You think you've read drivel? You haven't read drivel until you've read this

[Huinesoron]

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

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

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.

There are also certainly instances where the gold-heads don't behave very nobly.

Hador showed a remarkable lack of wisdom when, upon being released by Morgoth, he went to the area of Gondolin knowing he was being watched.

King Helm of Rohan fanned the flames of war with the dark-haired Dunlendings by first insulting, then murdering Freca, one of their lords. All Freca did was ask if his son could marry Helm's daughter.
That led to dark times for Rohan, with Freca's son eventually capturing Edoras itself.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

There are also certainly instances where the gold-heads don't behave very nobly.

Hador showed a remarkable lack of wisdom when, upon being released by Morgoth, he went to the area of Gondolin knowing he was being watched.

King Helm of Rohan fanned the flames of war with the dark-haired Dunlendings by first insulting, then murdering Freca, one of their lords. All Freca did was ask if his son could marry Helm's daughter.
That led to dark times for Rohan, with Freca's son eventually capturing Edoras itself.

I think a lot of those instances of the gold-heads not behaving nobly comes down to how Tolkien defined ofermod

In an essay, Exploring Theme and Vision in JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth, by Rico Marcel Abrahamsen. A part of the essay discusses Heroism, and "Ofermod as Tragic Motif"

Apparently, Tolkien was preoccupied also with defining the limitations of heroism. His translation of ofermod clearly implies a distinction between the bold and the foolhardy, high spirit and excessive spirit.

How Tolkien translated ofermod, distinguishes between this "good pride" (heroic) and "negative pride" (foolish).

Bold/high spirit = positive
Foolhardy/excessive = negative

And I think most of Tolkien's heroes, whether gold-hair and fair skinned or swarthier and darker hair, fall because of ofermod. We see it in the decisions that Inzil points out and many others (I think of Oropher's foolish charge during the Last Alliance which got his people slaughtered). I'm not sure if this says anything about Tolkien's racial biases or not, I usually don't engage in these topics, because nothing has stood out as being racist intent.

I think were the critics looking for racism in The Lord of the Rings stumble is they think the theme is about good vs. evil. "All these fair-skinned westerners are good guys" the "black-robed Ringwraiths, swarthy Easterlings are bad guys" must mean Tolkien's racist. The central theme has always been, to me, Hope vs. Despair. The heroes who hold on to hope, even if it's just a fool's hope. And the villains (despair) who efforts to destroy hope (Saruman and Denethor come to mind as 2 who fall to despair). But also reminded of Galadriel's words about "fighting the long defeat."

[William Cloud Hicklin]

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.

Not so. Aredhel (formerly Isfin) was tagged "The White Lady" because she always wore white. Her hair was black, like nearly all Noldor; and the Noldor and the Sindar/Teleri both, according to Tolkien, were "fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin." And the House of Beor similarly was dark-haired but fair-skinned with grey eyes, as was the half-Beorian Turin (Adanedhel, "Man-elf.") Not to mention Luthien and her doppelgangerin Arwen. And Aragorn himself. and Boromir.

In other words, coloration akin to the "black Irish" of the real world, not a Mediterranean type.

[mindil]

The thing to remember is that in the pre-1960s, no one thought they had a capacity or responsibility to influence society to be less racist. Tolkien has his famous philo-semitic letter to show that he wasn't antisemitic, and if he could rise above that most endemic of European racisms, it's likely his attitude toward people of color was also liberal for his time.
But even if he condemned racism, he would have thought, along with all whites (I can't vouch for non-whites) that there was nothing he could do to change others' attitudes. There was no notion of symbolism in the arts influencing people's attitudes one way of the other. Realism, of course, was influential. Uncle Tom's Cabin could improve things. Pygmalion could improve things between the classes. Robinson Crusoe was thought to be enlightened. I suppose there were racist stories that haven't stood the test of time that were thought to be detrimental.
But if you didn't want to be directly polemical, your words were understood to be inert socially and politically. So White and Black as the most ancient of symbols for Good and Evil was "known" to have no implications whatsoever for real world whites and blacks.
Coming from a mindset where casting white and black that way had no chance of reinforcing racism in others allowed non-racists like Tolkien to use that trope with no conflict of conscience. Real swarthy people were as good or bad as his liberal mind chose to think them, and swarthy Haradrim were as good or evil as his creative imagination chose to fashion them. And that's it. No crossover.
Crossover, lit-crit thinking has taught people to find influences in every symbol, which may have made us more susceptible to those symbols. And maybe we were always susceptible to them. But using them, in Tolkien's era, was only a sign of classical imagery, not racist ideology.
As an aside, I suspect that Tolkien did not envision many people of color reading his legendarium. The UK was less diverse in his time, the US didn't interest him much, English speakers elsewhere were white or English was their second language. And his story was meant to be a mythology for England, after all. He probably just didn't think about how dark-skinned readers might feel reading about the white good guys vs the swarthy bad guys. If the whites could enjoy the story without being made more racist, then why not go with the classic white/black dichotomy?

[mindil]

The thing to remember is that in the pre-1960s, no one thought they had a capacity or responsibility to influence society to be less racist. Tolkien has his famous philo-semitic letter to show that he wasn't antisemitic, and if he could rise above that most endemic of European racisms, it's likely his attitude toward people of color was also liberal for his time.

But even if he condemned racism, he would have thought, along with all whites (I can't vouch for non-whites) that there was nothing he could do to change others' attitudes. There was no notion of symbolism in the arts influencing people's attitudes one way of the other. Realism, of course, was influential. Uncle Tom's Cabin could improve things. Pygmalion could improve things between the classes. Robinson Crusoe was thought to be enlightened. I suppose there were racist stories that haven't stood the test of time that were thought to be detrimental.

But if you didn't want to be directly polemical, your words were understood to be inert socially and politically. So White and Black as the most ancient of symbols for Good and Evil was "known" to have no implications whatsoever for real world whites and blacks.

Coming from a mindset where casting white and black that way had no chance of reinforcing racism in others allowed non-racists like Tolkien to use that trope with no conflict of conscience. Real swarthy people were as good or bad as his liberal mind chose to think them, and swarthy Haradrim were as good or evil as his creative imagination chose to fashion them. And that's it. No crossover.

Crossover, lit-crit thinking has taught people to find influences in every symbol, which may have made us more susceptible to those symbols. And maybe we were always susceptible to them. But using them, in Tolkien's era, was only a sign of classical imagery, not racist ideology.

As an aside, I suspect that Tolkien did not envision many people of color reading his legendarium. The UK was less diverse in his time, the US didn't interest him much, English speakers elsewhere were white or English was their second language. And his story was meant to be a mythology for England, after all. He probably just didn't think about how dark-skinned readers might feel reading about the white good guys vs the swarthy bad guys. If the whites could enjoy the story without being made more racist, then why not go with the classic white/black dichotomy?

[mindil]

Sorry guys, I couldn't figure out how to edit the post to put in lines between paragraphs, so I reposted. I won't do that again.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by mindil

Sorry guys, I couldn't figure out how to edit the post to put in lines between paragraphs, so I reposted. I won't do that again.

Bottom right corner of the post you like to delete there is an edit button.

When you click Edit there will also be an option to delete the post.

Welcome to the Forum! Enjoy death with the rest of us :-)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Not so. Aredhel (formerly Isfin) was tagged "The White Lady" because she always wore white. Her hair was black, like nearly all Noldor; and the Noldor and the Sindar/Teleri both, according to Tolkien, were "fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin." And the House of Beor similarly was dark-haired but fair-skinned with grey eyes, as was the half-Beorian Turin (Adanedhel, "Man-elf.") Not to mention Luthien and her doppelgangerin Arwen. And Aragorn himself. and Boromir.

In other words, coloration akin to the "black Irish" of the real world, not a Mediterranean type.

Objection, yerhonour!

Originally Posted by The Silmarillion

Ar-Feiniel she was called, the White Lady of the Noldor, for she was pale though her hair was dark, and she was never arrayed but in silver and white.

Originally Posted by HoME XII

There were fair-haired men and women among the Folk of Bëor, but most of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes), and many were less fair in skin, some indeed being swarthy.

Good catch on the Appendix F quote; I'd missed that one. Read literally, it actually applies far more broadly than 'Noldor and Teleri':

Originally Posted by Appendix F

_Elves_ has been used to translate both _Quendi_, 'the speakers', the High-elven name of all their kind, and _Eldar_, the name of the Three Kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the _Sindar_ only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the making of Men's minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon - not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Fin[arfin]; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.

The text clearly says that the House of Finarfin were the only light-haired Eldar, meaning Celeborn, Thingol, Idril, and every single Vanya must be members of that same house, right?

