(This is not the truth about Tolkien, it''s only speculation. The Truth sounded much more impressive though) J.R.R.Tlkien deserves the name of the spiritual father of all things connected to Fantasy. His works, while not the first Fantasy ones, opened the great world of humans, elves, dwarves and orcs to millions of us. A pioneer of this art (Unless you think Lovecraft can be read by the whole family). I''ve read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and worshiped them. (If you didn''t, go confess it at once). When I was 10 years old. And that is the problem. I can''t read Tolkien anymore, read a few pages of the "Silmarilion" and you will see why. You can find two theories about Tolkien, the good one and the bad one: 1) Tolkien was a kind and noble patriarch, dedicating his life to his art, forming the countless legends of Northern and Western Europe into a single series of books. He regarded values like chivalry, fate and courage as sacred, something easily seen in his work. His work was of such greatness ("catchy") that inspired millions around the world. So now we have TSR and Wizards of the Coast and Card games and computer RPG''s and Warcraft and people discussing Goblin Genocide (no offence meant, of course) and a movie on it''s way. This is what these people want you to believe. 2) Tolkien was a fascist royalist, anti-communist, rascist to the core, and hated all women. Just read the L.o.t.R. We will see tall blonde Elves fighting the corrupt orcs, tall blonde (again) noble horsemen like vagneric figures, blood-thirsty "Niggers" coming from the South on elephants and dark-skinned men with beards coming from the East on chariots, who have sold their souls to Evil. You can see the slaughter of the evil hunchmen and their allies, the orcs and the goblins. We can see the GREAT VICTORIOUS KING killing millions just by sneezing and making the Old Magical Tree blossoming again just by $%%&% on it. The women in L.o.t.R. are either female elves or clad in plate mail, pretending to be male Arian warriors. There is no recorded documentation of female dwarves (see Terry Pratchett), goblins or orcs. The orcs, in particular, are born through the walls of a Dark Castle, like as if being cloned. Though Tolkien never admitted that his work referred to the reality, I haven''t found if Sauron was really Hitler or Stalin. Yes, I know: It''s like me claiming that your beloved grandfather who''s just died was a nazi criminal of war, but I just want to stir conversation! What do YOU think? PS: This topic was greatly inspired from the Goblin Genocide one, I only managed to read one and a half pages, but good work guys. Who knows, maybe this is the answer to your problems... Hope they get my signature right this time... Hasta la victoria siempre!

I can see your superficial points, but you have not read all the works of Tolkien with sufficient detail.
In the Silmarillion, you will find that one particular tribe of the "Swarthy Men" turns out to be the most loyal group in the Elves'' camp, and they fight to the last man, until the entire tribe is wiped out.
Tolkien was never racist, he just picked identifiable groups of people, and used folklore. In folklore at that time, I''m willing to bet a lot of the "evil" came from darkskinned humanoids etc.
Tolkien never intended his books to be paralleled with history, though he does admit that the "sense of the times" around the world wars will have influenced him subconsciously in his thinking.
His works are not propaganda, they are pure fiction, coloured by the beliefs and philosophies of the time when they were written.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
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I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and it is to date my favorite fantasy series. It just kicks total ass. I never really noticed any of these views cept the first one, I think Tolkien was a fabulous writer and the LoR trilogy (oh yeah, the Hobbit too) is the height of his writing. I''m surprised I beat sunandshadow to this

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I never really read Tolkien in that light, but then again I don''t think there is anything wrong with being anti-communist (heck, I am anti-communist as one can ever be).
The reason why the characters'' races are described like that is because they are taken from northern folklore, and I don''t think that northern folklore talked about diversity, sensitivity training or idiocies like that. Nor did it talk about republics and their valorous prime ministers.
The reason why Pratchett stories are so funny is because they break with that tradition, and as a matter of fact I can''t read too much Pratchett in a single session, otherwise it looses the "taste", but if Pratchet would try to make a serious story in Ank-Morpok (sp?) it wouldn''t fly too well, IMO, because having a medieval-like setting with the problems of today is quite un-interesting.

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Free Dixie!

Yeah, heard all that stuff before, and still can''t say if it''s true or not. I would second the argument of MAdKeith, that it was probably more because of the times he was living in, rather than because of its own beliefs.

