my hot take is; LotR is simultaneously conservative and anti-war, very much bog standard adventures for English boys mixed with *questioning* racism and violence, both Christian and very pagan, and bounces between a highly literate academic's worldbuilding and a storyteller's knack for drama. In other words, I don't think anyone BUT Tolkien could have written this exact combination of things. I think LotR looms so huge because it's *that* unique.