No.11616
The fact that Nazis are into Tolkien’s works has always surprised me. I can understand at a surface level that Tolkien based his works off Norse/Anglo-Saxon culture. For example, the Rohirrim are just straight copied from Anglo-Saxon Culture, hell they even speak Old English. But excluding that, Tolkien was hard-core Catholic and he himself described the Lord of the Rings as a Catholic work “unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision”(Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, letter 142). Secondly, The Nazi’s asked Tolkien about his “Aryan” heritage. He wrote back to them saying that his family was German, and Tolkien said that their real reason for asking him about his heritage is to see if was Jewish. Which he replied he was not, but he did call them “gifted people” (letter 30). Finally, Tolkien stated his huge dislike of Adolf Hitler “I have in this War a burning private grudge against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler. Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.” (letter 45)
No.11619
Nice thread
Since Tolkien and Lord of the Rings are pretty good stuff I'm going to link Tolkien posts from the Fantasy thread
The Last Ringbearer
>>1214Tolkien's politics and 'racism' in his story and his life
>>4152>>4171>>10987 >>10993Elf Politics
>>2052>>11484 No.11675
>>11615Are there any communists in lotr?
No.11676
Could any solid LotR lore experts redpill me on who the hell Ghan-buri-Ghan was? When I read the third book, his appearance seemed like a total non sequitur. Is there any lore to him, or why is he even in the story in the first place?
No.11678
>>11676>Ghân-buri-GhânOf him specifically, nothing besides what is given in the book. But he was part of the Drúedain, who are related to men. They are described as being shorter and fatter than regular men, and overall have primitive and wild culture and appearance. They are good natured, and have always fought on the side of good. Unfortunately they have been persecuted by wicked or ignorant men, who see them as evil based on their appearance. Because of this persecution they are very secretive and keep to themselves and a couple of stories have shown them to use magic, that ordinary have no knowledge of.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dr%C3%BAedain#cite_note-TD-1One theory about them that I find interesting in that they could be men who weren't corrupted by discord caused by Melkor during the Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur)
No.11685
>>11675It's a fairly medieval setting so I don't think so. The hobbits are bourgs, the Humans are feudal, the Goblins are high-way robbers and normal elves are a stagnant group of elites while Wood Elves are semi-tribalistic anprims. The dragons are artificial spirits given chimeric forms and the Orcs are dominated by strength for leadership.
No.11690
>>11678Neanderthal parallel?
Pretty forward thinking of Tolkien if so, and an interesting way to work them into the mythology.
No.11710
>>11685>The hobbits are bourgsNah they're more like kulaks
No.11718
>>11690I doubt it. It is more likely it is just a coincide.
No.11722
>>11718I mean, knowledge of them had proliferated quite a bit by that point, and Wells even wrote a story of them as 'barbarous beasts' by 1911.
Which does fit in well with the typical views held by Tolkien's 'ignorant men;'
granted, the idea that Neanderthals were effectively humans in terms of their brainpower is a relatively modern understanding,
so perhaps he really did just get lucky in his depiction of related but slightly different from men primitive humans.
No.11733
I prefer the Hobbit story over LOTR, it lacks the whole "good vs evil" army shit and is an interesting adventure of fantasy
No.11735
>>11733There both fun reads I find. But I do prefer the Lord of the Rings as I writing and world building to be better.
No.11744
>>11675Maybe dwarves. Their society somewhat resembles Juche (Longbeard dynasty look like Kim dynasty). Industrial cooperatives, single working-class mostly, brotherhood and not so racist to other races (except orcs and goblins).
No.11745
>>11744 (me)
Well one anon already said that
>>1196 No.11751
the amazon series is going to suck ass
No.11756
>>11751Isn't it supposed take place in the 2nd age? If so that's about 3 and half millennia time period to cover.
No.11757
>>11619>RacismSupposedly Tolkien stated that one of his regrets was that he didn't give the Orcs much sympathy and that they were treated like slaves that often didn't get a choice rather being evil.
I've always found some of the most interesting parts of the Lord of the Rings is when the orcs get to talk and share some of their thoughts, like when merry and Pippen are overhearing the three different groups of orcs bickering (Urak-hai from Isengard, Black Uruks from mordor and the smaller orcs from the Mines of Moria), when Sam overhears Gorebag and Shagrat, or in gorgoroth when Sam and frodo overhear the large soldier and the tracker…. It makes the orcs more than mindless drones and I think it would have been cool to hear a lot more of that and for them to be "humanized" a bit more… Like when Gorbag refers to frodo being left for dead as a "typical elf trick", it implies they have a morality that looks down upon leaving a wounded comrade
No.11761
If you're after a scholarly defense of Tolkien from the progressive/left I really love this book from Patrick Curry.
>>11757yes was thinking the same thing recently, when going back over the part where they are talking about Shelob. Those orcs are not mere animals, but are fully fleshed people with thoughts and feelings
I'm a huge tolkien nerd, but it's one of the faults with the legendarium that he didn't really give as much depth of thought to the Orcs.
No.11762
>>11761 Honestly Orcs are quite well expanded upon in World of Warcraft, as I've stated before in the Fantasy thread.
Something I've read in a rather amusing crossover fanfic of Middle Earth and Naruto by Neon Zangetsu expands on this a bit by having Orc mentalities explained by a rule of strength and by instinct due to how harsh their lives are in general, there is no time to be picky about what you eat or asking questions before attacking because it could cost them their lives.
No.11765
>>11763>>11751Wait there actually IS a Netflix series?! I thought that was just a joke!
No.11766
Gimli destroys the ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUrJdsN_-B0I wish this happened TBH
No.11767
>>11765>Netflixyou mean Amazon
No.11768
>>11763>sex and tiddiesThe weirdest Tolkien ever got with sex is the Túrin Turambar having incestuous relationship with his sister Nienor Níniel, neither of which were aware of. And upon finding out both ended their lives.
No.11770
>>11768The last part is honestly unreasonable, TBH.
No.11771
>>11763Can't wait for the gay sex between Frodo and Sam and the accusations of homophobia if you don't think they were gay all along.
No.11775
>>11774I did post about that, though thanks for the complete quote m8.
No.11793
>>11792Ironically they still have NO General Rules or Board rules put up despite someone already creating some basic rules for /hobby/ for the mods to put up and recently rules for the site
>>>/gulag/7986 No.11794
I always wondered what Smaug would do if he had the One Ring.
Gandalf states:
“the dragon, Sauron might use with terrible effects"-
The Lord of the Rings - Appendices (Durin’s Folk)
https://archive.is/a5K1z No.11797
>>11792OP here I'd spoiled it my self.
No.11815
>>11762>Something I've read in a rather amusing crossover fanfic of Middle Earth and Naruto by Neon Zangetsu expands on this a bit by having Orc mentalities explained by a rule of strength and by instinct due to how harsh their lives are in general, there is no time to be picky about what you eat or asking questions before attacking because it could cost them their lives.That actually makes a lot of sense. Much better than it just being their nature.
No.11921
Sauron's view on Gandalf and the rest of the Istari.
If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power again and 'colonize' Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwe as precisely the same as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast - cleverer, because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people than of animals.
History of Middle Earth, Volume X "Morgoth's Ring", Chapter 5 Myths transformed.
No.12263
I find it somewhat amusing that this thread is just solemn discussion rather than the typical LOTR meme-posting that used to be done.
No.12358
>>11794he'd just get more gold
dragons are fiending for that gold high
No.12359
A liberal homosexual feminist Protestant was teaching a class on George R.R. Martin, known hack
”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Gurm and accept that Planetos is the greatest fantasy setting of all time even greater than Arda!”
At this moment, a brave, patriotic, British WW1 veteran who had served 1500 tours of duty on the Somme and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all decisions made by Butcher Haig stood up.
”What are the linguistic differences among the peoples of Westeros?”
The arrogant proddie smirked quite schismatically and smugly replied “There is the Old Tongue and the Common Tongue, you stupid warmonger”
”Wrong. There should be hundreds of dialects. If the Wall is 8000 years old as you say, how can the Wildlings and Northmen understand one another?”
The HBO shill was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of A World of Ice and Fire. He stormed out of the room crying those redditor crocodile tears. The same tears redditors (who today live in such luxury most can afford sex changes) cried when Missandei was beheaded. There is no doubt that at this point our sola scriptura-faggot wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a garbage pulp fiction fan. He wished so much he could die a glorious death in battle, but he had sworn to always be a draft dodger!
The students applauded and became Tolkien fans that day and accepted the Pope as their Lord and Master. A giant eagle named “Thorondor” flew into the room and perched atop the flag of Gondor and shed a tear on the White Tree. Beowulf was read in the original Old English several times, and Eru Ilúvatar himself showed up and enacted Aragorn's flat rate tax policy across the universe.
The Lutheran was fired the next day and sunset found him squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up he was shitting brown water.
No.12362
>>12359Top tier shitpost copy-pasta
No.12657
>>19218
Haven't read it, but looks intriguing.
No.12682
>>12083The Valars were pieces of shit. If they were more proactive nothing of this shit would've happened.
If they cared about humans as much as they cared about Elves, the humans wouldn't be fully exposed to the wiles of Morgoth, convincing them that the world is ruled by a cruel god.
No.12697
>>12682Pretty sure that the Valar, as spirits with Iluvatar wrote the entire history of Middle Earth in song and the parts sang by Melkor became all the suffering and death and chaos he and Sauron would bring. In light of that there arguably wasn’t anything the Valar could do as it was all predetermined anyway. Plus Morgpth encountered the elves and men before the other Valar had, hence how he corrupted some each time.
No.12861
>>12682To be fair, the Valar were probably freaked out about killing large numbers of "fragile" men in the upheaval. They didn't have to worry about that when they went to drag Morgoth out of Utumno since neither elves or men were born yet.
No.18673
>>11733Agree. Bilbo is a badass. I liked the movies by Peter Jackson too. Maybe that makes me a brainlet.
No.18680
>>18673It 100% does, but we can still be friends.
No.19008
>>19004You do realize that the animated Tolkien productions of the past were also animated in Japan right?
No.19009
>>19008Yeah but they weren't "anime". I'll give this a shot but if it's going to be done in a modern meme anime style I'm probably not going to be super into it.
No.19010
>>19009>they weren't "anime". If it's animated on the same level as GiTS I think that'll be fine, and besides they're calling it anime because it attracts the weebs.
No.19012
>>19011>obviously fakeHaha indeed
No.19031
>>19010Yeah that would be cool. My concern is that it just looks like every generic anime made today.
I actually wouldn't mind a 2D animated movie that looks like a smoother version of the old Rankin-Bass movies, where it has that kind of weird, old-school fairy tale look, but they don't really make them like that anymore.
No.19032
>>19031>it just looks like every generic animeWait, have they released concept art/trailers?
>a 2D animated movie that looks like a smoother version of the old Rankin-Bass moviesYeah that's not happening. I knew a dude on DA who was part of a reboot for Flight of Dragons but it got cancelled with only some refurbished concept art he had posted on his account left.
No.19040
>>19032Nothing released yet, it's just what I'm worried about
No.19352
>>19032>>19040So what's the sitch?
No.19449
>>11770I agree. It's pretty gross, but it's not like they were aware of what was happening. They seem awfully quick to assume culpability for something that wasn't their fault and didn't harm anyone.
No.19450
>>12682>The Valars were pieces of shit.Agree.
No.19453
Tolkein supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He is literally a christcuck fascist. This thread is cringe.
No.19457
>>19453Proofs?
Also
>muh Christianzzzzz You sound very asshurt. Cope harder
No.22491
Anyone think that Amazon's new LOTR series going to be a massive dumpster fire? I mean it's written by the same guys who wrote Star Trek:Beyond.
No.22492
>>22491Yeah probably. It's pretty obvious the Tolkien estate doesn't care about the quality of adaptations. The original LotR trilogy being good was basically a fluke.
No.22632
Lately I've found myself singing along to some of the poems from Lord of the Rings, namely:Song of Durin, Fall of Gil Galad and the Ent Marching Song
No.22635
Tolkien is overrated beyond belief. He wasn't even original. People act like he invented the fantasy genre for some reason.
No.22647
>>22635>He wasn't even originalHe is, having created several languages in his verse and having only inspiration from Faustian and pre-Faustian Germanic mythology. Nobody has ever claimed he created it all on his own, but the Hobbit or LoTR are not emulating any specific mythological legend of Northern Europe that he based his ideas off of.
>People act like he invented the fantasy genreIn essence he is a founding father of the modern concept of fantasy genre, thus numerous media are heavily based on his foundation of fantasy, from Warcraft to DnD.
No.23010
>>23009They actually released it? I thought that shit died off. LMAO.
No.23106
>>11757Yeah, but on the other hand, they do seem to literally eat eachother.
Tolkien kind of dropped the ball fleshing out their society more.
Same with the Easterlings
No.23125
>>23099Can someone please explain to me why mumakil would be taking part in the siege of Edoras
No.23128
>>23107>female dwarves have beards. Ew. Gross.I mean, yeah.
No.23129
>>23125because they look fucking awesome
No.23162
God fucking damn it looks so bad
No.23502
>>23370On the topic of Ponomarkenko, they're a total glowie and even used a fake Pentagon advisor called "David Jewburg" for their articles (mostly cause he thought most slavs aren't going to realize the jape due to it being an English term)
>>>/edu/10009 >>23487>Everyone starts complaining about there being a black dwarf ladyBecause they're idiots, ironically the main issue is the lack of a beard.
No.23507
>>23487Her being black doesn't particularly matter, but the fact that they are willing to sUbVeRt ExPeCTaTiOnS by doing colorblind casting but they won't give female dwarves beards because of gender norms shows that being woke is purely performative and that they don't give a shit about the source material at all.
No.23511
>>23507>won't give female dwarves beards because of gender normsStupidest thing is, gender norms are fine in general, but this literally goes against the gender norms of dwarves.
No.23532
>>23487There's not that much material for what the show is going to be about. Of course they're going to be doing OC donut steel characters.
No.23546
>lotr is catholic
NO! There's nothing universal about it, no redemption, no universal love.
Like Tolkien said, LOTR is a mythology for England. And indeed it is. A mythology not for any past England, like he wanted, but for a twentieth century fascistic, genocidal inbred empire with all of their racial prejudices put into the book.
