I only recently watched the Lord of the Rings movies while understanding what was happening. I've seen them as a kid, but at that time I just looked at the cool battles, cool graphics, heroic moments and didn't really understand the characters, the ideas, the feelings. Then I've heard many times how great the books and the movies were, but they are always in the background of the media discussion, so it never felt like I really should rewatch them, just that I should "one day".

Then, that day happened. I didn't even finish the rewatch, but I still want to talk about it.

The key element of the movies that impressed me so much I'm still thinking about them and writing this page is hard to describe. It's something like honesty, friendship, directness. How you could call the story naive, and the story makes itself vulnerable to that idea, and that's exactly why it can do what it does.

I don't fully understand what that part that impressed me is, and I'm writing this here hoping I can understand it better if I write it.

There is a trend in some modern stories to focus on the gritty details of life, how nobody is perfect, and the fantasy world is like the real world that just happens to have magic in it. So it brings real life ideas and real life problems into the fantasy world. How the fantasy economy works, how the power of a king is supported by the high nobility, and how there's lots of drama in all their relationships. How there's betrayal and death at every corner, and often the smart one and the sly one is the one who wins, not the honest one. Maybe at the end the good guys still win, but it doesn't change how the world itself feels as a cruel place.

Maybe I'm comparing it to A Song of Ice and Fire too much, but it's not just that. There's the mundane problems, the details, even when the world isn't that cruel. And I'm not saying it's bad, sometimes it brings out amazing worlds, but the focus there is on the characters who live in the world and their *life*.

By contrast, in The Lord of the Rings the focus often seems to be on *ideas*. The mundane elements are there sometimes, but the focus is on what they represent, on emotions and ideals.

When you look at the story on the mundane level, it doesn't feel as epic. There are these guys, and they don't really have that many special magical skills or anything, and they travel together. There's this ring that can make you invisible and that makes you evil, and for some reason it's the root of all evil. Gandalf can make light, use a bit of telekinesis and make a barrier if he really tries. He rides a really fast horse - there's no teleportation or anything like that. A balrog is just a large monster with a whip. Nazgul are just some guys on horses.

As a kid I was really confused at some of these parts. Especially Nazgul before they got their flying lizards. It's just some guys on horses, they get defeated a could times, and they get washed away with the river magic. Why exactly were they represented as so cool? Everyone is just a guy, why does the story doesn't acknowledge this more?

The answer is the ideas. Legosal is not just a guy who shoots a bow really well. Elves are not just humans with long lifespan and pointy ears. I think Legolas is the most obvious example of this change of perspective. The quote about the red sun rising seems to be often attributed to smoke, but there is also one about the forest - "This forest is old, very old. It's full of memory... and anger". He has a spiritual connection to nature, and elves in general have it. There are solemn moments, building this spirituality further, building the atmosphere.

This spirituality might be the one of the pieces of the idea I'm looking for. The spirituality and the atmosphere, as they are often what separates "just some guys" and "great heroes".

Another idea that comes to mind is something I return to many times in different contexts - the falst conslusions about what part of the movie or a book makes it good. I remember this happened to me as a kid, but I don't remember what story it was, what movie or book. Let's say, it was a revenge story about taking back the throne that's rightfully yours. The protagonist was betrayed and abandoned, but he had some allies, he built up some power and evidence in secret, made a grand plan how to unveil the truth and show the villain for what he was, the plan was a success, villain defeated, the protagonist crowned as the rightful heir to the throne. If I watched a movie like that and liked it, my logic short-circuited.

I would think "Okay, this is a revenge story, and I liked it *a lot*. It's popular and people like it, so it sells well, too. Which means that revenge stories is what sells well. People should make more revenge stories because they are so good. But wait, other people also realize this, so there will soon be a huge boom in revenge stories because other people are thinking like me, and they make movies."

There was no boom in revenge stories or any other stories I really liked. At first I thought "Why, are they not understanding this? This is a literally guaranteed hit idea!" I didn't cling to this idea much, probably realizing my reasoning was wrong somewhere, but not understanding where exactly.

Then, much later, when I learned a thing or two about storytelling, I realized that all the boring parts, all the cliches, all the "talking" and "this part just shows their life, when's the cool battle?" parts are what made the story so good. The revenge is just a cherry on top. It's the part that's noticeable, that's on the surface, but you really need the foundation for it.

I think The Lord of the Rings makes a different kind of foundation that I don't see as often. There's the story foundation - the character development and the plot development, making you familiar with the world so you start caring what happens to it. But there's also a foundation of the atmosphere, that spirituality. The solemn parts that seem boring to a small kid. These parts don't really bring our character development much, but they help you feel the mood. It's hard to do this part because when if you do it wrong, if the viewer doesn't open their mind to this experience, it just feels cringe and boring.