Hell yeah, Dune! Overall pretty much agree with your opinion, though I did read the books well before I saw the Lynch film (which I did find enjoyable, even if it was a fuck). Will also add I didn't care for the increasing horny that Frank put more and more of into the later books, you nasty old man. But I do still like the later books, even if they get super weird. I even kind of liked the Butlerian Jihad series by his son, even if it seems most the fandom hates all the things Brian has wrote.
Love Lord of the Rings as well; sent me on a love of linguistics and constructed languages that I still have. And I think most of the 'problematic' elements that people pick out of Tolkien are more a result of people mindlessly copying his world. Orcs = innately evil is I think okay for the world he set up, even if it is a bit lazy, considering they're a constructed minion race constantly under direct control of evil gods. It really only becomes directly a racist trope in DnD like world, where the orcs are inarguably people, who are only rarely under direct subjugation, and also are often 'native savage' coded. (and also Gary Gygax was absolutely racist, with his fukkin "nits make lice" lawful good paladin should kill orc babies bullshit).
There is legitimate criticisms for not having more good female characters, and for being hella horny for monarchy. There some 'product of his times' excuses you can make about the 'female characters' thing, and there are some badass women in the books, especially the Silmarillion, but would be cool if more. Funnily enough, with all the chud whinging, you can't directly criticize him for having all white people heroes, since he just very rarely even states their skin color. But of the three houses of man, the house of Hador is stated in an appendix to all be fair skin, and most blond or brown haired, while the house of Beor is described as: "...and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy.", and the last house, Haladin, described as like the house of Beor, but shorter. So a full 2/3 of mankind is just vaguely described as 'diverse skin colors'. Of the elves, nothing is directly stated, other than that they 'could not easily be distinguished from the Beor' which would imply that there are some dark skinned elves.
Generally agree. The horny in the later books striked me as absurd enough it mostly just elicited and eyeroll and a chuckle, but I also very rarely like 'on screen' sex/romance in fiction, so I wouldn't be the target audience even if it wasn't weird.
And yeah, fuck Gary Gygax. But, I didn't mean to completely handwave away the orc problem in LOTR, its more that I think that its less of a problem in LOTR than it is in a lot of later fantasy, where orcs are just tribespeople for you to slaughter. Tolkien had some issues, especially the whole "dying mad about vatican 2", but he feel like he was generally less racist and sexist than a lot of his contemporaries. Which, isn't an excuse, since he did still misstep with their depiction, but considering how contradictory and conflicted his different notes are about orcs and the possible origin and makeup, reads to me as someone who knew he wrote himself into a corner, and couldn't really find a good solution to make it right, and chose to just ignore the problem. Which, isn't great, but could be worse I guess.
Speaking of Chud meltdown, like how all the gods were all kind of genderfluid, in that they explicitly wore myriad forms before settling on their favored shapes?
Hell yeah, Dune! Overall pretty much agree with your opinion, though I did read the books well before I saw the Lynch film (which I did find enjoyable, even if it was a fuck). Will also add I didn't care for the increasing horny that Frank put more and more of into the later books, you nasty old man. But I do still like the later books, even if they get super weird. I even kind of liked the Butlerian Jihad series by his son, even if it seems most the fandom hates all the things Brian has wrote.
Love Lord of the Rings as well; sent me on a love of linguistics and constructed languages that I still have. And I think most of the 'problematic' elements that people pick out of Tolkien are more a result of people mindlessly copying his world. Orcs = innately evil is I think okay for the world he set up, even if it is a bit lazy, considering they're a constructed minion race constantly under direct control of evil gods. It really only becomes directly a racist trope in DnD like world, where the orcs are inarguably people, who are only rarely under direct subjugation, and also are often 'native savage' coded. (and also Gary Gygax was absolutely racist, with his fukkin "nits make lice" lawful good paladin should kill orc babies bullshit).
There is legitimate criticisms for not having more good female characters, and for being hella horny for monarchy. There some 'product of his times' excuses you can make about the 'female characters' thing, and there are some badass women in the books, especially the Silmarillion, but would be cool if more. Funnily enough, with all the chud whinging, you can't directly criticize him for having all white people heroes, since he just very rarely even states their skin color. But of the three houses of man, the house of Hador is stated in an appendix to all be fair skin, and most blond or brown haired, while the house of Beor is described as: "...and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy.", and the last house, Haladin, described as like the house of Beor, but shorter. So a full 2/3 of mankind is just vaguely described as 'diverse skin colors'. Of the elves, nothing is directly stated, other than that they 'could not easily be distinguished from the Beor' which would imply that there are some dark skinned elves.
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Generally agree. The horny in the later books striked me as absurd enough it mostly just elicited and eyeroll and a chuckle, but I also very rarely like 'on screen' sex/romance in fiction, so I wouldn't be the target audience even if it wasn't weird.
And yeah, fuck Gary Gygax. But, I didn't mean to completely handwave away the orc problem in LOTR, its more that I think that its less of a problem in LOTR than it is in a lot of later fantasy, where orcs are just tribespeople for you to slaughter. Tolkien had some issues, especially the whole "dying mad about vatican 2", but he feel like he was generally less racist and sexist than a lot of his contemporaries. Which, isn't an excuse, since he did still misstep with their depiction, but considering how contradictory and conflicted his different notes are about orcs and the possible origin and makeup, reads to me as someone who knew he wrote himself into a corner, and couldn't really find a good solution to make it right, and chose to just ignore the problem. Which, isn't great, but could be worse I guess.
Speaking of Chud meltdown, like how all the gods were all kind of genderfluid, in that they explicitly wore myriad forms before settling on their favored shapes?
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