LOTR is exactly how fascists and the nazis saw and see the world, and Tolkien is just another fascist. Don't believe that midwit about alegories, everyone with eyes can see what he meant with orcs, elves, mordor, etc.
No.23548
>>23546>>23547Orcs are portrayed how they are because the story is written from the perspective of Frodo/Bilbo, who are themselves quite racist, even toward the "good races." A lot of the portrayal of the more monstrous beings has to do with the prejudices of the characters describing them. The fact that elves, men, dwarves, and hobbits all manage to cooperate within the fellowship (Gimli and Legolas especially) is meant to tell you these kinds of barriers can be overcome in time.
No.23549
>>23548shut the fuck up dude, just say you like it even if it's fascist trash
There's no fucking excuse for Orcs, go read the Iliad and learn how a real epic treats enemies.
No.23550
>>23549 >>23546 >Muh racist orks!>reddit spacingYeah go back you fucking snowflake. You are also utterly ignorant of the Illiad if you're saying this unironically. You're comparing a legendized war between men caused by the meddling of gods to an utterly fictional work based on the mythology of Northern Europe. Elves are the forest spirits of said lore and Orcs, if you had any basic comprehension are born from a group of corrupted elves that turned to evil and served a the physical manifestation of a literal GOD of evil.
>LOTR is exactly how fascists and the nazis saw and see the world <Tolkien is just another fascistYeah the fascist that sent letters to Hitler telling him that his actions made him ashamed to be a Northern European. The fascist that expressed himself as a primitivist and monarchist.
Your "muh allegories reel" shit is, as usual projected racism of liberals.
>>23547>every single race of non-monster humanoid on one side and then the arabs on team monsterYou people really haven't read the books you're bitching about, have you?
No.23564
>>23546The Orcs are the Kin of Cain. In Christian Mythology, after Cain murdered his brother Abel and was cursed by God, he left to wander the Earth with his wife Lilith, and sired many children with her who also bore his curse in their blood, often becoming monstrous or rising from the grave as undead when neither Heaven nor Hell would have them. When the Germanic tribes began to Christianize, they began to associate many of the monsters in their own mythology with the the Kin of Cain. If Tolkien's goal was to to create a sort of mythology of England, he couldn't ignore how popular and widespread the belief in the Kin of Cain was. Similarly, "orc" was a word that had spread around Europe meaning monster or demon, almost certainly a reference to the Roman God of the Underworld Orcus, and showed up in Beowulf which is where Tolkien probably first encountered it, and since Tolkien was a massive Beowulf fanboy, he also likely wanted the main baddies to be Mini Me Grendels (who was also stated in the epic poem to be one of the Kin of Cain).
Lord of the Rings has pretty big Christian influences, and it doesn't take a scholar of theology to see that the plot is influenced by the Christian apocalypse, with the Anti-Christ (Sauron) seizing the world in the name of Satan (Melkor) and, naturally, having the Kin of Cain (orcs) leave the shadows to gather under his banner.
>>23547The primary race supporting Sauron, other than orcs, are the "Black Númenóreans", the exact same race of people as Aragorn, Boromir and the citizens of Gondor. They're just not seen in his novels beyond characters like the Mouth of Sauron because they're implied to all be dicking around in Mordor. The books at least state that the Easterlings were noble, but tricked and lied to in order to secure their loyalty to Sauron. The same courtesy isn't extended to the Black Númenóreans.
No.23565
>>23550>writing a letter to “the nazis” stops you from being racistlol
No.23571
>>23565He openly denounced it and the nazis that espoused racial 'science'. He did not have any racist writings and specifically dismissed any attempt to try and project human races onto his fictional works.
>inb4 hiding it Tolkien lived in a time that had people lynch blacks in the South with no repercussion and the British Empire gassed African villages that refused to bend a knee to their rule, People hardly would care about a racist caricature had he intended it, but he did not.
No.25391
>>23549>There's no fucking excuse for OrcsThe orcs are demons, are you suggesting that every work with demons in it is fascist?
No.25396
>>23571I’d say the racialism in Tolkien’s works have nothing at all to do with the orcs, but rather the fact that only the whites of the West are heroic freedom fighters fighting to ensure Morgoth and Sauron do not rule Middle Earth, the peoples of the East and the South are said to have mostly bowed down to Morgoth’s rule and then Sauron’s after him. Of course there are also other iffy ideas, like the obsession with bloodlines and royal blood, how the Numenoreans have a “superior” bloodline to all other human cultures.
Biggest issue is that the non-white cultures of the world are all servants of Sauron….
No.25427
>>25396The "West" doesn't refer to some kind of Middle Earth equivalent of Europe, the "West" of the Men of the West refers to the island of Númenor, which is, for all intents and purposes, the LotR version of Atlantis. Nor were they all necessarily "white". Some were, but others were supposed to have been of darker complexion, like Aragorn himself who is described in the book as brown skinned.
No.27278
reminder that mordor is the ussr and lotr is fascist. Also the only reason they're putting blacks in the show is because people know it's a fascist book loved by fascists and the people who own the IP don't want to be lumped with fascists.
No.27282
>>25391Aren't Orcs RINGED elfs in Tolkien's lore?
No.27292
>>27282Orcs are corrupted elves, made into a twisted mockery of their former selves by Morgoth. He did this with many creatures. For instance, the trolls are a corrupted, twisted form of the ents.
They have a pretty close correlation with the Kin of Cain from Christian Mythology, which was treated as a lesser type of demon beneath Lucifer and fallen angels, and it's what Grendel was stated to have been in Beowulf, and Tolkien was a massive Beowulf fanboy.
No.27293
>>27278Do you have any evidence that Mordor was supposed to be the USSR?
No.27296
>>27278sweet tumblr's here
No.27297
>>25396>the peoples of the East and the South are said to have mostly bowed down to Morgoth’s rule where does it say that
No.27302
>>27278>fascists<Implying that fascists don't simply latch on to anything that seemingly on the surface supports their ideas because they are a bunch of shallow retards that can't look deeper into the works that they like. Tolkien himself hated fascists and was against their race science. Amazon is only making that LOTR series out of cynical greed. Why do you liberals support corporations so long as they have the "right" races or genders in their products.
You liberals are exactly like the fascists you say you hate.
No.27303
>a story that is explicitly about different races with thousands of years of enmity, distrust, and cultural differences working to overcome it all and set the hate, isolationism, and prejudice they've been clinging to for hundreds or even thousands of years aside, develop an appreciation for one another and their differences, and collaborate in what they all realize is an almost certainly hopeless task all for the slim hope of achieving a final, lasting better world for everyone
>is fascist
No.27335
>>11744>single working-class mostlyWhen there is nobles as the ruling class, it's not "single-class", it's a two-class system.
No.27343
>>27303alternatively
>buddy cop story>pro-cop>fascist No.27344
>>11619>an-monliterally incoherent and self contradictory nonsense
No.27347
>>27345it cannot be resolved
No.28464
Having watched the two episodes that came out im cautiously optimistic. It's a slow start but i like the slower pacing and though things are far from perfect, the dialogue feels a bit stilted too often for comfort, its still pretty enjoyable and im looking forward to seeing the rest of it.
There's a whole host of lore issues/decisions i think are questionable (Galadriel's main motivation being venegance quest rather than being queen of eregion and then lothlorien, her husband and kids being nowhere to be seen, her jumping from the boat to valinor, and being on it in the first place is stupid, but i guess they had no better way to get her to numenor. didn't like the heavenly gates to valinor or whatever that was either, i suppose they needed a dramatic point of no return for galadriel to make a decision at, but prior to the sundering Valinor should be a physical place contiguous with the rest of arda, Tol Eressea was visible from Numenor on clear days and elves travelled back and forth between them so there being a metaphysical barrier between aman and the rest of arda is a bit upsetting)
Probably my main issue is how the timeline seems squished and i was always worried about this when they said they were making a second age show about the fall of numenor and stuff, because the forging of the rings of power and the fall of numenor are almost 2000 years apart and even if they have like 12 seasons or whatever it would be difficult to keep switching out non-elven or maiar characters every season as the plot takes place over dozens of human/dwarf/hobbit generations, so they seem to be insanely condensing the plot to where we start before the rings are forged, sauron & celebrimbor forge the rings, the immediately war, sauron probably already gets captured in that war and taken to numenor and causes its fall, all in the scope of a single human lifetime which will be insane. The reigns of like 20 numenorean kings condensed into two, maybe three at best.
As for the race stuff, im dissapointed since i had hoped/coped that they were going to be interesting about it. I had hoped that the Arondir (the brown elf) was going to be an Avari or some silvan/laiquendi elf from the south east of those that never heeded the summons of the valar to the west and we were going to see brown/black/asian elves in general, but no he's apparentlyhe's just another elf from Lindon under the rule of high elven high king who is apparently maintaining colonial outposts as far as mordor to supervise the humans there in a millenia long post-war military occupation. Also the humans living in the southlands (future mordor) look like norther european peasants and are also overwhelmingly white, like gondor is meant to be on the latitude of turkey, mordor even when green and lush should seem warmer and have more tanned people of the swarthy easterling, or haradrim/variag variety.
The black dwarf princess was in my imaginging hopefully going to be of one of the four eastern dwarf clans from the red mountains some transplant political alliance marriage, but no, she's just a working class gal from khazad dum apparently.
Finally the brown hobbits which i was looking forward to with appropriately brown harfoots (samwise was whitewashed smdh), generally im pretty positive about them i both like their portrayal of nomadic hunter gatherers while still being quaint and hobbitish, in a more primitive way. But though there are quite a few brown/black actors playing harfoots the main character, Nori, and her best friend, are white, and in general i felt some of the harfoots are just white with faces covered in dirt like they're doing brownface to pass them off as darker skinned lol.
So my issue is, not to sound like a /pol/tard, a degree of forced racial diversity. I really wanted and still want and hope to see some societies of predominantly black/brown/asian characters. Give me a bustling hardrim city, som easterling wainriding nomads, give me black or asian dwarf clans and latino or native american elves from the east, give me all brown/black harfoot hobbits. But instead of that the creators of this show prefer what is effectively colourblind casting, instead of casting many black/brown/asian actors in a diverse set of societies they instead just sprinkle one or two in every society, in every village in a way that doesn't make sense and doesn't seem realistic. I've seen excerpts from the creators or people involved defending the casting on the basis of 'tolkien's world wasn't all white people' and 'we want to portray what the world actually looks like' and i agree with that wholeheartedly but at the end of the day this show (so far, in just these two episodes mind you) doesn't look how the real world looks like or how tolkien's world, vast and with many blank spaces to fill in, looks like. It looks like the world that the rich, white, liberal americans/europeans who make this show see in their daily lives. This middle earth doesn't have the demographics of the world, it has the demographics of america. A world in which black, brown and asian people are intrinsically, in their minds, minorities. Little specks of colour and diversity sprinkled of the the masses of white society, and of course they fit in perfectly and because the liberals are of course colourblind and don't see race so their existence is devoid of context. They can't portray societies which are predominantly black, brown or asian, where maybe there's only a single white person sprinkled in, or none, even though that's where most of those people live in the real world, what entire vast countries on this earth are like, and what entire vast realms in middle-earth should be like. But liberals are uncomfortable with and don't like thinking about those countries full of 'minorities' because it doesn't fit their essentialist view of 'minorities' in white societies and brings up all sorts of uncomfortable contradictions of imperialism and the world system so they prefer to act as if those countries simply don't exist, and representation in the media must be solely as 'minorities' and never societies.
No.28468
>>11616Yeah, he was probably guilty of casual racism like basing the orcs off caricatures of mongolians, but the framing of him as fash sympathetic just doesn’t fit. Also my experience with LotR might be a bit odd, but while all the white kids were reading Harry Potter at my school, the only people I knew who were reading Tolkien were my black and mexican friends. I feel like the wignats hopped on the Tolkien train long after the movies came out because they’re way too lazy to read all that shit.
No.28470
i tried reading the hobbit when i was little but put it down after the first few chapters because nothing was really happening
i watched the lotr movie trilogy years later and remembered pretty much nothing from it, maybe the walking trees and the uh tavern where they meet the edgelord guy
it's very much like a condescending adult's idea of what a naive child would like
No.28474
>>28464Disappointed so far with pretty much everything except Galadriel looking really hot. The show is literally for 12 year olds and the script was written by a woman who created an über kitschy fairytale rather than a truly epic prequel saga to Jackson's LOTR oeuvre. There are problems with the original lore too, Elrond & Gil-Galad sending Galadriel to Valinor doesn't fit in at all, neither does the glowing "gate" to Aman on the ocean. And where the fuck is Celeborn, Galadriel's husband?
No.28478
>>28474>The show is literally for 12 year olds and the script was written by a woman who created an über kitschy fairytale rather than a truly epic prequel saga to Jackson's LOTR oeuvremade me chuckle
good job if it's a troll
No.28482
>>28470The beginning of the Hobbit isn't supposed to be action packed, it's meant to build the sense of mystery and wonder. You're supposed to become curious about what's out there in the world like Bilbo.
The Lord of the Rings wasn't for children.
>tavern where they meet the edgelord guyI think I know why you don't remember it; you were watching it either half-asleep or under the effects of some sort of narcotic if you think Aragorn is an "edgy guy".
No.28484
>>28482>You're supposed to become curious about what's out there in the world like Bilbo.i didn't
>you were watching it either half-asleep or under the effects of some sort of narcotic if you think Aragorn is an "edgy guy"i call him an edgelord because i remember him as the hard-boiled rogue guy with the dark cape from that scene
No.28493
>>28464Yeah, I probably would like this show more if it filled out lore of the more unknown haradrim, easterlings, elves and dwarves, even if they had to be looser with lore, rather than what we're getting with Galadriel's quest setup
No.28495
Would things be better off without the Tolkien Estate? I'm of course against current copyright law, but at least with Tolkien Estate there isn't dogshit pumped out every year, even though Hobbit trilogy sucked and I'm not that hopeful about Amazon's show
No.28499
>>28478So far the whole thing including plot & dialogues is more blatant kitsch than Harry Potter ffs, i imagine the make-up box of a 12 year old teenager girl would look more mature and interesting.
