So true! What an awful little pipsqueak he is! One hopes he is actually reformed enough by the end of the book …

Well, yes. But even so, Lewis can’t help writing Jane Studdock as the hero of the story. It’s a wonderful book, despite its flaws - and one of my comfort reads in these dark times.

Well, he says a lot of things, doesn’t he? 😂

Maybe he only shops for liquor?

On the other hand my father, who was quite a bit younger than Tolkien, was a devout Catholic, and loved some of the same writers Tolkien loved. Gerard Manley Hopkins was his favorite poet, and he would have had conniptions had anyone suggested that he was gay! So I think your point stands!

Fair enough! I think I may have been influenced by this article, which I read a while back. medium.com/sexstories/t...

You make a good point! On the other hand, his close personal friend, Auden, was gay. I think Tolkien’s attitude might have mirrored Pope Leo’s fairly closely - though of course I don’t know!

That’s interesting about the brightly colored waistcoats! I didn’t know that, either!

Also, I don’t think it’s clear that Tolkien would have been anti LGBTQ.

Absolutely. He would have been with Pope Leo, the NY Sisters of Charity and lots of other American Catholics!

Except for an egregious mischaracterization of the Stewards of Gondor, it’s a good article.

8/10. I got all the Tolkien ones right - but, unlike the Dark Lord, I am not a Master of Metals!