• JohnnyJohnnyHaHaHa [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    So this issue with this is I find it kind of funny but I don't know if it was made as a hostile attack against "SJWs!!!" or it's an in-joke between lefty people about how some of our discourse around language can get a little pedantic at times, and how it is sort of weird that Tolkien decided to interpret the term "MAN" in his epic fantasy novel as literally meaning "male" and not "human".

    If the later I think it's a decent gag but if it's the former, bleck.

    • zeal0telite [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      It's literally just because Tolkien thought Macbeth being killed by a man who was born via caesarean was a copout because of the "no man born of a woman" part of the prophecy.

      It's the same reason why the Ents attack Isengard. He took the "you shan't fall until the forest marches upon you" and thought it was bullshit that it was just soldiers using branches from the wood as camouflage.

    • Poetjustice [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      i snagged it from a feminist page thankfully not a chud one

    • EldritchMayo [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I haven’t read the book in a long time but I thought there was something about one of the hobbits dealing the final blow, if that was the case it would have definitely meant man in the race sense, if not (and in the case of the movie) it definitely means the gender sense

      • JohnnyJohnnyHaHaHa [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        If I remember correctly (now that I'm think about it) it was really just that "no man can kill me" was really just a boast, Pippin dealt a nasty blow to his foot which caught him off guard which allowed Aoewin (no I'm not looking up how that's fucking spelled) to deal a killing blow. Her saying "I am no man" was just a counter boast. Hypothetically if a male character had been there he could had done the same.

        • HarryLime [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I think there was an actual prophecy saying no man could kill him. Tolkien made it Eowyn and Pippin who killed the Witch King because he thought it was lame that there was a prophecy in Macbeth that "no man of woman born" could defeat Macbeth, and he was beaten by a guy who was born by C-Section.

        • EldritchMayo [he/him,comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I see, now that opens up a third interpretation too though which only makes it worse, that interpretation being that the prophecy was a load of horse shit the whole time

          • JohnnyJohnnyHaHaHa [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I mean maybe it was one of those troll interpretations where it's technically true but only because the person who wrote it knew what would ACTUALLY happen and worded it funny to trick people, kinda like "No man born of woman can harm me!" Like yeah, technically true but clearly meant in a way for the witches to fuck with MacBeth.

            So IDK maybe the profit knew a lady would kill him but said "MAN" to trick him into being overly confident when dealing with humans.

            • wombat [none/use name]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              fun fact, the "I am no man" line is specifically a response to Macbeth's "no man of woman born" line, because Tolkien thought Macduff being cut from the womb was a lame way around it, and thought that a woman should have killed Macbeth instead

      • PsychedelicPill [he/him,any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XCSAuKwLpE

        This video explains it, one of the hobbits had a wraith-killing dagger that had been forgotten to time and that weakened the Witch King, and the masculine/feminine angle may have had nothing to do with it, beyond it being a funny little irony or example of how prophecy could misdirect or be misinterpreted.