The Weaponization of Myth, How Middle-Earth is Being Enlisted in the Service of Modern Power
The literary cosmos of J.R.R. Tolkien has long been a sanctuary for generations of readers—a richly textured world of humble heroes, ancient wisdom, and a profound love for the simple, green things of the earth. Born from the trenches of the First World War, Tolkien’s legendarium was, at its heart, a monumental act of resistance. It was a repudiation of the mechanized warfare and unchecked industrialization that he witnessed firsthand, which he transmuted into the scorched earth policies of his dark lord, Sauron. Yet, in a profound and deeply ironic twist, the very symbols and names from this anti-industrial epic are now being systematically appropriated by the architects of the 21st century’s most advanced systems of surveillance, automation, and warfare. This appropriation is not incidental; it is a strategic co-opting of mythic moral authority to legitimize and cloak technologies that embody the very forces Tolkien himself reviled.
From the Shire to Silicon Valley: The New Lords of the Palantír
The evidence of this appropriation is no longer confined to the pages of fantasy novels but is emblazoned on the corporate logos of some of the world’s most powerful tech and defense companies.
Palantir Technologies: Founded in 2003 with early backing from the CIA’s venture capital arm, Palantir is a data analytics giant whose platforms are used for predictive policing, counterterrorism, and military intelligence. Its name is taken directly from the palantíri of Tolkien’s world: the seven “Seeing Stones” of Númenor, crystal balls that allowed their users to see across vast distances and communicate telepathically. In the lore, these stones are instruments of immense power, but they are also treacherous. They can be manipulated by a stronger will, as when Sauron corrupts the vision of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, driving him to madness and despair. The palantír does not lie, but it shows only what the Dark Lord wishes it to show, a tool of information asymmetry and psychological warfare.
The parallel to the modern company is stark. Palantir’s technology grants a god-like, panoptic view of populations, sifting through vast datasets to predict behavior and identify threats. It raises the same fundamental questions Tolkien embedded in his artifact: Who gets to watch, and who is watched? Who controls the narrative that the data tells? The company, like the stone, centralizes knowledge and power, creating a unilateral authority that operates with minimal public oversight, justified by the rhetoric of security and efficiency.
Anduril Industries: Established in 2017, Anduril develops autonomous surveillance towers, drone systems, and other AI-driven military technology for the U.S. Department of Defense. Its name is derived from Andúril, the sword Aragorn carries in The Lord of the Rings. Forged from the shards of Narsil, the blade that cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand, Andúril is a symbol of rightful kingship, a reunited kingdom, and the legitimate use of force to restore order.
By naming itself after this iconic weapon, Anduril Industries frames its mission in a heroic light. It positions its autonomous systems—which centralize decision-making about detection and lethal response in algorithms—not as cold, unaccountable machines, but as the legitimate, righteous tools of a modern-day Aragorn, wielding “the Flame of the West” against the chaos of modern threats. It implies that its power is not just technological, but morally justified and destined.
Reflect Orbital: More recently, a private company announced plans to launch a satellite named “Eärendil-1,” designed to reflect sunlight from orbit to boost solar energy efficiency on Earth. In Tolkien’s mythology, Eärendil the Mariner is a semi-divine figure who sails the heavens with a Silmaril—a sacred jewel—fastened to his brow, becoming the brightest star and a beacon of hope for the peoples of Middle-earth. The appropriation of this name for a commercial venture that raises serious concerns about light pollution, orbital debris, and the commodification of sunlight itself, represents a different, yet related, form of co-option: the harnessing of a symbol of pure, mythic hope for a technocratic, profit-driven enterprise.
The Ideological Architect: Peter Thiel’s Vision of Techno-Mordor
The thread connecting Palantir and Anduril is billionaire investor Peter Thiel, a founding funder of both companies. Thiel is not a casual fan; he is a deliberate ideological interpreter of Tolkien. In a 2009 essay, he explicitly framed the dynamics of modern technology through a Tolkienesque lens. He invoked the tension between the Shire—representing a stagnant, pastoral stability—and Mordor—representing a dynamic, if terrifying, “will to mastery.” For Thiel, Silicon Valley’s role is not to preserve the Shire, but to embrace a form of creative destruction that reshapes the world, a project he sees as necessary, even if it carries a hint of Mordor’s methods.
