/lit/ - Literature

There's two types of people, those that create, and those that critique. Those that critique only do so because they are unable to create.
Lord of the Rings was a masterpiece and these quotes were written by a nobody whose name history will forget.

>>14651839
>There's two types of people
I just read a quote somewhere that said there's two types of people in the English speaking world: those who have read Lord of the Rings and those who will read Lord of the Rings.

>Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other
I should hope so.

Tolkien's real passion was conlanging, and LOTR is just a background for that.

>muh human condition

>>14651839
The guy who said that is a published author.

>>14651839
>Lord of the Rings was a masterpiece and these quotes were written by a nobody whose name history will forget.
That's fucking George R. R. Martin speaking.

>>14651926
Yes, and?

This is the guy who wrote that book with the bear right?

>>14651926
Wrong. Philip Pullman said that, and his novels are modern classics.

>>14651998
>Pullman’s stinkers
>modern classics

>>14651998

Some B-tier novelist who history will forget, like I said. Tolkien is a giant.

>>14651921

Oh wow a published author! Yeah those are never forgotten. As soon as your name appears on the cover a book you're guaranteed life eternal and are induction into the hall of fame.
Geez a published author, how silly of me.

>>14651835
>Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

>>14652048
you seemed to be implying he was just a critic

>>14651835
>"The Lord of the Rings is not a serious book because it does not say anything interesting, or new, or truthful about the human condition”
>book is a massive amalgamation of myths specifically concerning the human condition
>central plot is the struggle to resist sin
Really activates the almonds. There is a reason why the characters in the Game of Thrones all seem like irredeemable one-dimensional assholes, whereas Gollum and Saruman can be empathized with and pitied. LotR touches on subjects that pathetic bugmen simply cannot grasp, because they are real life Gollums. I will pray for them.

>>14651835
The man who wrote this said
>if there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that he would reject a work like LotR.

>>14651926
>GRRM said that
I highly doubt that, he loves lotr despite what memes say

It seems to have a metaphysics similiar to John Scotus Eriguena.

>>14652168
I kind of agree with him but I still like LotR. Tolkein's mythology accounts for the problem of evil better than Christianity IMO.

>>14651998
Pullman is a liberal ideologue who resents Tolkien because he was a conservative Catholic. He's a dishonest person and his critiques in the OP don't even make sense.

>>14652220
Tolkien’s mythology *is* Christian. Maybe you were poorly catechized.

He is just using a type of patristic theodicy in line with Ireneaus of Lyons.

>>14651835
>The Iliad is not a serious book because it does not say anything interesting, or new, or truthful about the human condition”
>"The Iliad' is fundamentally an infantile work. Homer is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other.
lmao
how is that such sophoromic non-criticism still manages to get passed around? it's less than a platitude, no wonder the OP leaves off crediting it to whatever nobody "thought" it up

>>14651835
> He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes
that is what makes his work interesting. Every pseud tries to write about human interaction and usually, they do a pretty job because they can't think outside of their own head and project their own derangements and insecurities in other people they describe so that they essentially engage in self-masturbatory thoughtwork. Tolkien avoided that by focusing on what he was talented in

>>14652259
I'm aware Tolkien was Catholic and the God of Christianity is the God of LOTR. I just like his creation myth better than the Garden of Eden story.

>>14652344
>I'm aware Tolkien was Catholic and the God of Christianity is the God of LOTR
It goes a great deal deeper than that.

>>14651926
No, GRRM actually respects Tolkien and he would never say that. That dumb tax policy quote is more about how his focus differs.

LOTR is shit because it's written by an Anglo in the Anglo language for other Anglos.

>>14652657
I'm sure it does but still. In Tolkien, the world is flawed from the moment it's created. Genesis lays the blame on man's disobedience.

..Dwarves were created by Aule. (pronounced Owl)
the Moloch Owl, like the one at Bohemian Grove.
Dwarves live in caves, orcs live in caves.
the only difference between a dwarf cave and an orc/dragon/balrog cave is the time period.
example: the cave starts out as a Dwarf cave, then they get greedier and greedier, slowly becoming orcs/dragons/demonic balrog.
Aule IS Melkor. Melkor IS Aule. (Ace Ventura starts gagging). Saturn is lord of this realm, Saturn of the rings, Sauron the Lord of the Rings, the Lord of This Realm.
Melkor and Aule even have the exact same power (viz. over the physical realm)
Tolkien was warning us about (((them))) as subtly as he could, because even back then (((they))) were known for killing people that stood up to them (just read about the Jewish terror attacks that took place during the 1800- early 1900's time period).
here's some more symbolism: the Jewish Tree of Life is represented by Aule's wife, Yavanna. The Two Trees of Valinor represent quite nicely the Two Trees of the Qabbalah, the As Above (Laurelin) and the So Below (Telperion)

The Valar had the ability to shapeshift, Melkor was just Aule's alter-ego, the shape he assumed when dealing with evil people, while his Aule-form was the facade he presented to good, but rather naive people.
You know, like Sauron/Annatar. Or like Palpatine/Darth Sidious, Grindelwald/Whatever-his-name-was that he shapeshifted into to hide his true identity.
Tree of Life, the thing the kabbalist Jews are OBSESSED over, is a tree that the jews represent with their 7 branched candelabra.
Just like Sauron gave Dwarves 7 rings.
Aryan's are typically represented as having worshiped a sky/thunder god, which Manwe could easily represent.
while elves are generally speaking "the good guys", sometimes even elves do evil stuff, like the Kinslaying. But each time elves turn bad, it's always the elves closest to Aule (i.e. the Noldor). It was even to the Noldor that Annatar/Sauron went to when the rings were made.
supposedly only Eru could give people a soul, yet Aule made the dwarves in direct disobedience to Eru's law. (Eru gave the dwarves souls, but then who gave the Orcs souls? orcs clearly have souls since they're capable of movement and cognition).
Melkor and Sauron FREQUENTLY used lies and trickery to get power over free-peoples. It's therefore entirely possible that the idea of "dwarves being good guys" is just more of this trickery (it would certainly explain how Sauron and Saruman were able to keep finding the Fellowship, up until Frodo LEFT THE GROUP. Frodo knew there was a spy in the group, and also knew there was no point in trying to convince the others that it was Gimli.

>>14653739
1. Dwarves were created BEFORE the elves and humans, in direct disobedience to Eru's command.
2. Dwarves are short. Orcs are short (except for new Uruk-hai breed, that was mixed with humans). Even Treebeard thought the hobbits were orcs because of their short stature (he had to have known that they weren't orcs if just going off appearance, but remember, in real life NO ONE looks like an orc, the orcs represent something spiritually, not 1:1 physically.)
2. Melkor was ALWAYS desirous of creating his own creations, the only difference (as stated in the books) between Aule and Melkor is that Melkor was jealous of his creations (sound familiar? "is a jealous God") and Aule wasn't possessive.
3. dwarves started out in caves.
4. utumno was a cave.
5. orcs were created in a cave.
6. there isn't a single elf-city that later became an orc city. Elf-cities were either destroyed or abandoned into ruins, never inhabited by orcs (even with Nargothrond and Menegroth, the only two examples of elf-caves that were abandoned by elves).
7. there are NUMEROUS examples of dwarf-cities being "abandoned" by the dwarves and later inhabited by Orcs/dragons,balrogs (e.g. Gundabad, Moria, Erebor, the dwarven cities in the Grey Mountains, and rumors of dwarves in the far east who sided with Sauron and/or Melkor on occasion)
8. there are notable references in Silmarillion and Book of Lost Tales that Melkor captured Elves and that they didn't turn into Orcs, even after torture, which makes me wonder why Melkor wouldn't turn these elves into orcs, but did the original elves. It's a flaw in the narrative.
Dwarves really dislike Elves, just like Orcs.
9. no one has ever seen a female dwarf, no one has ever seen a female orc.

>>14653745
Aryan god is a god of storm/thunder/sky.
Manwe is a god of storm/thunder/sky.
Melkor is a god of the physical realm (Tolkien described it best: "Sauron's ring was a ring of gold to ensnare the Will of the user to his own, in that sense, Morgoth's "Ring" would be Middle Earth/Arda itself." (or something to that effect.)
in that sense, when Valinor left the confines of Arda after the downfall of Numenor/Atlantis/(Babel?), it was removed from the realm that was under Melkor's control, viz. the physical realm.
By doing this, they essentially took the visible representation of "good" from the world of Man, and separated it from evil. It now only exists as an idea, as dreams.
the duality of Idea/physical, white vs black, sky vs metal/rock, Manwe/Valinor vs. Melkor/Utumno/Middle Earth, Heaven vs. Babel, Eden vs. Earth
Last time, Valinor destroyed Angband. Before that, they destroyed Utumno. Each time it caused horrendous damage to the planet, breaking apart continents, huge portions falling underneath the waves, peoples sundered by natural disasters, forever after estranged from each other.
and back to sauron. the One Ring itself was (if you reduce it down to it's purely observable properties, and less upon it's speculative/magical properties) nothing more than a gold ring. Just that, gold.

