this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Fun fact: allegory had a different meaning back when Tolkien lived. Language evolved. Tolkien never mentioned hating what allegory now means - an interpretation of a story by the audience as representative of another issue. In fact, he said he was a fan of that sort of thing in your quote.
I'm not sure that I agree it has changed. To me, an allegory implies authorial intent. Some classic examples being Tolkien's friend Lewis whose Narnia novels were an allegory for Christianity, George Orwell's Animal Farm, an allegory for early Communist USSR, or The Crucible by Arthur Miller, an allegory for America's red scare.
If it isn't done with authorial intent, it's still absolutely possible to be a valid reading of the text that there are parallels, but IMO that's no longer an allegory.
The Matrix is a trans allegory, despite the fact that neither of the Wachowskis knew they were trans at that time. They put their feelings of gender confusion, dysphoria, and euphoria into the movie, despite not understanding those feelings. And it made it a masterpiece. That's proof allegory doesn't require intent.