pic above is near Wolverhamption in the 1930s and is generally thought to be the inspiration for Mordor. LOTR has a fairly good class analysis that is largely missed in the cultural imagination

good tweet thread here which i've summed up below

people seriously misunderstand Tolkien when they make as if the orcs are some racist caricature when they’re rather an unkind but not unfair classist portrayal of a toiling industrial working class press ganged into labor and war coaxed by their hatreds and desire for consumption

culturally, orcs are bogans. the crude ill-educated ruffians spiteful and jealous of the bounty and sophistication of the kingdoms of me , dwarves, and elves living in fear and hatred under the cruel whips of their masters

throughout LOTR you have the average orcs, basically industrial labourers and peasants pushed into war units, chafing under their petty bosses ready to cut their throats and go their own way but for the fear of Nazgul overlords basically acting like Pinkertons

this is hardly a deep reading, it’s all within the text , Shagrat and Gorbag complain about “the Big Bosses” and the Nazgul being used as terror and enforcement of the orc workforce, they even have their own dreams of leaving Mordor and living free with “no big bosses” !!

when Tolkien shows us the inner workings of Mordor industrialisation and militarisation and the conflict between Uruk Hai arriving and displacing the local orc workforce has brought the society to the brink of collapse, this is how Sam rescues Frodo from Cirith Ungol

Mordor is not a unified front, it is a totalitarian society dominated by Sauron’s control of the industrial machines that the orcs are pushed into running through fear, intimidation, and a drive to let out frustration on the other races but within are rebel factions resisting

it’s hard not to read The Lord of the Rings through a class lens when right off the bat you open on chapters and chapters of a playful tweaking of rural parochialism and the cultural tensions between the working peasantry working the fields and mills and the gentry who live above. Bilbo lives in the grandest hill atop Hobbiton idly pursuing learned pursuits of Elvish and history secure in his rare richness above the mass of Hobbit peasants and workers whose labour he benefits from, Frodo and Gandalf call him Bilbo but everyone else calls him “Mr. Baggins.” Tolkien puts you in the beer hall of the Ivy Bush Tavern where the yokels like Ted Sandyman are complaining and suspicious of the idle rich "Mr. Baggins" who’s defended by his itinerate gardener Gaffer Gamgee who yet worries about Sam “learning him his letters” from Mr. Baggins. class division is a fundamental aspect of LOTR, basically everything you get with Bilbo in the opening of Fellowship could almost out of a PG Wodehouse book tweaking the peculiarities of the idly rich folk of English country estates

over the course of the trilogy Hobbiton goes from a society of self sufficient peasants trading with artisans and doing cooperative work under a benevolent feudal system of the Old Took and his family and the new money Baggins to exploited labor industrialising under Saruman

thoughts from our resident tolkien heads?

  • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    but make no mistake if the Gamgees & other poors had ever taken from the rich folk by their own power they’d be just as bad as the goblins

    See: The "Evil Men" in places like Bree-land or Dunland

    spoiler

    E: Dunland I think is a great example now that I think about it. Remember after reading this, these guys are "evil."

    Ancestors of the Dunlendings inhabited the forested regions of Middle-earth on either side of the Gwathló in the early Second Age; thus the early Númenóreans called them Gwaithuirim. They spoke a language related to that of the Second House of Men, the Haladin, rather than the vastly different Bëorian-Marachian tongue which stood at the base of Adûnaic, and this lack of mutual understanding led to outright hostility. The Númenóreans greedily harvested Gwaithuirim forests for timber, and after much war and bloodshed, the Gwaithuirim from south of the Gwathló fled east to the Hithaeglir while others scattered to the cape of Eryn Vorn and the White Mountains.

    When Gondor decided to give the depopulated province of Calenardhon to the numerous people of Éothéod in TA 2510, the Hillfolk of the Hithaeglir felt threatened by these Forgoil "Strawheads" (a demeaning reference to the blonde hair of the Northmen). The Hillfolk had slowly colonised Calenardhon during the dwindling of the Dúnedain and were driven out by the new arrivals. War did not break out again until the reign of Helm Hammerhand (TA 2741 - TA 2759) when Freca, a lord of the West-March, tried to obtain the throne of Rohan for himself by petitioning for the marriage of his son Wulf to the daughter of Helm. Freca was killed and Wulf led the Dunlendings into open war with Rohan. They unsuccessfully besieged the Hornburg during the Long Winter of TA 2758 - TA 2759. Wulf did take Edoras and killed Haleth, the son of Helm, in front of the golden hall of Meduseld. Helm and his younger son Háma both perished in the Siege of the Hornburg. But Helm's nephew Fréaláf Hildeson held out against the Dunlendings in the refuge of Dunharrow. As the snows melted and aid arrived from Gondor, Fréaláf recaptured Edoras at the end of the Long Winter and killed Wulf personally. The Dunlendings were driven out of Rohan, and Fréalaf succeeded the deceased Helm Hammerhand as king.

    Following his corruption by Sauron, however, Saruman used the Dunlendings historical hostility against Rohan to tempt them into supporting him during the War of the Ring. Following his army's defeat at the Battle of the Hornburg, the Rohirrim allowed the surviving Dunlendings to return to their homes, requiring that all hostilities cease and that the Dunlendings again retreat behind the Isen. During the Fourth Age Dunland became part of the Reunited Kingdom.

    • karl3422 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's more or less just the history of Wales and England with the names switched aound