Some may know that famous authors J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were actually close friends, however not many know that the two were notorious for their digs at each other, both in person and in their novels. Having established a reading club called the Inklings together at Oxford University, where they both taught, they would trade stories and help improve each other’s works. This however, never really worked for Tolkien, Lewis later recalled that the only way the Inklings could get him to change the content of the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit was to gently push in the right direction, rather than outright say what they thought should happen. Tolkien had no such tact when critiquing others’ works, becoming notorious in the Inkling’s circle for harsh criticism.
This specific behavior of Tolkien would often cause rifts between Lewis and himself. One such criticism almost destroyed their friendship. The issue itself was relatively simple; Tolkien thought that authors should create their own world and lore, as to him that was the true beauty of creation. To Lewis, however, the story and message was much more important than background information. Lewis only wanted to create a story for his niece Lucy, not a great impactful work (though this did happen) so he prioritized the story of the Pevensie children and their adventures. This led to Lewis drawing for a wide variety of sources, ranging from Greco-Roman mythology to Western Christian texts, this led to the inclusion of Tolkien’s breaking point: Santa Claus.
Tolkien reportedly took issue with the reasoning behind the inclusion of Father Christmas, having a character based on a figure specifically rooted in a Christian holiday with little mention of the actual holiday along with the inclusion of other unrelated mythologies and religious beliefs just didn’t sit right with Tolkien. He went so far as to say that the story was useless and that it seemed to be a jumble of unrelated mythologies. Lewis was discouraged by this insight, but ultimately kept all creatures and references in his final work.
Despite these quarrels, the two remained close friends and would honor each other in their works. For example: the character of Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings is based on Lewis. Tolkien gave voice to this comparison, saying that Lewis and Treebeard shared a loud, booming voice and the inability to get to their point in a reasonable time frame. Two characters in Lewis’ body of work bear a resemblance to Tolkien, Professor Digory Kirke and Dr. Elwin Ransom. Dr. Ransom is the protagonist of Out of the Silent Planet, a philologist crash landing on a far, silent planet. Ransom not only shares his profession with Tolkien but shares many personality traits with him as well. Professor Kirke’s resemblance is a bit more subtle, he is not a linguist nor does he share many traits with Tolkien, but many of Tolkien’s own personal facts are shared with Kirke, including the name of his childhood tutor.
Tolkien also convinced Lewis to convert from atheism, eventually settling on orthodox Anglicanism (though he never outright stated his denomination). Even then Tolkien was unhappy with Lewis’ choice, as he himself was a born and raised Catholic. Eventually though, Lewis dedicated his work the Screwtape Letters, a collection of fictitious letters from one demon to another about how to corrupt a human soul, to Tolkien.