Nothing can last forever In Lord of the Rings And Ravens Gate

By: Finnegan Lowell Buck In The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R.Tolkien, and Ravens Gate, by Anthony Horowitz, both books show the return of an evil force after a long period of peace and prosperity. However, the characters, Matt and Frodo, struggle against the evil in different ways. Matt must keep the evil out of the world, while Frodo must destroy the evil in the world. The main theme that runs strongly in both books is that even the most powerful and beautiful things can never last forever. At the start of both books there is a time of good coming to an end, and signs of an evil before the new age are still apparent. In The Lord of the Rings Middle Earth has seen a long period of peace and prosperity, but once again Sauron has risen and is searching for the ring. In Ravens Gate, our world seems normal, but the Old Ones are returning and their followers are already bringing evil upon the world. There are still people who know of dark times that came before. In this way, the Nexus and The Council of Elrond are very alike. They provide help to the main characters, but do not rush to the characters aid, but the characters also have many friends to help them. By the second book of Ravens Gate or the Gatekeeper series Matt has found a good friend, with the promise of finding three more because he is one of the Five. In a way this is similar to The Fellowship of the Ring who all have the mission to destroy the ring. The Fellowship however is formed immediately and falls very early on. The Five take a long time to be united but hold together longer. So in both cases a long period of good has come to an end because of another force. Both books show how almost all destruction leads to the evil. Once something has fallen from a benign state it is hard to rescue it. Since destruction is almost inevitable this shows that good things rarely last. An example of this from the Lord of the Rings would be Smagol or Gollum who was once a hobbit but was transformed by the evil deed of murdering is friend under the influence of the ring. He is tormented and denies himself all pleasures, he hates the sun as the witness of his first crime and the moon as the witness to his many other misdeeds. At one point when Sam and Frodo tie Gollum up with an eleven rope, he shows a strong discomfort to the soft fabric, He writhed, and tried to get his mouth around the rope. He kept on screaming. This shows that after being turned, things like Gollum will despise all things from their previous life; this shows how it is very hard to revive good things. All the while he tries to excuse his friends death by crooning over the ring as his most precious birthday present from him. While Saurons ring is driving him to do more evil, when he loses the ring the ring to Bilbo, all he can do is hate everything. Something similar is true for the orcs; they are tortured and deformed elves and humans who were captured in their struggle to destroy Melkor of which Sauron was only a general. The same pattern can be seen in Ravens Gate where Matts

Aunt and last living relative is turned against Matt by the words of the Old ones and their followers. She murders her boyfriend when he tells her that she is being foolish about listening to what the old ones tell her. She then becomes completely reliant on the old ones who repeatedly tell her that she did the right thing and that through her they will win Most of the old ones followers have been gained that way, through greed and assurance of victory. This shows us something about evil considering that is almost never victorious. So good things have the tendency to corrode and fall into evil never to return to good. A last reason why the statement that nothing can last forever is true, is that through both books there is the theme that only the strongest can meddle with evil and evil usually strikes only them, the powerful hardest. Ravens Gate shows that almost who try to defend and help Matt must pay with their lives. They bring around their own doom in hopes of destroying the enemy. In this way destruction can be seen as a snake that bits its own tail. Those who destroy are destroyed. The hard part would be to see which destruction is worth it. One say that in both Frodos and Matts struggles are worth it because they fight for the well being of other people. Sauron and the old ones however fight to bring themselves to power. In Middle Earth the elves are worrying that the destruction of the ring would weaken their power gained from the three rings given to the elves. For if you fail [to destroy the ring], we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlrien will fade, and the winds of Time will sweep it away. (p. 475), says Galadriel to Frodo while the Fellowship stays in Lothlrien. It seems that a new period must arise after such great destruction including that which Frodo brings about in destroying the ring. The elves, maya, dwarves, hobbits, ents, eagles, olifaunts, barrow dwights, orcs, wargs, trolls and balrogs, must fade to give way to the new age, the age of humans. In conclusion both books show that the good and strong are often ensnared in struggles and therefore perish. However, they also both suggest that there are battles worth fighting, and that if completed with the well being of others in mind, the struggles might be worth it. With this in thought one might find that beautiful things are destroyed when they are tempted to destroy something else as they are corroded by evil. This is why even the most powerful and beautiful things cannot last forever.