Stubborn. Disobedient. Hard to manage. Our disposition towards Christ can often be described using the archaic word "froward." Although the word appears only once in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, the tension it expresses runs throughout his writing: outward defiance set against a deeper, enduring faithfulness. Fr. Andrew explores a few examples from The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's wider legendarium. This talk was given at Doxacon 2019, at St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.