WORLD - Terrified progressive scholars, movie executives, journalists, and bloggers ran screaming Thursday as they were confronted by an apparition of J.R.R. Tolkien leading the Dead Men of Dunharrow to destroy anyone who tried to make his work "woke."

"I summon you -- fulfill your oath!" the late Tolkien cried after venturing under the mountain to find the undead army. Tolkien raised Anduril aloft, and the army submitted to the professor, allowing him to lead them into battle against everyone trying to deconstruct his book and make it woke.

From writers pushing "queer readings" of his epic, heavily Catholic, and decidedly traditionalist and non-woke magnum opus to movie studio executives looking for ways to put nudity into their film and show adaptations, thousands fell in battle against the army. Those running the Tolkien Society's latest woke conference heard a low rumbling and looked into the distance, terrified, to see the professor leading the army against them. "Onward!" a laughing Tolkien cried as the people trying to ruin the greatest book ever written scattered before the awful and terrible sight.

"I release you from your duty," Tolkien said, causing the army to disappear, then going off to see if he could get any decent tobacco before returning to the afterlife.