>>14653749
But its magical properties could best be described symbolically (and symbolism and magic grimoires do tend to go hand in hand). so, for instance it could makes its user invisible to the average eye (there are still people that can sense it though, usually people with heightened attunement to the spiritual/otherworldly realm, like Sauron, the Nazgul, even some elves or maiar.
So, just like irl, how gold/wealth gives one the power to essentially make urself invisible, and to operate from behind the curtain (wiz of oz), from the shadows, to create a false persona of yourself with the facade of goodness, like Annatar (or Aule?)....
in this sense, then, Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring (and all the other rings too) is to end Wealth, to end Greed, and all the benefits that come with it, all the good and bad side effects that come with it.
the destruction of the One Ring and the Nine (and the 7 for that matter) destroy the obvious bad magic they had been put to, but also the good benefits that the 3 rings offered.
Frodo, in this manner, is a sort of "Everyman", the quintessential Man, the best, most humble and brave of us, all wrapped up into one person. He makes the journey for us, with help from his companions, who are each brave and decent folk in their own right (though perhaps flawed in some way that Frodo has learned to master). Frodo then becomes an Earendil, a divine messenger for humanity, a representative of Fallen/physical Middle Earth, who is sent by his people to Valinor to beg for their divine aid. Just as Earendil braved almost certain death by daring to sail into the west from which they were banished (cf Banishment from Eden), Frodo must not journey into the far East, into Hell (instead of west, into Heaven). He must now make that journey to destroy the Ring, to destroy Gollum, who represent the worst in Frodo, the worst in mankind, the worst of Melkor, as opposed to what he could have been (Aule).
Gollum HAD to die. Gollum, who represents the physical side, the side that can only be destroyed in the forges from which it was made (i.e. the pits of Hell).

>>14653753
Frodo was eventually let into Valinor/Heaven. (which means he was successful in his endeavor)
Frodo's "throwing of the Ring into the pit of lava" (or, rather, Gollum's biting of Frodo's finger and falling into the lava) is then symbolic of Frodo "killing" off that physical/lustful/carnal side of himself. (for an excellent discussion on what it means to "kill off the physical/carnal side", read Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea. Destroying the Ring is then a killing of the ego, of yourself, your pride, envy, sex drive, ambition, basically becoming a monk/nun that lives up to the name (not to be confused with the modern day variety that keep ending up in the news over scandals). To be a monk/nun without feeling the need to shout to the world that you're a monk/nun, to do it for yourself and for you alone, or for God, "to pray behind closed doors, and not with loud exclamations in the market place for all to see" (Jesus Christ quote).
To become like Tom Bombadil, basically, unknown to the world, unconcerned with the world and its coming and goings.
Tom Bombadil, who doesn't have conversations with people so much as sing to them. Much of the stuff he says is consequently lighthearted and meaningless drivel just to keep the rhyming scheme going, but every so often you get pertinent, real content. Like when he says his jacket is made of blue, and his boots are yellow. Or how he married the River-daughter. The Tom Bombadil chapter is Tolkien speaking in quasi-alchemical (or perhaps outright, merely masked in the trappings of his Middle-Earth "fantasy"), hermetical language. Talking of the duality of male and female, sky and earth, fire and water, the non-physical and physical, death and life, the eternal and the incidental. Tom could choose any name he wanted for himself, he chose to be called Tom Bombadil. But the "Bom- ba- dil" is that meaningless drivel that only gets included for musical purposes, to keep the rhyming scheme going, and less for it having any deeper meaning.

Fuck you

>>14653760
So then, just Tom, or Tom (B)? Tomb? Which would seem perhaps a possibility, given that the very next chapter involves Frodo and friends attempting to travel through the Barrow Downs, the tombs of ancient kings and noble lords, but having at some point in the past been infested with evil spirits sent by the Witch King of Angmar (although that tidbit of lore is found outside of LotR trilogy). In the Barrow Downs, Frodo, like so many unwary travelers before him, had fallen prey to the evil spirits, and was in the process of falling asleep/dying when Tom miraculously appears and frees them all with a heartily sung song. In this sense, Tom B. isn't so much "walking death"/Grim Reaper as he is a *master* of Death, a type of Jesus Christ/God, who isn't afraid of Death, and not out of bravery (or stupidity) but more from a viewpoint of knowledge of Death, a knowledge so complete that Death has been overcome, and is no longer something to be feared (much like how thunder storms no longer scare the adult that perhaps was once frightened of them as a child; or similar to Aslan knowing a deeper magic than the White Witch's, and which made Aslan not fear sacrificing himself).

>>14653794
Oldest and Fatherless, that is how Tom described himself, then is he an Adam reference of the Biblical "Genesis"? In Tolkien's history, he said that mankind originated in Hildorien, far to the east of the Old Forest, and from other lore it is stated that Tom primarily wandered the lands later known as Eriador, all the way down to Dunland and perhaps Rohan in the early years, but nothing about traveling to the furthest east. Plus, no human has ever lived as long as Tom (not even Tuor). So most likely Tom is either a maia or, as some have suggested, Eru himself incarnated as an avatar in the realm called "Middle Earth", enjoying the creation of His creations, His children, "the offspring of His thought". Which is essentially His creation, since He could have at any point chosen *not* to create any "offsprings of thought", which would mean no suffering as well as no world. No orcs, no dragons, no Melkor or Sauron, but also no Frodo, no Gandalf, no Galadriel, no Varda or Manwe. Eru had no Father, and is certainly oldest, but maybe Tom is only speaking of his age in terms of the creation of Arda and Ea, but not necessarily of the "time" before that. If the latter, then Tom could be any of the Ainur, since they all, technically "had no father", being that they're spiritual beings, and not organic (hence why Tolkien said "offsprings of Eru's thought", and not "his organic children that he produced androgynously", or "his children that he had with the Waters of Chaos", although if we're to read Tolkien's writings with an alchemical/gnostic tinting, it's possible Tom and River-daughter represent the story of the creation of the universe, of all existence itself, whether physical or metaphysical. The uniting of spiritual (Tom) with the physical (River-daughter, Goldberry). And, then, in essence, a classic re-telling of the story of man and woman, pro-creation and progeny, the magic of Life and children.

>>14653804
Tom B. is the master of Death, because he (He?) has mastered the Secret of Life: the union of the Male and the Female. He wears Blue and Yellow not because he's hopeless with fashion, but because he is the walking embodiment of the alchemical/hermeticist Male and Masculine, Air and Fire (as opposed to the Female and Feminine, Earth and Water). Sky (Air, Blue) and Sun (Fire, Yellow). Goldberry, the daughter of the River represents the Feminine, Female, Water (daughter of the River), Earth(berry, a plant, and Gold, a metal). But also a reference to the alchemical "gold", which is not a literal gold, but something even more valuable, the "gold" of everlasting Life that is achieved through having children and the uniting of the Husband and Wife. (Although, as a reference to Sky and Fire/Lightning, Tom could just as easily be Manwe, but then one wonders how Manwe finds the time to travel back and forth, and keep up pretenses with Varda, who now is starting to resemble a Hera to Manwe's Zeus.) It is just as possible that Tom is simply his own, separate maia, and is neither Eru nor Manwe, but simply Tom, like Gandalf is simply Gandalf/Olorin. But all the rest still applies, the stuff about duality and masculine/feminine.

>>14653810
Life (the realm of Tom B. in the Old Forest) as opposed to Death (the realm of the evil spirits of the Barrow Downs, but a place where Tom had the ultimate power to drive back the evil spirits, but where the evil spirits had no power against Tom in his realm). Even in the realm of the Old Forest (Forest = World, according to alchemical symbolism) there were spiritual entities that one had to worry about, although living spirits, and more cantankerous (albeit, dangerous) than evil natured. Tom had control over these too, through his magical songs. Magical songs that, for all their merryment and silliness, still were effective and things that Frodo, Aragorn (or perhaps even Galadriel) wouldn't have been able to do. Life, what Arda could have been if Melkor(Aule) had not been such an egotistical demiurge.

>>14653816
There is a case that could be made for Tom referring to himself as "oldest and fatherless" because he was the first of the Ainur to enter into Ea, or at least Arda. He mentions to Frodo that he "saw the great Dark enter Arda" (or something to that effect, which would imply that he witnessed the arrival of Melkor entering Arda/Ea, while himself (Tom) already living there. Complications arise with the "Arda" scenario (as opposed to the "Ea" scenario) since Arda wasn't initially created yet, that happened much later after all the other Ainur labored over millenia. But Ea did exist from the start, Ea is just the universe, space, or that point of condensed energy/matter that eventually expanded (Big Bang?) into Arda, the stars, and even dead planets that Melkor had destroyed (more lore that doesn't get mentioned in LotR or Hobbit). Maybe, then, Tom's re-telling is Tolkien slipping in his own opinion as to the story of Eru's beginning, and His first encountering of Melkor, of the Great Dark, the Other (as opposed to the Self, the Great Light, of Eru). The Self that seeks to live, seeks to preserve its own life, as opposed to the Other that is dominating, controlling, and wants to snuff out life, as Melkor snuffed out the life of so many planets, with the sole remaining holdout being the planet Arda, where only the combined might of the Valar and their maiar servants could withstand the onslaught of Melkor and his servants. Regardless of who Tom is, the fact remains that Eru is said to have existed prior to anyone or anything else, including Melkor. But, even so, that doesn't change the fact that Eru created Melkor, that Melkor existed as part of Eru's thought. Did Eru Himself have evil thoughts? Why did Melkor need to exist? Sure, Eru planned all along to blow evil to bits, and resolve everything into heavenly bliss or something like that, but until that time, things were pretty bad, what with Melkor and/or Sauron running amok, stirring things up.

>>14651926
Lol that isn't helping your case. Martin unironically writes manly men boobie novels without any true sense of God or Nature. Nothing transcendent about anything he has ever written. Tolkien beats him in that regard.

>>14653739
>Tolkien was warning us about (((them)))

>I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.

Tolkien replying to enquries from publisher in Nazi Germany:
> I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware noone [sic] of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

>>14651835
LOTR isn’t my favourite thing, and I’m critical of parts of it, but it’s way better than what those quotes describe. It philosophy is much more sophisticated than Philip Pullman’s weird democracy of heaven or whatever. And the fact that’s it’s a faux history book makes it more postmodern, experimental, snd Borgesian than Pullman could ever hope to be— all while simultaneously being a very traditional novel in a lot of ways. LOTR hits many marks. People will be reading, enjoying, disappearing inside, and interpreting LOTR for generations. Most people barely remember Pullman now.

>>14653901
why would Tolkien risk destroying his own career (or being killed) by being more upfront about it?
it's like how it currently is with Muslims, and how you can't criticize them without them declaring a jihad on you. Jews (well, more specifically, the liberal jew) have been like that for a LOOOONG time. Read up about it, they have an interesting history of terrorism, well before the Muslims took up the mantle. Even today Jews still are involved in terrorism, though it's evolved a lot and doesn't get called out as "jewish terrorism" but gets called "mass shootings". Las Vegas concert shooting? That was a liberal Jew. A lot of other examples of liberal jews turning into mass shooters/terrorists.
So yes, it's entirely possible Tolkien wanted to warn everyone without endangering his own life or career, like how Stanley Kubrick tried to warn people about the satanic elite (i.e. the liberal jews) via his art medium (movies, instead of books). But he was waaaay too obvious about it and got himself killed.

>>14653739
Tolkien hated gay allegories like this

>>14653967
How does it feel to know your greatest literary "ally" would spit in your face?

>>14654006
yea, he disliked allegory and preferred history.
and his LotR/Silmarillion history matches up with Earth history.

Arnor matches up with Western Roman Empire. The destruction of Arnor into three kingdoms (Arthedain, Rhudaur, Cardolan) matches up with the collapse of the WRE into smaller kingdoms.
Gondor matches up with Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine). Gondor didn't break up, though it's territories did diminish, just like ERE didn't collapse until much later (unlike in LotR, the real life version of Gondor was defeated by Mordor)

Tolkien was a smart man, well read in mythology and philosophy, he prolly knew all about liberal/satanic Jews and their pedo talmudic cult.

>>14654026
how does it feel to know that you're not Tolkien, and don't get to make that decision about who he agrees or disagrees with?
does it make you mad?

>>14654045
That's one hell of an ironic post.

>>14654040
for example, the Haradrim didn't call Sauron "Sauron", they called him Zigur. As in, Ziggurat. Like the Babylonian ziggurat temples. As in the place where the Talmud originated.
Just like the liberal jews sacrifice humans to their demonic god (moloch, ba'al, etc.), so too did Sauron sacrifice humans to Melkor (both in Numenor and in Mordor, Tolkien wrote about how the orcs were actually *extremely* religious in their worship of Melkor, though it was out of fear, not love).
"Sauron" was actually a nickname that the Elves came up with for him, and which he hated being called "it basically meant "stinky wind" since he smelled bad. Being evil does that to ainur apparently.

>>14654040
>admits he disliked allegory and preferred history
>immediately goes on to claim historical allegories are present in his work
wew

>>14654067
not really. You're the one that tried to silence me by pretending to be Tolkien. It wasn't me that tried to silence you.
So, actually, the irony is that you think it's okay for YOU to tell people how Tolkien thought but that it's not okay for anyone else to.
I'm totally okay with you disagreeing with my theory. I'm even okay with the fact that you disagree but don't really have much of an argument as to "why", except for that one letter of his that "praises Jews". (That's not much of an argument btw, but i admit it's at least something)
but stop pretending to be Tolkien :)

>>14654086
>historical allegories
looks like someone doesn't understand the meaning of allegory. (and on a /lit/ forum no less, LOL)

Allegory: a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

If Tolkien hated allegory, then that means LotR/Silmarillion IS HISTORY. It's not "middle earth", it's Earth. Europe area to be exact.

>>14654070
>for example, the Haradrim didn't call Sauron "Sauron", they called him Zigur. As in, Ziggurat. Like the Babylonian ziggurat temples. As in the place where the Talmud originated
Zigur just means "wizard". Gandalf was a Zigur.

>>14654089
There's multiple instances of Tolkein professing dislike for Nazi ideology and very little supporting any anti-Jewish opinions.

>>14654089
>one letter
He also says the Dwarves have many similarities with Jews, and Dwarves aren't exactly negatively portrayed. And he was willing to forgo publication in Germany if it meant not having to deal with Nazis and their racist policies.

>>14654102
Re-read his introduction to LOTR. The way he uses allegory is when there is a one-to-one correspondence with "real thing" and "fictional thing". Saying x IS y is exactly what he didn't like. It's ok to say x IS LIKE y, and make your own connections, but he was explicit about there not being canonical "hidden meanings".

>>14654131
>Zigur just means "Wizard"
>Tolkien, a man obsessed with language, history and mythology, just randomly made a word that looks just like a real world.
>and it's also just a coincidence that the same place that Zigur/Sauron ruled (Mordor) corresponds to the same place on Earth where actual ziggurats were built, Mesopotamia.
gee, that's a lot of coincidences, and i bet there are more.

and Gandalf wasn't called "Zigur" by the Haradrim, he was called "Incanus" by them. :)

but this is cute how little you know about the subject and yet keep talking like you do. please do continue :)

>>14654168
>He also says the Dwarves have many similarities with Jews, and Dwarves aren't exactly negatively portrayed.
lol, have you READ the books? The Dwarves are most certainly "negatively portrayed". Tolkien even specifically mentioned how some Dwarves fought for Sauron. Then there's the instance of the Dwarves destroying Menegroth and killing many of the Elves there.

Personally, i view the Dwarves more like the conservative Jew, and the Orcs like the liberal Jew. They're the same race/ethnicity, just different cultures. Even the Old Testament mentions the Jewish proclivity for abandoning the worship of God to instead worship the demon gods of the canaanites.

also, the stuff with Nazis and killing jews is a tangled web. It's well known that many Jews WORKED FOR THE NAZIS in finding other Jews. So who really knows what exactly went on there. Was it liberal Jews targeting their conservative Jew cousins? Was it the other way around?
well, we know that Soros is a liberal Jew that worked for the Nazis rounding up other Nazis, so it's more likely it was liberal jews creating anti-Jewish sentiment in the germans and then using that to round up all the conservative jews they could (and if a liberal jew got caught in the net, they could just escape through the masturbation machines or through the underground roller coaster railroad)

So yea, it's very plausible that Tolkien had no problem with ACTUAL JEWS (i.e. the conservative Jew), and was just trying to call attention to the liberal "jew", the (((Jew))), the Orc.

>>14654243
>Tolkien even specifically mentioned how some Dwarves fought for Sauron.
So were men and even elves

>>14654243
>The Dwarves are most certainly "negatively portrayed". Tolkien even specifically mentioned how some Dwarves fought for Sauron. Then there's the instance of the Dwarves destroying Menegroth and killing many of the Elves there.
I meant as a whole. Anyway, I'd like you to respond to my point here:
>Re-read his introduction to LOTR. The way he uses allegory is when there is a one-to-one correspondence with "real thing" and "fictional thing". Saying x IS y is exactly what he didn't like. It's ok to say x IS LIKE y, and make your own connections, but he was explicit about there not being canonical "hidden meanings".

*even if* Tolkein was a secret Nazi, *even if* he hated these "liberal Jews", he very clearly stated that there are no one-to-one correspondences between actual events and people and fictional ones. So saying Tolkein meant orcs to mean "bad Jews" (or any other specific group of people) is directly opposed to what he actually said.

>>14654102
>Allegory: a STORY, poem, or picture that can be INTERPRETED to reveal a HIDDEN MEANING, typically a moral or political one

So what Tolkein meant was that Sauron and the Orcs in his STORY were like (((Jews))). But of course he couldn't name the (((Jew))) so he HID this MEANING. But if we correctly INTERPRET it we can see that Tolkein was a fellow /pol/ack. But of course this HIDDEN MEANING that we INTERPRET in his STORY isn't an allegory :^)

>>14654254
Elves were the only race undivided against Sauron

>>14654254
>so were elves
lol, have you even read the books? There was ONLY one elf that ever fought for the bad guys, and that was Maeglin.
Yes, the Elves were tricked a couple times (Kinslaying, and the second kinslaying in beleriand), but that was all due to Melkor's trickery, and they weren't servants of melkor, just duped by him.
or like how Celebrimbor was tricked by Sauron (Annatar) into making the Rings. But again, he wasn't knowingly serving Sauron or Melkor, he was just tricked into making something that Sauron wanted him to make.

Elves were 100% the good guys (except for Maeglin). There were even a lot of Elven slaves that toiled away in the mines of Angband, but none of them willingly served him. But there were NO dwarven slaves, not one ever mentioned. Now isn't *that* interesting.

>>14654359
>typically a MORAL or POLITICAL one
>MORAL
>POLITICAL
i don't see any reference to a "HISTORICAL" allegory. Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Historical allegory makes no sense. Either it's historical, or it's allegorical, it's not a combination of them both. He wasn't writing allegory. This wasn't Pilgrim's Progress. He was writing history, he included plenty of clues to the observant reader. His writing it as a "fantasy", with elves and dwarves and dragons etc has little to do with allegory and more akin to what Oscar Wilde did with his Picture of Dorian Grey story. The mirror revealed the soul of Dorian Grey, even though in person he looked like a normal person. In LotR the soul of history and peoples are revealed like in the mirror, even though in real life (and in the historical documents of those histories) they all look just like normal people.

>>14651839
Upvoted :)

Lord of the Rings is stupid nerd crap. Just read the Bible instead.

>>14654433
>TYPICALLY
Look that word up.

>>14654456
tolkien quote
>“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
>I much prefer history – true or feigned
>true of feigned
>feigned
look that word up.

>>14651998
Philip "Atheism but for kids" Pullman
Philip "Narnia but gaythiest" Pullman
Philip "I sabotaged and ruined my two decent books thanks to my writing sequels" Pullman

>>14652142
that doesn't mean it created anything
its 'work' is probably just an instrument of destruction judging from how wrong everything it said was in so many ways

these things are not human, they have external husks that seem human to those without true vision, but they have no humanity and they do nothing but destroy humanity

>HE'S NOT INTERESTED IN HOW OFFICIAL COOL 100% REAL HUMAN BEINGS(TM) LIKE ME FEEL, AND THAT'S A BAD THING
>IF YOU DON'T SAY SOMETHING NEW YOU'RE WRONG AND BAD I NEED TO BE ENTERTAINED BY FLASHY STUFF
>NONE OF THESE RETARED BIASES BEAR ON THE VALIDITY OF MY JUDGEMENT IN ANY WAY

shortsighted ape

>>14651835
Tolkien is famous because he deepened and popularized a particular kind of fantasy worldbuilding. He wasn't a good writer, but that's not the point of his books.

>>14654456
you are absurdly retarded
you've been trained to be a caricature

>>14654483


>>14654483
>Tolkien is famous because he deepened and popularized a particular kind of fantasy worldbuilding.
Shame that fantasy as a result is suffering from stagnation due to taking footnotes from Tolkein without understanding the mindset behind the design of Lord of the Rings in the first place.

>>14654483
>. He wasn't a good writer
why not?

>>14652150
>LotR touches on subjects that pathetic bugmen simply cannot grasp, because they are real life Gollums. I will pray for them.
Four-eyed geek that sat back in the class detected. Give me your lunch money.

>>14654467
Ok. The relavent definition of "feign" appears to be the archaic "invent". So he likes invented history. History that is purely fiction and not based on actual events. Like Lord of the Rings.

>>14654243
what are you babbling about you bot-tier mental retard?
orcs have nothing in common with jews you stupid piece of shit
jews don't do physical work and they sure as fuck don't fight

orcs obviously have elements of no-class chewed up industrialized slaves, especially nigs which makes sense because Tolkien grew up in SA

but yeah, you're fucking retarded

>>14651839
Tarkovsky said it

>>14654508
>>14652150
he's right
All these consumerized drones are gollums obsessed with their stimulation complex to the point their souls are hopelessly shattered, all they care about is their external preciouses.
They're like hyper-gollums really, wraiths even

>>14654503
Have you ever actually read LOTR? Outside of a few standout passages, the prose is almost unreadably clunky, and his poems are amateurish. His main literary talent was in the sounds of names and foreign phrases.

>>14654495
> fantasy as a result is suffering from stagnation due to taking footnotes from Tolkein
the fantasy genre as it exists was spawned by publishers seizing the opportunity to flood the market with absolute shit to purposely disrupt Tolkien's message by contextualizing in a sea of superficial pointless escapism based on some retarded superficial attachment to 'LOL SWORDS MAGIC DRAGONS DWARVES ELVES LMFAO XD"

>>14654493
See >>14654359

Here >>14654433 claims LOTR isn't allegorical because it isn't moral/political but historical in meaning. But the definition supplied does not require a moral/political meaning. All that is required is a hidden meaning that is interpreted in the story. If LOTR is a story (it is), and it has the hidden meaning of Jews being bad (let's say it does), and you can interpret this meaning (many have), then it is an allegory, according to the definition posted. An atypical allegory perhaps, but an allegory nonetheless.

>>14654535
>unreadably clunky
yeah I'm detecting that you're illiterate and don't understand the vocabulary

>>14654521
>jews don't fight
have you never seen an antifa crowd? lol a lot of them are jews.
and historically, they fought all the dang time. It wasn't till they got their ass handed to them by the Romans that they finally gave up on using armies and switched tactics to trickery.

>orcs are blacks
>because blacks historically lived in Europe
blacks are represented by the Haradrim you low iq cretin. Just as Khand was India (there's a province in India called Khond).
What's the between Khand and Harad? The same thing between India and Africa: i.e. Mesopotamia.

>>14654550
>when you start to realize you're wrong, retreat to semantics and go into denial

>>14654558
>jews are the same as 2000 years ago before their population was supremely bottlenecked and became extremely inbred
your argument about blacks doesn't even connect with my statement let alone make sense even if we assume your interpreation

i don't know what the fuck is wrong with you
are you on ADHD meds?
i'm being serious, you are FUCKING retarded

>>14654508
>caring about money so much that you would assault someone for pocket change
Typical Gollum.

>>14654561
The definition was posted to support the idea that LOTR is not an allegory. But according to the definition LOTR is an allegory if it has a hidden message. The definition does not support it not being an allegory at all.

My claim is that if there is a hidden anti-Jewish meaning in LOTR, then it is allegorical. I think you're the one who has run out of arguments, so you've accused me of arguing "semantics," as if that proved I lost.

>>14654521
>jews don't do physical work
>the dwarves are like the jews
>dwarves don't do physical work

>>14654306
okay, "orcs are LIKE liberal jews". There. Is that better? It doesn't change anything. I realize that liberal Jews are not "literally" orcs, i'm saying they ACT like them, they are LIKE them. They worship a Melkor like entity, a Saturn like entity, a demiurgic entity that created the world (or claims to) and that wants human sacrifice.
i know all jews aren't into this, but the liberal jews sure seem to be, i mean they are FREAKING CRAZY, you can even see it just reading their twitter accounts. They lie like orcs, they behave like orcs, they hate white people (numenoreans, elves, hobbits).

>>14654592
it would only be allegorical if the author symbolized one as the other with intent to assert his judgement as true, not if they shared defining characteristics that the reader happened to interpret the same way as the author

your semantics babble is not an argument

>>14654615
inb4 "he wrote it so he is asserting its true and pressuring you to realize the symbolism in his way"

>>14654596
get off the pills tard boy

>>14653129
>Genesis lays the blame on man's disobedience.
It doesn't lay the blame on anyone in my opinion. Evil is inevitable.

Men are tricked into worshipping Melchior in the Silmarillion, but this is all part of Eru's greater design.

>>14654573
holy crap you're low iq.
you said...>>14654521
>orcs obviously have elements of no-class chewed up industrialized slaves, especially nigs
yes to the industrialized part, no to the black part. For starters, blacks aren't "industrialized", especially in Tolkien's time, so trying to make the connection there is stupid.

Orcs lived in northwestern Middle Earth. In Tolkien's time, blacks didn't, so there's no reason to suspect that Orcs are black. Jews on the other hand did live in Europe. But funny enough, you don't find orcs in Harad, only in northwestern Middle Earth and Mordor, the same areas that Jews live.
and have you ever seen a map of the Tolkien's world? Harad and Far Harad literally look like Africa.
Eriador, Gondor, Rhovanion looks like Europe tilted on its side a little. Asia looks like Asia, the Dark Lands look like Americas. It's pretty obvious that Tolkien intended for Middle Earth/Arda to be EARTH (and it's confirmed when you start to read his letters to friends and colleagues, where he outright states that it is).
In Book of Lost Tales he has Aelfwine sail in a ship FROM ENGLAND and by accident landing in Valinor (well, Tol Eressea to be exact). There the Elves taught him about the history of the Elves, i.e. LotR and Silmarillion are HISTORICAL.
Granted, his son didn't include all that in Silmarillion, but in History of Middle Earth series, which is basically all the notes and unpublished stuff Tolkien wrote, there is tons of stuff where he basically melds Earth and Middle Earth history together.

please stop being low iq, you're embarrassing this forum

>>14654642
>THE GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHICS ARE 1:1 TRUST ME
okay retard

>>14654596
Ok, I think we can bring this to a close.

In the Foreward, Tolkien says "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none."

So you can interpret it how you like, but that is not "the" interpretation and LOTR wasn't consciously composed to be anti-Jewish.

>>14654615
I guess you can be right if you can believe this:
Tolkein made his Orcs like the Jews on purpose but he explicitly didn't want that meaning to be canonical and didn't mind at all if people interpreted it totally differently. In other words Tolkien was speaking out against the Jews but didn't actually care if anyone was "redpilled" by his book.

>>14654592
>anti-Jewish
eh, maybe i'm splitting hairs here, but isn't the argument currently about liberal "jews", not sure how to term them, but the kind of jews that get mentioned in the Old Testament where they're worshiping golden calves and sacrificing their children to Moloch (and pissing off God)?
the implication here is that there are Jews that follow God, and Jews that don't, and they BOTH claim to be Jews. So you have both being ethnic jews, but only one of them are religious and ethnic at the same time.

so it's not an "anti-Jew" message, it's an anti-(((Jew))) meme. Jews who claim to be Jews, but aren't in the strictest sense.

>>14654657
>Reaching this hard

>>14654657
okay but I'm not the pillhead thats saying orcs = jews

if anything they're a prediction of what will happen if the industrialists get their way

personally i think Sauron symbolizes judaism

>>14654661
all jews are liberal. all of them.
"conservative" jews are only conservative in matters among themselves and project liberalism to all others
jews that are liberal among themselves are nothing more than a tool used by the core of the cult

>>14654670
>i'm not the pillhead that says orcs = jews
>personally i think Sauron symbolizes jews
so you're saying you're a pillhead too? lol

>>14654592
Not him, but just saying it's not a binary between 'allegory' and 'totally random events with no meaning'. There is a middle ground, Tolkien himself called it 'applicability', it is most accurately understood as his attempt at MYTHOLOGY (and not straightforward history). In mythology there can be multiple overlapping "hidden meanings", but they are of a much more psychological or archetypal flavour. Tolkien's work is utterly replete with these deeper human truths which is how it vibes so well with Christianity as well as other European mythology. My analysis is that the essayposter above has looked deep and seen some shit and much of the stuff about the Jews is based on truth but he is clumsy in articulating this in terms of Tolkien's work, as if it were deliberate symbolism. Again, archetypal mythological symbolism is absolutely rife in LOTR at multiple levels, but it doesn't reach the point of calling out specific (((tribes))) in the real world. That so many specifics CAN be derived from the work indicates how deep down into our roots Tolkien was able to reach.

>>14654674
>all jews are liberal, all of them.
meh, i admit, my knowledge of the or---i mean, of the jews is extremely limited. I can recognize that the Hollywood type and the type that vote Democrat and bitch about Trump all day erry day on twitter and such are definitely orc-like (or Sauron/Saruman-like, if that works better). But i just assumed there had to be SOME that aren't completely bad. I mean, even Jews were helping the Nazis. So even if you think Nazis were good, then that means that some jews were good for helping them. If you think Nazis were bad, then that means that many jews that were put in camps weren't bad, that it was mainly the ones working with the nazis that were bad.

but another point is that if "all jews are bad" is true, then that's even more evidence that Tolkien probably *was* talking about them in the books and just didn't want to make it too obvious. Remember, Tolkien, though orphaned early in life, still was raised by the elite and went to the elite schools. He had access not just to books (where he could have learned all this), but also to PEOPLE who more than likely consorted with Jews (because the elite always consort with Jews, historically).

>>14654683
>My analysis is that the essayposter above
lol, yea, sorry it's so long, it was a journal entry, so it rambles as i'm trying to make sure i explain things thoroughly to myself (as well as others).
> but he is clumsy in articulating this in terms of Tolkien's work
most likely true as well, it's not an essay i wrote up for a class or intended to be published. It was just an idea that struck me one day and i had to get it written down at least in some fashion.
i do like what you said about the mythological archetypes and stuff, but i'm still 100% sure that Tolkien was incorporating actual historical events (even mythological events) into his books. Like the Zigur/ziggurat thing. Ziggurats were pyramidal temples in Babylonia. The Babylonians practiced human sacrifice. Tolkien wrote that Sauron and the Orcs practiced it. (At one time, Sauron even tricked the Numenoreans into sacrificing to Melkor, and what did the Numenoreans build in their capital city? A giant ziggurat temple, at the top of which they sacrificed human captives that they procured from Harad, Dark Lands, Khand and elsewhere).

>>14653129
In Christianity, creation falls from the very beginning through Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven. Melkor is probably Satan in Tolkien’s personal narration (not allegory) of history and cosmology.

>>14652981
LOTR is great because it's written by an linguistics professor Anglo in the Anglo language for other Anglos.

>>14654709
> Like the Zigur/ziggurat thing. Ziggurats were pyramidal temples in Babylonia. The Babylonians practiced human sacrifice. Tolkien wrote that Sauron and the Orcs practiced it.
that's kind of interesting, but it doesn't really help your Jew argument. The Babylonians enslaved the Jews, and the Jews were also the ones to stop human sacrifice while their neighbors were practicing it.

>>14652981
God gifted Anglos with superior literary ability so they could create the definitive version of the Bible.

>>14654709
Don't you think it would be more incredible to learn that Tolkien explicitly did not intend to draw these specific parallels (or even somehow didn't know about them, although that's unrealistic) and yet there they are in his work anyway! Wouldn't that feel even more like the Truth to someone like yourself? I know it does for me.
It is good to express your deepest musings by typing out and sharing, it helps them become clearer. Good luck

>>14654723
>but it doesn't really help your Jew argument.
you're conflating Jews with "Jews". The Jews have never been a unanimous cultural and religious body. Even before the Captivity, the Jewish people were divided into two nations.
the Old Testament frequently mentions that many of the Jews (actually i think it was the MAJORITY of the Jews) stopped worshiping God and instead worshiped the human sacrificing "gods" of their Canaanite neighbors.
Also, the Talmud was composed in the area formerly known as Babylonia (not during the Captivity, though that is most likely where they learned what later became known as Jewish Kaballah, which is a misnomer, it's just old Babylonian/Egyptian teachings with a Jewish gloss.
Most Jews practice the Talmud and Kaballah, only a small segment practice the Torah exclusively (Torah is the Old Testament).

So when you say "the jews were also the ones to stop human sacrifice", you're kinda right but also really wrong. The Jews were maybe the first to stop human sacrifice, but a LOT of them went right back to it. It's safe to say that it's been going on ever since. That's why you see so many Jews (more likely the liberal jews) that are into the pizzagate stuff, and themselves need therapy because they were diddled as kids themselves, and then they perpetuate it themselves (or allow others to diddle their own kids). It kinda reminds me of the story about how Melkor "tortured elves into becoming orcs". Even if you stick with the story about "orcs being elves", the method he used probably involved forcing them to do horrible things like murdering innocents, raping babies, cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc. (all things Tolkien wrote that the Orcs did)

>>14651835
>Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other.
>He's interested in languages

Remarkable how retarded this is

>>14654743
nah, at one point early on i might have thought it was all accidental on his part, but the coincidences are just too many at this point, and i still keep learning more as i reread the History of Middle Earth books.
while i do think synchronicities are real, his writing seems more deliberate and intentional, especially given his knowledge of mythology and ancient cultures.

>>14654713
What about this part?
>He saw that it was good.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Christian interpretation is Eden *was* perfect and sin-free. Lucifer/the serpent tempted man, but his mere presence in the garden wasn't enough to bring man into a fallen state. Man had to give in to temptation.

Whereas Iluvatar said "let these things be" he was creating the flaws as well.

>>14654768
*when Iluvatar said

>>14651835
>Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes.
Wow, just like real grownups, Philip.

>>14654768
Iluvatar allowed the creation of Ea, even knowing beforehand that Melkor was going to flaw it, and said that in the end all things would work towards the good, because "I am Iluvatar, and what i say goes" pretty much.

Just like God created the world (or allowed the world to be created) knowing that Satan was going to flaw it, but also knowing that in the end all things work towards God's good will.

>>14654767
So was he lying when he said there were no hidden meanings in his books?

>REEEE the jeeeeeewwsssssss its the JEEEEEEEWS they're coming after me gooood please help me the juuuuuws noooo the jeeeeeeeews they are eveyrwhere pleeeeeeeeeease somebody help me daaa jooooows are keeping me dooown please help me the evil JEWS are coming for meeeeee noooooooooooooo

>>14654779
Yeah I know God/yahweh's omniscient nature plays a role, but still I think the Christian interpretation puts too much into the disobedience of man being the reason for the world being (perhaps only seemingly) flawed.

>>14654780
>hidden meanings
"hidden" to people unfamiliar with history or mythology maybe.
I think people have too vague an understanding of allegory, and use it inappropriately. For me, allegory is like those masonic or occultic pictures, the ones that don't look like normal artwork (pic related). In artwork of this type, you're not seeing historical events. The birds don't represent literal birds, the pillars don't represent literal pillars, same with the tree, the eye, etc. THAT is what allegory means when they say "hidden meaning". It's hidden and the only way it makes sense is if you have the "key". And in this case, the "key" is verbally transmitted by other members of the club.
LotR isn't written like that. Elves, orcs and dragons don't have a hidden meaning that you have to join a secret society to learn precisely what that meaning is. You just have to read publicly available books, history books, mythology books, religious books, etc. It's not hidden. It might be unknown to ignorant people that don't like to read, but it's not deliberately obscured behind esoteric babble that only 32nd degree cult masters understand.

>>14654780
(Not him). He didn't say that, he said the story was not an allegory- ie that the ring was nuclear power or something. Of course the book is FULL of 'hidden meanings'. Tolkien went deep into language mythology and religion. Here is one example but let's not make this a tangent: Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn all symbolise on some level aspects of the Christ or saviour archetype, and each character goes through a form of death/rebirth. Ok, so this doesn't mean that the story is an allegory for Christianity (as with CS Lewis), but rather that Tolkien's work encompasses some of the same profound psychological truths as are found in the NT. There are MANY MANY other similar examples of stuff like this. I don't fully buy into OP's Jew narrative but I would like to come to his defence here against claims that there are 'no hidden meanings' in Tolkien, nothing could be further from the truth.

>>14654777
Lmao good one

>>14654804
Man, 'hidden meaning', where the 'key' to unlocking it is embedded in our cultural landscape is precisely how I would define 'Mythology'. I do think you're broadly on the right track.

>>14654804
Animal Farm is allegorical and has "hidden meanings" on the same level that some people are arguing ITT for.

>If more of us valued food and cheer and song above shitposting, it would be a merrier website. But, sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell.

>>14651835
>>14651839
and that man was Albert Einstein

>>14654829
This is a direct quote:
>As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none.
The rest of your post is fine though. archetypal != allegorical. Sauron and the Orcs are archetypally evil so if you see the Jews as evil then obviously you'll start to see connections.

>>14654878
That actor's beard length is a disgrace to Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror.

>>14654896
Tolkien was referring to the book taken as a whole. That is, responding to claims that the story itself represents X Y or Z. But it is absolutely full of multiple overlapping inner meanings. We can still discuss what LOTR might be 'about' if we keep things suitably abstract so it doesn't encroach on 'allegory'. For example, many have said that the book is broadly 'about' death and loss. Similarly, we can also see the influence of his experiences on the western front 1916 in his descriptions of the dead marshes, or the wasteland around Mordor, again without this being accused of being 'allegory'.

>>14652065
Based

>>14654878
If I remember correctly "Farewell" in the book is denoted with an extremely inappropriate exclamation point.

>>14654768
>the Christian interpretation is Eden *was* perfect and sin-free
>Lucifer is literally just hanging out there
bro

>>14651835
>the LOTR one volume edition is not available on kindle store
why bother

>>14651998
Phillip Pullman's latest book literally has the protaganist of His Dark Materials fall in love with a creepy pedophilic self-insert of the author, and Pullman sees nothing wrong with this.

>>14654467
True or feigned means he likes real history and the myths that were presented as history in the past. For example the finish legends that inspired Sigfrieds parents to have incestuous intercourse in die Valkyrie and between Turin and his sister in Children of Huron

>>14654535
>prose is clunky

Yikes senpai, you are entitled to your opinion but I found it exemplary and poetic in a rarely seen way

>>14651835
>grownup, adult human beings

People who use this kind of language and its cousin speak, "adult(s) in the room", are in my broad experience the most comically hypocritical: they are the most 'infantile', children of the world that clique up in the schoolyard and stand for nothing whatsoever but their own gratification.

>>14655303
Tolkien would have said that ebooks are degenerate.

Didn't he steal from the Finns?

>>14655715
>Didn't he steal from the Finns?
His elven language is influenced by Finnish. Other than that not all that much as far as I can tell.

>>14655839
NOOOOOOO YOU IDIOT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

>>14651835
only children have this insecure way of thinking about "mature" and "adult" topics since they believe there's going to be some sort of great revelation when they grow up. There's literally only one attribute that marks an adult and that is the realization that you yourself are responsible for forging your path, everything else pish posh.

>>14652150
The consoooooomers don't get their instant gratification and subsequent dopamine hit from Tolkien's literary works (maybe except for the Hobbit)

>>14654657
Guessing the people you replied to are reversed ye?

>>14655839
Aren't you vastly underestimating the Finnish influence though?

Tolkien himself said that The Kalevala "was the original germ of the Silmarillion"

>>14655442
Tell us more please.

>>14651926
Yes, so?

>>14651835
> it does not say anything interesting, or new, or truthful about the human condition”

-Phillip Pullman, Hack Fraud Atheist

“Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?”

-JRR Tolkien, Catholic

>>14655442
Nor do I.

>>14651998
Literally who

>>14652150
>posting bugmen culture pic

Umm, you guys realize Tolkien is highly problematic right?

>>14656489
All the better.

>>14655927
Given that consoomers slurp fantasy "sagas" and fanfics of absurd length, I think it is not the matter of instant gratification, but of the text requiring effort from the reader.

>>14654408

Celebrimbor wasn't tricked into doing the Three Rings. The Three are by their nature evil things, in that they go against the very nature of the creation by making the Elves next to immune to fading. Making The Three is the biggest Elvish sin there is, and it wasn't Sauron's doing.

>>14656725
eh, the Three Rings were made without the knowledge of Sauron, but it was only with the knowledge that Sauron taught to Celebrimbor that he was able to craft them in the first place.

meaning, Sauron tricked the Elves in to crafting the Rings (because the plan was all along to use the One Ring and subvert the other lesser Rings to his own).
the Rings were created as an elven attempt to create a "Valinor in Middle Earth", something that was deemed impossible by many. It was only Sauron's crafting of the One Ring that ruined it all (and Celebrimbor didn't have any idea that would happen, though Galadriel, Elrond, Cirdan and Gil-galad most likely suspected Sauron since they turned him away).

So yes, it was Sauron's doing that things turned out the way they did, no amount of revisionism is going to make Celebrimbor out to be the bad guy and Sauron out to be innocent. Sauron is the bad guy, and Celebrimbor was duped, but still a good guy.

in case you haven't noticed, a lot of the bad stuff that the good guys do is because they were duped by either Sauron or Melkor or Saruman. Even Tolkien acknowledged that evil people are really really really good at lying, and that it's something we all need to watch out for.

>>14656454
Patchouli is more /lit/ than you could dream of being.

>>14656783
I agree that Sauron was wrong in tricking the elves, but can't you see how the Elves wanting to creater Valinor in Middle-Earth and wishing to end their fading is evil in itself? It is a rebellion against creation and the natural order of things, it can be compared with Numenor attacking Valinor because they do not wish to live a mortal life.
>Sauron innocent
I never said that, don't put words in my mouth. Sauron was evil, but the making of the three rings by the elves was also a very evil act.

>>14657018
Holding onto what is good is not evil, anon; Morgoth's deliberate mockeries of life were. The elves just wished to maintain Middle-Earth as it had been, and it was certainly a fool's quest, as 'magic' was destined to fade along with any elves who did not leave for Valinor, but to call it evil is just wrong. The elves created those realms, like Rivendell and Lothlorien for themselves as was their right as sub-creators. To call that evil because it goes against some sort of plan is to promote a fanatical fatalism that clashes completely with free will.

>>14657018
>the making of the three rings by the elves was also a very evil act
and yet, the three rings were NEVER ONCE used for evil.
only the 9 and the 7 (the ones that Sauron stole) were used for evil.
the desire to create a utopia in itself is not evil, but it's impossible outside of Valinor/Heaven and it's too easy for evil people (communists, socialists, Satan, Melkor, Sauron, etc.) to use the excuse of "creating utopia" to implement bad policies.

I love how Tolkien threads always expose this board as a bunch of larping redditors. Post a thread for any great author and you're lucky to skimp a few replies. But post a Tolkien thread and it invariably gets dozens or hundreds of comments of passionate defense and lorefagging. It soon becomes clear that most of the people who browse /lit are redditors in denial, who think the height of literary beauty is a Shelley-lite Tolkien poem with Dragonforce lyrics.

>>14657075
You are incorrect, I feel. I'll quote Michael Martinez, as I don't remember the exact Tolkien quote about the rings bring the second fall of the elves after the kinslaying (it's in one of the history of middle earth books, maybe Morgoth's ring):

"Tolkien specifically described the making of the Rings of Power as a “second fall” for the Elves. They created the Rings in order to control Middle-earth, literally to turn into into an Elvish haven the way the Valar had turned Aman into a haven for themselves.

But whereas the Valar had the authority to do that the Elves did not have the authority to change the natural course of events in Middle-earth. Their actions affected other creatures. And the fact they did not know that Sauron was helping them or using did not excuse their wanting to alter the natural flow of time in Middle-earth."

>>14657172
They were always used for evil: altering the passage of time. It wasn't meant to be that Lorien and Rivendell survived as immaculate beautiful elvis realms. The elves had to by their nature fade and leave Middle-Earth to Men, and the rings made it possible for them to alter that. That is just the same as Men not being content with their fate of mortality - that is a great sin.

>>14654067
You are all engaging with a being that denies the existence of the tab key. What did you expect?

>>14651835
Without looking it up, I am willing to bet Nabokov wrote this

>>14657205
>they were always used for evil
>Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf were the bad guys that were helping Sauron
sheesh, you're bad at this.
the 3 rings, even the 7 and 9 weren't inherently evil. They were constructed with "backdoor" methods (almost similar to a computer, or any gov't agency) that allowed for hijacking.
Just like how CIA, FBI, and all other gov't agencies were originally created for good purposes (viz. the preservation of order and well-being of its citizens), but were eventually hijacked into becoming the monsters they are today that are now utilizing their power to subjugate their own people.
Tolkien was just acknowledging that systems formed with the best of intentions can still be hijacked by people with evil intentions. That doesn't make the people who created those systems (and whose motivations were good) are evil, they're just misguided and naive.
Utopia can only be achieved in Heaven/Valinor, not on Earth where the after-effects of Melkor's infusing of his essence into the fabric of Arda still lingers (original sin?).
That's why the Elves were sad about the destruction of the Ring, it's kinda depressing and fatalistic to know that you're never not gonna see evil people in this vale of tears we call Earth. The Elves put so much effort into fighting Melkor, and then Sauron, that to finally have to give up and acknowledge that Middle Earth (Earth) is Hell, and nothing will change it except Eru/God.
Even in Tolkien's version of the world, it was prophesied that Melkor would return and there would be a final great battle where he "wins", at which point Eru would end the game and put Melkor in his place (Utumno, which is, oh yea, still on Middle Earth, Middle Earth is Hell, a Hell that the Elves vainly tried to educate into being more like Heaven/Valinor).

the bodhisattvas will eventually get tired of trying to help people on, the Holy Spirit will leave this place forever and then the orcs and other leftwingers will take over completely, creating the hell they desire so much.

>>14657227
it was copy-pasted, my apologies for not formatting it better, i'll do better next time

>>14651835
Lord of the rings is one of the most important pieces of literature in human history and is a modernization of classic myth.

Whoever wrote this quote (and yes, he's probably some big name who is well respected, this doesn't change anything) is an utter moron and a tasteless pleb.

>>14657423
It was Philip Pullman.

>>14657175

>>14657464
look at this post and say I'm lying >>14657423

>>14657423
Scratch the big name who is well respected part. HDM was a big hit with atheist (see: bad) mothers like 15 years ago, nowadays he's a nobody.

>>14657513
He'll go down like GRRM, the instant that HDM series in HBO ends, nobody will give a shit about him ever again.

I also don't understand why people say that his concept of daemons and dust are so fucking revolutionary when I've seen that exact same idea in different media.

ASOIAF is good BUT the fat fuck sold out for jew cash and let his work be tainted forever by that shit tv show.

>>14653739
>>14653745
>>14653749
>>14653753
>>14653760
STOP
learn to condense you babble like a fucking retard
your mind is fucked up

>>14657846
i'm not a professional writer :P sorries

>>14657852
then stop pretending you are you stupid piece of shit you
and stop taking your adhd meds you fucking subhuman

>>14657949
>stop pretending you are?
where did i pretend to be a writer? or say that i was?

>>14656305
The Kalevala is a modern LARP created from Norse and Greek mythology. It's used to establish a mythology for the elves, and its parallels are intentional. The mythology of the hobbits is taken directly from English mythology, would you say he stole that as well? Extremely ignorant post, maybe actually read his books.

>>14657175
Tolkien is a gateway drug into classicism and historical theology. If I had not read his books as a kid I never would have become a /lit/ pseud.

>>14657624
>ASOIAF is good
no it isnt

>>14651835
> Tolkien is not interested in the way postmodern NPC's stumble through life

Martin has no conception of heroism because he's a fat mediocrity.

>>14658728
Martin never said that

>>14657852
>:P sorries
Post thighs

>>14658981

>>14651926
Oh Got'eeeeeem

>LoTR isn't about muh gender queer inter-sectional feminsim marxism
must be shit

Currently reading this. Feels pretty kino because of the whole divide between male and female magic. I know that if it ever gets adapted into a Netflix series or something, then they'd probably make the Dragon a transgender black woman who can touch both sides of the one power.

>>14654070
How do Ziggurats connect to the Talmud? They’re a temple structure used by the ancient Mesopotamian empires that predate Christianity and the Talmud. Why would Tolkien refer to a structure used by the Babylonians and Sumerians to reference the Israelites?

>>14651998
They're literally cringe atheism

>>14659276
Joke's on you, it's being made by Amazon.
>>14651835
Imagine being that jaded and self absorbed. I've met too many people, offline and online, who believe anything written after Dostoevsky died is worthless.
Fuck it, i just came up with a name for them. Literary Fukuyamaists.
>>14651926
Martin respects LOTR, and only ever harps about Gandalf coming back to life because he's an atheist. And that's probably why he likes to kill characters.

>>14654784
Half of that is because if you tell anyone that hey only bear half the blame they’ll immediately shift all the responsibility to someone else.

>>14659358
>Being made by Dark friends
Ouch. Can't wait for Matt to be gay, Perren to be trans, Lan to be in a wheel chair, Morraine to be half jewish and Bealezamon to be some shitty Trump allusion. It's a rough magic system to insert muh 2020 gender theory.

>>14654804
>>14654829
>>14654850
There is no hidden meaning. No need for extra cultural knowledge. No need to even know about the bible. When something appears Tolkien describes it, its beauty, its ugliness, its sins, and its virtues. The dragon is strong, greedy, oppressive, but dormant. The ring is sinister, conniving, corrupting, but powerless on its own. Orcs, elves, dwarves, and hobbits are all described, and their place in the world explained. Nothing is hidden. If you see orcs as an allegory for Jews it isn’t because Tolkien hid that association in his text, it’s because you read the plain description and characterisation of orcs, and YOU thought Jews fit that description.
Tolkien isn’t referencing the birthplace of the Talmud, or Masonic symbols, he’s simply describing the characters in his story, you’re inserting the rest to make the book support your worldview.

>>14659245
Have you never had chicken thighs you retard?

>>14659347
because the Talmud is the cultural inheritor of the Babylonian "mystery schools", precursors of which are seen during the Captivity, after they returned to Israel, and only compiled into written form after their failed rebellion under their martial messiah (Bar-Kokhba).
Yes, the kingdoms of the Sumerians, Chaldeans, Babylonians etc were destroyed, but the religions and cultures didn't just vanish as well. "Jewish" Kabalah is not "Jewish" in origin, it predates the Jews.

>>14659358
But Martin still brings people back to life

>>14659499

>>14652168
>Literally who Rousseauist
l o l
Reminds me of moorcock. I'm not sure if Moorcock is a glass half full type like Rousseau but I get a laugh out of how Moorcock's only real enduring presence is by osmosis from Warhammer taking and perverting his chaos/order concept. He's never listed with Tolkien and Robert E Howard.

It all just resembles the bitter bleating of people angry they don't have the gravitas their target does. It's basically 4chan posting with pompousness instead of anonymity.

>>14659358
>Fukuyamaists

Speak not the name of satan, anon.

>>14652150
Based
>>14654508
*pushes you over because I'm bigger*

>>14659535
Maybe, but referencing ziggurats has a tiny connection to a Jewish reaction to Christianity, and a big connection to Old Testament paganism. Shouldn’t the Tower of Babel come to mind upon hearing ziggurat before the Talmud?

>>14659774
>Old Testament paganism
the idea is that Talmudism IS Old Testament paganism with a veneer of Judaism.

>>14657396
Again putting things in my mouth. Never said Elrond etc. were helping Sauron.

Tolkien himself described what I mean in his letter from 1951 (to Milton Waldman, you will find it online). I trust his canon, not your wild interpretation.

"The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when 'slain', but returning – and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to 'fade' as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed.

We learn that the Exiled Elves were, if not commanded, at least sternly counselled to return into the West, and there be at peace. They were not to dwell permanently in Valinor again, but in the Lonely Isle of Eressea within sight of the Blessed Realm.

In the first we see a kind of a second fall for the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of 'The West', and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading', the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them.

The view is taken (as clearly reappears later in the case of the Hobbits that have the Ring for a while) that each 'Kind' has a natural span, integral to its biological and spiritual nature. This cannot really be increased qualitatively or quantitatively; so that prolongation in time is like stretching a wire out ever tauter, or 'spreading butter ever thinner' – it becomes an intolerable torment."

Of course Sauron is to blame somewhat, but it is the Elves themselves that wanted to change the natural order of things, who would not in their pride want humans to rule in ME.

>>14651835
>Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other.
>He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes."
Human beings interact with each other through the use of maps, plans, languages, and codes

>>14660294
>There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel,
>the Elves are evil
>way more so than Sauron, who is only somewhat to blame
bwhahaaha

>>14653129
Man's disobedience is what allowed the corruption of the world from its creation. Satan's fall only affected humanity and the world through our bowing to him. Even if Tolkien's creation has a majestic aesthetic of the origin of pride, the religious telling requires the human focus on our bowing to it. It's not the song of the ainur that represents the fall from eden, but Feanor's pride, and the secondary role that has in Tolkien's story is only aesthetically workable because the mythic scale of the silmarillion is passed away from human agency.
>>14654629
I get that a magi giving the head of the church the gift of gold has a bit of negative symbolism, but that's not really what the nativity means with it.

>>14660409
>reading only the first sentence in the paragraph and not the BUT that came after it
I also never said that the Elves are more evil than Sauron, only that Sauron cannot only be blamed for the evil that was creating the Three. The elves wanted to make them, and their intentions were against Eru's design and thus evil. There is nothing wrong with this.

>>14660506
>sauron can't be blamed for creating the Three
Sauron is the one that taught how to create Rings in the first place. So... yes he can be blamed.
he can also be blamed for subverting the purpose of the Rings (the 7 and 9, anyways, the 3 were never used for evil).
the elves created the 3, 7 and the 9. Only Sauron created the 1. Yet, you go on about "the evil 3", and completely ignore the 7 and 9, and are completely unaware that the rings weren't inherently evil, it was Sauron that used them for evil.

lord of the rings is just harry potter for people who outgrew harry potter

>>14653129
>>I'm sure it does but still. In Tolkien, the world is flawed from the moment it's created. Genesis lays the blame on man's disobedience.
I don't know what's more lacking, your reading of Tolkien or of the Bible. Eden is perfect, but it's literally a fenced in utopia, there is a world outside it which humanity are condemned to inhabit as punishment for the Fall. This parallels what happens in Valinor and the Flight of the Noldor.

this thread is fucking garbage
why do these hyperstimulated drugged out zoomers come here to type their nonsense?

