In The Fellowship of the Ring, Elrond grows somber as he reflects on the history of the wars that have ravaged his world. He has lived long enough to know that, despite hopes to the contrary, the forces of evil would not be eradicated by the next battle: “I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories.”81 Tolkien denied that his Lord of the Rings was “just a plain fight between Good and Evil,” or that his protagonists represent untainted goodness. “But in any case this is a tale about war,” he wrote, “and if war is allowed (at least as a topic
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