The problem with Evil races is not what you think

[pemerton]

That wasn’t the context of his quote.
And before we go further with his view of peoples of the east in terms of Mordor being of the east and such, again, it’s important to remember that’s a subjective interpretation not a literal statement from the author that is what it is.

If we are to engage in literary theory, critiquing work, it is imperative one must remember that it is fully subjective and we bring our own experiences and baggage within our reading and interpretation of it. As Tolkein didn’t explicitly label Mordor = culture x, it has to be subjective. It can’t be stated as an objective smoking gun.

I find it slightly ironic to assert the subjectivity of literary criticism as part of a defence of JRRT, given his own views about the relationship between knowledge, truth, language and (what he called) "sub-creation".

I also don't think the notion of "smoking gun" is relevant here. JRRT is not on trial.

But I think it would be absurd to assert that his location of heroic peoples in the North and West of his imagined world, with the evil coming from the East and South, is coincidence or is arbitrary.

And as an army of soldiers unrelenting bent on the destruction on the west, to me, I’d interpret that more of his visions of the German war machine advancing west wards from his ww1 days.

Or, as the propagandists of the time put it, "the Hun".

 

[pemerton]

Are the men of the east those that fell, or those that neither the elves nor Valinor ever bothered to reached out to (besides sending the Blue Wizards)?

In Appendix A there is discussion of the influence of Numenoreans, including "Black" (ie fallen/evil) Numenoreans, as colonisers of Middle Earth including Harad.

A complication - which emerges most fully when one considers Denethor's reference to "heathen kings" when he plans to immolate himself and Faramir - is that the Numenoreans also have not had the full benefit of revelation and salvation, given that they are pre-Christian. Still, there is a clear distinction drawn between those who acknowledge true spiritual forces (eg Faramir and his troop looking west at dinnertime) and those who sacrifice to Melkor and pay homage to Sauron - which one gathers is the case for most of the Southrons at least, and at least some of the Easterlings (others of these may be "merely" heathens).

 

[Lord Shark]

Yes.

Pretty much this.

This is a situation where us "old white cishet guys" might be better served by just shutting up and listening instead of immediately trying to reframe the situation as about us ("but at my table I...").

The Game Police will not come and stop you if you have brutish, stupid, ugly, and always-evil orcs in your campaign. But the world is moving on, and don't be surprised if you find yourself getting left behind.

 

[transmission89]

I find it slightly ironic to assert the subjectivity of literary criticism as part of a defence of JRRT, given his own views about the relationship between knowledge, truth, language and (what he called) "sub-creation".

I also don't think the notion of "smoking gun" is relevant here. JRRT is not on trial.

But I think it would be absurd to assert that his location of heroic peoples in the North and West of his imagined world, with the evil coming from the East and South, is coincidence or is arbitrary.


Or, as the propagandists of the time put it, "the Hun".

Well, indeed, he’s well known also for his dislike of allegories and stating LOTR is not an allegory, yet it doesn’t stop others critiquing it as an allegorical work (such as , I don’t know asserting his evil coming from the east or south as meaningfully applying to actual real world groups).

It seems to me that from many of the comments that he and his works are on trial to some extent. If we are using debates around his work and views as justification for demanding rewrites for writing derivative of his.

I love critiquing, exploring and analysing fiction. Literary theory is a great way to do it, but it is, to some extent, intellectual masturbation. It’s great applying different lenses to explore different fiction from different perspectives. But one has to acknowledge that if you are looking for specific things in your lens, you will undoubtedly find them. This applies to a racial lens, feminist lens, post feminist lens, queer theory etc. Especially when combined with the baggage that any reader brings to their reading of the text. It is an inherently subjective process.

Which makes it a less than stable, suitable platform for demanding changes to a game because of your (not specifically you, a general your) subjective interpretation of the works.

