Another day waking up as one of the richest people in the world, among the one-one-hundred-millionth of the luckiest, most empowered, most carefree sentient beings to ever walk the earth: I think today will be calling my lobbyist to make sure there's not a bicyclist getting off too easy somewhere.

Tolkien, who saw almost all his friends die in the Somme, and knew the seduction of despair, wrote both Denethor and Saruman as doomers.