{"id":470169,"date":"2026-06-10T12:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470169\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:13:12","slug":"how-silicon-valley-misreads-the-lord-of-the-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470169\/","title":{"rendered":"How Silicon Valley misreads The Lord of the Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"

On October 30 2025, the Department of Homeland Security in the United States posted a Tolkien meme<\/a>. It pictured Merry Brandybuck<\/a> \u2013 one of J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s four hobbit protagonists in The Lord of the Rings<\/a> \u2013 speaking to another hobbit Pippin<\/a> at the climax of The Two Towers<\/a>, the second of Peter Jackson\u2019s film adaptations. <\/p>\n

Merry, the older and wiser of the duo, is trying to persuade Pippin not to return home to the Shire. He wants Pippin to join him in persuading the tree-shepherding Ents<\/a> to join the climactic battle against the forces of the wizard Saruman<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Beneath Merry\u2019s ominous warning (\u201cThere won\u2019t be a Shire, Pippin\u201d) are written the words \u201cJOIN.ICE.GOV\u201d. <\/p>\n

The post and the flood of Tolkien-themed anti-immigration memes that followed are symptomatic of a larger trend: the use of Tolkien, especially his heroic good-versus-evil imagery, in the rhetoric of the New Right. <\/p>\n

Such rhetoric is prominent among influential figures from Silicon Valley, such as Elon Musk<\/a>, whose influence can be felt in the ICE meme, US vice-president J.D. Vance<\/a> and Peter Thiel<\/a>, whose surveillance company Palantir is named after Tolkien\u2019s \u201cseeing stones\u201d, the palantiri<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tolkien, as recent commentators insist<\/a>, would hardly have enjoyed<\/a> such uses of his work. But are these readings of Tolkien really misreadings \u2013 readings without foundation in The Lord of the Rings? <\/p>\n

Homeland Security and the Shire<\/p>\n

The Homeland Security meme has no counterpart in Tolkien\u2019s book. In the book, the Ents are not recalcitrant. Unlike the Ents in Jackson\u2019s film, they decide to intervene in the war on their own, after a long process of careful deliberation.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s ending does, however, confront the scenario Merry fears in the film. The Shire is taken over by a hostile force.<\/p>\n

The episode \u2013 presented in the The Lord of the Rings\u2019 penultimate chapter, The Scouring of the Shire \u2013 has an anti-totalitarian edge. A band of \u201cruffians\u201d (human outsiders) and their hobbit collaborators have taken over the Shire. They institute rules and curfews. They describe their activities (stealing, burning and knocking down houses) in an Orwellian vocabulary of \u201cgathering and sharing\u201d and \u201cfair distribution\u201d \u2013 meaning \u201cthey got it and we didn\u2019t\u201d. <\/p>\n

Scholarly interpretations emphasise the internal nature of this threat. In David M. Waito\u2019s account<\/a>, the \u201cpressures of conformity\u201d in the Shire at the start of the book reemerge in this concluding episode. The same hunger for power the adventurers learnt to resist in Mordor<\/a> was always present in the Shire. <\/p>\n

Hobbit collaborators such as Ted Sandyman<\/a> and Lotho Sackville-Baggins<\/a>, are suspicious of nonconformists \u2013 a category which includes our hero, Lotho\u2019s cousin Frodo Baggins<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Lotho \u2013 the instigator of the takeover \u2013 starts as a capitalist mogul. \u201cSeems he wanted to own everything himself and then order other folk about,\u201d says the elderly hobbit Gaffer Gamgee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Palantir and the palantiri<\/p>\n

The danger of power \u2013 the desire to \u201corder other folk about\u201d \u2013 is a central concern for Tolkien. In 1943, he wrote to his son<\/a> about his \u201cpolitical opinions\u201d, saying they \u201clean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control)\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tolkien\u2019s deep suspicion of power can be found throughout his work, but especially in the Shire\u2019s utopian social system. The only proper government official is the Mayor of the Shire, but \u201calmost his only duty was to preside at banquets\u201d. <\/p>\n

Silicon Valley readings of Tolkien take account of his anarchic utopianism, which has affinities with its suspicion of government regulation. <\/p>\n

This, according to Peter Thiel<\/a>, is the reason he named Palantir Industries after Tolkien\u2019s palantiri. The company\u2019s surveillance and data-management technology should not fall into the wrong hands \u2013 the hands, in the words of Palantir\u2019s website<\/a>, of \u201cpowerful institutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tolkien\u2019s readers are first introduced to the palantiri by Aragorn<\/a> (the king who returns in The Return of the King). Aragorn\u2019s description of the stones is echoed in standard explanations<\/a> of the name Palantir Industries. A palantir is \u201cdangerous indeed\u201d, but \u201cnot to all\u201d. As the rightful king, Aragorn may claim one (and he does). <\/p>\n

Aragorn can be read as a \u201credemptive\u201d hero<\/a>, set apart in his ability to safely wield power. For Thiel and other tech giants, it is individual entrepreneurs \u2014 not governments \u2014 who should control new technologies.<\/p>\n

\"Film<\/a><\/p>\n

Aragorn mastering the palantir in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
\n New Line Cinema.<\/a><\/p>\n

