There’s something remarkably subversive about Tolkien’s vision of evil. The central engine of domination in The Lord of the Rings—Sauron’s One Ring—isn’t vanquished in a climactic duel or by military conquest led by King Elesar. It doesn’t shatter in some final, valiant act of heroism. Instead, it collapses in on itself. In other words, evil self-destructs, and that is, paradoxically, one of the most hopeful truths Tolkien ever gave us.

But let’s not get lazy about it.

Yes, evil collapses. It always does. Empires rot from within. Tyrants and despots fall. The One Ring—Tolkien’s master symbol of domination, greed, and control—draws itself to its own doom. Sauron, in his blindness and haste, orchestrates his undoing by driving the Nazgûl out from Mount Doom. He beckons the Ring back to the place of its unmaking. Gollum—twisted and ruined by the very power he covets—becomes the final catalyst for its destruction. Sauron’s own desire mimetically infects Gollum, who in turn fulfills that desire by plunging into the fire.

Of Frodo, in Letter #192, Tolkien writes that, “few others, possibly no others of his time, would have gone so far.” That is no small praise. Frodo bore the Ring from the Shire to Bree, from Weathertop to Rivendell, through the Dead Marshes and into the black heart of Mordor itself. He carried that accursed burden all the way to the lip of the Cracks of Doom. And then—only then—did evil collapse.

But it did collapse.

So, what does this mean for us?

Because if you haven’t noticed, we’re staring down our own Mordor. We are living in the shadow of a fascistic regime-in-waiting, with Donald J. Trump acting every bit the modern Sauron: grasping, domineering, paranoid, incapable of love but drunk on the illusion of power. His movement—White Christian Nationalism—is a political Ring of Power forged in the fires of bigotry and baptized in the language of God and country. It mimics the sacred while seeking only control. It gaslights the weak while exalting the strong. It demands loyalty and feasts on fear.

But like all such regimes, it is bloated and unsustainable. It guzzles resources faster than Sharkey burns coal. It consumes more than it can create. It must lie, cheat, steal, surveil, and imprison. It requires ever-expanding energy to maintain its illusion of control. And that is its fatal flaw. Like the Ring, it cannot survive the weight of its own ambition.

But that doesn’t mean we get to sit back and wait. I can’t stress this enough. Evil collapses, yes, but only after a Frodo carries the burden, only after a Sam refuses to leave his friend behind, and only after a Gollum, twisted by desire, unknowingly plays his part in the drama of unmaking.

We’re not passive observers of collapse. Instead, we’re participants in the slow, grinding undoing of empire. We are the ones who walk through fire. We are the ones who speak out when it’s easier to stay silent. We are the ones who organize, vote, march, protect, write, cry, pray, and resist.

And maybe, like Frodo, we won’t find solid footing in our own Shire again. Maybe the trauma of this fight will linger in our bodies and bones long after the final battle is over. Maybe we’ll have to board the gray ship and say goodbye to what once was. But maybe, just maybe, our children and our children’s children will play in green fields under a sun not choked by ash. Maybe they’ll build something better on the ruins of our broken towers.

That’s why we don’t give up.

We remember that evil is loud, but not eternal. That domination devours itself. That the wheels of fascism break under their own weight. But only if someone bears the Ring long enough to bring it to the mountain. So bear it. With trembling hands and bleeding feet, bear it. Until the day it slips from the fingers of power and falls into fire.

Until that day, friends: hold fast and have hope, even if it is a fool’s hope.

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