The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings #3) (1955)

- January 13, 2026

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sauron’s armies close in on Gondor and its allies, while Frodo and Sam struggle toward Mount Doom to destroy the Ring.

The war is fought on two fronts at once: open battle for the world, and a private test of endurance and judgment.

The long denouement after the Ring is cast into Mount Doom depicts change, loss, and what it means to deal with the trauma of war both for the participants and the homes to which they return.

Middle-Earth with its meticulously crafted history and language is unsurpassed as an example of world building.

JRR Tolkien denied that he wrote a commentary on his wartime era, yet it is hard not to notice political and social allegories, such as a satire of socialism, echoes of Nazism, allusions to postwar shortages in Britain, and an environmental strain that explores what gets consumed, stripped, and ruined when power expands.

JRR Tolkien

Tolkien’s treatment of Denethor’s decline is a clear example of the book's richness and continuing relevance: his preoccupation with gazing into the palantír exposes him to horrors until his judgement is distorted, which reads now as a warning about how a mind can be poisoned by a steady diet of harmful content.

Tolkien could not have anticipated social media, but the pattern is recognizable in people who keep feeding their fear and outrage until it starts to feel like insight.