In this sense, they offer a challenge to those who view war as a ready solution to our problems as well as those who condemn any war as an unqualified evil. Neither Tolkien nor Lewis fell prey to the extreme reactions to the war so typical of their era. “We know from the experience of the last twenty years,” wrote Lewis in 1944, “that a terrified and angry pacifism is one of the roads that lead to war.”28 Tolkien decried “the utter stupid waste of war,” yet admitted “it will be necessary to face it in an evil world.”
