[Rare Trope] A story element that popularized a concept is actually the polar opposite of that concept

[u/DiveSideways]

Some franchises start off a bit specialized and evolve into something else later. Some stories get warped by pop culture and burdened with misconceptions. Some stories just don't make sense, or send the wrong message on accident.

Not these!

No, these examples are very clear (and not retconned) and yet pop culture has done a complete 180-degree turn on understanding them.

1. Romeo and Juliet routinely gets alluded to as though it's a classic love story. In fact it is an intensely melodramatic tragedy all the way through, everyone is shallow and exploitative and desperate--and they die for it. Even the opening of the play self-indulgently advertises how dire the whole situation is.

2. The One Ring from The Lord of The Rings isn't exactly meant to be a cursed item that corrupts the greedy or weak-minded. Geeky discourse loves to offer up examples of characters "strong enough" or "pure enough" to resist it, but The One Ring turns that trope on its head. The One Ring is an amplifier for power but lesser beings can't make full use of it. Being strong and noble and pure makes you more corruptible, you can bear a heavier load of its dark essence.

3. Keyzer Soze from The Usual Suspects is one of the most famous examples of a villain who fooled everyone and got away with his plotting scot-free. However, the whole huge convoluted mess of a scheme was intended to kill off the last living enemy capable of ID'ing him. Not only did Soze accidentally leave a new witness alive who then cooperated with the police and their sketch artist, he also got himself closely inspected by a whole police station (who now know his true identity.) Yes, it was a good twist and yes, Soze escaped police custody, but his efforts to tie off one loose end resulted in high-quality images of his real face for the FBI Most Wanted list. In most ways this was truly an epic failure for him.

[u/Fr1toBand1to]

Thanks, you just made one of my favorite LOTR lines even better!

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.

-Gandalf

[u/Tehjaliz → u/Fr1toBand1to]

This quote does not come from Tolkien though. It was created for The Hobbit movies.

[u/EmpressClaraB → u/Tehjaliz]

If Tolkien wasn't such a hack he would've written some good lines like The Hobbit movies have /s

[u/Heckle_Jeckle → u/Tehjaliz]

Doesn't make it any less true. It was one of the actual good additions that stayed true to the whole concept of LOTR.

[u/BreakfastBeneficial4 → u/Fr1toBand1to]

Oof… I don’t like this quote.

I know I’m a sweaty Tolkien pedant, but I think this is a bad thematic read that didn’t translate well into the dialog that appeared in the movie.

The themes from Lord of the Rings repeatedly, over and over, highlight how important it is for everyone to do their part to stand unified and fight against big evil forces (and how inaction allows these big evil forces to form in the first place).

There is no suggestion in his writing that simple folks who are nice to each-other will capsize grand organized evil. In fact, the Scouring of the Shire shows exactly what Tolkien thinks will happen when simple, peaceful folks try to maintain their way of life in the face of said evil.

While he adored his enlisted men (and despised the nepo officer brats churned out by the Purchase System, and lampooned them in his writing), he openly heralded the need for bravery and grand, organized martial leadership in the face of existential threat.

[u/Bibiloup → u/BreakfastBeneficial4]

So would you say this misreading of the theme of LotR is another example of the OP trope ?

[u/Fr1toBand1to → u/BreakfastBeneficial4]

There is no suggestion in his writing that simple folks who are nice to each-other will capsize grand organized evil.

Isn't that what the entire book series illustrates though? Hobbits are ideal ring-bearers because they are simple folks who are nice to each other and that fact is exactly what capsizes grand evil?

[u/a_melindo → u/Fr1toBand1to]

Which they accomplish by going through hell, killing scores of their enemies, and living through the destruction of their home which they have to stand up and become battle generals and revolutionary leaders to reclaim, but they can never fully enjoy it again.

It's not "small everyday deeds" that save the day, it's people who wish they could sit back and do only that, but recognize that it can't be enough, and instead volunteer for the hardest and most gruesome task they can imagine instead.

[u/daecrist → u/a_melindo]

Which tracks with Tolkien’s experience in WWI. He was at the Battle of the Somme…

[u/Irregulator101 → u/daecrist]

Amusingly, Tolkien vehemently denies that LOTR is in any way a metaphor for WWI

[u/daecrist → u/Irregulator101]

Yeah, I know he dislikes allegory in all its form. I also think he can give interpretation of his work to the world while at the same time that work can be influenced by his own experiences.

[u/BigProduce6727 → u/Irregulator101]

It is entirely within reason that a plot can be influenced by someone's experiences without being a metaphor for explicit situatuons.

For example:

Military service may be where I first began noticing common social behaviors regarding hierachy. However, it would be dramatically misinformed to assume every time I bring up social structure and social climbing, its a metaphor for my military service.

[u/Fr1toBand1to → u/a_melindo]

And if they didn't have the "small everyday deeds" that came with life in the shire, would they have been the people that rose to the occasion? If it weren't for wanting the simple life of a hobbit would Sam have been able to resist the ring? Would frodo?

Putting gentle and kind people into difficult and harrowing situations doesn't simply remove the kind and simple parts of them.

It's the kind and simple parts of being a hobbit that makes Hobbits powerful in the LOTR books. They aren't powerful in SPITE of being simple and kind.

[u/xXProGenji420Xx → u/Fr1toBand1to]

the quote claims that the "small everyday deeds of ordinary folk are what keep the darkness at bay," which is explicitly not true in the story. being the kind of person who lives that kind of life might be a prerequisite to affect major change, but in the story itself, it's the ones who risk it all and put everything on the line in a real adventure that topple Sauron, and it's both the kind, powerless hobbits as well as the greatly powerful, yet still deeply compassionate, members of the fellowship that make it happen.

there were a lot of hobbits in the Shire that were content to keep living their cozy life and be kind and do good deeds everyday, but they weren't stopping Sauron.

[u/ErsatzHaderach → u/Fr1toBand1to]

username rather delightfully checks out

[u/SandpaperTeddyBear → u/Fr1toBand1to]

One corollary to this is that you can’t just shake your fist and blame grand structures for individual evil.

I know so many people who maintain friendships with people they find repugnant politically, and they do it by claiming that that person isn’t actually evil, because it was Putin that made them be evil, or Fox News, or Catholicism. It totally disregards the power of the individual to be good or evil. Arguably, I could just leave that sentence with “It totally disregards the power of the individual to be.

“Keeping the darkness at bay” doesn’t start with an epic walk to Mordor, it starts in one’s own home, in one’s own family.