Bret Devereaux

Finished Netflix's Castlevania series last night. I always find it interesting, in 'save the world' narratives when there is a real statement about what part of the world is worth saving. Castlevania's final season kept coming back to 'building things to live in...'

...as the key metaphor to define the better world the heroes actions were creating. The contrast with Tolkien struck me (though the comparison feels perhaps silly).

Castlevania would have a scene of construction - often with a sense of central, scientific planning offered by learned characters (Sypha, Isaac) - where Tolkien would have had the rural simplicity and petty concerns of Hobbiton.

The differences in worldview are really striking in that way - viewed from the Shire, Castlevania's ideal society seems scientific, technocratic, directed into being by humans anointed with capital-k Knowledge. One wonders how free the hobbits would feel there.

(Knowledge is a running motif in Castlevania from the first scene to the last too) By contrast, Tolkien's world worth fighting for is one in which the Sackville Bagginses would be free to live their petty, foolish lives and make their own petty, foolish mistakes.