This is a fundamental perversion of Tolkien’s central theme. Where Tolkien saw Mordor as the ultimate evil—a hellscape of slavery, environmental devastation, and totalitarian control—Thiel recasts it as a model of efficiency and power. In this worldview, the palantír is not a dangerous object of corruption but a necessary tool for the visionary elites who must see and control the complex systems of the modern world. Andúril is not a symbol of restored constitutional monarchy but the cutting-edge weaponry needed by those elites to enforce their vision.
Thiel and his cohort are, in effect, casting themselves as the new wizard-kings, the rightful wielders of exceptional power. They cloak their coercive and surveillance technologies in the moral grandeur of Tolkien’s epic struggle, implying that their creators, like Tolkien’s heroes, are destined to wield such power responsibly for the greater good. This narrative conveniently bypasses democratic accountability, framing dissent as the grumbling of shortsighted Hobbits who cannot comprehend the grand designs of their betters.
The Theft of Meaning: Eroding a Literary Sanctuary
The consequences of this appropriation extend beyond corporate branding; they actively reshape the public’s relationship with Tolkien’s work. For millions, Middle-earth is a cherished imaginative space—a refuge from the complexities and compromises of the modern world. It is a universe where good and evil are distinct, where courage and fellowship triumph over brute force and machinery.
When names like Palantir and Anduril enter the news cycle through stories of data breaches, controversial policing algorithms, and autonomous drones, they drag these precious literary symbols into the mire of contemporary political and ethical debates. A new reader who first encounters “Palantir” in a headline about mass surveillance will forever associate the word with clandestine power, not with the tragic grandeur of the palantíri in the hands of Denethor or Aragorn. The imaginative space that Tolkien’s work provides becomes narrower, politicized, and stained with the connotations of militarism and technocratic dominance.
This process is exacerbated by other political reinterpretations. As the article notes, scholars and journalists have documented how white-nationalist and neoreactionary circles have reinterpreted Tolkien’s mythology as an allegory for racial and civilizational purity. In these distorted readings, the diverse Free Peoples of Middle-earth are ignored, and the struggle becomes a defense of a “threatened Western order” (the Shire, Gondor) against a swarming, monstrous “other” (the Orcs). This provides a faux-intellectual, mythic foundation for ethno-nationalism, further pulling Tolkien’s work into ideological battles he would have abhorred.
A Broader Pattern: The Myth-Industrial Complex
The co-opting of Tolkien is part of a much wider modern habit: the pillaging of ancient mythologies to lend legitimacy and grandeur to contemporary projects of power.
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Classical Myths: The U.S. Apollo space program, the NASA Athena rocket, and a plethora of cybersecurity firms named after Greek gods tap into the classical ideals of knowledge, exploration, and strategic warfare.
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Norse Mythology: Tech companies and military hardware named Odin, Thor, and Valhalla invoke a ethos of raw power, unbending will, and a warrior spirit.
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Indic Traditions: In India, this trend is equally visible. The “Varunastra,” an autonomous heavyweight anti-submarine torpedo developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is named after the Hindu god of water and the celestial ocean. The Agni missile series is named for the god of fire. This practice maps the deep cultural and spiritual authority of these deities onto instruments of immense destructive power.
The tactic is always the same: to borrow the imaginative authority of myth to buttress contemporary instruments of violence, control, and projection. It is an attempt to make the new and often terrifying seem ancient, heroic, and inevitable.
Reclaiming the Narrative: The Enduring Power of the Text
In the face of this appropriation, the task for readers, scholars, and critics is to reclaim the original spirit of Tolkien’s work. We must return to the text itself, which remains an unassailable monument to its author’s true intentions. Tolkien’s worldview is not one of technocratic mastery but of stewardship. It is not about the concentration of power but its diffusion and its pairing with wisdom and pity.