But yes, that does swing the needle back towards 'light-skinned elves', though as with seemingly everything else, Tolkien's view seems to have shifted from time to time. That's the fun of Middle-earth - you can find texts to support anything you want.

hS

[Pitchwife]

The thing is, whether any given group of people in Tolkien's work is described as pale or swarthy or what-have-you-got, ascribing certain qualities or character traits to somebody based on their hair and skin colour is a racist mode of thinking either way, positive or negative; and explaining that away by saying that e.g. the Vanyar just happened by coincidence to be both the most fair-skinned and the most holy/noble of the Elven kindreds is IMHO opinion just a cop-out. He chose to write it that way, nobody forced him to.

When Sam is described as brownish-skinned (and I remember, off the top of my head, a passage about the light of Galadriel's phial in his brown hobbit-hand, somewhere in the Cirith Ungol chapters, that I can't be bothered to look up right now), I read that as the natural tan of the gardener used to working outside all day, as opposed to the pale, posh Bagginses sitting in their studies poring over their books and letters. Nothing to do with race.

But whenever people of clearly non-European racial phenotype show up in Tolkien, be it Hunnic Easterlings or Moorish Haradrim, they're presented as faceless mooks of the Enemy, little better than Orcs. There is, of course, Sam's one moment in Ithilien, a glimpse of the enemy as a human being who perhaps would rather not have fought in this war if he had a choice, which I suspect may be an echo of Tolkien's WWI experience, reflections that may have occurred to him at the sight of a dead Boche; but before and after that, the Haradrim exist only to be slaughtered by our heroes in a just war. Of course this is rationalised in the legendarium by presenting those peoples, by the sheer bad luck of their geographical position, as far removed from the enlightening influence of the Valar, Eldar and Númenóreans, and thus long steeped in the corrupting influence of Morgoth and Sauron, to the extent of worshipping them as God-Kings; whence the need to send the Ithryn Luin to them as missionaries. I find it hard not to see a colonialist discourse at work here.

Now I think mindil has it right that Tolkien, like most white people of his time, thought nothing of these matters and saw no evil in writing what he wrote (which I suppose you could say is part of the problem). But we don't read LotR in the 1950s, we read it today, and I think if we wilfully blind ourselves to the parts of it which might be problematic in this respect we become part of the problem.

(Note that this is no longer about Beowulf and Tolkien's interpretation thereof, which I'm in no way qualified to comment on, unlike other posters on this thread like WCH and Squatter. But I'd like to note that I found the knee-jerk hostility at the suggestion that there might be anything the matter about Tolkien and race earlier in this thread rather disturbing.

Also, Adorno rocks. Pity he wasn't more relaxed about movies and jazz, but he totally rocks, and let nobody tell you otherwise.)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But whenever people of clearly non-European racial phenotype show up in Tolkien, be it Hunnic Easterlings or Moorish Haradrim, they're presented as faceless mooks of the Enemy, little better than Orcs.

Woses.

Also, Adorno rocks. Pity he wasn't more relaxed about movies and jazz, but he totally rocks, and let nobody tell you otherwise.

Adorno was one of the great intellectual villains of the 20th Century. May he burn for all eternity in whichever circle of Hell is reserved for Marxist academics.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

The thing is, whether any given group of people in Tolkien's work is described as pale or swarthy or what-have-you-got, ascribing certain qualities or character traits to somebody based on their hair and skin colour is a racist mode of thinking either way, positive or negative; and explaining that away by saying that e.g. the Vanyar just happened by coincidence to be both the most fair-skinned and the most holy/noble of the Elven kindreds is IMHO opinion just a cop-out. He chose to write it that way, nobody forced him to.

When Sam is described as brownish-skinned (and I remember, off the top of my head, a passage about the light of Galadriel's phial in his brown hobbit-hand, somewhere in the Cirith Ungol chapters, that I can't be bothered to look up right now), I read that as the natural tan of the gardener used to working outside all day, as opposed to the pale, posh Bagginses sitting in their studies poring over their books and letters. Nothing to do with race.

