Last week sparked a lot of discussions about Tolkien and what The Lord of the Rings meant in the wake of the news that Stephen Colbert would be writing the next movie. As such, we are going to do a deep dive into the rise in prominence of Tolkien in culture and show how this overtly Christian and right-wing work was popularized by the left, then claimed by the right after deep study, but is now being corrupted by the left again, quite intentionally. It’s a long story, but it’s immensely fascinating.
Here’s part one, our introduction:
In 2024, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow warned America about the vice presidential nominee’s reading habits.
JD Vance had named his venture capital firm Narya, after one of the three Elven rings of power in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Maddow told her audience the name was suspicious. “He called it Narya, N-A-R-Y-A, which you can remember because it’s ‘Aryan,’ but you move the N to the front.”
