Fantasy

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by davem

Unless you're the sacrifice - in which case it probably hurts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course it hurts, but that does not detract from (and maybe adds to) the beauty of willing sacrifice - which, I should add, is objective and has nothing to with the beholder.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

Of course it hurts, but that does not detract from (and maybe adds to) the beauty of willing sacrifice - which, I should add, is objective and has nothing to with the beholder.

Including suicide bombers?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The duality was present in Tolkien's mind, certainly. Here is a passage he wrote shortly after his war service:

'Aye, often enough,' said Eriol, 'yet not to the great wars of the earthly kings, which are cruel and bitter, whelming all in their ruin all the beauty of the earth and of those fair things that men fashion with their hands in times of peace -- nay, they spare not sweet women and tender maids, such as thou, Veanne Melinir, for then are men drunk with wrath and the lust of blood, and Melko fares abroad. But gallant affrays have I seen wherein brave men did sometimes meet, and swift blows were dealt, and strength of body and of heart was proven.'

Again, the 'great wars' are of Melko, as the ghastly moonscape of the Western Front was transferred to Sauron: it was almost as if Tolkien envisioned war as he knew it being the enemy, and wrote of its defeat by 'gallant affrays.'

Still, it's a bit much to expect a man like Tolkien to write with mud-and-dung realism. He never describes Aragorn relieving himself behind a bush, nor does he detail the process by which Sam and Rosie produced all those children. They are to be assumed, in the same way blood and gore are to be assumed.

There is probasbly something to be mined comparing the hopelessness of the War of the Jewels, written in its essentials in the shadow of the pointless First World War, with the triumphalism of the War of the Rings, written during the Second- even bloodier than its predecessor, but a war nonetheless with a point and a purpose.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Suicide bombers? Say, rather, kamikazes, in whose willingness to die in defense of their homeland by sinking enemy ships there was a terrible beauty. One could also mention Leonidas' Spartans.

[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Still, it's a bit much to expect a man like Tolkien to write with mud-and-dung realism. He never describes Aragorn relieving himself behind a bush, nor does he detail the process by which Sam and Rosie produced all those children. They are to be assumed, in the same way blood and gore are to be assumed.

But are the blood & gore to be assumed? Does Tolkien really intend us to see the shattered, hacked up bodies, the adrenalin driven attrocities commited by the 'good' guys as well as the Orcs, the 'cowardice', the 'friendly fire' incidents, the 'camp followers'? Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? If I assume that some Gondorian troops tortured & mutilated Easterling prisoners, or that their commanders arranged for 'cowards' to be executed at dawn, is that acceptable? I'd say not - because those things clearly did not happen in M-e, anymore than people actually 'die' instead of going rather quickly & neatly from quick to dead (unless of course they have a moving death speech to make before the end).

And that still leaves the problem of Sam's grief being greater for lost trees than for lost Hobbits.

But the question still remains 'Should Tolkien have avoided that aspect, & does the omission leave out something of vital importance?'

Tolkien decided to omit real dying in his story about death - is that something he should have done? If he honestly knew, as he did, that death in battle was a horrible, sickening thing should he not have made that clear? And by omitting it did he not miss out one of the essential points of why death is terrible - death is a terrible thing not just because it deprives the survivors of the victim's presence, but because the ending of one's life on the field is gross, agonising & generally without dignity. In fact, he did not simply omit to mention he horror of dying in battle, he created a world in which such horror is largely absent. In battle one is reduced to the state of an animal in an abattoir, hacked down & left to die in the mud. One may die for a noble cause, but the way one dies is rarely noble & on the field a dying knight & his dying horse are far more similar than many like to think. Except in Middle-earth.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But are the blood & gore to be assumed? Does Tolkien really intend us to see the shattered, hacked up bodies,

No more than he expects us to see reeking scat emerging from Strider's fundament.

the adrenalin driven attrocities commited by the 'good' guys... Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? If I assume that some Gondorian troops tortured & mutilated Easterling prisoners, or that their commanders arranged for 'cowards' to be executed at dawn,

Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? No, actually, I don't believe so. The Thrid Age was I think palpably different from whatever Age this is, and not just because the fantasy creatures are gone.

I sometimes liken Tolkien's idea of the progress of moral evil to an ink-drop in a glass of water: at first a distinct black globule, which starts to send out streamers and tendrils until it is all dissolved- but the water is now grey. We live in the Grey Age. The War of the Ring occurred when the ink-drop and its tendrils were still coherent- Sauron and his minions- but much of the water (Elves and many Men) was still largely clear or only slightly dingy. So, no, the Men of Gondor would not commit atrocities, just as, we are told, they do not lie, "not even [to] an Orc."

I'm not sure what really would have been gained had Tolkien written some grimly relativistic work wherein both sides were all right bastards. His thesis was that the Good exists and is worth defending, which remains true today as it did in the Forties- even though we know that the Allies didn't "set out with all unspotted soldiers." After all, his theory of Recovery is a process of viewing the world through a different prism.

[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

No more than he expects us to see reeking scat emerging from Strider's fundament.

But were the broken, hacked up bodies actually there?Did people actualy DIE, or did they just get nicely DEAD.

I'm not sure what really would have been gained had Tolkien written some grimly relativistic work wherein both sides were all right bastards. His thesis was that the Good exists and is worth defending, which remains true today as it did in the Forties- even though we know that the Allies didn't "set out with all unspotted soldiers." After all, his theory of Recovery is a process of viewing the world through a different prism.

In WWI there were decent Germans - ordinary young men who fought bravely & died horribly - it wasn't a case of good allies & evil Huns. Same applies in WWII. Yet in M-e the enemy are uniformly evil & can be dispatched with impunity. We never feel the tragedy of war - the waste of life on both sides (apart from Sam's moment of questioning in Ithilien - Sam wonders if the young man is truly evil, but for all we know he might have been. Sam's questioning shows us Sam's humanity, but we never see any 'humanity' among the enemy. And if we had we wouldn't have the story we have. If we got to know the Easterlings or Southrons as people we wouldn't have been able to tolerate their easy slaughter.

So, the 'truth' about how people die in battle, what human beings do to each other on the field, is absent. Should it be? Its an omission, but do we lose or gain by that omission? To repeat my earlier point:

there are not only two alternatives - either you do what Tolkien did, & present death in battle with a romantic, elegiac glow or you go in for a pornographic depiction of blood, snot & vomit which would sicken the majority of readers & make the book unreadable. There is a third alternative - to acknowldge the horror of actual death by not simply stating 'X dozens, hundreds or thousands lay dead' or 'X was cut down by axes '& walked never again in the flowering meads of his homeland under the evening stars' - which is a way of not writing about how X died. As I said earlier - most of the casualties in LotR don't really die, they just get dead. Alive one second, dead the next with the unpleasant transition avoided.
LotR is about death, but its not about dying - which is odd in a war novel.

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by davem

But were the broken, hacked up bodies actually there?Did people actualy DIE, or did they just get nicely DEAD.

There's no reason to assume some kind of magic prevented the mutilation of bodies slain with the cruel weapons of the age. Therefore, that death happened in a real way seems patent enough, and Tolkien's refrainment is perhaps to do with this presumption.

So, the 'truth' about how people die in battle, what human beings do to each other on the field, is absent. Should it be? Its an omission, but do we lose or gain by that omission? To repeat my earlier point:

Yes, it should be absent. In part because what is happening in Middle-earth is largely NOT what "human beings do to each other," but rather what humans and orcs do to each other. Orcs are manifestly evil, intended to be strictly unsympathetic. One might argue that what orcs do to humans (or more broadly what any warring humanoids do to one another) might be relevant. But really, it seems pretty clear that Tolkien's purpose was decidedly not to illuminate these grisly truths, for those reasons you have yourself beaten to death. Perhaps one reason that Tolkien refuses to embrace an allegorical reading of his story is exactly your point: any correlation of LotR's conflicts to the wars of the 20th century would be dishonest and dehumanizing.

[davem]

Originally Posted by obloquy

There's no reason to assume some kind of magic prevented the mutilation of bodies slain with the cruel weapons of the age. Therefore, that death happened in a real way seems patent enough, and Tolkien's refrainment is perhaps to do with this presumption.

Nope. There is a very important reason to assume the mutilation of bodies with the cruel weapons of the age was absent- Tolkien created Middle-earth & it only contains what Tolkien included. Tolkien did not include the horrors of dying in battle. People don't die horribly, even when 'pierced by many arrows' or having a full size horse dumped on top of them. The most horrific death in LotR (Denethor's) can be dismissed (comfortably) as being his own fault. Why do we assume the reader will 'assume' that people will die in M-e in the same way as some poor bugger at Agincourt, Towton, Kineton Fight or the Somme? I didn't. My 'assumptions' of how people died in those battles was actually shaped by movies like Olivier's Henry V, or Knights of the Round Table & to an extent also by reading Tolkien . It was only when I began reading up on military history that I began to see what was absent in Tolkien's depictions of battle - & that was exactly the kind of thing I've brought up in this discussion.

Yes, it should be absent. In part because what is happening in Middle-earth is largely NOT what "human beings do to each other," but rather what humans and orcs do to each other.

Except that Hillmen, Eastgerlings & Southrons are also involved. So this is about what humans do to other humans - its just that Tolkien avoids dealing with it.

Orcs are manifestly evil, intended to be strictly unsympathetic. One might argue that what orcs do to humans (or more broadly what any warring humanoids do to one another) might be relevant.

Which is what I have been arguing. By offering us an unsympathetic foe Tolkien is able to have his heroes kill thousands of them with impunity & never suffer the inconvenience of having to ask if what they're doing is right, face the possiblity that they have 'sinned', or, most importantly in this context, show them any respect.

Perhaps one reason that Tolkien refuses to embrace an allegorical reading of his story is exactly your point: any correlation of LotR's conflicts to the wars of the 20th century would be dishonest and dehumanizing.

This is not about allegorising. Its about reality (or 'secondary reality'). Its also about what readers take from the story. Now, one can decide 'Its just a fantasy, pure escapism. It means nothing at all & has no value beyond a few hours entertainment.' But... if one does take that approach then one, surely, must treat the whole book that way - the beauty of the natural world, the self-sacrifice of Frodo, the depiction of the corrupting effect of desire for power & control - none of that, or even the incredible feat of imagination behind it all - all just escapism & without any relevance to the reader beyond escaping the harsh realities of the real world for a bit.

The point is - everything else is there, except the reality of how people die in battle, which is skipped over. They're alive, they're dead, & the corpses (with their neat, tidy & instantly & painlessly mortal wounds) nicely disappear to save the survivors the sordid necessity of shovelling up the body parts & heaving the hundreds of thousands of bits into a mass grave. Then the survivors can get on with composing a nice elegy & replacing the trees with a clear conscience. Middle-earth is the most beautifully, perfectly created secondary world, Tolkien's prose touches perfection in many parts of LotR & his vision, his understanding of the human condition is profound. His meditations on the nature of mortality against immortality provide some of the most thought provoking moments in the whole of literature.

But his battle scenes are all fake. There, & only there, does he descend into an Edwardian, Boy's Own, vision of knights in shining armour, of derring do on the battlefield, of Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori & in Tolkien it is sweet & glorious to die on the field - because death on the field is quick & painless, free from suffering.