Why did Bezos not just team up with Jackson or the creators of GOT if he would spend a lot money anyway? He also could've hired George Lucas. I mean e.g. Star Wars is also too much kitsch for my taste yet i do find it very enjoyable.
No.28506
>>28499Damn dude, come on, there was some cheesy lines but it wasn't that bad.
No.28508
>>28470>it's very much like a condescending adult's idea of what a naive child would like <it's too slow and I don't remember the story as a kid or an adult because I have a poor memory and attention span… so it's a poorly made kids series *confusion*
No.28509
>>27343>>buddy cop story>>pro-cop>>fascist <projecting modern shit<Oh no a buddy cop story, it MUST be fascist! This is even assuming its a buddy cop story, and it isn't, not even remotely.
No.28523
>>28508the novel isn't banal and condescending, i just have a "poor memory and attention span"
No.28539
All the shit I like:
> Middle Earth mogs Westeros
> Really sick cities just like the original trilogy, I came seeing Durin's mountain
> Durin in general
> I think the old man is a Maiar? Seems like an interesting plotline
> Even though the timelines are a bit screwy I'm pretty hyped to see the forging of the rings
Everything else:
> Dialogue has real unskippable cutscene vibes
> Hobbit parts are SLOW as fuck
> Town wench/witch romance with the elf is especially awful
> Elf speech is gayer than normal even if I like Elrond
> Completely rewriting Galadriel, not sure if this is bad, she is kinda interesting with the vengeance angle i guess
> Literally what the fuck were the ocean scenes in the last episode, completely pointless - waste of budget and didnt advance the plot except to introduce a love interest
Gonna keep watching for the city porn.
No.28664
Who was the old man who fell from the sky? was it sauron?
No.28665
>>28523>the novel isn't banal and condescending, i just have a "poor memory and attention span"There's probably lots of other things wrong with you too
No.28680
>>28484>i didn't Then you're an arse
>i remember him as the hard-boiled rogue guy with the dark cape from that scene That's not the meaning of edgy LMAO
No.28686
>>28495Christopher Tolkien dying is really what sealed the IP's fate. He was the last one to really give a shit about trying to maintain the integrity of his father's work. His grandchildren don't give a fuck.
No.28691
>>28686This would have eventually been inevitable.
If I was Christopher Tolkien, I would have just let the work pass into the public domain instead of letting my shit kids milk my dad's franchise for money.
No.28693
>>28691Letting it pass to the public domain honestly might have been the best move. On the one hand it wouldn't have stopped Amazon from going buck wild with the property. On the other, being in the public domain prevents it from being artificially monopolized, diminishing its attractiveness as a tentpole IP.
So when are we going to hear a hobbit say a fuck word
No.28717
>>28693How does public domain prevent megaporkies like Disney from suing the shit out of other people who try to use the same source material in their work?
No.28718
>>28717Disney can't sue you for using IP they don't own. If it's public domain nobody owns it. They could sue you for doing something with Disney's The Little Mermaid™ but they can't do shit about you using the original folk tale.
No.28719
>>28718I bet Disney can use legally ambiguous threats of legal action to stifle any attempts at using any source material Disney has already used. Releasing lotr under a GPL license would be a more robust solution in terms of protecting the public's ability to make derivative works form it.
No.28721
>>28464Me again. Just watched the third episode and am now blackpilled, this show sucks so much. Who wrote this garbage. Im so drained I can't even be bothered to list all the things im bitching and moaning about. They blew their mediocre load in the two episode premiere and it'll just be garbage from now on.
No.28722
>>28721On the bright side, they said that Amazon streaming was betting it all on this show, so if it's so bad it might end that little venture.
No.28723
>>28721>Who wrote this garbageI always find it impressive how these shows (and movies) can dump 500+ million in it but are never capable of buying good writing. I find it hard to believe that the writers are just all hacks and amateurs, so it must be the financial demands that come with so much money flowing through these projects that restrict creativity or personal engagement, or spirit, or anything human from anything. Written by AI.
No.28724
>>28723I mean many of the older writers left the industry due to the writers strike and the culture industry saps any creativity from people to make everything based on a formula that sells. Not to mention these new writers are notoriously lazy and don't bother doing any reasearch on the setting of established fiction.
No.28737
>>28717The same way you can write and publish all the Wizard of Oz stuff you want but MGM can't do shit about it as long as you don't base it off their movie.
That's the power of being in the public domain. The public is considered the communal owner of it, and can do whatever they want with it. It's why Disney fights for indefinite copyright extensions so hard. Once the copyright runs out and their ancient properties start entering the public domain, they can no longer maintain artificial scarcity and profit off of them.
>>28719>I bet Disney can use legally ambiguous threats of legal action to stifle any attempts at using any source material Disney has already used.I guess we'll find out.
https://www.ksat.com/entertainment/2022/01/06/disney-likely-seeing-copyrights-to-winnie-the-pooh-expire/ No.28738
>>28723If Marvel is anything to go by, the writing process is severely fucked by the CGI process. The impression that I get is that in older productions, a lot of the writing is adjusted on the fly for various reasons. Maybe they realize that something is stupid or doesn't work so they just axe it. Maybe the actors have some character input that changes how a story goes. In the original LOTR trilogy you had people reading through the books and making adjustments to the script all the way up through filming, and you had actors like Christopher Lee, who was an expert on the subject matter of both LOTR and stabbing people, and that affected the production. So with a much more versatile production process, bumps and wrinkles can be smoothed out on the fly, but with productions like Marvel movies, which I think this, what, half a billion? billion dollar? Amazon series basically qualifies as, with so much money invested in it and its digital effects, there are now these bottle necks that just lock the production into being a certain way. There's a scene in the script set in Caras Galadhon or whatever and that scene cost 30 million dollars, and the digital effects slaves have been working on it for 6 months, so you can't just toss it out…
I guess really we're living in the fallout of George Lucas's prequel trilogy, where the digital effects completely run the show, and they're so expensive and integral to the show that they can't be worked around. Compare it to something like SW OT, which was dogshit when Lucas first cut it together, but his wife was able to rearrange all the parts that worked into one of the most successful movies of all time. I just don't think that's really possible any more with current production methods.
No.28739
>>28738>I guess really we're living in the fallout of George Lucas's prequel trilogy, where the digital effects completely run the show, and they're so expensive and integral to the show that they can't be worked around.The ironic part of this was that Lucas pioneered a lot of that technology specifically to reduce the costs and complexity of the production pipeline and to be able to make alterations to the film in post-production. There's a featurette from Phantom Menace where you can see Lucas directing an editor to digitally move live action characters around in a scene to change the blocking of the shot, and to splice in different takes from each actor to get the exact performance he wants (which of course ruins the chemistry between them lol). He was chasing bad ideas that were bad for different reasons, but the importance of digital post production has basically hijacked the whole filmmaking process and has become bad for new reasons.
No.28759
>>28738This is an interesting analysis, but I thik the opposite may in fact be true. Sure these companies have money, but the amount they're willing to spend depends on how much they think the show is likely to earn, amongst other things.
There was a comment in the TV thread (I'd link it if I knew how to link comments from other threads) about how the She-Hulk tv series was filmed. Instead of just getting a muscle mommy to play the hulk and a regular size actress for Jen, they decided to do the hulk stuff with CGI. Now Marvel has plenty of money, so they could do the entire thing in CGI if they wanted to, so you'd think this wouldn't be a problem. Well, as soon as production began the writer started getting asked to reduce the She-Hulk screen time because it was too expensive.
"Can you do this with Just Jen?" or "can you cut this scene entirely?" even though the show was called fucking She-Hulk! The writer said that they think Disney are trying to pump stuff out as cheap and fast as possible, so it could well be that the people responsible for this are doing the same. As common logic dictates, it's possible to make something fast and cheap, but the result probably won't be good. I know that isn't really materialist analysis, just a trueism, but it holds up in this instance, I believe.
No.28761
I was almost gonna watch the new series. Thank fuck I listened to the struggle session ep. It totally exposed how how the limited rights that amazon could acquire means that the show can only be a bunch of bullshit. Pretty eye opening.
No.28765
Of course the seafarer who "rescued" Galadriel turns out a king with oh so "noble blood" and ancient lineage who just happens to "dress in commoner's rags". Fucking hell.
No.28774
>>28765its honestly getting better with each ep. the overhead shot of numenor especially made the episode worth watching. the dialogue is getting better in parts too while being a fucking trainwreck in others - slitting the elves throat was so dumb.
No.28802
>>28759>(I'd link it if I knew how to link comments from other threads)Three meme arrows >>>
The board code /hobby/
And the post number 28221
by their powers combined:
>>>/hobby/28221 No.28806
>>28802Thank you most wise anon
No.28853
>>27282>>27292He later changed due to the implications of having an entirely evil race, which Tolkien was very weary of and it conflicting with cosmology of series. He never settled on it before he died. I would suggest and reading the tolkien gateway article about it if Don't want to read HOME.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcs/OriginSide question have any you anons read "The History of Middle Earth" series? its a twelve set the goes in depth of the history of the creation of the silmarillion and lord of the rings all put together by his late son Christopher Tolkien. Some of the changes include the Aragorns original nickname to be Trodder to the Akallabêth to be a time travel story.
No.28863
>>28853Doesn't all the lore exist through the framing device that he found manuscripts and translated them to English from the languages of Middle Earth? Like, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are canonically written by Bilbo and Frodo (and Sam) respectively. You could just argue that the records are incomplete so there's nothing confirmed and you can have whatever headcanon you want.
No.28875
Not sure if will indugle this show, it seems a bit removed from Tolkien's prose and just a modern fantasy production, but I rewatched the movies recently and I am more convinced now that they aren't very good. I don't wanna ruin anybody's childhood memory but it's the truth.
It's full of popmpous dialog, it shows you constant slaughtering but there is not a single drop of blood to keep it family friendly, the slow-mos are insufferable as if I am watching a Zack Snyder movie, it's totally overacted and you never feel that the hereos are in danger especially with trying to build in comic relief during the main battles and it shies away from showing Saruman's occupation of the shire which is the bit that shows the cost of war and doesn't just glorify it. The homoerotic tension between Frodo and Sam is dumb, and Sauron looks like Morgoth. The moment they have Aragorn walking into over 50 Uruk-Hai that are man-sized and easily cutting through them in the first movie you know that there aren't any stakes.
It had some nice setpieces, the costumes were alright, and CGI was amazing for its time. But rewatching them now feels like a drag and it especially baffling people praise Peter Jackson, that fat fuck is a b-movie trash horror directer that got catapulted to be the new Francis Ford Copolla because of that LOTR shit.
The way Tolkien writes you have to set up a film adaptation more like a stage play, I don't think it's possible to make a family-friendly blockbuster with it.
No.28882
>>28875>I don't wanna ruin anybody's childhood memory but it's the truth. lmao as if people don't regularly rewatch these films as adults
>The way Tolkien writes you have to set up a film adaptation more like a stage playWhat does this mean exactly?
No.28884
>>28882>lmao as if people don't regularly rewatch these films as adultsFor the memberberries? Same reason people rewatch the Star Wars prequels despite the god-awful dialog. Well take it from this adult I decided to rewatch them because I felt like it and it was a slog.
>What does this mean exactly?Tolkien is clearly influenced by old Anglo-Saxon sagas like Beowulf and similar stuff, and that is how he writes, you can't set up a film adaptation like a Marvel movie but you have to do it like you'd do a Shakespeare. That doesn't mean Tolkien is up there with Shakespeare but it's the kind of vibe you have to go for and not go for Narnia or some shit.
No.28887
>>28885Marvel has been making movies since 1943 also you didn't respond to anything I said.
No.28888
>>28887this doesn't make sense and I am really angry, also I'm not you samefagging
No.28889
>>28888I am not samefagging.
The first Captain America movie was released 1944.
No.28890
>>28474Galadriel is canonically trans btw
No.28904
>>28853I've read the two book of lost tales and peoples of middle earth, I was really interested in the early draft stuff of what would become silmarillion such as the Noldor being named "Gnomes", the wicked dwarves, and Tevildo the prince of cats being the lieutenant of Morgoth instead of Sauron
No.28922
>>28863That's why The Last Ringbearer is an actual believable theory. There are multiple implications that orcs and Sauron/Morgoth aren't the bad guys. After all those supposed treacheries there were still a lot of people siding with them and called them liberators. They are basically the only ones with technology like medicine.
No.28926
>>28774I agree Numenor looks great, they modelled it in sort of a Byzantium and Phoenizian style if i'm not mistaken. The orcs look ok too. I still do not like the kitsch painting colours though and the writing is still awful (ohhhhhh yay, a white horse!!! t. not a 12 year teenager girl, but 5000 year+ old Noldor female who is banned from Aman due to being involved in a rebellion and massacre). Hope the dude from GoT gets a better plot and decent fight scenes and Elendil's & Isildur's storylines go really close to Tolkien (Jackson adapted the books almost 100%), because i'm really not interested in more of the extremely cheesy fairytale stuff. I'm still watching the show only because i like Tolkien a lot. I've read almost everything he published.
No.29060
I like where episode 4 went but the main conflict this episode was resolved way too easily without any action by the main characters.
No.29081
https://im1776.com/2022/09/13/middle-earth-in-the-content-economy/
>“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time… The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”— Christopher Tolkien, Le Monde
No.29082
>>29081>But Christopher Tolkien’s lament was prophetic. In the same comments from 2012, he added that “it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.” The scope of these comments was not limited to Jackson’s films, but rather to the broader commercialization of his father’s corpus in his entirety. He saw Jackson’s trilogy and knew what was coming. Endless films in the Tolkien Cinematic Universe, big-budget action videogames, Denny’s menu, Made in China toys; all at the expense of what he loved about his father’s work.
>And he was right. The Hobbit indeed contains elements that do directly contradict the structure of Tolkien’s work, most obviously in the saccharine, cringe-inducing love triangle set up between elves Legolas and Tauriel, and dwarf Kíli. This change undercuts the tremendous focus that Tolkien gave to the symbolic significance of his genealogical structure. It also pierces the veil too deeply and thereby compromises the character of Legolas into a more pathetic cast. And, of course, all omens point to an acceleration of this commercialized disregard for Tolkien’s work in Amazon’s The Rings of Power.
