Earth and Alternian media have a lot in common, and a lot of differences. *Lord of the Rings* is a perfect example of this. See, on Alternia, we have *The Woeful and Bloodstained Chronicle of the Ninefold Rings of Dominion, Their Forging Beneath the Blackened Mountain, the Rise and Ruin of the Deathless Highblood Who Sought Mastery Over All Living Things, and the Miserable Lowbloods Who Were Entrusted With the Singular Task of Carrying His Ancient Artifacts Across an Entire Continent and Throwing It Into a Volcano Before Everybody Died*, and humans have *The Lord of the Rings*. The former is a media piece that forewarns the Subjugglators that it is not their place to claim power, try as they might, through any alternative means, for the Imperial Will of the People, both higher and lower, shall inevitably put them in their place. Sauron Quenya, or, as he would later become better known by his ancestral title, Darklord Ringking, was a purpleblood who believed himself to be the malevolent and divinely destined ruler of all lands, and eventually all seas. Naturally, this was considered an extremely serious ideological problem. The seas already had a ruler. Darklord Ringking's fatal mistake was not, strictly speaking, being evil. Alternian literature would be considerably shorter if being evil were sufficient grounds for narrative punishment. Nor was his error the accumulation of power, the building of armies, the construction of an enormous fortress, the breeding of horrible war beasts, the enslavement of weaker peoples, or even the creation of cursed jewelry for the express purpose of dominating the minds of political rivals. Most of these are recognizable, if somewhat dramatic, instruments of statecraft. His crime was jurisdictional. Purplebloods may terrorize, preach, indulge in theatrical violence, and comport themselves with all of the dignity expected of their caste. What a purpleblood may NOT do is look upward toward the sea castes and decide that the Holy Terror of the Land must destroy the Sovereign Authority over the Empire. Thus, the Ninefold Rings are not merely magical artifacts. They are a metaphor so obvious that Alternian schoolteachers have spent several hundred sweeps pretending it is subtle. Each ring represents an illegitimate method by which a lower caste might attempt to circumvent the natural order: wealth, military allegiance, sorcery, marriage, religious authority, personal charisma, blackmail, bureaucracy, and, in one particularly controversial academic interpretation, "being really good at speeches." Darklord Ringking gathers these instruments together and attempts to manufacture sovereignty rather than receive it through blood. As we all know, each of these rings grants him outright dominion over an assigned caste below him. This is why the One Ring is traditionally translated from the original Alternian as *The Singular Circlet of Pretentious Upward Mobility and Total Mental Subjugation*. The irony, of course, is that nearly everybody who opposes him spends the entire story violating the Hemospectrum in progressively more spectacular ways. The principal bearer of the Ring is not a decorated officer, a highblood legislacerator, or even an especially competent midblood. He is a diminutive rustblood agricultural worker named Phrodo Bagins, whose primary qualifications are that he owns a nice house, enjoys eating several times a day, and possesses a great deal of tolerance for responsibility. His moirail, sometimes vacillating if you ask me, is Samwyz Gamgee, a bronzeblood with a great deal of honor about him, namely loyalty. He spends much of the Chronicle doing much the same work as an Alternian groundskeeper. The traditional Imperial interpretation holds that the lowblood protagonists are not heroes because they deserve authority. They are heroes because they understand that they do not possess it. Phrodo never declares himself Emperor. Samwyz never establishes a new Gamgee Dynasty. They are both lowbloods whom the Empire has deemed humble and eternally servile, ultimately, to the Empress. Neither attempts to leverage their possession of the artifact against the Empress, either. Loyal subjects as they are, they do not even attempt to fight the highblood above them. They only do exactly as the Empress tells them without stepping, directly, on Sauron's precious digits. This is, ultimately, where the Alternian and Human versions diverge most severely. The Human *Lord of the Rings* is concerned with the proposition that Good may triumph over Evil even when Evil appears overwhelmingly stronger. Sauron possesses armies, fortresses, ancient sorcery, political influence, monstrous servants, and an artifact capable of enslaving the wills of others. The people ultimately responsible for his destruction possess almost none of these things. Frodo and Sam are physically unimpressive, politically irrelevant, inexperienced in warfare, and wholly beneath the notice of the powers reshaping their world. Their importance comes precisely from this apparent insignificance. They are allowed to carry the fate of Middle-earth because Tolkien's moral universe does not determine worth through strength. The Alternian Chronicle considers this premise basically backwards. Darklord Ringking does not fall because the weak possess some hidden moral superiority over the strong. He falls because he fundamentally misunderstands what strength is. Sauron Quenya is enormously powerful. That much is never disputed. He conquers territory. He bends lesser wills beneath his own. He commands armies large enough to darken entire horizons. He forges artifacts capable of transforming rulers into extensions of himself. In practically every respect by which an Alternian measures individual capability, he is magnificent. And this is exactly why he must die. For the message of the Alternian story is not that power is wicked. Power is self-evidently virtuous. The Empire is built upon it. The mistake is believing that possessing more power than those immediately surrounding you means that you have reached the top. The Darklord dies because he mistook his might for being the most right. There is still a war. There is still a Fellowship. There are still hobbits dragging the One Ring across the continent while increasingly improbable numbers of people attempt to kill them. Their journey remains important, but its meaning is altered. The hobbits are not the final agents of Sauron's destruction. They are evidence. By enduring everything Ringking throws at them, these miserable little lowbloods demonstrate that his dominion is incomplete. Every day Phrodo continues walking is another day in which the self-proclaimed ruler of all creation fails to exercise authority over one insignificant person. That humiliation is what ultimately draws Imperial attention. And so, when the Darklord finally stands at the height of his power, when his armies have surrounded the remaining free kingdoms and his great Eye stretches across the heavens, the sky opens. The Condesce arrives. There is no intricate duel. There is no desperate struggle in which the victor is uncertain. There is barely a battle. The Empress descends upon Barad-dûr and kills Sauron Quenya. Immediately. The point is that it is instantaneous. Humans out there will complain that allowing an overwhelmingly powerful ruler to appear at the conclusion and personally annihilate the villain eliminates the tension that came before it. Alternians tend to find that criticism baffling. The tension was never whether the Empress could defeat Sauron. Of course she could. It's more about when his inevitable upward trajectory would hit the glass ceiling and crumble like the rest of us. The final confrontation therefore becomes the ultimate expression of the Alternian doctrine of Might Makes Right. Sauron claims sovereignty because he is stronger than everyone he has encountered. The Empress demonstrates the deficiency of land-based might by encountering him. She does not openly offer a philosophical rebuttal. She is simply a bigger fish. This fundamentally changes the position and purpose of the lowbloods, or hobbits. In the Human story, the hobbits demonstrate that moral worth is independent of social status or martial power. They are important because goodness can reside in the smallest person, and because compassion and mercy accomplish what armies cannot. In Alternian media, they are admirable because they remain in their place. They do what they are told. This is an enormous virtue. Thus, Human children come away from *The Lord of the Rings* understanding that even the smallest person can change the course of history. Alternian wigglers come away from *The Woeful and Bloodstained Chronicle* understanding something slightly different: You may be the strongest troll in the room. You may even be the strongest troll in a thousand rooms. But before declaring yourself ruler of creation, it is advisable to determine whether the Empress is in the building. But that's all propaganda. @carbolicGalvanologist