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Message: <blockquote data-quote="transmission89" data-source="post: 8322096" data-attributes="member: 6688441">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)</blockquote>

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