>This process happens to more or less anything wildly successful. Godzilla (1954) is a beautiful and melancholy cinematographic masterpiece. But by the ’70s, Godzilla had become a pastiche of itself, an intentionally cheap and campy product for children. Godzilla’s creator Tomoyuki Tanaka later told People Magazine that turning Godzilla into a loveable hero had been a mistake and caused the decline of the franchise. (And they are still making Halloween movies.) For this reason, I am more cynical than Christopher. I’m amazed when anything big is decent twice. Yet if you rolled the dice 10,000 times you would not get another trilogy like Jackson’s.
>The Lord of the Rings – the book, not the films – is a work of remarkable depth and complexity. Tolkien’s work is one of those rare accomplishments so overshadowed by its own commercial success that academia has not yet fully appreciated its artistic merit. But as much as I hate to admit it, its success is exactly why you should expect to see Middle Earth turned into a wide variety of endless trash. I didn’t understand this ten years ago. But Christopher Tolkien did; he saw the writing on the wall and it broke his heart. No.29088
>>29082his son was such a faggot, just give up the rights, I rather see a multi part silmarillion than the next fucking batch of marvel movies. Tolkien is no more sacred than Shakespeare, Virgil or Homer, and all of those have shittier Hollywood franchises.
No.29089
>>29088hollywood would marvelize the legendarium at best and make it into a star wars tier mess at worse anon
No.29090
>>29089im fine with that, it might end up being slightly better than the most recent marvel crop or A24 alt-marvel schlock. Tolkien fans are obsessed with their sacred cow bullshit.
No.29091
>>29088>I rather see a multi part silmarillion than the next fucking batch of marvel moviesyou're seeing it now on amazon and it's basically a marvel movie
No.29092
>>29091its just fanfiction (i like parts of it) because they can't even mention the name of galadriel's brother.
No.29093
>>29092which sucks because they have the budget to do something actually pretty good with it. The parts that aren't just the writers masturbating about what made up characters should be like in a tolkien sim are pretty good.
No.29301
You know what? Imma say it. Fuck JRR Tolkien! So this dumb ass Rings of Power show comes out and the only criticism I ever see people make of the fucking thing is that there's people that aren't white in it and its disrespecting Tolkiens legacy. Good. Fuck that n!qqa! He's old and dead for decades now. Maybe his bitch ass shouldn't have made a whole ass fantasy franchise full of mostly white people and white humanoids to start with. Maybe this bitch ass faggot ass n!qqa shouldn't have made the only dark skinned people in his books allied with the villains of the whole story. Critical support for Bezos in his crusade against crusty old ass tired ass fantasy writing dead n!qqaz.
No.29305
>>29301More like it's nothing but Bezos' own little vanity project mostly to try to get another "Game of Thrones" clone to try to test the viability of his streaming service. It's nothing but cynical greed and hubris.
Seriously chrring on a capitalist who only runis culture just like other capitalists.
No.29323
>>29305Test the viability? Niqqa that shits been a heavyweight competitor in streaming for sometime. I was mostly joking about supporting Bezos anyhow, he probably has very little involvement with this if anything. But the culture your whinging over Amazon ruining is reactionary anyhow was my point. Sorry if you can't watch muh fantasy and have it full of your precious white people.
No.29328
>>29323You're obviously either a troll from /pol/ pretending to be a black liberal or a idiotic retarded reddit sakaioid.
The reason why we are against it is it's simply yet another example of corporations cynically using someone else's work and simply repeating what succeeded before to try to catch up in the current cultural zeitgeist.
Not to mention that this liberal nonsense is simply just them trying to keep the status quo and basically taring anyone who sees through their marketing to see the naked black hole of endless greed behind the curtain as "racist". How does it feel that your entire liberal ideals are being used to justify imperialism and American cultural hegemony.
Besides. my big issue is that their "Original Character DONUT STEEL' dwarf doesn't have a beard. Female dwarves have beards. This shows they did absolutely no research in the setting and are just lazy.
No.29329
>>29301It honestly amazes me that people have such little time on this earth and they choose to spend their precious few hours and energy they have left getting upset about shit like this.
I'm aware this is all bullshit and all of the "culture warriors" are retards getting baited by obvious manufactured outrage to get people talking about the latest product™, but I still find it baffling they fall for it every. single. time. I almost forgot LOTR and Tolkien even existed were it not for some people I know IRL asking me what I think about Amazon ruining Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon fanfiction by putting The Blacks in it. Maybe instead of whining about some shitty show just pick up a better book uygha
No.29330
>>29328>Claims to not be racist with Shapiro tier facts and logic>Shows racism by assuming I have to be black, white, or have read a single thing by SakaiGet yout shit together /Leftypol be more like this guy
>>29329 No.29331
>>29330Ah yes, totally a of reddit-tier retard coming in here and shitting up a thread to try to make leftypol look like a bunch of "racists".
How does it show racism to assume you're either white, black, or read Sakai?
And you were the only one who mentioned Shapiro here, buddy. Do you not have any reading comprehension?
>>29329>I almost forgot LOTR and Tolkien even existed were it not for some people I know IRL asking me what I think about Amazon ruining Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon fanfiction by putting The Blacks in it.Yeah, sure you did, that totally happened and is not a part of your retarded bait at all.
No.29333
>>29331I'm sorry anon but there are no known measurements as of yet to describe how little space fantashit occupies in my brain in my day to day life
No.29343
>>29328> being this autistic about dwarves not having beardstolkien fags are something else man.
No.29936
>>29305>More like it's nothing but Bezos' own little vanity project mostly to try to get another "Game of Thrones" clone I had nothing to do today so I started watching it and while I don't think it's
this bad as some make it out to be, it feels nothing like a Tolkien show and I thought the exact same thing - it's heavily inspired by Game of Thrones, except the sex scenes and the f-bombs. Other than that, it is written in the exact same way as GoT and the plot feels similar too, it's a lot of political scheming and less high fantasy.
The problem is it doesn't work because the Tolkien universe is like high-high fantasy and not grounded and grimdark like GoT. If it was a standalone fantasy show without the burden of Tolkien and being a LotR prequel, I would give it a solid 6 out of 10. The biggest weakness is Galadriel. The actress has zero charisma, they should have taken someone like Evan Rachel Wood who has proven herself on Westworld instead, and she is written like a man, she is also a Mary Sue but so over the top that she can escape a dungeon in Numenor, easily defeat four guards with her bare hands and break into the royal palace. Nerf her, nerf the elves in general.
A good thing about the show is the portrayal of the orcs. They look even less than how they were described in the books than in the movie series, but that is a deviation I am okay with. They look much scarier and they are given some character, and are not mindless drones, they even showed some emotion when one of their comrades died.
No.29964
There are so many dumb things in this show that make laugh. I am at episode 5 and what do you think happens when you set brandy neat on fire? Yes it'll probably burn but in this show it looks like a fucking 9K720 Iskander missile hit the two ships with a massive explosion.
Dude. Burning liquer doesn't explode.
And don't even get me started about the last episode where the oarsmen couldn't even fucking row properly, did they not instruct the extras??! Remember billions are spent on this shit.
No.30018
>>29964I think it was pitch not brandy? But idk
No.30033
Lotr has always been a childish autistic fantasy trash that is all style and absolutely no substance. Style is fine a la John Wick but at least in that series, the style is actually given substance by great action and great world building. Lotr is just a rip off of a whole bunch of fantasy shit and no doubt rips off a bunch of Brother's Grimm which itself is a collection of already existing folklore. Something like John Wick is original and unique in it's world building whereas lotr wreaks of folklore rip off and reselling that trash as original.
No.30038
are there more cool designs like the wolf in the show
please post
No.30039
>>29098they smoke kush in lotr??? wtf
No.30062
>>30033And here we have yet another ignorant dumbass who doesn't know LOTR is based of of old folklore of central and northern europe.
And John Wick? You're comparing LOTR to a James Bond clone like John Wick.
Seriously the state of burgers today.
No.30063
>>30039I think they were talking about the barrels of hobbit "Pipe Weed" (tobacco) that Saurman had in storage.
No.30071
>>30062Lotr is a rip off. Just cuz you have your nostalgia goggles on for some overhyped fantasy rip off doesn't make it good.
No.30083
>>30033>>30062Dont get me wrong I love John Wick. But the whole series is just an excuse to have Keanu and Fishbourne larp as Neo and Morpheus again and that in itself is superior to anything connected to Tolkien
No.30088
>>30071>LotR is a ripoffA ripoff of what, exactly?
No.30113
>>30071A rip off of what exactly?
No.30131
So, the old dude that crashes to earth is Gandalf right? Or one of the other wizards?
No.30133
>>30033Never seen John Wick. Lord of the rings has substance actually
No.30136
>>30063Hobbit pipeweed has weird properties and gets you high
No.30137
>>30136Nvm, Iooked it up.
I read unfinished tales when I was a kid. There was a section in there where he talks about it “clearing the mind” but not really getting you stoned exactly.
No.30177
>>30113Real answer: there's a lot of medieval literature that Tolkien takes inspiration from. Boromir for example is loosely based on Roland, one of Charlemagne's paladins as depicted in The Song of Roland.
It's not at all a "rip off" but there are definite connections and lineages between Tolkien's characters and medieval European literature.
No.30180
Are you Tolkien nerds enjoying this Amazon show? It's so fucking boring.
No.30197
>>30180No, it's nothing but a fanfiction made up by a bunch of burger liberals and Jeff Bezos vanity project.
Christopher Tolkien should have just released LOTR into the Public domain.
No.30203
>>30197Even if lotr was in the public domain that wouldn't have stopped this. The wizard of oz is in the public domain, but the old movie with judy garland is still the private property of MGM.
No.30211
>>30180we tried watching it with a mate, dropped it because we really count bear it anymore. So slow, so boring, you don't care about any of the character and they're all so unlikeable, they vaguely tried politics but are just shit at it, its just shit
No.30228
>>30180I gave up 2 epsiodes in
No.30229
>>30226In the scene with the captured Uruk she was super fucking racist. Like Nazi level. And we are supposed to ignore that on a allegedly "woke" show because "we are the good guys".
Perfectly captures the liberal mindset.
No.30230
People in the IMDB comment section must be paid Amazon shills. They are saying that this shit is vastly better than HotD. If you don't see the difference of the quality of the writing then you must be some sort of troglodyte or a paid shill.
No.30231
>>30229An allegory for Burgeria hunh
No.30232
>>30177It's an eclectic mishmash of European folklore, Old English sagas, the brothers Grimm, Richard Wagner and Christian motives. There is not the definitive influence.
No.30263
>>30131i was correct.
>>30180People who didn't enjoy it are fags, I thought it was good. Yehyeh it was a billion or whatever and obviously nothing like the original movies but it was never gonna be
No.30265
>>30264Its fantasy that made it on to TV, what exactly were you expecting from your watching experience?
No.30266
>>30265I dunno, maybe something half-decent like GOT? Even though House of the Dragon has some dumb shit in it, it's still infinitely better than Rings of Power.
I mean for fuck's sake, you don't have to eat whatever shit is put in front of you and say it's delicious.
No.30267
>>30266Idk, you can equally make crits of Rings of Power, but ultimately, they are both fairly trashy. Rings of power has more political intrigue, whereas things in Tolkien in general are always pretty clear cut, even when they are trying to give a character a bit more dimensions to them.
One is modern, one is post modern. In LOTR, there are very clearly set and defined values. In GOT, everything is a shade of grey.
Neither of them make a particularly compelling political critique or something though. LOTR pretty basic good versus evil story, GOT is, a critique of feudalism? I mean it is, but also, its not. You're sitting there rooting for what? The stability of the realm perhaps. But you're not really, because you want to see dragons lay waste to shit etc. You want to see the villains get their comeuppance perhaps, or perhaps you are an Edgelord and want to see the villains win.
They are both viewed for basically escapist reasons. In terms of building a cool world with interesting things going on, which is all they really need to be, I think they both do fine.
No.30268
>>30267'Tolkien is black and white' is a monstrous strawman that every defender of this shitpile drags out, obviously Tolkien isn't GRR Martin but some of the biggest themes of his works are about how basically good people can be tempted or tricked or seduced into doing evil. There's plenty of possible material that you could use there if you wanted to make a 'post-modern' show.
For example the anti-elf racism in Numenor COULD have been used in a genuinely interesting and smart way if they stuck closer to the original plot and had it slowly bubble up over time, but instead in the show, you have a fucking rabble form around a guy yelling about how 'elves are taking our jobs!' when there's literally ONE FUCKING ELF in the entire kingdom.
You don't have to defend every piece of shit by saying 'bro it's just escapism' or 'bro you just have to turn your brain off'. Why the fuck can't we have actual smart writing? Why is that so apparently impossible for the big corporations to achieve? (Of course I know the reasons why but it's a rhetorical question and they could make a better product if anybody gave a shit instead of just looking for their next paycheck)
No.30271
>>30268I wasn't saying its a good thing that lotr is black and white, but it is pretty black and white. Most of the characters are pretty one dimensional.
>For example the anti-elf racism in Numenor COULD have been used in a genuinely interesting and smart way if they stuck closer to the original plot and had it slowly bubble up over timesure, but also others have complained that it was too slow already and it already crunches the timeline bastardising some law
In terms of your bottom paragraph, the bottom part answers the top part, which is why pretty much all you are gonna get is the escapism.
In terms of putting a pretty aesthetic and some faces to names it does the job. The main plot lines hold I think, the Sauron story, which is truish to the lore, the gandalf story.
No.30272
In fact, comparing like for like, i liked this series better than the hobbit movies, which really really sucked. (but i still enjoyed :) )
No.30275
>>30265>You should be able to enjoy it despite being shit because… because you just should, ok?-_-
No.30277
>>30272I mean yeah ok, this series was much better than the Hobbit movies, but they were borderline unwatchable so that's not saying much.
No.30370
>>30272 Yeah no, the Hobbit films largely sucked, but I still had more fun watching that then I did this series. Everything about it screamed liberalism and lackadaisical effort. You could turn on an episode of that Netflix Witcher series and barely tell the difference since it's all the same boring, Game-of-Thrones-rip-off aesthetic that has been plaguing fantasy television series since GoT aired.
No.30785
Recently on the ukraine general the topic of Hobbit Camps in Italy came up in regards to NPR discussing Giorgia Meloni (new Italian PM then) and discussing the pipeline to fascism LOTR lead to (in spite of Tolkien himself being anti-fascist and not intending any fascist allegory in the first place - disliking allegory in general in fact). I thought it was thread relevant and rather funny to share. Maybe this is the reason the USSR didn't have an official translation published for decades?
-
https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/it-en.en.546a1997-6359766a-ce21ebc7-74722d776562/https/it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campi_Hobbit -
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy https://archive.ph/cb9kB No.31344
>>30785You have to understand some historical context for Lord of the Rings. Specifically, the Lord of the Rings was arguably the first in what is now a proud tradition of liberals/fascists making political retard takes based on fantasy/sci-fi literature. Around the 60s, people started using it as their equivalent of "the guy we don't like is Voldemort and we're Dumbledore's Army". Ironically for these fascists, the most common political interpretation was the Mordor was Nazi Germany, but "Mordor is the USSR and the orcs are Russians" was a close second, and it's an interpretation that made its way into many of the early fan translations of the book in Eastern Europe. Apparently, one Russian translation completely ran with the idea that the Scouring of the Shire was a satire of communism.
If you haven't read the books, Mordor and the orcs are not even remotely communist, fascist, German or Russian, so these are all retard takes. However, unfortunately, it's retard takes that are apparently very popular in Europe, especially the butthurt belt.
No.31436
Are there any good reviews/articles/videos that are critical of RoP *without* being some anti-woke rightoid screed?
No.31437
>>31347You can also see in that pic they made no effort with hair and makeup to make them look like elves. Tolkien elves should have an ethereal feeling to them, not sporting a modern crew cut.
No.31872
>>31437isn't this just your own cultural bias though, the same way people think that Romans speaking in posh british accents is "right"
No.31873
>>31347Ear prosthetics were also mass produced rather than being made specifically for the actor, so often they dont even fit right. Most expensive TV show ever, ladies and gentlemen!
No.31876
>>31872It's more based on my memory of reading the books and the descriptions given to elves. A simple and practical haircut like that (regardless of cultural context) implies a certain level of groundedness and a sacrifice of form for function that isn't thematically in line with elves.
No.31877
>>31873Where did all that money go? The Peter Jackson LotR trilogy had half the budget of this TV show *after* you take away the money that had to go to paying off the Tolkien estate.
No.31881
>>31877the difference is on this production, nobody gave a fuck. effort >>>>>> money
No.31891
>>30018 Pitch doesn't explode from fire either though. If anyone has seen tar catch fire, that's basically the same thing and it's just going to slow-burn producing horridly noxious smoke at worst.
No.31892
>>29343 The point is that they cry diversity, yet apparently a bearded woman isn't something to include.
No.31957
>>31892well as we all know, diversity is one thing, but no uggos allowed
No.32040
Anyone like this channel?
https://www.youtube.com/@InDeepGeekI enjoy his LOTR lore videos, maybe just because I'm a noob who has read nothing except LOTR/Hobbit and he talks about things from other books and letters
No.32462
>>11616>>28468yeah, just because he didn't like nazis doesnt mean he was woke. He was basically the jordan peterson of the 1940s
No.32463
>>32462Moorcock was right
No.32465
>>32463Please, LOTR is overflowing with them as it is
No.32481
>>32040Lemme link you one of the best LOTR geek channels out there, especially like this dude personally since I’m more interested in themes the author wants to convey and literary techniques rather than “lore”
https://youtube.com/@TheRedBook No.33138
>>12359>”What are the linguistic differences among the peoples of Westeros?”>The arrogant proddie smirked quite schismatically and smugly replied “There is the Old Tongue and the Common Tongue, you stupid warmonger”>”Wrong. There should be hundreds of dialects. If the Wall is 8000 years old as you say, how can the Wildlings and Northmen understand one another?”Meanwhile in LOTR everyone presumably speaks the same language. Even the talking spiders lol.
>Start your story by inventing 100 languages>Times it factors into the story: 0>Westron was the language of the Dúnedain of Middle-earth. By the end of the Third Age it was more or less a universal languages spoken throughout the races and peoples of the Westlands. LMAO. They had WSL courses for the fucking giant spiders.
No.33160
>>33158Way to completely miss the point the guy was making.
Even today in the age of internet, a globe spanning information network, combined with economic superiority of the west, english is not spoken by every person on the planet. But for some reason this "lingua franca" is the only language that is spoken by people it seems, because outside of somerunes of the door, none other languages are encountered, the supposed language diversity have zero bearings on the plot or characters. It is spoken by everything - from fucking trees to spider that is thousands years old that was residing under literal rock for those thousands of years eating everyone she encountered. How exactly Shelob is supposed to know this "lingua franca"?
No.33161
>>33138>>Times it factors into the story: 0Everyone and their dog knows about Durin's Door lmao. There are multiple occasions where reading, speaking, or translating text is important as well. Not to mention all the times characters discuss minor discrepancies of terminology like hobbit vs halfling.
>>33160The general point about everything speaking Westron is a fair criticism, but mainly insofar as it constitutes missed opportunity. People are often multilingual so it's not much of a stretch for some characters in large regions being able to communicate with each other through a common tongue, not unlike with Latin. And this does indeed happen. One example is when Treebeard speaks to Merry and Pippin in Westron but to the other Ents in Entish. As for Shelob, she was actively hunting intelligent creatures who spoke the lingua franca and she is also intelligent so it's not really surprising she would learn it. Not that she speaks in the story except by implication since she communicates with Gollum somehow.
No.33162
>>33161>People are often multilingualNot in LOTR. There is difference between being multilingual and everybody speaking the same language. Characters aren't written as nultilinguals who have to communicate with each other using one of the languages, they are written as if all of them speak the same language. Even fucking spiders.
>she was actively hunting intelligent creatures who spoke the lingua francaHunting and eating, not speaking to them. And definitely not learning their language ffs. This is just a ridiculous argument.
>but to the other Ents in EntishOe maybe same language but slower.
>but mainly insofar as it constitutes missed opportunityMore like bad writing. And that means that lotrs fans don't have any high ground about "muh invented languages" over got fans. Tolkien just as shitty writer as Martin is. Actually even worse since later managed to write at least a couple of decent books.
No.33167
>>32463Moorcock's criticism of Tolkien is overblown by Tolkien haters. Moorcock admitted Tolkien was a big influence on his own work.
No.33186
>>33162Many franchises suffer from this, at least Star Trek solves it with translators. Star Wars not so much. But the whole invented language thing is a thing that came recently.
No.33188
>>33186Nah, i understand this. I wouldn't even bring this topic if some fanboys wouldn't brag about how superior Tolkien is because muh languages when in actual books the don't really matter much.
No.33191
>>33160Shelob never speaks though.
No.33194
>>33138>>33162This is the dumbest criticism of Tolkien I've ever seen and it is astonishing. Language comes up every fucking time in his stories. It's like the very core everything else is built around even. It's pure linguist porn.
Book 1
>' "If indeed you look only, as you say, for records of ancient days, and the beginnings of the City, read on! " he said. "For to me what was is less dark than what is to come, and that is my care. But unless you have more skill even than Saruman, who has studied here long, you will find naught that is not well known to me, who am master of the lore of this City.">`So said Denethor. And yet there lie in his hoards many records that few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men. And Boromir, there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself.Book 2
>`Welcome!' the Elf then said again in the Common Language, speaking slowly. 'We seldom use any tongue but our own; for we dwell now in the heart of the forest, and do not willingly have dealings with any other folk. Even our own kindred in the North are sundered from us. But there are some of us still who go abroad for the gathering of news and the watching of our enemies, and they speak the languages of other lands. I am one. Haldir is my name. My brothers, Rúmil and Orophin, speak little of your tongue.Book 3
>There sat many men in bright mail, who sprang at once to their feet and barred the way with spears. 'Stay, strangers here unknown!' they cried in the tongue of the Riddermark, demanding the names and errand of the strangers. Wonder was in their eyes but little friendliness; and they looked darkly upon Gandalf.>'Well do I understand your speech,' he answered in the same language; 'yet few strangers do so. Why then do you not speak in the Common Tongue, as is the custom in the West, if you wish to be answered?'Book 4
>They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the Common Speech, but after the of older days, and then changing to another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew then that they must be Dúnedain of the South, men of the line of the Lords of Westernesse.Book 5
>In vain men shook their fists at the pitiless foes that swarmed before the Gate. Curses they heeded not, nor understood the tongues of western men; crying with harsh voices like beasts and carrion-birds.And this is by no means an exhaustive list. I can only conclude that you never even read these books.
No.33195
>>33194Lol. And almost every time "hey we speak common, so all other languages are gonna be at best mentioned once or twice and never gonna be a plot point". Ever heard of "show, don't tell"?
>It's like the very core everything else is built around even. It's pure linguist porn.Ahahhahahaha, no, it's not. It's just jerking off to medieval epics.
No.33196
>>33195You're basically mad about people not grunting at each other all the time in a fucking fantasy book.
No.33200
>>33196Said the guy who called book sometimes mentioning a couple of other languages a "linguist porn". Tolkien fans are a fucking joke.
No.33429
>>33195>Ever heard of "show, don't tell"?Yes, something the CIA came up with because they thought books with too much exposition were causing people to have a bit too much to think.
No, seriously. The CIA were heavily involved in the mid-20th century writing organizations who thought up rules like "show, don't tell."
No.33430
>>33429Source? Sounds intresting.
No.33436
>>33434
>Linguistics would be about how people express ideas and concepts within different frameworks
Part of the reason Dénethor treats Pippin the way he does is because the Hobbits don't use formal speech (pronouns or honorifics or whatever idk) and when he speaks in a familiar way to him Dénethor assumes he's of a higher class/station than he actually is. (While all the main hobbits but Sam are landowners/bourgeois none of them are nobles or comparable in station to the Steward of Gondor.) This isn't something that comes across in the English text of the book itself (because Tolkien couldn't figure out how to represent it) but it's in his notes.
No.33437
>>33431>>33430
> “Write from experience.” “Show, don’t tell.” Self-knowledge. Self-discipline. Well-known conventions like these, whether delivered in classrooms, writing seminars or simply from one writer to another, often anchor traditional writing advice for literary authors and journalists alike in the United States.
>While these conventions may seem benign and often useful, they also have a history of political utility. Thanks to a network of underwritten cultural projects and front groups, state organs like the CIA and State Department collaborated with creative-writing programs like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and publications like the Paris Review to cultivate and reinforce writing tenets like these. The aim: to focus literature and journalism on the individual, feelings, sensory details, rather than on community, political theory, and large-scale political concepts.https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-144-how-the-cold-war-shaped-first-person-journalism-and-literary-conventionss-42bf68ccaefhttps://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-american-literature-into-a-content-farmhttps://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.htmlhttps://www.chronicle.com/article/how-iowa-flattened-literature/https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/how-creative-writing-programs-de-politicized-fiction No.33442
>>33437Zamn
>>33431Burgers/the CIA certaindly do their best to turn me into a shizo
No.33443
>>33431My dude the CIA had their hands in all kinds of crazy shit. The amount of schizo you'd have to get to make implausible accusations about them is pretty high.
>>33437Fascinating and another important point about "show don't tell" is that it's an inherently subtle way of writing, as in it's a bit harder to understand the point than if the point was spelled out. This means that some percent of readers will miss the point, and it also makes it easier for the writer to miscommunicate in the first place. This contributes to the Death of the Author school of interpretation, since it's a lot easier to glean different meanings from a text the more ambiguous it is. That makes it easier to subvert or co-opt a text and in fact this is something we see all the time. It makes me wonder if the glowies are involved in some of the memes out there misinterpreting things like American Psycho to be some cool sigma grindset guy.
No.33449
>>33437> to focus literature and journalism on the individual, feelings, sensory details, rather than on community, political theory, and large-scale political concepts.That's not what "show don't tell" us about. Meds.
No.33451
>>33449It kind of is. If you emphasize showing things that puts your focus on direct experience, which has to be situated in a particular perspective, i.e. individualist. If you emphasize concepts those tend to be interconnected, broadly applicable, and can be held in common across different perspectives.
No.36499
>>33451>If you emphasize showing things that puts your focus on direct experience Again, that's not what "show, don't tell" is. It's not just about individual perspective - (and there's nothing wrong with that either, since characters have to be characters and not self-inserts) - show don't tell is to use actions and visual descriptions carry across ideas, knowledge, etc. rather than exposition. A person doesn't go around announcing their actions and describing their surroundings all the time, out loud or in their head unless the situation calls for it.
>If you emphasize concepts those tend to be interconnected, broadly applicable, and can be held in common across different perspectives. Well yes, because there are broader concepts nearly universal within humanity, it's why many societies utterly separate from one another developed in similar manners, with similar ideologies and socio-economic systems.
No.36500
>>33429 "Show don't tell" is a concept in writing that exists in many cultures, such as Soviet writing and Chinese writing, are they also CIA? Just because the CIA had its thumb in every pie of US culture doesn't mean that they controlled it all. The idea that exposition causes people to think too much is fucking inane because that's not how that works at all. It's about the base education system and the concept of critical thinking in the first place. A person that does not think critically, will not be questioning narratives or taking action even if blatantly told in their face, we see the result of this today, when CIA projects like MK ULTRA are public knowledge and the outrage of the public is virtually non-existent. The ability to critically think means that if said person were to read a book that isn't exposition dumping its ideas, they'll still understand it since they actually think while reading, which is why the CIA discouraged thinking.
TL;DR: Preaching rhetoric to people through exposition is boring, bad writing and plays into CIA hands just as much as any schizo shit about "muh show don't tell"
No.36503
>“Write from experience.” “Show, don’t tell.” Self-knowledge. Self-discipline. Well-known conventions like these, whether delivered in classrooms, writing seminars or simply from one writer to another, often anchor traditional writing advice for literary authors and journalists alike in the United States.
>While these conventions may seem benign and often useful, they also have a history of political utility. Thanks to a network of underwritten cultural projects and front groups, state organs like the CIA and State Department collaborated with creative-writing programs like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and publications like the Paris Review to cultivate and reinforce writing tenets like these. The aim: to focus literature and journalism on the individual, feelings, sensory details, rather than on community, political theory, and large-scale political concepts.https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-144-how-the-cold-war-shaped-first-person-journalism-and-literary-conventionss-42bf68ccaefhttps://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-144-how-the-cold-war-shaped-first-person-journalism-and-literary-conventions No.36504
>>36500Well he kind of has a point though, I don't know if the CIA was really behind show don't tell but we live in a world of profound misunderstanding and ignorance of what literary/media works even mean and what the basic themes are.
No.36505
>>36503Reposting the claims and statements of others that you've already posted, from links that you already posted is not an argument. Ironic that you speak of political utility and its use of preventing critical thought, yet seem to have no critical thought of your own, and perhaps are simply defending your poor writing skills, by blaming the establishment, which is rather lazy and ignores Marx, wherein by this theory that while an individual is often confined by the institutions and social consciousness they of their society, it doesn't preclude the ability to expand and think for oneself and develop.
>>36504>we live in a world of profound misunderstanding and ignorance of what literary/media works even mean and what the basic themes are.That has nothing to do with "Show, Don't Tell"* and everything to do with the social environment and education of the society. The same can be said for "write from experience" as the meaning of the term is also seen in Russian literary schools since Soviet times at the very least. People misinterpreting this to be "only write what you know" is misleading and false and is again a result of lack of critical thought, which is what the CIA wants, not the the concepts are inherently ill to begin with, given that they are precisely the method of making a written work genuine and interesting. An impersonal work, makes for boring, disjointed writing, and telling rather than showing is the same thing, a good example is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which is a boring, dull doorstop of a book that uses far too much exposition, extremely dry descriptions and is a political fantasy of the author, rather than anything based on real experience, which is why it's so distant from anything relatable to most people. This is also why Mein Kampf or All Quiet on the Western Front were so influential, they were written from the heart, regardless of intentions and spoke to people.
*The concept regards writing in a manner that isn't childish exposition, and is something that many cultures over the past centuries have also purported, including the USSR, which means that the CIA can't have been "cultivating" such tenets since these tenets have existed long before the CIA existed and are not endemic to it or its ideology, I would hardly consider Soviet education to be a CIA project, would you?
No.36572
>>36500>"Show don't tell" is a concept in writing that exists in many cultures, such as Soviet writing and Chinese writingProofs?
>The idea that exposition causes people to think too much is fucking inaneTell me how Isaac Asimov could have written his famous Foundation series without heavy use of exposition. Or Arthur C. Clarke could have written Childhood's End without significant amounts of exposition.
>A person that does not think critically, will not be questioning narratives or taking action even if blatantly told in their faceThat has nothing to do with it. It is very hard to express broad, complex ideas that extend beyond the scope of a single, individual experience through the lens of a narrative that is exclusively a personal, individual narrative. Once again, Asimov's Foundation series is about history being moved and shaped by broad social and historical forces, which requires exposition to explain and cannot be relayed purely through the individual experience of the characters.
In fact, the reason why the "Golden Age of Sci-fi" passed and most modern sci-fi just isn't the same as classic sci-fi is specifically because these days all the great works of classic sci-fi (which were almost always ideas-driven rather than character-driven) would be regarded as "poorly written."
And that may be on purpose. The FBI admitted to having monitored Asimov and having suspected him of being a pinko.
No.36574
>>36572I do kinda wish we could have the best of both worlds though. Some of those books are a chore to read.
No.36575
>>36572>Proofs?Besides it being self-evident in literature that I've read (from Russian literature of various eras, to French classics, to German novels and Japanese folktales), and my personal anecdote of being taught this by my Soviet-school teachers, and all of my family being taught these things in Soviet times? I can cite you Chehov
>“Не говори мне про свет луны; лучше покажи мне, как лунный свет мерцает в треснутом бокале”. - Антон Чехов Which translates to
>“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Chehov died in 1904, and wrote this long before the CIA was ever formed, let alone beginning its social engineering.
>how Isaac Asimov could have written his famous Foundation series without heavy use of exposition.This is a strawman, especially in reference to the greentext excerpt you selected, which was speaking of exposition in regards to getting people to think. By that metric I may as well ask, how did Asimov's books make people think too much? If that were true, why are they still some of the most popular science-fiction books in Western literature? Surely the CIA would recognize their 'danger'!?
And as for how, it is completely possible to do so, as we see in things such as the novelization of the Terminator screenplay, or in any number of science-fiction books by William Gibson. More importantly exposition is not in itself bad, nor did I imply this argument, the point is that exposition itself must be necessary to the story and scenario and written in such a fashion as to immerse the reader in the environment or situation being described, not simply state things, otherwise it's just a crutch to prop up poor descriptive writing.
I think you may not understand what exposition and Show, Don't Tell mean:
“Show, don't tell” is a writing technique that allows the reader to experience expository details of the story through actions, sensory details, words, or the expression of characters' emotions, as opposed to through the author's own description of events.In other words rather than the Author preaching at the reader, they express and show examples of actions, themes or surroundings with descriptions that we can relate to with our 5 senses, or emotions, or rational thinking. You don't just say "Bad man is bad" because that's childish, you describe them, whether they are unpleasant to look at, what actions they are taking, or who they are. See pic related - the example of "showing" is a form of exposition, but used naturally, as opposed to just simplistic descriptions.
This idea that show, don't tell and exposition are opposed to each other comes from Ursula Le Guin's description of her writing classes being afraid of the latter.
>Childhood's EndA socio-political novel with science-fiction elements being a background to the story's plot. Moreover exposition is primarily used to introduce the broader setting, or discuss things that are not in the immediate vicinity of the characters involved - thus the commentary about democracy and the Soviet researchers being descriptive, as it is written from the perspective and through characters living in the United States, through natural dialogue. More importantly the story SHOWS its broader themes and ideas, through the exposition, but it doesn't outright bark it at you.
>That has nothing to do with it It has EVERYTHING to do with it. Being unable to question a narrative or story, means that you're not thinking about what's going on, just passively watching and following the flow, not observing.
>It is very hard to express broad, complex ideas that extend beyond the scope of a single, individual experience through the lens of a narrative that is exclusively a personal, individual narrative.Which is what differentiates good writing of broader ideas from bad writing of such, just because it's hard, is not an excuse for poor writing.
>Asimov's Foundation series is about history being moved and shaped by broad social and historical forces, which requires exposition to explain and cannot be relayed purely through the individual experience of the characters. You are again arguing a strawman and pushing a false dichotomy. The broad social and historical forces are described in exposition, but they are also seen in show-don't-tell writing, with the exposition just setting a background, but by the nature of humans being intrinsically linked to empathy as a driving force of our social development, the need for a more individual or personal experience/description grounds such descriptions to people.
>the reason why the "Golden Age of Sci-fi" passed and most modern sci-fi just isn't the same as classic sci-fi is specifically because these days all the great works of classic sci-fi (which were almost always ideas-driven rather than character-driven) would be regarded as "poorly written." Absolute nonsense. The reason it passed is the same reason anything else passes, dialectical progression of society. Star Trek (while a visual medium) is a classic scifi series that has broad exposition but is also character driven, and this is seen in the novels as well (for example Star Trek TNG: Strike Zone). Yet current trek is garbage, despite also being character driven, because the writing is blatant, in your face exposition dumping and characters are just flat caricatures that are walking messages, rather than being actual characters. As I said before, exposition is not the opposite of show-don't-tell, it is how exposition is used and to what end. If you just exposit a situation with some character that does things based purely on a politics driven depiction, you're going to get a boring, poorly written caricature that only works for a short satirical skit or a childrens comic.
>The FBI admitted to having monitored Asimov and having suspected him of being a pinko So what? Modern sci-fi is shit because modern culture is obsessively hyper-consumerist, this isn't because the FBI saw Asimov's (at the time) obscure novels and clutched their pearls in terror, but because they actively shaped the socio-economic situation in the West to have certain narratives they wanted. Asimov's books are more popular and well known today than they were in his own time, being the source of inspiration or reference for culture to this day. People still discuss the 3 Laws of Robotics he wrote, forming the depiction of androids and AI for decades to come.
No.36576
>>36572Hot take: genre fiction is on the whole quite bad and deservedly shit on for being bad. There's no reason you can't explore heady ideas and have engaging and evocative prose.
No.36577
>>36576Hot take: literary fiction is more pretentiously written and annoying than genre fiction.
No.36586
>>365751) Chekhov was a playwright, not a novelist.
2) No one is saying that any particular novel or series of novels were super dangerous and the CIA wanted to censor them. The point is that they wanted to steer the direction of literature and media in general away from discussing broad social topics and abstract concepts towards more individual, character-driven narratives for the exact reason that these sorts of narratives don't lend themselves well to anything outside of individual experience. An individual can easily experience a crowded hallway, its much harder to think of any individual experiencing broad social forces driving history, for instance. The closest your going to get is having a character explain the concept, which everyone is going to immediately identify as exposition even if the exposition isn't being given directly by the author.
3) Going back to the point, Tolkien doesn't really have a problem with "show, don't tell" as you define it. The original post that started this seemed to be complaining more about the "Chekhov's Gun" principle. Multiple languages are referenced, but not used as a plot point and most people speak common with each other. Except, once again, Chekhov was a playwright, not a novelist. Sure, in theater its a good idea to cut out all extraneous details that aren't directly related to the plot because you're trying to fit your story into a limited time window, but there's no reason to do this in a novel. Novels can have as many extraneous details as they want, so long as they don't become too burdensome on the narrative. In a format where you have limited space, it makes sense to establish that if there's a loaded gun on the wall, it must go off later on, but there is no such space limitation for novels and you can absolutely state that there's a loaded gun on the wall and not have to bring it up again. If anything, the "Chekhov's Gun" principle can make narratives incredibly predictable, because as this has been enforced more and more as "good writing," the audience immediately comes to expect that the loaded gun will go off the moment you establish its existence.
If anything, the use of extraneous detail is what gives Tolkien's Middle Earth its famous sense of verisimilitude, of being this real, legitimate, lived-in place. This would be ruined by trying to cook up some contrivance to make every single detail have some direct relevance to the plot.
No.36588
>>36586>Chekhov was a playwright, not a novelist. Irrelevant nitpicking, his works are among those considered classic literature.
>No one is saying that any particular novel or series of novels were super dangerous and the CIA wanted to censor them Ahem
>["show, don't tell" was] something the CIA came up with because they thought books with too much exposition were causing people to have a bit too much to think. So yes people are saying precisely this, and it is what I am arguing against.
>he point is that they wanted to steer the direction of literature and media in generalNo shit, they did this with everything
>away from discussing broad social topics and abstract concepts towards more individual, character-driven narratives for the exact reason that these sorts of narratives don't lend themselves well to anything outside of individual experience. Blatantly untrue and falsely dichotomous; character driven stories have been a part of literature since humanity began telling stories. Greek Mythology is character driven and also tells of broader social and abstract concepts like fate or inequality. Unironically read books that aren't burger literature FFS.
>its much harder to think of any individual experiencing broad social forces driving history Because you're ill-read. I can think of dozens of such works pertaining to the Bolshevik revolution alone, let alone other cultures and histories.
>An individual can easily experience a crowded hallway An individual can as easily experience oppression, prejudice, propaganda etc. You're creating a false narrative, that you cannot have broad ideas with proper detailed writing.
>Going back to the pointIf we're going to do that, then this entire argument about "broad ideas" is an utter non sequitur
>Tolkien doesn't really have a problem with "show, don't tell" as you define it Nobody said he had a problem with "show, don't tell", the point was that in regards to language Tolkien would introduce them, but many o the languages he spent years creating, ended up never being used past a passing reference by character exposition, we don't get to see or experience much of it outside of Elvish languages and letters and people all speak the same basic languages. It doesn't make Tolkien bad, but that was never the point.
>The original post that started this seemed to be complaining more about the "Chekhov's Gun" principle. Which is a valid argument, there's a difference between just fleshing out your world, and creating false-positives
>Chekhov was a playwright Except once again that's fucking irrelevant because the principle of Chekhov's gun is relevant to story telling, regardless of the medium.
Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov_bibliography?useskin=vector#Novel >If anything, the "Chekhov's Gun" principle can make narratives incredibly predictableIf you're a hack writer, sure. Chehov's Gun is just a name for something that, again. has existed in literature for centuries. A detail in exposition coming up later in the plot is usually subtle and only noticed if a reader is hyper-attentive to such details. For example in Lord of the Rings, it is said that no man can slay the Witch King, and much later this gun fires in the form of him being slain by a woman, Eowyn. This reflects a much older Chehov's gun in the form of Macbeth's prophecy and how it is carried out. These things are unpredictable unless you know the story already.
>the audience immediately comes to expect that the loaded gun will go off the moment you establish its existence. Because modern writers are terrible at writing these things and think MacGuffin's and Deus Ex Machina are the same thing as a Chehov's Gun, again this is a result of poor writing and poorly read audiences, not the actual trope.
>in theater its a good idea to cut out all extraneous details that aren't directly related to the plot because you're trying to fit your story into a limited time windowUtterly ignorant statement. A theatre performance is easier in that regard because you don't have to use dialogue or detailed exposition, as you SEE the actual performance of the play, a picture is worth a thousand words, you can spend more time on character interactions and dialogues, because the environment and actions will literally be SEEN, a play written in book format is little different to a novel except in a few small areas, as the exposition format is nearly the same and in fact has to be even more detailed because actors must be able to interpret how a scene goes and emulate the experience.
>Novels can have as many extraneous details as they want, so long as they don't become too burdensome on the narrative That's literally the argument I've been making FFS, you're just being contrarian here.
>This would be ruined by trying to cook up some contrivance to make every single detail have some direct relevance to the plot.Jesse how the fuck did you reach this conclusion? When people criticize the lack of usage of Tolkien's immense linguistic efforts being poorly utilized in the story, it's not because "Everything must be contrivedly plot relevant for the sake of story economy" but because it is too sparse and under-utilized for such a relatively key part of the races and peoples of the narrative, it is in itself relevant to the plot because the elves and dwarves hate each other and hobbits are isolationist and that's not even talking about mankind. There should naturally be linguistic barriers and plot relevance that simply isn't there in spite of the actual languages existing because Tolkien created them, only to barely reference them. It's like cooking a banquet only to give party guests a few toothpick-samples of a couple of them.
No.36590
>>36577Absolutely agree, but pretentious and annoying is preferable to bad.
No.36593
>>36588You contradict yourself in your own post.
>Which is a valid argument, there's a difference between just fleshing out your world, and creating false-positives<When people criticize the lack of usage of Tolkien's immense linguistic efforts being poorly utilized in the story, it's not because "Everything must be contrivedly plot relevant for the sake of story economy"You openly think that the languages of Middle Earth are an un-fired Chekhov's Gun, that they needed to play some crucial part in the story in order to justify their existence and it can't just be there as a part of fleshing out the world. Don't deny it.
You also simultaneously defend the Chekhov's Gun principle, and then say that you've been saying that novels don't need the Chekhov's Gun principle all along and that its fine to have lots of extraneous details peppered in that aren't directly related to the plot.
As to the whole "show, don't tell" thing, there's not much to say if the whole argument against me is essentially "nuh-uh you can make it work if you're a good enough writer" and then use examples of non-fiction (or historical fiction) of someone experiencing a historical event as an example of how someone can individually experience the concept of broad social forces driving history in the context of fiction.
No.36595
>>36593>You contradict yourself in your own post.<proceeds to post 2 things that are not contradictive at all You need to improve your reading comprehension. The point isn't that Tolkien should have used every single language and make it all very plot relevant, but that for wasting time on that much effort, to not actually use it within the story is wasteful and stupid, and takes away from an otherwise brilliant work.
>You openly think that the languages of Middle Earth are an un-fired Chekhov's Gun No, you're trying to project a strawman onto my argument. I've stated no such thing.
>they needed to play some crucial part in the story in order to justify their existence No, I stated that the languages should have some plot relevance, at least for some of the more immediate ones like Black Speech, Elvish, etc. because they ARE relevant to the plot, yet are not explored within the story in spite of this.
>Don't deny it Go fuck yourself.
>You also simultaneously defend the Chekhov's Gun principle, and then say that you've been saying that novels don't need the Chekhov's Gun principle all along and that its fine to have lots of extraneous details peppered in that aren't directly related to the plot. yet another false dichotomy of a strawman living rent free in your head. I stated the the Chehov's gun principle is relevant and necessary to a plot driven story, such as LOTR, and provided an example of that within said story, without which the scenes we see would have less striking impact then they otherwise would. More importantly, just because Chehov's gun should be used for important plot elements, does not mean things that are meant to simply flesh the world out cannot also be in the story, I directly stated this. I also explained that a proper Chehov's gun is subtle and woven in among such details but is subtly more plot relevant than the others we see described. That's good writing.
>"nuh-uh you can make it work if you're a good enough writer" Going by the repeated and increasing strawman arguments, non sequitur goal-post shifting etc. you're just flailing about angrily and projecting your lack of argument onto me. This is just another blatant example; I stated clearly that yor argument is blatantly false because even your own examples of "non-character-driven" works utilize show-don't tell and that said writing concept can easily carry across broad social issues to a reader, because that's how any good writing goes. Furthermore I provided examples of literature, writers, etc. that were from cultures not within CIA influence or were from before the CIA's existence that also utilized character driven story telling, show, don't tell rhetoric and more, disproving this inane idea that somehow show, don't tell is a way of making people stupid or think less or be more easily manipulated.
>then use examples of non-fiction (or historical fiction) of someone experiencing a historical eventLMAO irrelevant deflection, How the Steel Was Tempered is based on the experiences of the writer, and it carries across the ideas, ideology and broad social issues of the environment it describes, it is fictional, as is All Quiet on the Western Front, or Capitaine Casse-Cou, or Quiet Flows the Don. You did not state genre-specifics, and if you had, then you'd have disqualified yourself by default, since you refer to a single example of Azimov's Science Fiction literature rather than Fantasy as is LOTR. And moreover I provided examples of btoh of those as well; Greek Mythology, William Gibson's books such as Neuromancer, Terminator's first novelization, Star Trek TNG: Strike Zone, and Azimov's short-stories on which I, Robot and Bi-Centennial Man were based upon. All of those disprove your narrative and prove mine that "someone can individually experience the concept of broad social forces driving history in the context of fiction." and so carry across the same messages even within the "Show, Don't Tell" and "individual experience" framework.
No.37049
>>12359TolKKKien:
>Story is simple good vs evil fight>No boobs>Every grass somehow has a backstory>Thanks to him chvds now use orc and mordor unironically against anyone that is not EvropeanGeorge RR Martin:
>Has boobs>Story is not just le bad guys vs le good guys>Based Developmentalist dictators like Stannis >The big bad is a metaphor for climate crisis that transcends petty political and ethnic divide No.37050
>>235461938 Tolkein wrote this to his publisher regarding getting the hobbit published in german:
>I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries? Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung [confirmation] (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine. You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.Tolkein then wrote this to the German publishers who were trying to figure out if he was pureblooded aryan or not:
>Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung. No.37054
>>37052They description of their enemies aren't all generalities though. IIRC the Easterlings and Haradrim they do mention in particular are described in the same sort of heroic tones as the Prince of Dol Amroth and that kind of thing.
It's been a minute since I've read the books, but I don't think the foreigners are called
evil, either, but rather
wicked, and of course there's that scene where they talk about what lies or threats brought these people into Gondor in the first place.
>Tolkien was a monarchist in the sense of old legends rather than real life and while the returning king is an important plot point, the main thrust of the story is clearly anti-imperialist and environmentalist. Tolkiens personal politics aside, I think the politics of LOTR are for the most part medievalist, updated with Tolkien's more modern perspective. If you read The Song of Roland, you can see a lot of the influences that would go into LOTR. TSR has a lot of "evil foreigner" type sentiments in it which at the time might have been due to pandering or naivete or outright xenophobia, but which wouldn't make sense to Tolkien from his perspective 800 years later and his knowledge that the Iberians weren't perfidious idol worshiping pagans etc.
>You'd think this would be obvious to readers, since culture clash and ethnic conflict is one of the central themes of the stories.I think I would differ somewhat in that the conflict don't necessarily come from clashes of culture or ethnicity. They are certainly factors in these clashes, but the causal factors are more ones of
sin. The conflicts aren't necessarily due to the Elves' elvishness or the Dwarves dwarvishness, but because they give in to sins of pride or greed or wrath, and then maintain the grudges that arise from them for hundreds or thousands of years. I think what LOTR goes out of its way to show is that their cultures aren't in conflict when they give these things up, and that once "sin" is removed and symbolically defeated with the destruction of Sauron, their cultures thrive together.
No.37055
>>37052what the fuck am I watching here
No.37057
>>37055As I stated, it's /pol/'s retarded take on LOTR
>>37054 >I don't think the foreigners are called evil, either, but rather wicked, and of course there's that scene where they talk about what lies or threats brought these people into Gondor in the first place.True, but wickedness is often hand-in-hand with evil in old stories and they are technically fighting on the side of Sauron according to the narrative.
> If you read The Song of Roland, you can see a lot of the influences that would go into LOTR. Makes sense since Tolkien wove together LOTR based on old stories, legends and legends of early Northern European lore
>TSR has a lot of "evil foreigner" type sentiments in it which at the time might have been due to pandering or naivete or outright xenophobia, but which wouldn't make sense to Tolkien from his perspective 800 years later and his knowledge that the Iberians weren't perfidious idol worshiping pagans etc.Which I attribute to a mix of a romanticized good vs evil narrative (nothing inherently wrong with that sort of story if done right) and the fact that this is told from the Hobbit's perspective as I said.
>the conflict don't necessarily come from clashes of culture or ethnicity. Not only culture and ethnicity, but we see this when the fellowship is being formed and the elves, hobbits, men and dwarves are all at each others throats apart from Frodo and a few other more level-headed characters. Moreover its a remnant of conflicts decades and centuries before LOTR begins, which we see in The Hobbit and described in the Silmarillion.
>aren't necessarily due to the Elves' elvishness or the Dwarves dwarvishness, but because they give in to sins of pride or greed or wrath, and then maintain the grudges that arise from them for hundreds or thousands of years Also true - a reflection of sentient beings and the pitfalls or shortcomings they have as being living individuals.
>LOTR goes out of its way to show is that their cultures aren't in conflict when they give these things up, and that once "sin" is removed and symbolically defeated with the destruction of Sauron, their cultures thrive together. THIS, absolutely.
No.37061
>>37057
>True, but wickedness is often hand-in-hand with evil in old stories and they are technically fighting on the side of Sauron according to the narrative. That's true, but with Tolkien being such a word nerd I think it's an important distinction to make that these people are
wicked rather than
evil, with the implication being that the bad things that they do aren't because of some inherent defect but because of outside influences, and that what the "good races" are just as capable and susceptible to "wickedness" as the people they're fighting.
>THIS, absolutely.One of the passages I love the most in LOTR is when Gimli talks about Galadriel's gift to him, and also when he talks about the beauty of the caves behind Helm's Deep to Legolas (iirc). It's really beautiful how Gimli goes from a Dwarf chauvinist to loving the Elves and being able to share his own loves with them, to the point that he and Legolas both go to the undying lands together. Simply wonderful.
No.37063
>>37061>with Tolkien being such a word nerd I think it's an important distinction to make that these people are wicked rather than evil, with the implication being that the bad things that they do aren't because of some inherent defect but because of outside influences, and that what the "good races" are just as capable and susceptible to "wickedness" as the people they're fighting. Fair point
>when Gimli talks about Galadriel's gift to him, and also when he talks about the beauty of the caves behind Helm's Deep to Legolas (iirc). It's really beautiful how Gimli goes from a Dwarf chauvinist to loving the Elves and being able to share his own loves with them, to the point that he and Legolas both go to the undying lands together. Yes, it's a wholesome enemies to friends story that unfortunately gets done to death in modern stories.
No.37099
>>37052This absolutely. Most LotR hate coming out right now is pure contrarianism against right-wingers trying to portray Tolkien as way more political and right-wing than he actually was and LotR as some kind of tradcath fascist treatise, when Tolkien had stated multiple times that LotR wasn't any kind allegory or political text.
No.37113
>>37052Damn someone took the time to mash mine and some other anons posts from the thread on /siberia/ into something worthwhile
No.37117
>>37113One of the other anons was me and I liked your post and the video so I combined it with my own post since that /siberia/ thread would be bumped off the board soon and this is the more steady thread.
No.37118
>>37099he can state that but there is always a subtext. the art outlives the artist.
No.37119
>>37052>that videodidn't we manage to take their account banned?
also that aged like milk. the cringe is unreal.
No.37158
>>37118If you want to insert a political subtext on Lord of the Rings, you can do that. The thing is, you can do that with any brand of politics since LotR's "politics" doesn't really go much more beyond Good vs Evil.
For instance, prove that the Free Peoples of Middle Earth can't be interpreted as communists and socialists and Mordor as fascists, neoliberals and imperialists and that it HAS to be the other way around. You can't. You could say that this clearly wasn't Tolkien's intent, but we're ignoring intent here.
No.37159
>>37158The only political subtext you can actually connect with the story is the divide between town and country, between smelly and rude Londoner orcs and wholesome shire hobbits.
No.37160
>>37159Minas Tirith is a city.
No.37161
>>37158> prove that the Free Peoples of Middle Earth can't be interpreted as communists and socialiststhey're aristocratic monarchies for one
No.37163
>>37161That's because it's based on old myths and legends that were produced by aristocratic monarchies. And Mordor is no less an aristocratic monarchy than Gondor.
What's more, these monarchies don't operate like any modern day, real world society. For one, modern capitalist societies are republics or "monarchies" that operate as de facto republics. Secondly, LotR monarchies aren't organized like actual, real world monarchies. For instance Aragorn clearly believes in marrying for love and political marriage doesn't even cross his mind, and the proof of him as the rightful king has less to do with who is dad was (though Aragorn is ultimately a descendant of Isildur) and more to do with him fulfilling various prophesies. This is because he's a king in the sense of mythology, old legends and chivalric romance rather than a king in the sense of political monarchism.
No.37165
>>37163If they're monarchies and aristocrats they're not communists and socialists.
No.37166
>>37164>the general sowing of fbi.gov and corruption. lmao
> it's frankly a dry book compared to Lord of the Rings or The HobbitYeah, it's just the bare bones of a story without much flourish because it's constructed from Tolkien's notes rather than being a finished work with all the polish that LOTR got.
>the fall of NumenorSauron was trying to conquer the world, and Numenor in the height of its power came and wrecked his shit. It's a seriously one-sided fight, and they take Sauron captive and haul his ass back to Numenor. He plays nice for a while and acts like he's reformed, doling out secrets and information that makes the Numenorians even more powerful, while sowing seeds of doubt and fbi.gov between the humans and the elves, especially leading them to believe that the elves know the secret to immortality but just won't tell the humans about it.
Over the course of a hundred years or so, the humans and elves grow distant and distrustful and the Numenorians become cruel and wicked. IIRC Ar Pharazon, the same king that defeated Sauron, is old and terrified of the thought of dying. Sauron convinces him that if he goes West to Valinor, he'll be able to wrest immortality from the gods.
So he gets a huge army together, sails West to Valinor, and disembarks with his army, only for the ground to open up and swallow them all whole. As punishment, the gods destroy Numenor and sink it beneath the ocean. The only survivors are from the peninsula of Numenor closest to Valinor, which kept good relations between them and the elves and left after they found out what the king was doing. They'd go on to make Arnor and Gondor. Sauron was still on the island when it was destroyed, and that's when he loses his physical form and the ability to "take pleasing shapes."
No.37173
>>37165Yes, exactly. But at the same time they can hardly be called liberals or fascists, who aren't exactly feudal monarchists either. If you're trying to make them allegorical, so that even though liberals and fascists generally are not monarchist, you say that these are medieval kingdoms
representing liberalism or fascism, there's nothing to say that you couldn't have a medieval fantasy kingdom that was
allegorical for the socialist and communist movements, and there's nothing in the book that would point to Rohan, Gondor or Lothlórien being
allegorical for liberals or fascists and NOT socialists or communists.