The book\u2019s seeing stones, however, were made long before they were used by the kings of Gondor<\/a>. The wizard Gandalf<\/a> provides a deeper history than Aragorn, telling us that <\/p>\n

the palantiri came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them. F\u00ebanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years. <\/p>\n

Tolkien\u2019s posthumously published book The Silmarillion<\/a> recounts the legends behind The Lord of the Rings, including that of the elves known as the Noldor<\/a>. But the Noldorin craftsman F\u00ebanor<\/a> is no more the \u201cgood\u201d hero of The Silmarillion than Hamlet is the \u201cgood\u201d hero of Shakespeare\u2019s tragedy. <\/p>\n

F\u00ebanor is a tragic hero. His fatal flaw is his love of invention. In The Silmarillion, he creates gems containing divine light, the silmarils. This instigates the symbolic fall of the elves: the Noldor\u2019s exile from their homeland Eldamar<\/a>. <\/p>\n

F\u00ebanor\u2019s fall is prefaced by two mistakes. First, he neglects the restraining influence of his wife, Nerdanel<\/a>. Though she is also skilled in invention, she wants \u201cto understand minds rather than to master them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Second, he becomes secretive and possessive, isolating himself from all but a close network of kin. <\/p>\n

The same errors \u2013 isolation and secrecy \u2013 are repeated in The Lord of the Rings by wielders of F\u00ebanor\u2019s other invention, the palantiri. First, a line of kings in Gondor sit alone in \u201caged halls\u201d, \u201csecret chambers\u201d and \u201chigh cold towers\u201d, and so die out. Second, Saruman keeps the stone he finds \u201csecret, for his own profit\u201d. Third, Denethor<\/a>, the steward of Gondor, who inherits the palantir from its dead kings, keeps it secret and is driven to proud despair. <\/p>\n

Tolkien and the \u2018Machine\u2019<\/p>\n

The philosophy of Silicon Valley is that of popular fantasy war games. It interprets the world as a fight, in the words of Ursula K. Le Guin<\/a>, between \u201c(unquestioned) Good and (unexamined) Evil\u201d. <\/p>\n

For Thiel\u2019s heterodox Christianity<\/a>, \u201cbiblical revelation\u201d highlights the \u201cmadness of crowds\u201d, who seek to kill and drive out their messianic saviours. <\/p>\n

We find the opposite message in Tolkien. The users of magic objects \u2013 symbolically, for Tolkien, the \u201cMachine<\/a>\u201d \u2013 bring about destruction by wielding their power in secret, without accountability.<\/p>\n

For Thiel, those who oppose technological advancement are evil. In a recent interview<\/a>, he describes the threat of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is not \u201csome evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world\u201d, he said. It is far more likely to be those who say, \u201cwe need to stop science, we need to just say \u2018stop\u2019 to this\u201d. If we listen to such calls, according to Thiel, we will fall prey to the totalitarian world state, the Armageddon. <\/p>\n

\"Photographic<\/a><\/p>\n

J.R.R. Tolkien (c.1925)
\n Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n

Apocalyptic language is a hallmark of Tolkien\u2019s moral universe too \u2013 something Thiel\u2019s Lord of the Rings themed company names<\/a> take up. Yet for Tolkien the purpose of apocalyptic language is to cast light on ourselves. <\/p>\n

Tolkien defines<\/a> the danger of the Machine as \u201call use of external plans or devices (apparatus) \u2026 with the corrupted motive of dominating\u201d. Evil, he claimed<\/a>, can spring from \u201can apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others \u2013 speedily and according to the benefactors\u2019 own plans\u201d. <\/p>\n

Thus, The Lord of the Rings ends with the evil of Mordor brought into the home the hobbits thought was safe. \u201cYes, this is Mordor, Sam,\u201d says Frodo, speaking of the Shire, \u201cjust one of its works. Saruman was doing its work all the time, even when he thought he was working for himself.\u201d <\/p>\n

For Tolkien, any place can become \u201cMordor\u201d, when the desire to benefit others turns into the will to dominate them.<\/p>\n

Misreading Tolkien<\/p>\n

So does Silicon Valley misread Tolkien? <\/p>\n

There is a messianic undertone to the notion that private companies are the best pair of hands for dangerous technology \u2014 and there is a messianism to Tolkien. But his apparently black-and-white moral world has always provoked misinterpretation. <\/p>\n

W.H. Auden, who otherwise admired The Lord of the Rings, thought<\/a> Tolkien\u2019s depiction of absolute evil in the orcs<\/a> plays into \u201cour deplorable tendency \u2026 to identify our cause with Good and that of our enemies with Evil\u201d. <\/p>\n

It is easy to call our enemies the orcs and ourselves the heroes. But this is not the way Tolkien wished his works to be read. In The Lord of the Rings, good and evil are pictured as absolute in order to cast light on their character. Goodness is humble and ordinary. It does not seek power over others \u2013 though it will stand up for them when they are in need. <\/p>\n

Evil is competitive and secretive. It seeks to control others. In Mordor, we see the endpoint of the unrestrained pursuit of power for our own ends \u2013 even heroic pursuit of ends we think will benefit the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On October 30 2025, the Department of Homeland Security in the United States posted a Tolkien meme. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-470169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}