I suspect that a great deal of my cynicism, mistrust of authority and general aversion towered exercising power, even for some supposed “greater good”, trace back to The Lord of the Rings. This passage in particular has always deeply affected me:
And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of a Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love me and despair! She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 'I pass the test', she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.' "
I suspect that a great deal of my cynicism, mistrust of authority and general aversion towered exercising power, even for some supposed “greater good”, trace back to The Lord of the Rings. This passage in particular has always deeply affected me: