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“Ever-Defeated Never Altogether Subdued”: Fighting The Long Defeat In Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings And Whedon's Angel, Katherine Sas, Curtis Weyant

Journal of Tolkien Research

The theme of “the long defeat” is a well-established concept in Tolkien studies. First explicated by Tom Shippey in his book The Road to Middle-earth and based on a lament by the elf queen Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings (“Through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat”), the long defeat represents the ongoing, seemingly vain struggle of good against an apparently endless tide of evil, where even the occasional victories of the heroes are often fruitless or short lived. Throughout its five seasons, the television series Angel (1999-2004), a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer …