/lit/ - Literature

No.

Yes

Maybe

Can you repeat the question?

Yano.

>monarchy is treated as self-evident
>peasants get conscripted by force and are used as meat shields
>"you're a daughter of kings you're not going to jail"
>enemy is treated as non human
>war crimes

it promotes racism and intolerance

It seems like it promotes monarchy and the devine right of kings except for the the hobbits who seem to have some sort of an-cap syndicate autonomous collective kind of deal

>>5550114
>>5550095
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy."

Fascisms are of different sorts. What unites them is a basic reflex: capitalism without capitalism. Fascism wants to preserve the basic relations of capitalism, but simultaneously to take away capitalism's ideological and economic features, which bring individualism, disequilibrium, and so forth. The ideal of fascism is to have capitalism, in the sense of private ownership and relations of capital and labor, but capitalism that is liberated from all of its excesses: no class struggle, but rather cooperation between classes; no spiritless money, but rather patriarchal relations in which the capitalist is not a spiritless exploiter, but one who looks after the workers in a patriarchal and fatherly manner. Simultaneously, fascism conserves everything that capitalism in its own conception imperils: the nation as a uniform national group, as opposed to a concurrence of uniform wills. To preserve the best from both capitalism and socialism is, according to fascism itself, something good; however, the trap comes here. Fascism's goal is organic cooperation. Because this goal is impossible to reach, it is necessary to posit an enemy, onto whom the reason for the difficulty can be projected. Fascism is fond of corporeal metaphors for labor and capital, like "head" and "hand"; it likes to speak of society as an organism in which one social stratum is the head and another is the hand. Because fascism does not work and because the reason for its difficulties cannot lie in the antagonistic relations between head and hand, between capital and labor, the cause of the social disequilibrium is projected onto some cancerous formation, some external enemy. These are the Jews or another foreign people.

>>5550106
The orks weren't bad by nature I suppose. I bet you could raise orks to be decent citizens when you get them out of modor at a young age.

>>5550119
Not to meme on you, but
>Who are you quoting?

>>5550136
Tolkien.

>>5550135
There was a Russian author who wrote a book from an orcs prospective where the army of men was encroaching on their way of life

Haven't read it yet

>>5550147
I would like to read it but apparently there isn't a proper translation that isn't even available besides a html page.

There's an essay called "Orc: monstrosity as praxis" that deals with this subject pretty thoroughly.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/bdgd1914zr4q1h5/orc.pdf

>>5550135
Turning orcs into "decent citizens" through forced education sounds a lot like the missionary schools that destroyed indigenous cultures throughout the world, i.e. a clearly authoritarian gesture.

>>5550147
Which book do you mean? Sounds cool.

Theres also these books http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcs:_First_Blood

They do have some readers. Apparantly youll find out how orcs fuck in that book, too. Gotta be sweet.

>>5550114
The hobbits were more like the quaint English countryside folk who were too busy with their self-absorbed idyllic charm to really take part in politics.

>>5550180
Do you think the enlightenment movement has been authoritarian?

>>5550172
Thanks for the link. To be honest Tolkien seems like a bit of a cunt sometimes. I expected him to some elderly gentleman/scholar. Hm.

Why people associate orcs with black people? It's clear that their inspiration were the Hunnic hordes that appear in Medieval Germanic poetry. The inspiration for the Battle of Pelennor Fields was the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, not some fantastic racist utopia about removing brown people.

>>5550068
It promotes traditionalism up front and, on the periphery, promotes fascism (which is how traditionalism usually plays out).

>>5550276
Orcs don't represent a race, they represent humanity (and elf-kind) remade by industrialism, which is created and spread by the scion (Sauron) of cosmic evil (Morgoth). The Easterlings, however, are an ambiguous, amalgamated non-European people that followed the orcs and worship Sauron. They are Tokien's Huns, Mongols, Arabs, Japanese, Black Africans, etc.

>>5550147
It's fucking awful. Don't read it.

Fascism can work with a good leader e.g. Aragon but they can easily be corrupted and turned to evil e.g. Wormtongue. Democracy is better for everyone

>>5550383
>Democracy is better for everyone

>>5550391
:^)

>>5550383
It's impossible for a modern people of more than 20 in population to exist in a society that seeks nothing but constant warfare and extreme homogenization in culture and genes based on unscientific racial categories.

Tolkien was vehemently anti-fascism

>>5550068
No but for some reason it entices a lot of right wing people, from fascists to nordic black metal artists who stab their acquaintances and post weird articles about orcs being vikings from prison.
he wrote some interesting stuff on that and other matters, it should be on the site

>>5550422
When is Varg's RPG coming out

>>5550460
Holy shit I knew nothing about this.
He better not fuck it up.

>>5550068
btw that cover is sweet, is it one of alan lee's illustrations or something else entirely?

>>5550084
YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME NOW !
YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME NOW !
YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME NOW !
AND YOU'RE NOT SO BIG !!!

But, simply put: no.

>>5550135
The ork are pretty much a species born from corruption. Picture them as the product of genetic experiments, entirely designed for war and looting.

That's the closest Tolkien got to explaining the origins of the Orcs, he wasn't completely satisfied with the solution though.

>>5550241
Amerifrat gonna framericat.

>>5550183
I read this essay, and while I am not going to directly address the author's point, I am going to briefly rail against the concept of patriarchy as a concrete enemy.

The problem with modern feminism is not that it identifies a problem--the obvious difficulties faced by women and other group--but that it completely fails to acknowledge the fact that there is no PERSONAL oppressor out there, and where there is they are not aware of it. The real oppressor in the world today is an impersonal system that none of us controls and that we are all unconsciously party to, even cis white males. Nobody is a winner, and feminists only aggravate the problem and weaken their cause by demonizing men as the "patriarchy," as if all men are part of a secretive back-room conspiracy that started in the hospital nursery:

"Hehe guys ain't it great that we're men and we'll be able to oppress all these WHORE babies when we're older? Hehe!"

It just makes me dubious of otherwise rational points and causes me to doubt the legitimacy and helpfulness of their movement at all.

>>5550383
But Aragorn is a hereditary divine right monarchistic leader.

Lord of the Rings was Tolkien having massive autism.

>>5550569
But some feminists do see patriarchy as a grand impersonal system that men and women are unconsciously party to kinda like racism. Because it has no "leaders" to overthrow it is far harder to get rid of than something like a king.

>>5550569
>patriarchy
thanks for posting this, I was gonna read it but you saved me quite some time.

It's pretty racist that people think orcs are an analog for black people just because there are no black humans in this medieval pastoral setting.

It's not quite as racist as people assuming rodents in the Redwall series are an analog for blacks, though.

You know when you bring that stuff up you're either outing yourself as a racist (which is fine, but such an analogy outs you as an idiot) or as an insecure negro, right?

Granted if you google is LOTR racist you'll find a lot more insecure negros than accidental racist college-leftists.

>>5550623
Yea but it just pisses me off when I get to the end of something like that nice essay and it has a list titled, "some fantasy and SF authors who aren’t white men," as if to say, "Stick it to the oppressors."

Women are always talking about how we don't GET their position, but I have yet to read any feminist shit that attempts to understand the predicament the modern man is faced with.

>>5550569
Though unconsciously feeding off of it, men are still the creators of patriarchal society, its inheritors, and its main propagators and they largely continue to system either out of ignorance, lacking a sense of responsibility, or simply because it benefits them. Women also become defendants of the patriarchy for the same reasons but their gains are secondary. Which feminist says that men are in on a "back-room conspiracy"?

>>5550172
>
3
In Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, there are, in rough order of purity, elves, hobbits,
humans, dwarves, orcs, and assorted monstrosities.

>In our world, there are white people, brown people, black people, and
assorted other people of color… in rough order of white–established purity

I don't even want to read any further than this.

There is no evidence to support the orcs of LoTR being an analogy for blacks apart from racists (i think??? obviously the author finds racism problematic but) tenuously linking fantasy orcs being dumb savage animals to representing black humans.

>>5550694
I remember Tolkien saying something about how he dislike how South Africans treated colored people which would be a strange statement to make if he saw black people like orcs.

>>5550694
>problematic

>>5550694
>>5550699
I haven't read the whole essay but she didn't (in that section) say that Orcs definitely represented Black people, nor does she say that Elves were Whites, Browns were Hobbits, etc. (in her ordering Blacks would be the humans). What I understood was that she's comparing how Middle-Earth has a racial hierarchy like how Earth has a racial hierarchy.

>>5550068
No, it advocates feudalism.

>>5550106
Retard alert.

>>5550147
The story is terrible and totally contrived.

>>5550241
Your expectation is pretty on point. He just was a devout Catholic linguistics professor, the fact that his story became so popular has since caused countless idiots to volunteer their idiotic opinions and pervert TLotR. Tolkien said time and again that his story wasn't an allegory.

>>5550732
to add: I would personally argue that, despite whatever Tolkien's opinions on races and racism might be, this insistence on a divinely-creation of races in ME does necessarily reflect really-existing racial theories.

>>5550694
>>
>3
>In Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, there are, in rough order of purity, elves, hobbits,
>humans, dwarves, orcs, and assorted monstrosities.
>things I've pulled out of my ass

>>5550746

No it doesn't. Monsters and purely evil entities are in no way related to how one race views another, unless people view race that way. The whole thing is just viewer prejudice and english grads looking for something to be upset over. Tolkien explicitly said it's not an analogy.

>>5550761
>No it doesn't. Monsters and purely evil entities
Orcs are referred to as a race.

>>5550775

And?

Let's go back and doctor in black folk in place of every orc. We have the technology.

>>5550135

possibly, but i mostly meant haradrims

consider generally how all the sapient races there have a strict hierarchy, elves are the master race (elves have inner hierarchy too), they are like true aryans, or true white anglo-saxon protestants w/e you choose, then go those humans who were taught by elves and are their allies, then go humans who weren't taught by elves and live by themselves, then go humans who were taught by evil, then go orc. all those differences are reflected physically, elves are the fittest, strongest, live infinitely, humans who were taught by them live long too and are the strongest of humans etc., orc life span is unknown but they are the weakest and the ugliest

the very idea that races have a hierarchy sounds racist nowadays

>>5550732

that's kind of funny, every race which feels disliked by englishmen finds that tolkien meant them. some people think that tolkien portrayed soviets as orcs...

>>5550742 >>5550746
it doesn't matter what he thought, it matters what allegory he created either voluntarily or accidentally

>>5550775
Tolkein's Orcs came about via Melkor kidnapping and tortured elves to carry out his will and spread his influence.

>>5550821
>elves are the master race (elves have inner hierarchy too), they are like true aryans, or true white anglo-saxon protestants w/e you choose

The aryans or wasp would be the numenorean, the most elf-like of humans. Elfs are simply something else. The humans have the gift of mortality, and that's a pretty big deal.

>>5550068
It's extremely traditional if that's what you mean

>>5550821
>it doesn't matter what he thought, it matters what allegory he created either voluntarily or accidentally
jesus fucking christ I hate critical theory
>I analyzed the work incorrectly but I,m not wrong the author is
Do you realize how fucking retarded this is

>>5550831
That's one of Tolkien's origins for them.

>>5550836
yeah the lotr movies made them seem like special humans, when they're actually an entirely different race of magical fucking creatures

You guys should check out http://www.amazon.com/Chesterton-Tolkien-Theologians-Fantasy-Real/dp/0567390411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262694859&sr=8-1

>>5550881
In all fairness, they look a bit like humans and can breed. But yeah, they are definitely too magical to be humans, even aryans. They're badass fairies with bad temper, essentially.

>>5550881
the movie portrayed them pretty close to the book

>>5550147
>>5550152

The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Yeskov. It cannot be commercially published in English due to copyright claims by the Tolkien Estate, but has been circulated online in PDF, etc.

>>5552621
i have no idea why since it's kind of fanfic tier

>>5550183

See >>5552621

>>5550576

Well, yes, but he doesn't maintain that position, or become king, because he has a hereditary claim; he does so because he proves himself capable of bearing the burden his lineage bestows.

>>5552628

Well, Tolkien's work belongs to one of the giant houses, and publishers - or at least those capable of fielding the legal muscle that might defeat a claim - in general aren't exactly know for being risk-lovers.

Anyway, see

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/08/lord-of-the-rings-reworking-tolkien-estate

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer/

>>5552660
i meant i don't know why it was translated and became popular :3

>>5550068
>Does the Lord of the Rings promote fascism?
Not enough.

>>5552628
>>5552664

Oh, right. Anyhow, for the information of other anons, the quality, etc., doesn't matter from a copyright perspective. Depending on the specific legal arrangements (and new authors are not in a strong negotiating position), an author might not be able to publish new work using their own characters or worlds with their publishers' approval. I think this is the case with the mystery writer Dana Stabenow: she wanted to create a series featuring a popular supporting character from her established one, but because this was with a new publisher, she was not able to use the same character, and had to create a new one. I've not read her books, and it's been a while since I read about this, so I might be misremembering the detail, though not the principle.

