The Lord of the Rings not only embodies the themes of the current Saturn-Pluto opposition but the work has had quite a history with Saturn-Pluto alignments. The completion, publication, and sudden rise in popularity of The Lord of the Rings all occurred when Saturn and Pluto were in "hard aspect" (a conjunction, square, or opposition) to each other. We might say that the Saturn-Pluto constellation is the invisible field or magnet which constellates the motifs found within this dark fantasy.

The epic writing and revising of The Lord of the Rings which is only surpassed by Frodo's journey in terms of heroic quests was completed in 1948 after 16 years of meticulous attention given to the tale by Tolkien. (1) (see chart) However, there was no initial blitzkrieg of enthusiasm for what some would later call the "book of the 20th century". Publication and popularity would only sprout years after the final completion of the trilogy. After his publishers, Collins, agreed to release The Lord of the Rings, the final installment of the Lord of the Ring's trilogy was published in 1955, under a Saturn square (90 degree angular relationship) Pluto aspect.(2) (see chart) Hibernating, it would take ten years before the phenomenon of the Tolkien cult caught flame. Tolkien's popularity would not come entirely from ivory tower intellectuals, but the bulk of his avid readership came from the youth of the countercultural explosion of the 1960's. An unauthorized, but affordable, paper back version of the trilogy was released in 1965, and, in that very same year, sales and popularity of the work soared. Once again, Saturn and Pluto correlate with release of this myth, this time in the form of an opposition. (3) (see chart)

Although lodged in the memories of The Lord of the Rings connoisseurs, many casual fans seeing the current film release do not realize that there was a previous attempt at creating a version of Tolkien's classic onscreen. In the late 1970's, gifted animator Ralph Bakshi painstakingly rotoscoped live action into an admirable rendering of the fantasy. The film divided opinion, and the fact that Bakshi was unable to complete the whole story due to financial reasons almost automatically discounted the film from being labeled a masterpiece. However, many images from the film, particularly the rendering of the Dark Riders, remains indelibly stamped upon the imagination of youth who saw the film. Bakshi—the anti-Disney that he is—is the king of underworld animation, and everything in his films—from the setting, themes, and style—is dark and mature. It is no surprise that he had a certain resonance with The Lord of the Rings as he was born under a Saturn-Sun-Pluto t-square. (see chart)