There are two things that I''d like to say though.
First : so what ? If you look at all the Nazi designs, you automatically think that they are bad, if you have done basics in History, but do you know that the Svastika is actually an indoeuropean symbol, meaning goodluck. You can still see nowadays hindu women wearing a big nice svastika painted on their forehead ... what I am trying to say is that it''s not because the work might be "tainted" by some fascists thinking that its "artistic" value would be diminished.
Hitler took for his big shows (Nürnberg !) the music of Wagner... does it make Wagner nazi music ???
On the other hand, I can appreciate the principle of not supporting someone''s work, because of his ideas... but still.

Oh, and just another point, maybe this faschism you see could be a way to tell you to be careful about how easy it is to segregate. Did you see Starship Troopers ??? If so, I bet you are one of those who think it''s a disguised fascist propaganda, ain''t you ?

Well as we talk of Tolkin, have some of you read faerie ? There are three very good fantasy stories, but more important, there is an essay on what is fantasy and what makes a fantastic story. If you want to write fantasy I think this is a must read.

The topic also made me think of Starship Troopers (the book). I still wonder if Heinlein is litteral or ironic...

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arius there was an age undreamed of..."

Starship troopers has a definite facist subtext. The movie was just guns and aliens and shooting and things blowing up. I still think it''s one of the most enjoyable films I''ve seen for a while. At least it doesn''t attempt it take itself as seriously as, say, The Matrix.

Anyway. Lots of good novels, especially science fiction, were written by people who believed in screwed up thinks such as facism and eugenics.

If you''re going to moan about things like inequality of women in old novels, then you''re being a bit naive. Women haven''t always been equal, in the same way that black people haven''t always been equal. In fact, they still aren''t as equal as good old Whitey.

I''m sure that in 50 years time people will look back on our present-day fiction and come up with the same views that you''ve come to.

-Toby Goldstone / toby.goldstone@btinternet.com

A few quick points:

It isn''t that I don''t like Tolkien as a writer, it''s that I don''t like him as a thinker:
Tolkien isn''t writing folklore, he''s writing literature, and as such, he must at least question his sources. I can find you countless of traditional Greek fairytales, where the Bad Guy is Jew. Now, if I want to include it in a book, I would be critical or sarcastic, because I am not antisemit.
If a guy like Hitler liked Vagner, it gives you thoughts about him, doesn''t it? I mean, if Hitler liked him, it''s a bit suspicious right?

What''s wrong with the valiant president aspect? It''s just another Hollywood cliche.
What about StarWars, the evil Emperor and the brave forces of the Republic?

Starship troopers is sarcastic, and the fascist aspect is in plain sight.




Hasta la victoria siempre!

The art is in the interpretation. What an author creates is simply words, and different people may derive different things from those words. When I read Tolkien, I didn''t get an impression of Facism. If you did, then it must be indicitive of your desire to see such things.

Even if Tolkien was a facist, or any of the other things you describe, that doesn''t seem to be the prevailing message of his works. He didn''t invent the concepts in his novels, mearly coalesced them into a work of fiction. If all you said was true, it still wouldn''t matter, because most people choose not to interpret it that way, and the ones who do are merely speculating over the motives of a dead author.

Why bother?

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"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt

Starship Troopers *IS* sarcastic, how do I know ? Because I saw Robert Heinlein saying it himself in a documentary. The cover of the book was even more explicit : A young athlete, with Hitler''s face...

Writing about bad things is not believing in them necessarily, this is why political correctness is just the most *FUcKED UP* thing I have seen in ages. It''s supposed to be a way to respect other people, which is nice. The bad thing is to enforce it, by forbidding the use of "normal" words... For a writer, sometimes, you have to hit your reader in the face to wake him up, and to do so, it''s sometimes easier to jsut go with straight talk.
I am actually amused of the term "politically correct", because it really says what it means, but no one seems to notice ?
Aren''t politics the kings of the demagogy ? of the kind words that are a backstab ? of the "Yes" that means "no" ??

spike : starship troopers IS serious. The whole point of the movie is to show faschism as a nice, fresh and goodlooking thing. Just the way hitler was doing it in his own time. The fact that you are disturbed is *Good* because it means you realise something is wrong. After that, the fact that most shortsighted people only understood it as disguised propaganda is just, I dont know, amusing ?

anyway, people really see what they wanna see. People always judge compared to themselves. And one thing i''ve learnt as well, sometimes what we like or don''t like in other people, is merely a reflection of us in someone else (i.e. we only see in other people, qualities and default tha we already have)

youpal :-P