Water may flow uphill, and animals may talk, but character development must be true to life. And he must love his characters so that they may live, even as God loves us and gives us life. Tolkein has a thorough imagination and a loving fullness of human wisdom. Shortly after reading the Lord of the Rings , I was directed to read Watership Down , a story about a prophetic rabbit who was always falling into a trance before giving his greatest prophecies. But St. Paul tells us that prophets have control over the spirit of prophecy.
True prophecy is never in a trance.
Tolkein would not have made such a theological error. His good characters always act on their own free will, tempered and developed over time and suffering. They may have unusual gifts, but goodness is always the fruit of generous effort and long patience. In a most astonishing way, Catholic theology comes to life in Tolkein, not in a self-conscious manner, as if he were writing an allegory, but simply and deeply. And students of moral theology must marvel at the combination of weakness, wisdom, and mercy-responsive mercy which resolves the plot.