Tolkien and Jack Ryan

Umnhh....not as strange as you may think.

Long essay here about JRRTolkien's works.  Very short excerpt:

...when Frodo asks Gandalf how the Ring came into his possession, Gandalf answers: “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” In Unfinished Tales, Gandalf declares that what one calls chance is really one’s will accepting Ilúvatar's direction. When Elrond calls the council to order, deciding what to do with the Ring, he says: “Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are met here, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.” ...

Compare Jack Ryan:  "There is no such thing as co-incidence."

And--just so you get it--there is no such thing as co-incidence.