Fantasy

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

Your 'demands' for gratuitous sex/sexual violence in Tolkien's work is, again, a pretty Aunt Sally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally if you don't get the reference)

Well, if you're referring to an 'Aunt Sally' (a term I shall never use again), I suppose I can refer to a 'straw man argument' in the case of your last reply.

I was referring to serial and large-scale rape attendant in war. It was and is a regular occurence in war right down to the WWII war crime trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo, and presently in several African countries. It was considered a 'spoil of victory' in Rome, among the Vikings, throughout the Middle-ages, and up until the 19th century in Europe. Even the vaguest codification of rape as a crime in the 'rules of war' in international law did not appear until the 18th century.

Originally Posted by davem

& again misses the whole point I'm making. Tolkien doesn't mention sexual activity at all, let alone rape or child abuse....but if he did mention the latter.....

If an evil being appears in a novel I have a right to expect him to do evil things, not naughty things. In the same way, if a battle involving thousands of people armed with swords, spears, arrows, axes & the like takes place I expect there to be maimed, brutalised, broken souls on the field, alongside severed limbs & the rest - because that's what would have happened.

And rape in war was a natural occurrence in Dark Age and Medieval War. Tolkien didn't mention it? So what, it was part of war, plain and simple. Rape was an is, historically, an inherent evil in war. Just because you want to divorce one aspect of 'true war' for what you feel is 'appropriate' for 'true war' does not change facts, and it is actually quite absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it, so to speak. You are railing against one aspect of war that Tolkien obviously missed, and I am merely offering another relevant piece of the 'true war' you so covet.

And there is the vaguest intimation of something untoward and unsavory in regards to 'Half-orcs' and 'Goblin-men' isn't there? One doesn't get the feeling that woman submitted willingly to the sexual whims of brute Orcs; therefore, rape seemingly is implied and should be brought forward with pronounced clarity, in keeping with your need for 'real war'.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Davem, your position would have more force if there were some existing tradition of gore, screams and viscera which Tolkien presumptuously violated. But the contrary is true: eliding over the blood 'n guts was the established literary mode: are you therefore condemning Tolstoy and Hugo and the on and on? It's really inaccurate and unfair to dismiss this convention as "Boys' Own Paper" when it was in fact the dominant mode of Western war fiction up until Tolkien's age.

Precisely. A point I've made several times, in addition to the fact that Lord of the Rings is not meant strictly for adult consumption.