1. H.G. Ferguson says:

    Beorn is one of my favorite characters in the story too and I can’t wait to see him come to life in the movie. I would like to make two brief comments re shapeshifting. Whereas I agree with the sentiment expressed by Mrs. Kjos that you quote and document re Harry Potter, she like so many others is simply incapable of accepting the notion that Middle-earth, Narnia and other fantasy worlds are indeed OTHER WORLDS where God’s “rules” if you will about certain things may not necessarily be the same. HERE shapeshfting IS the province of the pagan and the demonic; not necessarily so in another different world God has created. The other thing I want to say is when you ask the question is shapeshifting possible “in reality,” that sounds a lot like Christian Rationalism to me, i.e. “The Devil can’t do that” — or hardly anything really, outside messing with our minds. Christians who’ve experienced the Devil’s Hand don’t ask the question you raise, they know better — by that same experience. And I cannot say in all charity, to echo Derek Prince, that in all charity it is experience I wish upon you. Soli Deo Gloria!

    • I’m more inclined to think that the only “real” shapeshifting is a reflection of God’s power. Primarily I’m thinking of angels manifesting as humans, but there’s also God’s rod-turned-snake and back again. Are there other examples in Scripture of one thing turning into another? I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

      Now Satan inhabiting other creatures–that’s different, and I don’t think that comes close to shapeshifting.

      Stephen, I found your characterization of Beorn as “more like medieval gangster” surprising. I find him to be quite close to Aslan–not safe, yet judging by his enemies, he’s definitely good. Now i he had a dwarf head on the pike or a skin of a hobbit, it would be a different matter.

      But he won’t be manipulated or used. He is an independent, which makes him harder to pin down. He reminds me in some respects of Tom Bombadil. I find it interesting that Tolkien seemed to feel the need to include these indendents in his stories.

      Becky

      • Beorn is scary, but awesome. Scary-awesome. I suppose I was thinking of a good-guy gangster, or perhaps the Grizzly Adams of Middle-earth.

        • dmdutcher says:

          He’s a fusion of a druid and a berserker, in the literal sense; berserker means bear-shirt, and before sexy werewolf days one way you became a werewolf was by wearing the skin of one. I think in the Volsung they had a myth of two brothers who became wolves by wearing wolf-shirts, so he might have extended the idea to bears.

          He’s scary and cool in a moderate form of how the old pagan people were scary and cool. You’d have extreme courage mixed in with cruelty or wildness.

  2. Charity accepted with gratitude, and I hope I return it below, brother.

    We’re agreed for sure about the “other worlds have other rules” truth. (Bear in mind that these discussion questions were originally for a live church reading group.)

    But I do wish to suggest a form of “regulative principle” about the Devil’s deeds. Nothing in Scripture supports the notion that the Devil can literally shapeshift; even the “angel of light” appearance is a metaphor to describe his attractiveness, for we do not actually see the Devil or his minions visibly manifest. Far more outside the bounds of Biblical-based rationalism is a notion that human beings in the Devil’s service could actually possess the power to shapeshift. To think otherwise is, I fear, abject mysticism and a failure to discern fantasy from reality. But even if this were true of demons, or humans practicing dark arts, Scripture only warns against resisting the devil’s temptations — not fearing any shapeshifting.

    • notleia says:

      I feel like I need to go copy-paste that discussion we just had about whether looking at tea leaves looks like witchcraft and certainty and efficacy and all that, ’cause this discussion just raises those same feelings in me of “this misses the point” and “who even cares about witchcraft?”

    • “who even cares about witchcraft?”

      Here is where our very approaches to the problem apparently differ. In response to your question, I very definitively say, “God does, as shown in Deuteronomy 18 and at least two texts in the New Testament.”

      • notleia says:

        But God was speaking to an audience that believed in the possibility and efficacy of such stuff, right? Why would we have to worry about staking boundaries around it when the vast majority in our culture doesn’t take it seriously? Is it just the meaning in ritual? I think any pagan meaning has been fairly well sanitized by now.

      • the vast majority in our culture doesn’t take it seriously?

        That’s not at all what I see in the majority of culture, though I don’t even need to prove that about non-Christians. Christians alone buy into a vast assortment of un-Biblical mysticism, though with an evangelical veneer. The wide array of materials that promise to give you “life direction” or help you practice listening so you can “hear from God” (the first-person “devotional” Jesus Calling is just one recent example) confirm that evangelicals, for all their good intentions, are wide open to practicing “divination” apart from the means God clearly said He would use to reveal Himself, culminating in Christ. That, however, doesn’t include notions such as evil, “demonic,” shape-shifting, which arise from popular myth and not Scripture’s actual forbiddings.

        • notleia says:

          So I take it you’re not a fan of the “enthusiastic” denominations.