But whenever people of clearly non-European racial phenotype show up in Tolkien, be it Hunnic Easterlings or Moorish Haradrim, they're presented as faceless mooks of the Enemy, little better than Orcs. There is, of course, Sam's one moment in Ithilien, a glimpse of the enemy as a human being who perhaps would rather not have fought in this war if he had a choice, which I suspect may be an echo of Tolkien's WWI experience, reflections that may have occurred to him at the sight of a dead Boche; but before and after that, the Haradrim exist only to be slaughtered by our heroes in a just war. Of course this is rationalised in the legendarium by presenting those peoples, by the sheer bad luck of their geographical position, as far removed from the enlightening influence of the Valar, Eldar and Númenóreans, and thus long steeped in the corrupting influence of Morgoth and Sauron, to the extent of worshipping them as God-Kings; whence the need to send the Ithryn Luin to them as missionaries. I find it hard not to see a colonialist discourse at work here.

Now I think mindil has it right that Tolkien, like most white people of his time, thought nothing of these matters and saw no evil in writing what he wrote (which I suppose you could say is part of the problem). But we don't read LotR in the 1950s, we read it today, and I think if we wilfully blind ourselves to the parts of it which might be problematic in this respect we become part of the problem.

(Note that this is no longer about Beowulf and Tolkien's interpretation thereof, which I'm in no way qualified to comment on, unlike other posters on this thread like WCH and Squatter. But I'd like to note that I found the knee-jerk hostility at the suggestion that there might be anything the matter about Tolkien and race earlier in this thread rather disturbing.

I agree with a lot of points here, and yet I disagree with the overall impression. I would have agreed in my early years of Tolkiening. However, in my last couple LOTR rereads, and especially in my recent Sil reread, I saw the matter very differently. Going through things one at a time, to start with the Haradrim and Easterlings of LOTR. Yes, we have Sam's glimpse, but we also have other elements that give a vague outline of shape in their character. For instance, when the battle at the Black Gates is lost and everyone knows it, unlike the orcs, they actually close ranks and fight to the bitter end. They stand despite the lack of Sauron's driving will and in the face of sure defeat. It's a courageous act, comparable to Hurin and Huor's stand at the Nirnaeth, regardless of what motive drives it (and that we do not know, because of perspective). If something doesn't sit right with me in the LOTR race issue, it's not that the racial geographical distribution parallels the real world, but that Aragorn is given so much credit as a great and merciful king for making peace with them. It doesn't impress me that he made treaties with them after defeating all their strength; I would be much more impressed with how he manages the politics with these countries when Gondor has military superiority and a lot of cultural and economic influence, but doesn't succumb to the typical Numenorian egotism and convert their culture to the "Numenorian type but lesser by blood". Will they be allowed to maintain their customs (aside from raiding Lebannon and Belfalas)? Will they be allowed to maintain their leaders and social structure, even if it is one that seems weird to Gondor? Will they be given a cultural protection even half as good as the Shire? It's the glorifying of tolerance which costs nothing that bothers me and makes me, in fact, more interested in the fate of Harad and the rest of the lands. So if we talk purely about the high horsed "fair" people, I have no quarrel there. But I do not think that the East and South are necessarily put down racially. More that there is a strong sense of collonialism where the colonizers strongly believe in the superiority of their culture - and are, in fact, supported in that opinion by Tolkien himself (see Noldor, early Numenor). Yes, the newcomers have a lot of knowledge to share, but my gut feeling is with the proud Thingol who declares that he and his people will stand independently of the so skillful and wise Noldor, and judge and accept all their wisdom on its own merit rather than in blind trust of their implied superiority in skill. The Noldor could have learned a trick or two from the Sindar too, had they been less superior-like. And same for the Numenorians, who came to be seen as kind gods and later destructive gods by the people of Middle-earth. The early Numenorians looked at other people as deeply inferior, and taught them how to live more Numenor-like. This seems to be a good deed according to Tolkien, and in this I see again an echo of the honest belief of history that Europe was bringing civilization to distant places. However, later Numenorians which exploit the "lesser races" rather than teach are clearly condemned, and in this I see an echo of crossing the line, where colonization becomes exploitation and subjugation. So to conclude this ramble, is it really that the Haradrim are worse people, or that the Edain become benevolent colonizers, and geography trumps race here in the reason why they are seen as misguided (ie by virtue of being on the receiving end of colonization)? Is it different to say that Europeans are more civilized vs white people are more civilized, when historically that often came to be synonymous? The main difference to me is that the "others" in the first case are inferior by virtue of race, while in the second by geography, with colour being a secondary, not necessary, and possibly coincidental feature. So while I see colonial echoes - which evolved just as much as the ideas of race in the last couple centuries - I don't necessarily see subconscious racism, at least in a form that is detached from the colonial connecition.