Tolkien strictly denied that Lord of the Rings was allegorical for anything. It was just inspired by mythology, old legends and chivalric romance. This naturally means that all societies shown are monarchies because there are no ancient tales of parliaments and soviet republics.
No.37176
>>37166I see, many thanks. Yeah that filter can be a pain in conversation, LOL.
No.37938
Why his reactionary fascist fantasy resonates with the "progressive" cultural revolution of the 1960s is the question. How is it that the most hypercapitalist neoliberalism became fused with feudalistic fantasies found in LOTR? How did fantasy become the literary genre of neoliberalism, or at least its true believers? We know he disavows of white supremacism (letter about "aryan" heritage), but I don't trust it. In his fictional universe, things seem pretty white supremacist. Heroes have to be of worthy ancestry, and Aragorn is described very often as the perfect human due to his heritage. Each and every conflict seems to be extremely black and white. Peasantry is of no importance, they are dirty, stupid and unwashed refugees. The most powerful societies are all feudalist/monarchist, good people have extreme amounts of wealth, colonialism is good, and when a society fails this is due to a greater power such as Morgoth and Sauron, not because of societal failure. After Saruman cut down the forest to build his siege weapons, the trees came down to destroy him. Through his, Tolkien represents feudalism as a flourishing society, and industrialism of Saruman and Sauron as evil. Some creatures have a greater innate value than others, with orcs being irredeemable and elves being immortal. Another recurring theme of his is the decay through time. The world is only becoming worse, it is mentioned that everything was perfect at some point in the past, and people do not have the power to "save" the world. Those are all rather reactionary ideas.
When analyzing the matter deeper, we learn that the orcs were designed to represent the uyghurs, and Saruman and Sauron represent jews sending said uyghurs into Middle earth, representing white lands. Saruman (jew) gives the orcs (uyghurs) the mark of the white hand (intelligence quotient) and gives them technologically-advanced (white) seige engines so they are able to fight men, dwarves, and elves (white european tribes). Additionally, the hobbits represent white children. Tolkien is alluding to the 14 words by saying to his fellow reactionaries that they must destroy the jew/uyghur attack to defend the Shire if white children are to have a future. His moral meaning of being evil is being a gold-obsessed jew, represented by Sauron on his quest to retrieve the gold ring, and that future white generations (hobbits) are the key to destroying mammon through destroying the gold ring and refusing the jew's power (interest bearing loans). On the other hand, Smeagol represents the mutt, that was absolutely corrupted by the absolute power of mammon, and Tolkien uses him to serve as an example as to the fate of the white man if they get corrupted.
You would think science fiction would be the genre of silicon valley and Muskish techno-fetishism, but there is plenty of fantasy like the works of Tolkein that is basically a treatise on reactionism, which forms the root of hippie ideology. But there's something about the genre that gets too close to the essence of things. Not that it was important right now but is there any commentary on this? What do you think?
No.37941
>>37938>Tolkien's work is reactionary and lies at the root of neoliberalismNo.
>Why his reactionary fascist fantasy resonates with the "progressive" cultural revolution of the 1960s is the question.Because it wasn't reactionary or fascist and also because it had anti-war, anti-racist and environmentalist themes. It was also an escapist fantasy, offering vivid and poetic depictions of the journey of the Fellowship that some hippies likened to an LSD trip. This during a time when there was growing interest in escapism and "mind expansion."
>How is it that the most hypercapitalist neoliberalism became fused with feudalistic fantasies found in LOTR?
>We know he disavows of white supremacism (letter about "aryan" heritage), but I don't trust it. In his fictional universe, things seem pretty white supremacist. Heroes have to be of worthy ancestry, and Aragorn is described very often as the perfect human due to his heritage.Aragorn is a half-elf, or at least descends from a race of half-elves. While he
is one of the most pure blooded of the Dúnedain, his worthiness is more tied to him fulfilling a series of prophesies. His ascent to kingship is more inspired by myth and legend than race science.
This also ignores the point that Aragorn is not the main hero of Lord of the Rings. The Hobbits are. In terms of power and ancestry, Hobbits are the shittiest creatures imaginable. The One Ring is stated to be an artifact of immense power. The reason why we only ever see Frodo and Bilbo turn invisible is literally because the power level of Hobbits is too low to do anything except use the One Ring's most basic bitch ability. And yet, these Hobbits are the heroes. And they're the heroes because of their courage, determination and purity of heart, which is here treated as a quality greater than any of the powers of any king or wizard.
>Each and every conflict seems to be extremely black and white.That's because it is very black and white. It's a story about good vs evil. There is some nuance, though, like the book more or less outright stating the Men of Rohan were wrong to treat the Drúedain like animals.
>Peasantry is of no importance, they are dirty, stupid and unwashed refugees.The peasantry aren't really mentioned at all except as background commoners. This isn't work about feudalism.
>The most powerful societies are all feudalist/monarchist, good people have extreme amounts of wealth, colonialism is good, and when a society fails this is due to a greater power such as Morgoth and Sauron, not because of societal failure.What are you talking about? The books absolutely state that internal social failure was behind the collapse of Arnor and the decline of Gondor.
<'It is not said that evil arts were ever practised in Gondor, or that the Nameless One was ever named in honour there; and the old wisdom and beauty brought out of the West remained long in the realm of the sons of Elendil the Fair, and they linger there still. Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep, who was only banished not destroyed.<'Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anarion had no heir.
>After Saruman cut down the forest to build his siege weapons, the trees came down to destroy him. Through his, Tolkien represents feudalism as a flourishing society, and industrialism of Saruman and Sauron as evil.?
How is Saruman getting attacked by the Ents an endorsement of feudalism? Do you think the Ents are a feudal society? I don't see any evidence of that.
>Another recurring theme of his is the decay through time. The world is only becoming worse, it is mentioned that everything was perfect at some point in the past, and people do not have the power to "save" the world. Those are all rather reactionary ideas.Yes and no. There are themes of decay, but if you've read the Silmarillion, you'd know that the past was no utopia. I don't see how themes of decay are reactionary, either. Do communists not claim that capitalism is in a state of progressive decay?
>When analyzing the matter deeper, we learn that the orcs were designed to represent the uyghurs, and Saruman and Sauron represent jews sending said uyghurs into Middle earth, representing white lands. Saruman (jew) gives the orcs (uyghurs) the mark of the white hand (intelligence quotient) and gives them technologically-advanced (white) seige engines so they are able to fight men, dwarves, and elves (white european tribes). Additionally, the hobbits represent white children. Tolkien is alluding to the 14 words by saying to his fellow reactionaries that they must destroy the jew/uyghur attack to defend the Shire if white children are to have a future. His moral meaning of being evil is being a gold-obsessed jew, represented by Sauron on his quest to retrieve the gold ring, and that future white generations (hobbits) are the key to destroying mammon through destroying the gold ring and refusing the jew's power (interest bearing loans). On the other hand, Smeagol represents the mutt, that was absolutely corrupted by the absolute power of mammon, and Tolkien uses him to serve as an example as to the fate of the white man if they get corrupted. ???
No.37948
>>37941>LOTR>Anti-RacistIf you watch the original trilogy you'll see that every evil human faction is Arab/Persian and even when white people like Sauraman or Wormtongue are evil they command literal orcs to pillage and rape le pure white men and elves or whatever the fuck.
>But the new Amazon series-shut the fuck up that's basically fanfiction and tokenism to try to address the glaring racism of the original trilogy
No.37949
>>37948>le pure white menAragorn (the man crowned king) is mixed race. And he goes on to wed an elf who also has mixed ancestry. This is portrayed as a good thing.
The reason the bad factions are bad is because they side with the bad guy, not their race. The Watsonian explanation why Sauron's human forces are ethnically distinct is because in-universe his control is bounded to specific territories. The Doylean explanation is that Tolkien was building on very old mythic tropes that had roots in actual history and an orientalist lens. In that respect it's a fantasy from a European perspective, which can't help but be racist. Europe is in many ways defined by racism. Insofar as race is explicitly referenced in the story and not just being informed by background prejudice, anti-racism is among the most overt themes. The core of the story is about people of many races cooperating with each other.
No.37950
>>37948 Nobody talks about the Amazon series, it's garbage and doesn't try to fix anything, it is in fact far MORE racist.
>If you watch the original trilogy you'll see that every evil human faction is Arab/Persian 1) That's the films, those are not the same thing as the books
2) They are not 'evil', that's nev is thater been Tolkien's assertion for the men that sided with Sauron such as the Easterlings, they hope to be conquerors (like many other groups of men in medieval settings) and are manipulated by Sauron unwittingly
>even when white people like Sauraman or Wormtongue are evil they command literal orcs to pillage and rape le pure white men and elves <Ah yes the orcs who are a real race in the human world???This reeks of projection and ignores entirely the origins of the orcs, why they're so vile and why Saruman commands them. Your race obsession and projection says more about you being racist than LOTR.
The thread has literally gone into details about the Orcs, debunking the "racism" card, scroll up.
TLDR: If you think orcs are "black-coded" or whatever the hip new liberal term is, You've got issues.
No.37954
>>37948>If you watch the original trilogy you'll see that every evil human faction is Arab/PersianThe Easterlings are not themselves evil. Their countries were just taken over by Sauron. The Two Towers, for instance, has this:
>It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace. No.40656
Reposting some takes about Sauron and the story from an old thread regardless of my own agreement
Anon 1:
>Capitalism is all the free people's of middle earth in gradual decline with elves leaving, the Men of Gondor without a King for century's and in decline not to mention men like the Haradrim and Easterlings wanting to side with us.
>We are Sauron the necromancer hiding out in Mirkwood we are rapidly building our power in the background and following the ideal theory to get more power.
>We will continue gaining power and achieve world domination or in this case world communism unless the capitalists can achieve a miracle akin to throwing the ring in mount doom.
Anon 2:
>Sauron is capitalism. He enroaches everything with his presence.
>Saruman was a social democrat turned fascist. He was a scientist, an engineer, and a visionary. He became corrupted by capitalism and used his ingenuity for industrial genocide.
>The race of Men are the Slavs. They were once great, and fought nobly against capitalism (USSR), but eventually became corrupted by the power of capitalism (the ring) and greed.
>The elves are the Chinese. They fought against capital with the Slavs at some point, but when Men became corrupted, they broke relations entirely.
>The dwarves are ex-Yugoslavia. No, I will not elaborate.
>Aragorn is the next Lenin, essentially.
>The hobbits are the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
>When the time comes, we will have to make a last stand to distract capital, force it's gaze upon us, while the hobbits do their final work and decimate the rate of profit.
Anon 3:
>Mordor is communist. They have industry and all the orca live in the same material conditions. Even their generals and captains sleep and eat with the enlisted orcs. Sauron and Saruman are your Maos and Kims and Stalins.
>Everyone else lives in a social democrat petit bourgeois utopia. People have small businesses, own lands that others toil. Sam is Frodo's gardner, is visibly poorer, but they're best friends.
>Gondor is a reactionary hellhole, no tax policy and just letting people fend for themselves. If anyone gets too uppity they crush them.
>Rohan is feudal. You have the royals, the soldiers and everyone else is a peasant who lives in literal horse shit.
>Dwarves are greedy fucks nobody likes, that just dig shiny things everyone wants but still looks down on Dwarves.
>Woodland Elves are egotistical hippies that enjoy fucking with everyone who is different from them.
>High Elves are cultists.
>And they all tolerate each other. But here comes someone who sees through the fucking charade, decides to fuck over everyone who decided to make for themselves "rings of power", even though they had power over the land in every meaningful way but nah, needed a physical representation on their finger.
>Who does Sauron use to shake things up? The orcs, the goblins, the giants, everyone who has been chased away because they don't fit into bougie paradise. Orcs literally come from the ground. But no, preserving trees is much more important than giving orcs jobs and places to live.
Tolkien:
>I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
No.40666
>>37949>The Doylean explanation is that Tolkien was building on very old mythic tropes that had roots in actual history and an orientalist lens. He borrows several elements directly from The Song of Roland, like Boromir's death scene. In TSOR the Muslims are depicted as being evil pagans, but on the battlefield can be every bit as valorous as their Christian counterparts. I don't remember if Tolkien really goes into the people or cultures of the "evil men." He's more about all the heraldry and shit, and wanting there to be opposing champions, and in the medieval tradition the bad guys have to be the match of the good guys in martial areas, but also esteem and station, if not moral character.
No.40672
Where is that quote from his biography regarding how he believes lowly peons should bow their heads/remove their hats when engaging with the upper class
No.40714
>>37950Orcs are actually Angl*id-coded
No.40719
>>37950Any good quotes/resources regarding Tolkien's thoughts on the British Empire?
No.40788
>>40719NTA, but iirc Tolkien's response to the belief that Lord of the Rings was supposed to be an allegory for WWII was to give an outline of what Lord of the Rings would have looked like if it actually WAS an allegory for WWII, in which case it would have been a much more grey vs black conflict and if the elves, Gondor, Rohan, et al were allegorical for the Western Allied Powers (France, Britain, the United States, et al) then would have taken the Ring for themselves and conquered the Shire and enslaved the hobbits.
No.40791
>>40788The simplistic "forces of good vs forces of evil" don't really work then since national chauvinism, like anything people call "evil," is just false consciousness. There is no good and evil as ideologies, these are simply ideological judgements of others. It's all just spooks in your head, people are evil because they think
they are the good guys. Orks should think they did nuffin rong and that they are blessed by Jesus.
No.40796
>>40791Okay, so
1) Tolkien stated multiple times that Lord of the Rings wasn't an allegory for anything. His example in my post was what the story would have looked like if he
was making it some kind of political allegory, namely for WWII.
2) Tolkien didn't necessarily deal strictly with Malthusian evil. He plays with the idea, but Malthusian evil (which is evil as its own motive force opposite to good) takes a huge thematic backseat to "evil as an absence of good" or "evil as an absence of virtue."
No.40798
>>40796>Malthusian evilSorry, I meant Manichaen evil. Whoops.
No.40809
>>40796The idea of virtue is also relative to one's ideology. Just because the evil is defined through the lack of good doesn't mean that it changes anything, it just makes "goodness" the ideology that defines what "evilness" is not. The kind of relationship between good and evil becomes a dependency instead of opposition, otherwise it's all the same.
Unique IPs: 120