        • Not sure about specific denominations. But Christian leaders or materials that emphasize ecstatic emotionalism over and above full-mental engagement do commit error. It’s the opposite error of those who emphasize rational thinking above emotional response. The Scriptures I’ve cited condemn either (such as Paul’s insistence in 1 Cor. 14 that all things, even the practice of wondrous spiritual gifts, “be done decently and in order”).

  3. Julie D says:

    I am looking forward to Tauriel with about the same amount of joy that I am express at my cold sending all its slime down my throat right now. Even her name (literally wood-elf) gives the “this-is-gonna-be-bad” vibes. Not because she’s an alteration, but because SHE. IS. NOT. IN. THE . BOOK. WHY do the producers feel the need to give her a poster?
    Looking forward to Beorn, Smaug the Greatest and Chiefest of Calamities, and anything with Ori.

    • But they had to do it because: women.

      Women will like an additional female character, even one not in the book.

      Oh wait. You appear to be a woman yourself. Now this is ever so confusing.

      • Julie D says:

        They added Galadriel for the White Council scenes–that’s the sort of addition I can get behind, because it’s canonically plausible. But Tauriel seems to be only there for the action scenes, which bugs because it implies only “action” woman
        are powerful–go to the appendices, go to the Silmarillion, read about Galadriel’s past.
        She says ‘through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat,’ from the day Morgoth (the original big bad) stole the Silmarills, through the Wars of Beleriand (in which every good elf was getting killed by other good elves) and the War of the Rings. If you don’t acknowledge the guts that takes, you’re being hypocritical.

  4. Literaturelady says:

    I’m a woman too, and Tauriel annoys me. I am tired of sword wielding spitfires. And frankly, doesn’t it disservice women to imply this is the only way to be strong? My mom is a homemaker, has five kids (ages 21 to 6), has graduated two, teaches the other three, does administrative work for my dad–oh, and she’s also a runner. All of that takes strength–not just physical strength but also a planning head and lots of patience and discipline.

    Sorry, little rant there. About Beorn…I haven’t searched what the Bible says about shapeshifters, so no informed opinion there. But I do want to see the film, and I think the parts PJ and Co. got RIGHT will far make up for Tauriel (and Bard, for that matter; I don’t like the way they’ve portrayed him. Bard was grim-faced, a pessimist, and since Tolkien usually mentioned family relationships, I always thought Bard got married after the events of The Hobbit).

    Glad to see the reading group posts have returned! I missed those!

    Blessings,
    Literaturelady

    • I am tired of sword wielding spitfires.

      Amen to that.

      Two points in Jackson’s favor, though. One, he and the others did learn their lesson, as explored about two years ago in Lord of the Fantasies: Beyond the Swordfights. Two, Evangeline Lilly herself was an in-depth Middle-earth fan long before the films were even announced, and herself was quite the fan of the books who was reluctant to see those films, for fear they would offer a horrendous adaptation.

      So even if Tauriel is a clunker of an annoying female character, it may not be due to the actress who plays her. (That or Jackson and Co. have their propaganda with their actors — e.g., “they’re fans just like you” — down to a science!)

      […] The greatest source of my anxiety on this film is that I’m going to be lynched. I was a die-hard fan of these books before the films ever came out. When I say die-hard, I wasn’t the person who could speak Elvish, but I really loved them. I wasn’t actually going to see the original films, because I didn’t think it was possible that a film could represent the books appropriately. So I was protesting and I wasn’t going to see them. Then my family all took a jaunt together, the entire family, to see the movies, and were like, “What, you’re just going to stay home?” So I saw the movies and was thoroughly impressed that Peter Jackson managed to make my vision of the book come to life, as well as my sister’s and my father’s, and my aunt’s and my uncle’s. Everyone’s. It seemed to somehow pan across everyone’s vision, even though we all knew we had to have had different visions of the books. So when I got called and was told, “We’d like you to do ‘The Hobbit'” — which was my favorite of all of them when I was a kid — “And we want you to play a character that’s not in the books,” I gulped and hesitated, but then I went, “These guys know this world, and they represent this world so well that I actually think they’ve earned the right to have a little play.”

      — from a ComingSoon.net interview with Evangeline Lilly, Oct. 17, 2013

      • Julie D says:

        Okay, that relieves my anxiety slightly, Only slightly. The marketing, on the other hand….I still wish they’d leave her out of marketing–this is supposed to be a story about the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo–sure, add some stuff about the Necromancer or Thranduil, but they’re in the book. Putting her in the trailers smacks of spotlight-stealing Sue.

      • Literaturelady says:

        I read those interviews, and Evangeline Lilly seems like a nice person. So I guess the problem is with the screenwriters who think female viewers want warrior women, which are now as cliche as the damsels in distress once were (and neither of which I like). And I am quite thankful that Peter Jackson didn’t have Arwen show up at Helm’s Deep!

What do you think?