It is in the news that Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants from the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos(1) back to the Vatican with him. This is, of course, a very kind act. But, Moria camp? Moria??
For me at least, the very name Moria has become irreversibly associated with the vast legendary underground Dwarven city beneath the Misty Mountains in the Lord of the Rings. Oh, and in its ruins a certain wizard, in a robe that was not unlike Pope Francis's, delivered a message of an exact opposite meaning to a creature which some might term a war refugee(2).
No wonder a Guardian writer called Tolkien's work 'political fantasy' with 'reactionary politics at the heart'. The newspaper is very internally consistent indeed.
For me at least, the very name Moria has become irreversibly associated with the vast legendary underground Dwarven city beneath the Misty Mountains in the Lord of the Rings. Oh, and in its ruins a certain wizard, in a robe that was not unlike Pope Francis's, delivered a message of an exact opposite meaning to a creature which some might term a war refugee(2).
From the film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Source
Notes:
(1) On an unrelated note, the island also lent its name to an essential component of the GLEE movement which every one of us should be part of and support.
(2) The Balrog was a survivor from the war against the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. As set out in The Silmarillion,
"The meeting of the hosts of the West and of the North is named the Great Battle, and the War of Wrath. There was marshalled the whole power of the Throne of Morgoth, and it had become great beyond count, so that Anfauglith could not contain it; and all the North was aflame with war. But it availed him not. The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth [...]"
