What to do when all hope is gone Carry on Until all ends, or hope returns When all hope's lost and evil's won Carry on ‘til all is gone, keep going on Do what's just, though the road is long Carry on Unto the end when friendship burns When good's far off and all seems wrong Carry on To the last tale, to the last song ‘cause wrong’s still wrong, though hope be long Forgotten in ancient canticle and song When there's no chance of hope's return Carry on Though morn’ does not bring light of dawn Despair draws ever on and on From mountains Of sandy, timeless dejection
I love The Lord of the Rings. I love the books, the audio books, the movies, the soundtracks, as well as the elaborations from Christopher Tolkien and others. Yes, I even enjoy The Rings of Power. I read and listen to a bit of what others have to say about the stories, especially
(mainly through TikTok) and . I enjoy it all, but every time I go through the books I’m struck by a theme that I think is too often overlooked (or even avoided), especially if your primary exposure is to Peter Jackson’s movies.This theme, in my opinion (take that for what it’s worth), is the lifeblood of the stories. It fuels the fellowship. It is given force by the underlying stories of Beren and Lúthien alongside Húrin and his son Túrin (all of whom live through agony and despair in various ways). This theme empowers the reader to become emotionally connected to the story in rich and meaningful ways. Without it, the story loses much of its power.
The theme is hopelessness. The Lord of the Rings is not filled with optimism. The stories are not filled with what I would call delusional hope—that idea of holding on to some vague, indefinable idea of hope when all seems lost. Instead, the characters in these stories embrace the loss of hope and must decide what to do in the face of hopeless odds when all life seems to be ending. The decisions made by Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo along their journeys are not made by clinging onto hope in dark times but are made by choosing what seems most right (might I say righteous) when it seems like nothing really matters because the world is descending into utterly corrupt despair.
Frodo and Sam continue their task even when they have no hope of success or completion. They do not continue in hope, but in spite of the loss of hope. When Aragorn is confronted with the decision to go to Gondor, give up, or pursue his captured friends he is distraught. Gandalf is dead (or he believes him to be dead), Boromir is dead and Merry and Pippin are captured. He is flooded with feelings of inadequacy and grief, yet he carries on, not in hope of a successful end to the task he ultimately set out on, but in the uncertainty of a hopeless (but honorable) duty to his companions.
That is why I wrote this poem—to follow in the steps of the characters journeying through the hopeless task of subverting the overwhelming evil forces in the world around us. I don’t believe I have written in a way Tolkien would have written about the idea; nevertheless, I ask alongside my fictional heroes: “What do we do when all hope is gone?” I think they might say something like: Do not pretend as though hope is still here, but carry on in the ordinary tasks of doing right unto the end.
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