in the greater war over the Ring of Power, but no

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