The true hero of The Lord of the Rings is not a king with a magic sword or a wizard with vast power, but a Hobbit who rejects the ultimate instrument of control—the One Ring. The climax of the story is not a triumphant battle won by a superior army, but the destruction of the central machine of power in the fires of its own creation. The message is clear: salvation lies not in mastering the machines of power, but in having the courage to destroy them.
The misfortune, as the article concludes, is that these companies and ideologies are “dragging precious pieces of literature down with them.” But literature, especially of Tolkien’s caliber, possesses a resilience that corporate branding cannot ultimately erase. By critically examining this appropriation and steadfastly championing the authentic, anti-authoritarian heart of the legendarium, we can ensure that the light of Eärendil endures not as a tool for corporate profit, but as the enduring literary beacon of hope it was always meant to be.
Q&A: The Appropriation of Tolkien’s Mythology
Q1: Why is it considered ironic that companies like Palantir and Anduril use names from Tolkien’s works?
A1: It is deeply ironic because J.R.R. Tolkien was a vehement critic of mechanization, industrialization, and absolute power, themes he directly associated with the evil forces in his stories. His worldview was born from the trauma of World War I’s industrial slaughter. Companies like Palantir (mass surveillance) and Anduril (autonomous weapons) are building the very systems of centralized control, technological dominance, and automated warfare that Tolkien’s mythology was designed to warn against. They are using the symbols of his anti-industrial epic to legitimize a modern-day version of Sauron’s will to power.
Q2: How does Peter Thiel’s interpretation of Tolkien differ from the author’s apparent intent?
A2: Tolkien presented Mordor as an unambiguous evil—a totalitarian, ecologically barren hellscape. Peter Thiel, however, in a 2009 essay, reframed the Shire vs. Mordor dynamic as a choice between stagnant stability and a dynamic, if frightening, “will to mastery.” He sees Silicon Valley’s role as embracing this Mordor-like drive for technological power and world-shaping. This inverts Tolkien’s moral universe, portraying the dark lord’s methods as a necessary and efficient engine of progress, a concept completely at odds with the author’s Catholic and traditionalist beliefs.
Q3: What is the real-world impact of this naming trend on how people engage with Tolkien’s literature?
A3: This trend actively pollutes the imaginative space of Tolkien’s work. When a new generation encounters names like “Palantir” first in the context of data surveillance and predictive policing, it permanently alters their perception. The literary symbols become associated with modern instruments of control and militarism, stripping them of their original narrative depth and moral complexity. It narrows the work’s interpretive scope, politicizes it, and risks alienating readers who see the mythology being used to justify systems they disagree with.
Q4: The article mentions the “Varunastra” torpedo. How does this fit into the broader pattern?
A4: The naming of an “autonomous heavyweight anti-submarine torpedo” after Varuna, the Hindu god of water and the celestial ocean, is a clear parallel. It demonstrates that the practice of mapping cultural and spiritual authority onto instruments of violence and power is a global phenomenon, not limited to Western myths. By using a revered divine name for a weapon, the tactic remains the same: to borrow the sacred grandeur and authority of ancient myth to legitimize and sanitize modern military technology.
Q5: What is the central message of Tolkien’s work that this corporate appropriation seeks to overwrite?
A5: The central message of The Lord of the Rings is a profound distrust of concentrated power and the machines that enable it. The story’s climax is not a victory achieved by wielding the One Ring, but by destroying it. The true heroes are the small, humble folk who reject the temptation of power. The appropriated narrative pushed by companies like Palantir and Anduril seeks to overwrite this with a gospel of technocratic salvation—that the right kind of elite, wielding the right kind of powerful technology (the modern palantír and andúril), can and should master the world. Tolkien’s work argues the opposite: that the only path to salvation is through the rejection of such power.
