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#1 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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In other words, coloration akin to the "black Irish" of the real world, not a Mediterranean type.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#2 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 47
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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? |
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#3 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 47
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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? |
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#4 |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 47
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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.
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#5 | |
Laconic Loreman
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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 :-)
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Fenris Penguin
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#6 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,484
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I very much agree with Mindil (and welcome to the Downs!). The Haradrim and Easterlings are not bad or evil or immoral, they are unknown people who by chance of fortune not known to us ended up fighting on the side of Sauron. This is in contrast to the Black Numenorians who settled in those lands, who clearly knew better and yet chose corruption over kindness. So if Tolkien were to be condemning a real world phenomenon, it would be the colonization of unknown cultures and countries, not the races themselves. But that is all unintentional extrapolation; Tolkien never had in mind to convince anyone for or against some racial view or colonization debate, his purpose was entirely elsewhere.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#7 | ||||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,957
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![]() 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 |
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#8 |
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,329
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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.)
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Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
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#9 | ||
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#10 | |
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,329
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Good point. I suppose you could say they're portrayed as savages, but at least they're OUR savages.
![]() See, I'm not trying to make a case to condemn Tolkien as a racist. I am suggesting that elements of racism are present in Tolkien's work, as are elements of non-racism, and we need to discuss both and not pretend that either isn't there. Quote:
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Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
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#11 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#12 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,460
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It is the emus that I had trouble with. Liable to get up close and very personal.was happily feeding adorable wallabies when an intrusive beak made me squeak.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#13 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,484
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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 ( ![]() 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.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#14 | |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 118
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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. 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. Last edited by Rhun charioteer; 06-03-2020 at 01:00 AM. Reason: Add material |
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#15 | ||
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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Now, one 'race' Tolkien regards as being do definitionally swarthy as to carry it as a name, with Capital Letters, are the Swarthy Men of the First Age. And the people of Ulfang and Uldor do turn out to be rat-bastards; but on the other hand those of Bor are noble and go down fighting against the traitors.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. Last edited by William Cloud Hicklin; 06-03-2020 at 07:06 AM. |
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#16 | |||
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,484
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#17 | ||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Lord Byron (the very same) manages to hit the Tolkien Racism Trifecta in his OED quote, from 'Corsair': "That man..Whose name appals..And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue." And then, of course, there's the other 'sallow' race: Quote:
![]() The view I get from all of these quotes is that when he bothered to think about it, Tolkien was pretty good on racism. He specifically qualifies his Orc description as 'degraded and repulsive' - ie, this isn't what actual 'Mongol-types' are like - and throws in a 'to Europeans' on his 'least lovely', which seems to me an acknowledgement that it's the Europeans who are at fault in making that judgement. There hasn't been anything which jumps out as Tolkien thinking deeply about something and then making it unabashedly racist. But, when he doesn't think deeply - when he writes about the generic Elvish appearance, or makes everyone from the South and East into The Enemy - he mirrors the racist attitudes of the time, with white-to-olive Goodies and brown-to-black Baddies. To come back to Beowulf: yes, Tolkien probably did view the poem through a white, male gaze, and may have had difficulty pulling back from that. But what I've seen no evidence of is the notion that he insisted everyone else had to see things the same way he did, and that (to my memory) is what the article baselessly asserted. hS |
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