Fantasy

[davem]

But (& maybe this is just me) I never get the sense that the kind of 'attrocities' we've both noted (including at Towton both noses & ears being hacked off fallen - but not necessarily dead- opponents) are not commited by the 'good guys'. Again, I'm not asking for graphic descriptions of such attrocities in Tolkien's work - I don't think that would work - but I am asking about the absence of such behaviour on one side. Tolkien's Men are good, upright & entirely moral even in battle while watching their best friends hacked down by Orcs. And if a warrior can fall under a hail of arrows (no graphic desriptions of blood spurting or internal organs bursting) he could also fall by being 'struck in the face' by a poleaxe or halberd (again no more 'graphic' description than that would be needed). Deaths in Tolkien seem to be overly clean & neat &, while tragic, are not really shocking or disturbing to the reader - in reality just about every death in a medieval battle would be horrible.

Death may be Tolkien's theme, & the inevitability of it is clearly laid out before the reader, but the fact of ugly, violent dying is avoided not, I repeat, not because Tolkien refuses to indulge in graphic descriptions of killing, but because Tolkien's characters all tend to die clean & tidy deaths - & usually live long enough to make a moving final speech...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

Death may be Tolkien's theme, & the inevitability of it is clearly laid out before the reader, but the fact of ugly, violent dying is avoided not, I repeat, not because Tolkien refuses to indulge in graphic descriptions of killing, but because Tolkien's characters all tend to die clean & tidy deaths - & usually live long enough to make a moving final speech...

Yes, but all such Tolkienish requiems, dirges, soliloquoys, threnodies, elegies and epitaphs are due to his adherence to the classical form. Here we have an 'old school' Oxford Don steeped in Beowulf and Arthurian cycle translations (and more important to my point, his love of Greek drama in his youth); thus, his prose was considered archaic in style even when it was first published (and almost alien to the bulk of fiction produced in the 40's and 50's), and hence, I suppose, its timeless quality.

Take Greek tragedy, for instance. From what I can recall of my brief encounters with Aristotle (I would add Racine and Corneille, but I'm not sure if Tolkien was interested in French tragedy), noble characters do not indulge in the gross and they do not knowingly commit reprehensible acts (these vile acts, such as cold-blooded murder, are generally reserved for the nemesis of the piece). Evil is never rewarded (which is very Tolkienesque) and those with noble character retain this inherent quality even when facing death or worse. There is a reason Tolkien coined the term eucatastrophe from the Greek.

Boromir is a near perfect Greek tragic hero, don't you think? Boromir exhibits the four principal characteristics of a tragic hero: 1. He is of noble birth, 2. He has a tragic flaw (hamartia), 3. He has a reversal (a catastrophe), and 4. he undergoes a catharthis, or recognition, a realization of his own flaw that caused his reversal. And, as is usual in Greek tragedy, his recognition comes too late to prevent his succumbing to the reversal.

Such attention to classical form leads inevitably to the death speeches (Shakespeare's plays are chock full of them), the lack of viciousness and sanguineness in the noble characters (like Aragorn or Faramir), the inevitable fall of evil characters, and the many tragic heroes in Tolkien's work that follow the Greek example (Turin and Boromir as prime examples).

I really don't think Tolkien had it in himself to portray violence of a truly sustained and graphic nature. It was just not part of his literary experience. And perhaps because he personally experienced the horrors of WWI, it stratified his reliance on classical forms, whereas other authors and poets of the WWI era sought catharsis through venting that horror, and thus are considered more 'modern' than Tolkien.

[davem]

Not much time for a long reply at the moment, but I did want to just throw out the following -

You're right in everything you say about Tolkien's motivation, about the sources he draws on & how hw has used them. But

Tolkien had seen real warfare. He knew how men behave in battle, & principally, he knew that when men fight & die such deaths are not clean & tidy, but dirty, painful & ugly, & usually leave the victim neither time nor capacity for a noble speech. A real life Boromir would in reality have been more likely to die screaming for his mother & spewing blood- & the sound of tens of thousands of such death screams (not just from men, but from animals too) across the Pelennor would have added an extra hellish dimension.

The real point is - Tolkien may be true to his traditional sources but he is lying through his teeth when it comes to the reality of death in battle - & he must have known he was lying . Does the fact that he was writing a 'fantasy' novel excuse him? Was he presenting the opposing view to a WWI veteran like Wilfrid Owen - or was he trying to pretend that he hadn't written what he did? One can right about a morally justified war, but ought one to lie about such a simple fact of human nature that when men fight & kill in battle they do horrible things to each other, & that an arrow in the gut, or a sword slash to the face, is a vicious & ugly way to die. Is such a 'fantasy' morally justifiable after the Somme?

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

The real point is - Tolkien may be true to his traditional sources but he is lying through his teeth when it comes to the reality of death in battle - & he must have known he was lying . Does the fact that he was writing a 'fantasy' novel excuse him? Was he presenting the opposing view to a WWI veteran like Wilfrid Owen - or was he trying to pretend that he hadn't written what he did? One can right about a morally justified war, but ought one to lie about such a simple fact of human nature that when men fight & kill in battle they do horrible things to each other, & that an arrow in the gut, or a sword slash to the face, is a vicious & ugly way to die. Is such a 'fantasy' morally justifiable after the Somme?

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.

Yes, clearly Tolkien took another path than Wilfrid Owen, Robert Graves or Siegfried Sassoon:

(Excerpt from 'Counter-attack', 1918)
The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps
And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.
And then the rain began,— the jolly old rain!

(Excerpt from 'Suicide in the Trenches', 1918)
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

I suppose, in retrospect, that it is for the very lack of graphic violence and dwelling on the gross and horrific that Tolkien receives such adulation, and a wide demographic of readers. I doubt very much that Tolkien's work would find its way into grade school (or primary school) libraries if he dwelt on clumps of brains and clots of hair and sodden buttocks like Sassoon. It is the restrained nature of the presentation that allows it to be enjoyed by eight year-olds and eighty year-olds alike.

I don't recall him referring to this topic specifically in his letters, but I'll give them a brief perusal over the weekend to see if he offered any clarifications regarding his depictions of battle or violence.

[davem]

But its the kind of death, rather than the 'graphic' description of it, that I'm questioning - though Tolkien is actually quite graphic as far as descriptions of death go in his work. Its just that the 'graphic' detail confirms how clean & noble death in battle is in his world. Boromir is 'pierced with many arrows', & he dies in the arms of his King, confessing his sin & being absolved...but 'fortunately' not a one of those 'many' arrows hits him in the face & he doesn't utter his final words punctuated by bloody coughs.

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words. But

If Tolkien's claim that LotR is about Death is to be accepted, even given the fantasy form & the freedom it permits a writer, shouldn't we expect an honest depiction of the process? Even death in a just war (whatever a 'just war' is) is more often than not painful & ugly.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by davem

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words.

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion. Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that.

There's no "sin" here in Tolkien's writing. I'm not certain why you've contrived an obligation for Tolkien to portray death scenes graphically. And if he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then you may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor kings excuse themselves to use the bathroom and graphically describing that, as well.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion.

Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that. I'm not certain where this obligation to portray death scenes graphically comes from. If he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then one may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor elves excuse themselves to use the bathroom.

Its to do with how people die, not how graphically that death is described - or whether it should be/needs to be described realistically - go back to the Poul Anderson essay I linked to a while back http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm - is Anderson right? Even though Tolkien does not depict love scenes one assumes that the act takes place because there are children in the stories. One assumes that characters use the bathroom even though Tolkien doesn't mention it - & that is the whole point: if Tolkien was to depict love-making or toilet practices we would expect them (even if only obliquely) to be 'true' to the basic facts of the primary world (ie babies are not brought by the stork or get found under gooseberry bushes & bodily waste products do not turn into rainbow coloured bubbles which pop out of the character's ears). This is because Tolkien repeatedly stressed that 'Middle-earth' is meant to be this world in the ancient past.

The original question was about how much freedom a writer of fantasy should have, & what boundaries, if any, are required. If a writer like Pullman can be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of Christianity, can (should?) Tolkien be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of death in battle (as just one example)?

EDIT

Originally Posted by Bethberry

the idea that Tolkien participates not just in a heroic style from ancient epics but also in what was for him a contemporary cultural preference.

Yes - & that would stand if Tolkien had written LotR pre-WWI, or if he hadn't lived through the horror of the Somme. But he wrote it during WWII, & he knew the reality of battle, so he's not writing from ignorance, but actually denying the truth in order to present a falsehood more easily & effectively.

[Bêthberry]

In many ways Tolkien partakes of a certain Edwardian (if not Victorian) attitude towards military pursuits, so it is quite possibly a cultural value he demonstrates.

This Edwardian trait is not represented in this war memorial, the very beautiful and very moving memorial to the Canadian dead at Vimy Ridge: Walter Allwards' Stone Memorial at Vimy. See this multimedia version: Experience Vimy

Rather, Tolkien's depiction of war more closely resembles the kind of heroic stance represented by these statues:

Marshall Foch in London:



(This one is rather different from the statue over his tomb at Les Invalides in Paris, so I am assuming it represents a British style of war memorial.)

Wellington in Hyde Park, London:




Edward VII in Queen's Park, Toronto, transplanted from Delhi, India and so representative of the colonial or empire style; note that he is not here given his nick name of endearment, Tum Tum:



I am allowed but three images per post, so I cannot show any more to exemplify the idea that Tolkien participates not just in a heroic style from ancient epics but also in what was for him a contemporary cultural preference. (For instance, the statue of Wellington on horseback in Glasgow, which was initially presented as one of these heroic equestrian models, now sports, with civic acceptance, a traffic cone on Wellington's head. This is a particularly Scottish response which does not seem in keeping with Tolkien's war model; nor is it emulated south of Hadrian's Wall.)

We can imagine a Middle earth war memorial to the War of the Ring in this style which would display Gandalf astride Shadowfax rather than a sorrowing figure of a woman mourning her war dead.

(btw, I would swear I received a notification of post #52 in which it was attributed to Lalwende rather than davem. *insert kindly smile here* )