- cross-posted to:
- worldbuilding
- cross-posted to:
- worldbuilding
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Saying this as a huge LotR fan... Tolkien was a crazy genius academic whose focus was on languages. Languages and writing was pretty much all he ever thought about. His political views, not surprisingly then, are just a sort of mish-mash of contradictory ideals. Like how it is for most people. He clearly had some sort of admiration for monarchy. At the same time, he definitely hated industrialization and was very skeptical of power structures. But if you sit down with him and ask him how he reconciles all this in his head, he'd probably give you a puzzled look and be like "idk man I just write stories".
From what I understand, his idea was that people should base things around personal relationships, not abstract concepts or systems.
Thus you should be loyal to the king, but you should be loyal to the concrete person and not the monarchy or the Crown or some other representation of the state. The only valid form of authority is when you follow the king because he is specifically himself a great person.
In other words,Tolkien doesn't want you to respect tthe institution or the position, he wants you to stan.
Elves as capitalist/fascist stand ins is the basis for my d&d world. The long lifespans allows them to create and abuse "generational" wealth excessively easily. Combine that with the idea of bloodline purity (treating half elves like abominations) and you got yourself some metaphor.
Either eco fascists or the good kind of class traitor, depending on how you want to play it. But I guess in the latter case, wood elves would have to be less of a distinct race and more of a splinter group from the other elves.
Kinda reminds me of the Vlad Taltos books, in which immortal elves basically run Rome where humans are the proles, and the rest of humanity outside of the border repels the empire with hungarian psychic wiccan squads. Thankfully it mostly dodges the whole biological essentialism thing by also having elf proles that do farming and revolting. But it was also written by a trot, so at one point the protagonist gets into wacky antics trying to get his ML wife to stop risking her life trying to overthrow the bourgeoisie lol
counterpoint: he knew that orcs were sus and struggled with it, also he made a point of having a character muse on the essential humanity and victimhood of the non-white "barbarian" humans coerced into fighting for Sauron
counter-counterpoint: dwarves are a secretive, small, bearded, gold-and-jewel-hoarding people with a language based on Hebrew
Counter-counter-counterpoint: I think Tolkien draws on a lot of european-based traditions and myths about dwarves. Which, maybe those have some basis in anti-semitism, not sure. But I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as that Rowling TERF who clearly made goblins based directly on jewish stereotypes.
yeah tolkien's dwarves might be a tad sus but they're not rowling's hook-nosed banking goblins, that's for sure
rowling’s hook-nosed banking goblins, that’s for sure
Sounds a lil too sus :stalin-shining:
I think it's just how goblins are/were typically portrayed and is not something J.K. Rowling made up to mock Jewish people.
Goblins have flat faces, broad noses, pointed ears, wide mouths and small, sharp fangs.
Yes, goblins are portrayed as antisemitic caricatures to the point that there are Jewish people who ask gentiles to not use goblins in their stories. That doesn't make what Rowling did any less antisemitic or sus.
I was not aware people complained about goblins outside of Harry Potter, that's interesting. I think my point still stands though, also it's understandable to ask and expect people not to use goblins, it's also easy to see why J. K. Rowling got away with it: she depicted goblins the way they typically are depicted, and it's more in the realm of "unfortunate implications" than "purposefully vile worldbuilding".
I'm doing a re-read right now for the first time in many years. Mostly it's just hiking and people saying "a really long time ago there was cool shit here but now it's gone"
I do love it though
Dwarves aren't really secretive at all, in the actual book they're some of the most prolific travelers in Middle Earth, and you'll see dwarves popping everywhere you go.
They also have names for themselves in their own language that they don't share with outsiders, and consider it distasteful at best to teach their language to others.
he also was a product of his time
Stop repeating this. Being born in the past doesn't give you excuses for morality. Plenty of people were born into racist environments and became not racist.
This is literally Warhammer Fantasy Battle if you add "Elf Atlantis" in the middle of the Atlantic lmao.
It's partially why they rebooted it.
GW's worldbuilding is pretty shit, and they only gets away with it because the average geek are honestly poorly read and just didn't know better.
Horror stories of Warhammer neckbeards are the reason I've been hesitant to get into tabletop wargaming.
That said, if I do get into tabletop wargaming, it'll be board wargaming rather than the WH40K "You must spend a shitload of money on miniatures and then hours painting them before you can start playing" variety.
Different strokes for different folks, but making me paint the minis would feel to me like the company's offloading part of the work onto me by selling an unfinished product. If I wanted to paint, I'd take up painting. If I buy a wargame, it's because I want to play the damn game.
just play it on tabletop simulator, way better than irl and way cheaper
Try Warhammer Total War maybe, that shit is dope and way cheaper than miniatures, and you don't have to interact with neckbeards
The reboot is the coolest thing they've done IMO, just awesome High-Fantasy, the most neckbeardy of the neckbeards hate it of course.
