The Hobbit has faced challenges and bans primarily due to religious objections, with critics claiming its inclusion of magic, witchcraft, and "satanic themes" promotes occultism, despite Tolkien's own deep Catholic faith and Christian themes in his work. A notable instance was a 2001 book burning in Alamogordo, New Mexico, by a Christian rights group, and similar criticisms have led to its removal from schools and libraries, with parents objecting to its fantastical elements like smoking, drinking, and sorcery.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Witchcraft and “Satanic themes” are the main arguments from censors in favor of pulling this book, as well as the other Lord of the Rings books, from shelves.
Most Commonly Banned Books
The Hobbit trilogy received mixed-to-negative reviews primarily because it stretched a short children's book into three bloated films, leading to poor pacing, excessive CGI, and the addition of unnecessary subplots (like the forced Tauriel/Kili romance and Legolas's return) to pad the runtime, making it feel like a cash grab rather than a cohesive, emotionally resonant story like The Lord of the Rings. Key complaints included inferior CGI compared to the original trilogy, awkward pacing, and a tonal inconsistency that failed to commit to being either lighthearted or epic, often feeling childish and disconnected, despite the strong performances from the cast.
Reasons: Religion
The Lord of the Rings appears on the American Librarian Association's list of Banned and Challenged Classics. Accoridng to ALA, the book was burned in Alamagordo, NM (2001) outside Christ Community Church along with other Tolkien novels as "satanic."
Charlotte's Web was banned in 2006 after parents on religious grounds objected to talking animals. Captain Underpants is in the top 100 most challenged and banned books due to complaints of violent imagery.
Parents need to know that, of J.R.R. Tolkien's many excellent books, The Hobbit is the better choice for tweens. It makes a great read-aloud for kids 8 and up and read-alone for 10 or 11 and up. Kids younger than 8 will probably have a tough time with both the vocabulary and some of the violence.
Peter Jackson apologized after making Ian McKellen cry 😢🎬 On The Hobbit set, Ian McKellen felt so isolated filming alone in a green-screen room that he broke down and questioned if he should keep acting. 💔 To cheer him up, the crew threw a surprise “Celebrate Gandalf Day” - Elvish props, decorations, and lots of love.
'” Even so, he is “quite content” (Tolkien, Annotated Hobbit 361). In transporting us with Bilbo outside the limits of convention, The Hobbit (1937) is similarly queer, encouraging contentment unmoored from economic and sexual markers of traditional patriarchal respectability.
One of the things I like most and am proud of in this world is that Viggo Mortensen was offered to play Aragorn again in The Hobbit trilogy, but he declined because he said Aragorn did not appear in the book.
There's no single "#1 saddest book" as sadness is subjective, but popular contenders often cited for emotional devastation include Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, George Orwell's 1984, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, and classic tragedies like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak also frequently mentioned for its heartbreaking narrative.
The Guinness Book of Records records its own issues as the most stolen book from public libraries in the United States. It is followed in the ranking by the Christian Bible in its different languages and editions.
Violence & Gore
A severed head is brandished and thrown. An extremely large pile of corpses is shown as the aftermath of a battle. A few heads are (non-gorily) cut off onscreen. A non-human character is stabbed through the throat and thrown to be eaten (offscreen but heard) by wolf-like animals.
The Wizard of Oz was banned by all public libraries in 1928 because the book was deemed ungodly for “depicting women in strong leadership roles.” However, the most notorious banning was in 1986 when seven families from Tennessee filed a lawsuit to remove the book from school syllabuses.
As always, it's important to use biblical discernment when reading a book, watching a film, or listening to music. Though Harry Potter is a fantastic series, not everyone may be on board with it and that is perfectly fine. Harry Potter isn't something Christians should avoid but certainly go into with caution.
And if it would be easier to understand Gandalf , compare him to Jesus Christ - by canon at least , he was born as a human , however he never exhibited sexual urges . As for the official lore on Gandalf - no he has no sex partners nor kids . And he might be in a human body , however he had a mission .
On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916.
Out of all his family members, apart from his parents, Bilbo was closest to his cousin Frodo, whom he identified as his nephew as opposed to their actual relations.
Legolas of all people had a reason to be angry in The Hobbit. First of all the death of his mother brought a rift between him and his father. Then the dwarves betrayed his family and stole his mother's memento. That's why he is angry at the dwarves.
During production for the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Mortensen was offered to reprise his role as Aragorn, but he declined because the character does not appear in the novel the film is based on.
McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014. McKellen is a cofounder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots.
Unlike the theatrical version's PG-13 rating, the Extended Edition was rated R by the MPAA for "some violence", which makes it the only Middle Earth film to have a restricted rating and, one of the few films based on a children's book to have an R rating.
The #1 most-read book in the world, by a significant margin, is The Holy Bible, with billions of copies sold and distributed, followed by the Quran, while among secular/fiction books, works like Quotations from Chairman Mao (Little Red Book), Don Quixote, and the Harry Potter series are top contenders for most read/sold. The Bible consistently tops lists for both sales and religious/cultural influence, but defining "most read" can vary between sales, cultural impact, or a specific time period.
The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien's fantasy "has no explicit Christianity", unlike the medieval Arthurian legends "with their miracles, pious hermits, heavy-handed symbolism, and allegorical preachiness". Tolkien's Middle-earth, "greatly to his credit", avoided preachiness and allegory.