With regards to Vanyar, I disagree based on the fact that no Elf that I can think of was ever described as swarthy, and "dark" Elves just had dark hair/personalities rather than skin. All Elves have fair skin, and having fairer skin than most may be more a consequence of aesthetic and personal taste. Paleness was attractive because it indicated non-working status, as much as a tan is attractive because it indicates good health through outdoor activity, and every person has their own preference for paleness or tan that they prefer aesthetically or associate with certain archetypes. That's not on a level of race by skin colour. Besides, Tolkien might have agreed with the Vanyar with his head but his heart was clearly with the Noldor. Therefore I don't think that being super pale vs simply pale is an indicator of racial preference per se.

The point I do concede is the squint eyed Isengarders / Ruffians, who do seem to be evil by definition and for whom appearance seems to be synonymous with character. It's not clear to me whether they are of one race (related to Dunlendings? Corrupted by Saruman? Bred by Saruman? Interbred with orcs?) or various scoundrels who fell on the same path from different starting points and flocked to Saruman when the smell of profit was in the air. But regardless, that is a good point.

And the other point I would add is the remarkable coincidence of pale people being able to put aside their differences and join forces, while the swarthy people of LOTR inevitably end up as the enemy of these forces. Now this I do not see as a reflection of racial influence in Harad, but rather in Dunland, which sort of sticks out amid fair-coloured people around it. Why are the local enemies swarthy too? Though admittedly Rohirrim are migrants from the North and Gondorians are ultimately descendants of Hador and Beor, so who knows what the "natural" melanin levels were on Dunlending lattitudes - but that would be rationalizing a decision that most likely did not involve any such considerations. Within the scope of the legendarium, it's natural that such endlessly warring nations as the Dunlendings and Rohirrim have hostile feelings towards each other and pick out whatever features stand out most to them (the Eorlings are called Strawheads too, they get their share of racial stereotyping and exaggeration of physical differences). There needed to be differences to highlight between the two peoples, and anyone except the Vanyar () would be dark compared to the exaggeratedly Saxonesque Rohirrim. But it was not really necessary. Was there a subconscious thought or a passive reflection of society's thoughts that evil or enmity is related to colour? In these two instances, possibly.

That is not to say that all enemies were dark skinned (I have tried and failed to imagine a dark skinned Variag, for instance). Moreover, there are enough shady characters among the "good guys". In trying to rebuttle my own point, I also came up with Bor the swarthy Easterling who countered the actions of Ulfang the other swarthy Easterling, so at least in The Sil the split can be called even.

I second that I am not one to comment on Beowulf, but in that case the issue of racism falls short on the nature of the material. A case might be made for the legendarium on the grounds of being all in the hands and imagination of the writer. A translation, however, is by definition not in the authors hands. So I cannot comment on any specifics, not beong familiar with the material in the slightest, but would caution against mistaking Anglo-Saxon legends for Tolkien's beliefs.

I think the reason many of us find ourselves in a knee jerk defensive reaction when loud accusations are thrown against Tolkien is that they are thrown so often with the intent to look clever but without the proper thought behind them. You find yourself in a defensive position against an unreasonable argument so often that you anticipate them. There are the legit question once but seriously if you pay attention you won't need to ask. Like, have you ever felt the urge to take the next person to think they outsmarted the Professor by suggesting the Eagles fly into Mordor and lock them up in Orthanc until they read all the core legendarium books thoroughly? Or the downright no idea what theu are talking about - ever wanted to bash the people who comment "LOTR is nice but a rip off from Harry Potter" on the head with the full trilogy in one volume? Not to mention the other popular exclamations, "Tolkien was a misogynist" and "Frodo and Sam are gay". Furthermore, in this thread specifically, the talk started with discussing a particular article, which opens with "J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal scholarship on*Beowulf centers a white male gaze.*" - as opposed to what, the other Beowulf who was a Black Asian woman who just magically appeared among the Saxons? I think you might be judging this thread a little too harshly, given this context. I do not believe Tolkien himself was racist, in the sense that all I know about him would suggest that his respect for a person would not diminish if it was a non-Caucasian person. Does his writing reflect a tiny portion of the racism norm of his time? That is a whole different question, and for me personally, elicits a very different reaction. Which is, I suppose, why I am actually responding to your post and putting thought into it at very late hours.




