>>64455416
>>64436995
when he said he hates allegory, he was not referring to a lack of metaphor or inspiration because thats obviously not true when he has been pretty open about his inspiration being fairy tales and myths
he was specifically talking in the context of people talking about the one ring being an allegory for nuclear weapons or sauron being an allegory for [insert politician here]
a lot of well-meaning fans tried to defend his work by saying it was actually very deep because it was actually secretly about this other thing
tolkien wanted applicability, not allegory
if you felt like the one ring being an all-powerful weapon for whom control of the world went to control of the ring felt like like it matched up with the feeling of the nuclear arsenal, tolkien approved of that
but he didnt approve of people who would say that the ring directly represented nukes because they just didnt, tolkien had said that if they really were meant to be a stand-in for nukes than the ring would have been replaced by a second, even more powerful, ring