Which brings us back to the idea of the genetic fallacy. At the end of the day, even were Tolkein the most appalling racist, his creation of the Orcs the most vile, coded piece ever, it matters not to how they’ve been used on the table, in whatever way you’ve chosen to use them. How you choose to use them. Historically, they’ve been deployed as generic bad guys, a group similar to the nazis (fictionally acceptable to mow down with little moral consequence). Little more developed than that. If you wish to explore them further and go down the “novel” route of examining of orc culture as people (already done to death in the nineties and early noughts) have at it. Either view bears little relation to how Tolkien actually used them (yes they were bad and were mowed down, but they also were used by him to represent aspects unacknowledged by D&d)

 

[transmission89]

Pretty much this.

This is a situation where us "old white cishet guys" might be better served by just shutting up and listening instead of immediately trying to reframe the situation as about us ("but at my table I...").

The Game Police will not come and stop you if you have brutish, stupid, ugly, and always-evil orcs in your campaign. But the world is moving on, and don't be surprised if you find yourself getting left behind.

Seems a bit judgemental to assume that all who are arguing against this fall into that category.

That same argument could be applied to those demanding these changes to the completely fictional races too. No game police will come and take your books if you want races that have different attributes etc.

 

[shawnhcorey]

Strange that some think Tolkien was speaking of Asians when he talked about people of the east. He fought in WW1 and people of the east would be Germans.

 

[Imaculata]

Strange that some think Tolkien was speaking of Asians when he talked about people of the east. He fought in WW1 and people of the east would be Germans.

There are a lot of countries in the east. When someone talks about an eastern look, they don't mean German.

 

[Tonguez]

Strange that some think Tolkien was speaking of Asians when he talked about people of the east. He fought in WW1 and people of the east would be Germans.

Of course the Germans in WW1 were readily referred to as The Hun, linking them with the barbarous enemies coming out of Asia and the link is made by Tolkiens own writing. Even more so in his linking of Orcs with Haradrim (and the Corsairs of Umbar) who are explicitly brown, being a pastiche of north African, Indian and Ottoman traits. He even describes the black men of Far Harad as half troll

Tolkien may not have been overtly racist, but his heroes are whitemen fighting against the evil degenerate darkskinned enemy

 

[transmission89]

Of course the Germans in WW1 were readily referred to as The Hun, linking them with the barbarous enemies coming out of Asia and the link is made by Tolkiens own writing. Even more so in his linking of Orcs with Haradrim (and the Corsairs of Umbar) who are explicitly brown, being a pastiche of north African, Indian and Ottoman traits. He even describes the black men of Far Harad as half troll

Tolkien may not have been overtly racist, but his heroes are whitemen fighting against the evil degenerate darkskinned enemy
View attachment 139117

Alternatively evoking the hun imagery that persisted (informed by the Romano Christian view) that they were essentially the anti christ, bestial foe, destroying pure and good civilisation (again from a very biased Roman point of view. Of course, appalling propaganda to apply to enemies, but such as it was.

And we are just going to ignore the white villains that exist with the story to fit this reading? Of course there’s the undercurrent of white vs dark skinned (that is informed by the wider culture of the day), but I don’t think he’s trying to make a statement of white people are good, black people are bad. Really, that conflict is tangential to the main thrust of the narrative.
Again, I think just an uniformed cultural bias in writing (like for example, older fantasy art work predominantly featuring white people, as they were painted by white artists, or a near invisibility of LGBT people in media until relatively recently).

 

[Malmuria]

I find it slightly ironic to assert the subjectivity of literary criticism as part of a defence of JRRT, given his own views about the relationship between knowledge, truth, language and (what he called) "sub-creation".

I also don't think the notion of "smoking gun" is relevant here. JRRT is not on trial.

It's such a common and frustrating misconception that discussing the historical context of an author or the way that tropes get taken up and redeployed so quickly becomes "oh you're just saying this author is racist and dismissing the entire work." It disables analysis and makes the conversation highly reductive.

But I think it would be absurd to assert that his location of heroic peoples in the North and West of his imagined world, with the evil coming from the East and South, is coincidence or is arbitrary.

It's always striking to me how many fantasy worlds copy the geography of the real world - forgotten realms and game of thrones come to mind.