Unmuted

One of the great gifts of fantasy literature is that it allows us to explore big, heavy themes in a context where we do not automatically dismiss the ideas the way we might if they were presented in realistic fiction or non-fiction. Fantasy gives us the chance to sit with the ideas themselves and judge their merit without the associations or prejudices we might (or might not) have in the real world; sometimes, we even learn, grow, and mature from those explorations. 

While I do not remember the first fantasy story I read, I do remember when the genre became cemented as my favorite. At eleven years old, Peter Jackson’s rendition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was slated to come out in theaters, and the trailer made it look good. I desperately wanted to watch it. Never ones to pass on the opportunity to introduce me to good literature, my parents informed me I could only watch the movie if I read the book first. Not to be deterred from watching what promised to be an excellent movie, I dove into the pages of Middle Earth, making my way through Hobbit lore, the idyllic Shire, songs and poetry both silly and heartbreaking, adrenaline-laced adventure, and characters who inspire me to this day. J. R. R. Tolkien’s works influenced my worldview and my personal philosophy in ways I am still discovering.

Millennials and Generation Z people can often be overheard laughing (to keep from crying) about the number of “unprecedented times” and “historic events” that have occurred during our lifetime. We joke, “If I never live through another unprecedented event, it will still have been too many!” or, more longingly and solemnly, “May I live to see precedented times.” We are cognitively aware that other generations lived through these same events right alongside us; we are not naïve enough to think only we were affected by such monumental events as 9/11 or the economic crash in 2008. It seems to us, though, that our lives have been marked by nothing but a string of terrible event after terrible event and that there is no end. We sometimes look with longing to times before ours: “Surely our parents and grandparents had it better!”

When we experience this nostalgia for times we never actually experienced, I am reminded of The Fellowship of the Ring and a conversation between Gandalf and Frodo. Before Frodo ever steps foot outside the Shire, Gandalf visits Frodo to explain the unprecedented times in which Fordo now lived: The enemy’s One Ring had been found and was now in Frodo’s possession. Recognizing the gravity and danger of the situation, Frodo bemoans the finding of the ring, saying “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” Gandalf responds, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us” (book 1, chapter 2). 

The easy inspiration to take from this quote is that while we cannot control what happens around us, we have the agency over our lives to decide to do the right thing. But that’s not why this passage comes to mind when thinking about this generational nostalgia for our parents’ and grandparents’ supposed “better times.” Gandalf says, “so do all who live to see such times” (emphasis added). Gandalf hints at something incredibly important with those words: The specific hard times that the world faced in Frodo’s times were unique, yes, but other hard times have existed before. The One Ring may not have been in Frodo’s life before, but it had certainly been active in the world before. In fact, Gandalf had just finished chronicling the terrible wars from times before – that’s why Frodo knew the finding of the One Ring spelled disaster for the world. Frodo knew the One Ring presented a terrible danger to the world precisely because the times were not quite so unprecedented as it seemed. Not only had precipitous times existed before, but people had faced difficult decisions about the One Ring before. 

The reality is, our parents’ and grandparents’ times were not the utopian wonderland we create in our heads when we become nostalgic for better times. My grandparents were children during the Great Depression and fought in World War II. My parents were teenagers when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington and when their president was assassinated; they were young adults during the Vietnam War. This “better time” we imagine never existed. All times are unprecedented because this moment has never existed before; at the same time, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Not have the parents and grandparents of Millennials and Generation Z had to go through all the same terrible events and times that we have, but they have been through their own sets of times they wish had not happened. 

To the librarians who have seen far more winters than Millennials and Generation Z; who have lived through our historic events and your own; who bear scars from battles we cannot comprehend; who have lost count of the number of times you have said “I wish it need not have happened in my time”; who put up with Millennials and Generation Z acting like we have a monopoly on generational suffering; who show up day after day after day, putting in the work for a better world: I see you. Thank you. Thank you for planting seeds in a garden you may not see grow. Thank you for choosing to serve your community through librarianship. Thank you for continuing to research and learn and grow in your knowledge. Thank you for the time and care you pour into us, professionally and personally. We – I – are better because of you. 

Let’s get through our current unprecedented times together, shall we?

This is an edited version of a message Kris Ann originally posted to the Association of Christian Librarians listserv on February 21, 2025.