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"Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8496382" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Right, the VERY first and most important thing you learn about each character in ALL of JRRT's work is their heritage, it is usually ALL you really learn. I mean, to take LotR characters, what do we know about Aragorn? Not a thing, except that he's the inheritor of a lineage leading all the way back to a union (2 actually) between Elves, and Men. We never learn where he was born, who raised, him, how he lived before he appeared in the story, etc. I mean, we do glean a bit incidentally, we know he was present in Rivendell at some point and met his future wife there, and that his sword was preserved there, but we really know nothing much. He's the heir to the throne of Arnor and a Dunedain of the highest lineage, and a claimant to the throne of Gondor. That is all we need to know!</p><p></p><p>Likewise the characters of the First Age, Finrod Felagund is the son or cousin of a high king of the Noldor, and Feanor is the heir of one. He apparently is a figure of great power and accomplishment BECAUSE of this, there is no instance (Sam perhaps being a bit of an exception) of 'lesser people' achieving greatness, it is baked in! Classic British classist sensibilities!</p><p></p><p>Its interesting to me that today we witness two parallel cultural phenomena in America. On the one hand we have this throwing off of cultural norms which dictated attitudes which effectively put down, othered, and kept in their place anyone who isn't part of the prestige group. This includes, in a broad sense, a lot of areas, such as treatment of women, minorities, rejection of older narratives about the righteous civilizing influence of said prestige group, etc. We also have another narrative, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-society itself even, which seems to take the guise of a reaction to the first movement, but IMHO really is basically the same thing. The fundamental unifying factor being a rejection of authoritative cultural narratives. It extends beyond that to a rejection of social roles surrounding authority generally.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8496382, member: 82106"] Right, the VERY first and most important thing you learn about each character in ALL of JRRT's work is their heritage, it is usually ALL you really learn. I mean, to take LotR characters, what do we know about Aragorn? Not a thing, except that he's the inheritor of a lineage leading all the way back to a union (2 actually) between Elves, and Men. We never learn where he was born, who raised, him, how he lived before he appeared in the story, etc. I mean, we do glean a bit incidentally, we know he was present in Rivendell at some point and met his future wife there, and that his sword was preserved there, but we really know nothing much. He's the heir to the throne of Arnor and a Dunedain of the highest lineage, and a claimant to the throne of Gondor. That is all we need to know! Likewise the characters of the First Age, Finrod Felagund is the son or cousin of a high king of the Noldor, and Feanor is the heir of one. He apparently is a figure of great power and accomplishment BECAUSE of this, there is no instance (Sam perhaps being a bit of an exception) of 'lesser people' achieving greatness, it is baked in! Classic British classist sensibilities! Its interesting to me that today we witness two parallel cultural phenomena in America. On the one hand we have this throwing off of cultural norms which dictated attitudes which effectively put down, othered, and kept in their place anyone who isn't part of the prestige group. This includes, in a broad sense, a lot of areas, such as treatment of women, minorities, rejection of older narratives about the righteous civilizing influence of said prestige group, etc. We also have another narrative, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-society itself even, which seems to take the guise of a reaction to the first movement, but IMHO really is basically the same thing. The fundamental unifying factor being a rejection of authoritative cultural narratives. It extends beyond that to a rejection of social roles surrounding authority generally. [/QUOTE]
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