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.
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"
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.
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.
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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".
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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.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/175
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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.
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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
Were you reading my campaign notes? Lol
In retrospect, casting Agent Smith as Elrond was pretty appropriate.
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
Sounds a lil too sus :stalin-shining:
I still don't understand how she got away with that
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I think it's just how goblins are/were typically portrayed and is not something J.K. Rowling made up to mock Jewish people.
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".
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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
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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.
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.
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