>>14660710
you are absolutely fucking braindead
i'm pretty sure it even says in LotR that the elves taught him

seriously, why are you here, fucking kill yourself, you read like a meth head

>>14660715
comments like this are for insane subhuman husks that are desperately trying to delude themselves that they're human

>>14654783
this but unironically

>>14656383
There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!
There’s no knowing where they’re rowing,
Or which way they river’s flowing!
Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing…

>>14660809
It was bait thread from the beginning

>>14660812
>i'm pretty sure it even says in LotR that the elves taught him
well, sorry to break it to you, but Sauron was the one that taught the Elves the art of making the Rings of Power.
read up on "Annatar", it was the name Sauron went by during the Second Age, which is when the Rings were made. Sauron, being originally an Ainu in the service of Aule, was extremely knowledgeable in the crafting of things, same with the Noldor and the Dwarves (who were also students of Aule). Celebrimbor and the Elves of Ost-in-Edhil were Noldorin Elves, and thus more tempted by Annatar's gifts and teachings (whereas the Elves of Grey Havens, who turned him away, we intermixed with Sindarin and Laiquendi, and thus less interested in such things).
First the 9 were made, then the 7. Sauron was there in Ost-in-Edhil when these were made. Then Celebrimbor made the 3 completely on his own, without Sauron's knowledge. But when Sauron soon after crafted the One Ring in Mordor, he apparently could control the 3 too since the wearers of the 3 (Celebrimbor himself, or if he'd already by that time given the 3 away to Gil-galad and Galadriel, then those two) sensed Sauron's evil intentions and stopped wearing and using the Rings. Which pissed off Sauron, who then went to war and destroyed Ost-in-Edhil, taking the 7 and the 9, and tried to find the whereabouts of the 3 but Celebrimbor never told him.

for someone who knows so little about LotR, and probably gets his info from the video game version (which, btw, isn't the same as the books), you sure talk a lot of trash :)

Protecting LOTR against criticism of this nature is clear evidence that you haven't read enough. LOTR is so widely loved because the wider community are of average intelligence and capacity. Harry Potter for "sophisticated" white men who never quite made it into a university.

>>14661000
no matter what you say it will never do you any good

>>14661000
My Dad loves LoTR and he has a master’s degree. LoTR was published in the 1950s and has been loved by generations of readers from all income and education levels. And lots of people like Harry Potter too. Sorry that whatever community you belong to doesn’t have a shared literature. Harry Potter is a derivative work with an even more midwit fanbase. Tolkien made a unique book that came organically from his personality and worldview. It still stands out as special. Rowling’s is obv just genre pabulum that can only be the reading equivalent of a suger-high and is already lasting less than LoTR. And as for appealing across culture- why don’t some ESL /lit/ posters chime in? I doubt you have much exposure to the world outside the shelter of the culture you were born into. Let’s put it to the test. International /lit/- which is more respected in your view: Tolkien or HP?

>>14651926
Really? Only makes it worse, since SoIaF is the worst thing to happen to fantasy in decades.

>>14661681
No that's Philip Pullman speaking dumbass

>>14661685
Ah, right. Haven´t read his books actually.

Redeems Martin a bit, but his books are still...not good.

>>14651835
>He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes
And you're not? Cringe.

>>14654878
Based.
>>14657175
Most Tolkien threads are empty and remain so until they get archived. Nothing to do with the works themselves it's just that they're old and very mainstream so they have been dissected and discussed to an incredible extent even when the internet was just in it's infancy. You know well this thread gained traction only because OP started with an empty contemporary critique of a classic, and that's actually so low it might as well be Reddit, though it happens rather often sadly.
You do sound like a Redditor to be honest.

For me, it's The Last Ringbearer.

>>14654433
So, according to you Tolkien thought that someone in history unironicly did something for the evilulz?

>>14652150
All this goes out of the window when you introduce someone who is just bad guy.
>>14655105
Lucifer is a retcon.
>>14655303
>being a buypig

I havent read anything from tolkien and I dont think I will mainly bc the sheer amounts of fantasy elements and all of the rabid fans just scream young adult literature to me and theres no way Im touching that

>>14662947
>Tolkien
>young adult
What the fuck?

>>14662105
i think Tolkien believed some sorta cosmic battle between God and Satan, that he actually believed in the beliefs (at some level) of his religion, and that LotR is a reflection of that.
That all of culture, throughout all time periods, can essentially be distilled into two categories: those that engage in human sacrifice, and those that don't.
Tolkien devoted a lot of time into explaining the practice of human sacrifice within the framework of Arda. All human sacrifice were evil, there was no equivocation on that. Manwe, Ulmo, Varda, Mandos, etc. never demanded human sacrifice, either for themselves or in "honor" of Eru. It was only Melkor that demanded that (and Sauron, who continued the practice after Melkor was banished into outerspace/Kuma).
Tolkien obviously was well aware of the practice of human sacrifice so prevalent in pagan cultures. Tolkien obviously disapproved of it. He wrote that the humans, when first they awoke in Hildorien (in the far east of Middle Earth) were corrupted by Melkor, and that they lost their immortality. That humans were originally immortal, or at least long-lived, like the Elves, and that they lost that when they were tricked by Melkor into practicing human sacrifice, cannibalism, and ritual rape and sex orgies. These are ARE practices that take place in pagan religions throughout the world.

There's a large segment on 4chan that likes to promote paganism as being superior to Christianity, but Tolkien would definitely disagree with that. The Valar and the Ainur in general were not the pagan gods, in his view, they were angels of God. There is only one true God, just as there is only one Eru in Tolkien's work. Eru is unique, the Ainur are not Eru, even though Melkor thinks he has a shot at overthrowing him.

>>14663345
Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, is grounded on a certain human sacrifice.

>>14663423
a symbolic sacrifice. Not a real one. Even Christians acknowledge that Christ is the "perfect sacrifice", and that the practice of human sacrifice no longer needs to continue. it still goes on in pagan cults that were never stamped out, but that's besides the point. The point is Christianity is the equivalent of worshiping Eru, who doesn't require human sacrifice. Only Melkor/Satan does.

>>14663456
>a symbolic sacrifice. Not a real one
Saying that'd get you burned at the stake back in the day.

>>14658001
Yes it is

>>14663423
no, it's grounded on the idea of the sacrifice of a God, the idea that one sacrifice of a God is worth more than the sacrifice of a human.
It was God's way of ending human sacrifice, something He never wanted and which He repeatedly berated the Jews for succumbing to.
Tolkien wrote how Melkor tricked humans into separating their link to the Holy Spirit of Eru (originally, they could speak to Eru in their thoughts, but that link was broken when Melkor convinced them to engage in pagan practices that were common among all cultures of Earth, Semitic, European, India, China, Americas, Africa, even Australia and the numerous islands. Christianity is unique in that it ended those practices, and instead made them symbolic.
A symbolic sacrifice is vastly different from an actual sacrifice, especially to the victim.
God wanted the physical act of sacrifice itself to end. The symbolic act is to remember that he allowed His Son (i.e. Himself) to be sacrificed. It's about convincing the people that keep thinking they need to perform such disgusting acts. They've been tricked into thinking it's necessary, just like Melkor tricked the humans into thinking it was necessary.
In the stories, eventually some of the humans escaped that demonic culture (the Edain).by traveling west to Beleriand, similar to how Abraham traveled west to escape the Babylonian culture of demon-worship.

>>14652065
based

>>14651911
This

>>14663345
What about slavery? What is it, if not prolonged sacrifice.

>>14665889
Tolkien wrote about slavery too, is that what you're asking? Melkor had slaves, most of them were Elves forced to work in the mines. Not sure about human slaves (i think they just killed and ate them).
Sauron had slaves, humans that worked the farms in Nurn (southern Mordor).
Numenoreans also began acquiring slaves in the latter days of their history, but i think they were just used for human sacrifice, not sure if used for manual labor.
It's fair to assume that Tolkien didn't view slavery favorably. Neither does the Bible. Slavery existed but the Bible is more about trying to get people to treat their slaves better. It's not condoning slavery, but the culture in that time was PAGAN, and pagans are Melkor worshipers, and the Bible is about reforming Melkorian society.
interestingly, there's a letter or footnote somewhere where Tolkien said that we're all basically Orcs, culturally or something.

>>14666208
I meant to say that no society is somehow "good". Of cource, some societal orders fuck up extra hard, but to name something "good" or "evil" would be a lie.

>>14651998
What the fuck does Pullman think his YA trash says about the human condition that is novel or interesting?

Im horny for hobbit pussy

>>14651881
That's a common-ish saying in England, as the fandom in strong here.

>>14667401
i've never heard anybody say that in my life you larping poofter

>>14651998
>his novels are modern classics
Yikes with with a capital 'WTF'.

>>14651835
>He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes
Unironically more interesting than juvenile and feminine social nonsense

>>14653739
this is like when you've been on the toilet for too long and you start making up stories to keep you occupied and you finally realize just how full of shit you really are and will be until the end of time

>>14667554
>you've been on the toilet for too long
>you finally realize just how full of shit you really are and will be until the end of time
So you're constipated?

>>14667554
that's quite a rebuttal, so very well thought out.

>>14667424
they're YA classics. Certainly better than Hunger Games or HP.

>>14653739
>..Dwarves were created by Aule. (pronounced Owl)
It's ow-lay. opinions discarded.

>>14668704
ackshually, it's owl-eh, not owl-ay. You're putting too much into the e at the end. It's not to be pronounced like "day", but like "bed". Owl-eh.
which sounds basically the same as Owl.

>>14654197
Calm down sweaty

>>14669503
>i never read the books, i just played Shadow of Mordor and have watched the movies
>i'm an authority on Tolkien's works.

>>14651839
Nothing can be created. Things can only be discovered or forgotten (such as this post)
>>14651835
Tolkien is trash

>>14651881
...and then they made a good film adaptation.

>>14671250
when?

>>14671250
no they didn't lol
no tom bombadil = shit adaptation.

>>14662198
>someone who is just bad guy.
whom