For what it's worth, the not-America part of the map is inhabited by the fiction's most sadistic bunch of arseholes, whose economy is based on survival of the fittest, slavery, and pillaging the rest of the world via gigantic floating fortresses.
Fuckin A. I'm reading 1491 right now, and I'm wondering where are all the goddamn historical epics and time travel stories focused on the empires of Central and South America.
I haven't read it, but Liliana Bodoc is a (white) argentinian fantasy writer that created "La Saga de los Confines" that IIRC is a fantasy epic obviously based on the American colonization from the native americans point of view. It had some mixed reviews, but Ursula K LeGuin liked the saga, and that's all I need to have it in my read-list
In Lord of the Rings, Sauron was raising a multiracial army of orc, man, goblin, etc. to take over a backwards fedulistic west (that styled themselves as "the free people of Middle Earth") and industrialize and raise the living standards of those stuck in extreme poverty that had resorted to banditry and raiding for food.
And orcs were just born pure evil according to Tolkein, who struggled mightily with justifying that in his universe (created by a benevolent God that endowed all with at least a spark of goodness) and who ultimately just shrugged and forgot about it.
Sauron's forces are ghoulish assholes who pollute the environment and almost completely genocide the ents though. They suck
Wasn't there a massive Russian "fanfic" with this premise, written back in the day? Edit: Found it! The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Eskov
In France, they had a satirical news show made with puppets representing public personalities called "Les Guignols" (Guignol being the name of a famous traditional puppet character, and commonly used to mean "a clown" or "a jackass").
US imperialism, whether it was secret services, the militaro industrial complex, Wall Street, etc... was always represented by a Sylvester Stalone puppet. In a famous skit from the show, "Monsieur Sylvestre" shared his vision of the world with a map he labelled . "Us", "fa*g*ts", "go*ks" and "g*lliwogs". That show was so based. Especially in the 2001-2003 period.
Since then, some billionaire bought the network and cancelled the show.
EDIT: found this skit in english with Monsieur Sylvestre and W. recording a charity song.
Yeah let’s talk about that guy here, many will not know about him.
You may know OCB papers. This paper business was created 4 generations ago by some guy in the family. After working in banking for some time, Vincent Bolloré took over the business and expanded it, starting to sell plastic, but also transports and logistics in Africa.
The group is now active in freight, shipping, energy distribution (petroleum and coal), palm oil plantations, real estate, banking, …
They own Vivendi, that is Universal Music (the music corp), Canal+ (the Guignols network), Editis (publishing company with many subsidiaries), Gameloft (video games and other shitty apps), Dailymotion (the one true French Youtube), other entertainment business like the famous concert venue L’Olympia, … He also has other TV networks, the bike sharing system in Paris, …
and Havas, advertising and PR company. They notably offered their services for presidential campaigns in Africa. You know, where he owns port concessions.
After being elected president in 2007, Sarkozy’s first reflex was to go celebrate victory on his yacht.
It's missing a round continent near Japan that's full of dinosaurs and people who say "mate."
As a DM working on a world for my players, i do hate lazy world building. I would like the "bad" humans to be clearly libs tho.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant -- read it if you want something that 1. doesn't do this and 2. manages something that feels like it very well could exist in our own world in the early modern era while being an utterly different world. the main character's home is colonized at the beginning of the story, and the three book cycle (all completed) that begins here is about her struggle to take down the empire that killed one of her fathers. the series is deeply anti-colonial and it rejects the great man view that so much fiction struggles to be rid of. it's also a serious emotional ride -- the ending to this first book is notorious, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable. I honestly can't recommend it enough.
I dropped the first book thinking my heart can't take an ending like that.
Every review of the book said the ending was gut wrenching and after reading it halfway through I can kinda see how it will happen. I didn't drop it per se but waiting for the right time to finish it, when I hope not be too affected by ending.
yea, totally feel you. I'm not sure such a time exists - it's uniquely devastating - but I can say it was extremely worth it, overall.
I hear ya. Till where I did read the book, it was one of the most refreshing take on fantasy I've seen.
Spoilers
Currency inflation, what its effect would be and how it can be used to one's advantage was not something I was expecting in a fantasy book . And that's just one of the many interesting things present in the book. I'm definitely gonna read it at some point but I'm a very moody reader with an aversion to tragic endings lol.
when you finish it, please send me a note! I'm also moody but I like the catharsis of tragedy - crying feels good.
