Getting somewhat tangential, but still on the Tolkien/racism/Bible theme... I mentioned earlier the Medieval split of the world into the descendants of Japheth (Europe), Ham (Egypt & Africa), & Shem (Semitic & Asia). It's probably a coincidence, but Tolkien had a strong tendency to split his fictional races into three. He then, with incredibly consistency, called out one group as pale, and another as not:
- The Edain: The House of Hador are a bunch of blonds, but the other two houses are not. Tolkien actually says (in HoME XII, 'Of Dwarves and Men') that 'many were less fair of skin, some indeed being swarthy'.
- The Elves: The Vanyar are notably fair-haired, and indeed are called the Fair Elves. In contrast, the Noldor looked at Aredhel and went 'you're so pale we're going to nickname you The White', which doesn't exactly suggest they're alabaster-skinned themselves. Plus, the House of Beor is explicitly said to be 'most like to the Noldor' on the end of their own description.
- The Hobbits: Did you know 'Fallohide' literally means 'pale skin'? Meanwhile the Harfoots are highlighted as browner of skin.
- The Dwarves: Arguable, but the three Houses which appear in the Legendarium are the Longbeards, Broadbeams, and Firebeards. If the last indicates red hair, and if red hair goes with pale skin as it does among humans, we have an implied 'paler sub-race' here too.
(The Teleri and Stoors go somewhat undescribed, while the relation of the Haladin to the other Edain was in a bit of flux.)
That's a large enough sample that we can actually compare how Tolkien treats them, and again he shows remarkable consistency. The pale Vanyar, Fallohides, and Hadorians are highlighted as the noblest/holiest (the Vanyar) part of their race (note that the Hadorians lived alongside the High King, while the Beorians and Haladin hid in the woods); if the idea that 'Broadbeam and Firebeard, Nogrod and Belegost' means that the Firebeards lived in Belegost, they're also far and away the nicest Dwarven house.
But... they're also the
least interesting, to Tolkien as well as us. The Vanyar vanish from the stories very quickly. The Hadorians we pay most attention to are half-Beorian (and in Turin's case has Beorian colouring; not sure on Tuor). Tolkien himself described Sam - the only non-Fallohide in the Fellowship - as the 'chief hero'. And it's the Longbeards, not the Firebeards, who gave us Thorin and company. In fact, in Beleriand, it's specifically the houses called out as darker - Beorians and the Noldor - who get all the attention, and Sam the Harfoot falls into the same category.
What does all this mean for Tolkien and racism? It certainly shows he thought about it more than I'd assumed, to the point that he had a consistent position. Is the fact that the Goodest Good Guys were the palest ones indicative of bias? Arguably yes - but if so, it's one Tolkien seems to have been using deliberately. Notably, he neither dug in to defend it by making his white characters
heroic (Frodo et al aside), nor tried to blunt it by adding a Token Brown Hero. Instead, he shoved his white nobles off to the side and let the more interesting 'swarthy' Beorians and Noldor become the heroes.
hS