I apologize for the initial ramble, which I realize is not very well formulated. I also realize that I am biased by not sharing JRRT's essential moral of The Sil, that ultimately the cure must be divine. I slightly resent the worshipful status the Eldar have among the Edain, especially the House of Hador. I am instead sympathetic towards the Haladin and Thingol, who choose to live by their own decisions. I feel that if I was one of the Men meeting the Eldar, yes I would be fascinated by their advanced skill but I would resist adopting it as my ideal; the better skill is that which I can master and rely on. They may know a lot, but I have my own head to make decisions and judge my beliefs of the world. Yes, the Valar may be upholding the light in this world and may be the ultimate deliverance, but in the abscence of their influence on my world I won't count on them for anything and will count on myself to get things done. Unlike LOTR, which is a lot more subtle in philosophy, the blind... conversion, almost - of the Edain clashes with basic critical thinking. This makes me more akin to the non-Edain and non-Numenorians, whom I do not fault for not being infatuated with the Eldar, which probably skews my view in their favour in terms of portrayal. So as a consequence of a more religious disagreement, my view of the LOTR enemy races shifted in the last few years from evil by definition to cultural unknowns who deserve respect for certain things.

With that said, I do not have much sleep left, and shall respectfully retire.

[Rhun charioteer]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

The thing is, whether any given group of people in Tolkien's work is described as pale or swarthy or what-have-you-got, ascribing certain qualities or character traits to somebody based on their hair and skin colour is a racist mode of thinking either way, positive or negative; and explaining that away by saying that e.g. the Vanyar just happened by coincidence to be both the most fair-skinned and the most holy/noble of the Elven kindreds is IMHO opinion just a cop-out. He chose to write it that way, nobody forced him to.

When Sam is described as brownish-skinned (and I remember, off the top of my head, a passage about the light of Galadriel's phial in his brown hobbit-hand, somewhere in the Cirith Ungol chapters, that I can't be bothered to look up right now), I read that as the natural tan of the gardener used to working outside all day, as opposed to the pale, posh Bagginses sitting in their studies poring over their books and letters. Nothing to do with race.

But whenever people of clearly non-European racial phenotype show up in Tolkien, be it Hunnic Easterlings or Moorish Haradrim, they're presented as faceless mooks of the Enemy, little better than Orcs. There is, of course, Sam's one moment in Ithilien, a glimpse of the enemy as a human being who perhaps would rather not have fought in this war if he had a choice, which I suspect may be an echo of Tolkien's WWI experience, reflections that may have occurred to him at the sight of a dead Boche; but before and after that, the Haradrim exist only to be slaughtered by our heroes in a just war. Of course this is rationalised in the legendarium by presenting those peoples, by the sheer bad luck of their geographical position, as far removed from the enlightening influence of the Valar, Eldar and Númenóreans, and thus long steeped in the corrupting influence of Morgoth and Sauron, to the extent of worshipping them as God-Kings; whence the need to send the Ithryn Luin to them as missionaries. I find it hard not to see a colonialist discourse at work here.

Now I think mindil has it right that Tolkien, like most white people of his time, thought nothing of these matters and saw no evil in writing what he wrote (which I suppose you could say is part of the problem). But we don't read LotR in the 1950s, we read it today, and I think if we wilfully blind ourselves to the parts of it which might be problematic in this respect we become part of the problem.

(Note that this is no longer about Beowulf and Tolkien's interpretation thereof, which I'm in no way qualified to comment on, unlike other posters on this thread like WCH and Squatter. But I'd like to note that I found the knee-jerk hostility at the suggestion that there might be anything the matter about Tolkien and race earlier in this thread rather disturbing.

Also, Adorno rocks. Pity he wasn't more relaxed about movies and jazz, but he totally rocks, and let nobody tell you otherwise.)

I'm not seeing the issue here? Christians would say the same for people in China, the Americas, or Australia. Those in the dark due to their location and lack of contact with grace and the truth.

Its a very Christian discourse. Gondor doesn't go to Rhun spreading the light Valarian civilization to the swarthy savages. The numenorians are pale white ubermensch and engender the animosity of these peoples due to their cruelty and slaving. They aren't heroes of virtue bringing reason and goodness to the savages.

Tolkien was very much an anti imperialist.

The idea of those "benighted in darkness" who are separate from the truth has arguably existed since...35 AD.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Woses.



Adorno was one of the great intellectual villains of the 20th Century. May he burn for all eternity in whichever circle of Hell is reserved for Marxist academics.

Alongside Fanon, Foucalt, and the rest of those disgusting Academic deconstructionists. Their ideas are responsible for a lot of the rot and degeneracy in the world today.