>i meant i don't know why it was translated and became popular :3

Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone? ;)

>>5552703
>with their publishers' approval

"except with".

>>5552703
well 50 shades it's about the eternal problems which interest everybody while the last ringbearer is a lotr fanfic spy novel set into umbar which is written as some kind of 16th century venice

>>5550068
The fantasy world is inspired by the medieval period, so I suppose governments and monarchies in the medieval period promoted an early form of fascism.
To answer your question; I think so.

>>5550068
No, fascism is a modernist ideology. LoTR is way too reactionary to promote fascism.

>>5550114
Doesn't the shire have a mayor?

>>5552927
shire admitted aragorn as their king too

>>5552869
>governments and monarchies in the medieval period promoted an early form of fascism
Kek. Oh, kek. This _has_ to be a troll.

Tolkien works are well written pieces of shit.
>muh black and white
>muh repent before dying
No adult should ever read them

>>5550569
mods pls. anita isn't really gonna rape you.

>>5550821
>that's kind of funny
it's called a victim complex

>>5553012
You must be fun at parties

>>5550868
Death of the author is generally thrown around retardedly and the "analysis" in this thread is fucking ghastly but tolkien admitted candidly that, despite his hatred for allegory, he might have made some stuff that was at the very least symbolic.
again, that doesn't mean he was racist, it's just that people put things they don't even know are there when writing.

>>5553046
Indeed, I like to host parties.

>>5552714
>it's about the eternal problems which interest everybody
ah yes, the infamous question with no answer: is it rape if it makes me moist?

Tolkien said that he did not write allegory.

He didn't say that his books had nothing to do with real life or that there are no symbols in it or no figural things in it. Allegory is a quite specific thing and Tolkien is very clear what he means by it, which is that he did not write the book with an intentional, 1-to-1 correspondence between things in the book and things in the real world. The way that Aslan represents Jesus in Narnia, for instance. That is what Tolkien didn't do. Any other kind of argument about the series is perfectly in order, as long as you can muster some evidence. I'm so tired of making this (extraordinarily basic) point on /lit/ but motherfuckers never learn, I guess.

I'll also say that I don't think the book is racist, and treating it as a hierarchy of races is IMO a misreading. Also I think it's certainly not fascist - monarchist, perhaps, but not fascist - and of course, as has been pointed out on /lit/ in the past, it's got much more to do with World War I than World War II.

>>5550114
>not knowing that the Shire has a mayor
>not knowing that both Frodo and Samwise Gamgee serve as mayor of the Shire
>not knowing that Micheal Delving is the capital of the shire
>being ignorant to the very important needs of the shire and their mail service

>confirmed for Tolkien Pleb

while your opinion is generally right you really shouldnt talk about Lore in much detail unless you've studied it properly, the sheer quantity of information, and time it takes to properly understand it is staggering

>>5552927
>mayor
Yea, but the mayor only really attended parties and such, and the sheriffs only ran around drinking. The shire really ran on a social system that was only possible due to the peacefulness of the hobbits.

>>5553130
Tolkien lore is a clusterfuck of contradictions.

>>5553132
>>5553130
Squirearchy. It's called squirearchy. A well-settled system involving rural gentry and peasants that's very, very obviously an intensely idealized, romantic, and fantastic version of the ideal of deep rural England.

>>5553133

Yes, only adding to the complexity of understanding it. That's the main reason arguments like this will go on for years.

>>5553147
>>5553133
It gets much easier if you understand it as a collection of stories, rhetorical devices, aesthetics, tones, etc, rather than as a coherent world that could actually exist.

>>5553155
Then people like >>5553130 should stop being such smartasses (he was right about that, though)

>>5553155
Yes, I am fully aware of that..

>>5553133
No, there is canon and non canon. Christopher Tolkien published a lot of both for money.

>>5553226
What's canon and what's not canon?

>>5550121
Underated post

>>5553226
>there is canon and non canon

That's far too simplistic. Tolkien continued thinking about, and writing about, aspects of his world over decades. Some aspects changed, some developed multiple versions that he never reconciled. Indeed, he even changed his mind about the status of some texts, considering particular narratives at one point historical, and at others legends of particular in-world peoples and places.

>>5550076
>>5550081
>>5550084
Samefag

>>5550121
>mfw people actually take this convoluted and nonsensical rhetoric as 'philosophy'

Is there actually any basis to the claim that Tolkien was involved with the OSS, or rather tried to undermine the Nazi Ethos through fiction?

>>5554005
How new are you?