lord of the rings pontification
part of the problem with the original series *is* how black and white everything is. that's explicitly how tolkien wrote it bc it wasn't about a nuanced story it was about building a world for his language using his historical framework of world war 2
you know, the war where the allies were explicitly "good" and the axis were explicitly "evil", a framework that he worked within
the shadows of war devs are silly as heck thinking this justifies shelob in a dress
