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/lit/ - Literature

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1234138 No.1234138 [Reply] [Original]

am I crazy or was there a racial sub text to this? (Orcs = black Dwarfs = jewish Elfs = aryan etc)

>> No.1234142

>>1234138
no your just racist

>> No.1234143

did you notice op that there were more niggers than aryans? did you fucking notice that?

>> No.1234158

Tolkien must have had a midget fetish

>> No.1234159

The people on the Stormfront message boards think so. (Don't ask me why I know this.) But in all seriousness, there probably isn't a racial subtext to LOTR.

>> No.1234185

You're reading too deeply into it. The more obvious metaphor is either for communism or nazism (power rising in the east) given the time it was written.

But of course, everyone knows that.

>> No.1234190

>>1234185
there's just as much World War I stuff in there as there is WWII

>> No.1234202

Arabs = Harad

Racist imo but still a good story

>> No.1234223

CAPSGUYS = THE ENTS.

AFTER ALL, MY NAME IS TRENT, AND THE ENTS WERE PRETTY BAD-ASS.

>> No.1234229

tolkien said take from it what you will so i guess it's really how you want to see it...

>> No.1234356

>mfw people still think of Aryans as tall blonde/blue eyed people

>> No.1234364

I don't think Tolkien would ever consciously endorse racist values in his work, but they are pretty clearly present.

>> No.1234371

lotr ain't no fucking analogy. Tolkien was too serious about his shit to have made a simple analogy…

>> No.1234374

If anything Tolkien hated whites, since most of the themes of industrializing/destroying the environment are done by whites. Same with the fascism and communism.
All white things.
I don't think race is an issue in LoTR.

>> No.1234376

>>1234374

Naw, this won't fly man.

>> No.1234383

>>1234159
It's a cold reading. Watch.
>>1234138
Here OP takes a fantasy character, a dwarf, which has bad human characteristics(dwarves like gold! so greedy!), then OP goes into his brain and thinks, "wow, jews are greedy! the dwarves must be jews!"
That doesn't mean that the author had that in mind. They're make-believe characters. OP put those assumptions together in his mind.

>> No.1234391

Hobbits are the English
Numenoreans are the remains of the Romans
Rohan are the French
Dwarves are Scandinavian
Orcs are Germans
Elves are Asians
Ents are Communists
Eagles are America

>> No.1234410

>>1234391
I can see some of these, but how are Elves Asian, Ents Communist, and Eagles American? Aside from the obvious--eagles being the national bird of America.

>> No.1234413
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1234413

>>1234391

>> No.1234417

>>1234391
I'll give you the Hobbits, and the Numenoreans. Other than that, no.

>> No.1234427
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1234427

>>1234391
>implying Hobbits had anything resembling a vast military empire at any point in time, much less some of the greatest worldly discoveries of all time

>> No.1234437

>>1234427
Hobbits drink tea and have hairy feet.

>> No.1234438

>>1234437
Touché.

>> No.1234445

>>1234138

Dear fucking lord, I hate it when people insist upon the presence of certain symbolism in a book where there is no such symbolism. Fuck you, OP. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that Star Wars was some kind of prophecy for the End Times.

>> No.1234447

>>1234410

The eagles could represent America's isolationism pre-WWII. They both kept away from conflict until they could march in at the last minute and take all the glory.

>> No.1234448

>>1234364
He wrote the novels mainly to entertain his son, you fucking twat.

>> No.1234452

>>1234445
Every educated person fucking hates it when you ignoramus' try and force your own close-mindedness on works that have no correct meaning.

>> No.1234453

>>1234452
amen.

>> No.1234455

>>1234447
That makes sense.
>>1234452
In the introduction to the Ballentine paperback edition that I have, Tolkien says there is no symbolism and no analogy in his work. Obviously his Catholic believes and his experience during WWI effected his work. It'd be impossible for it not to, but they're just some fantasy novels he wrote. Don't make a huge fucking deal out of them. He didn't seem to.

>> No.1234457

>>1234455

As though authorial intent matters.

>> No.1234459

Nah, I'll keep highlighting negative authorial content while ignoring those that doesn't fit my views.

>> No.1234460

>>1234457
Don't start that bullshit. Of course it matters. I hate that new-literature crap. That kinda shit there is why people don't take art seriously anymore. People like you ruin art. Are you happy now?

>> No.1234461

>>1234452

Correct meanings of LOTR:

1. Fuck industrialization
2. Pre-industrial England was a secular Eden
3. The English are morally and culturally superior to Easterners and Southerners
4. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

From this we can see that Tolkien was:

a) A Luddite
b) A xenophobe
c) Possessed of a banal mind

No need to argue, children. This is correct.

>>1234455

You'll find the word used is "allegory". You will not find that Tolkien wrote the books to be meaningless.

>> No.1234465

>>1234461
I didn't say he wrote it to be meaningless, and analogy works just fine in the context I was using it. There's lots of meaning in The Pickwick Papers, but you'll find Dickens didn't take that too seriously.

>> No.1234467

Considering Tolkien was a linguist and studied, in all likelihood, multiple cultures languages (the Dwarven runes been taken from the old Norse runes), i doubt there were any racist subtexts since he dealt with other cultures.
Likely there is racism in the books, but on the part of the characters (since its such an in depth work) and arent a reflection of the Author.
Of course we would find that there are paralells to our world (because a- it IS our world and b- humans find comparisons and patterns because they can).
ALso if you look hard enough in anything, you could say there were alien encounters and a 9/11 prediction in there.
If you look for it, you can probably delude yourself into derping it.

>> No.1234469

>>1234465

No, no, analogy doesn't work just as well. Allegory is a one to one correspondence of symbol and concept. Analogy is a similarity of any level.

And Dickens didn't spend nearly his entire adult life elaborating the world of The Pickwick Papers.

>> No.1234540

Orcs: niggers/muslims/mongols
This is indisputable.

>> No.1234545

>>1234391
This is insane.Tolkein himself was ethnically German.The orcs represent non-europeans and this has been made quite clear.

>> No.1234553

race fail '09

google it

>> No.1234565

>>1234545
It's been quite clear that Tolkien hated allegory.

He made comparisons so people could relate, but that's analogy.
I can't stand all the "Orc=Germans, One Ring= Atomic Bomb..." bullshit people insist on stating as fact.

>> No.1234563

Orcs are not a seperate race they are just corrupted elves.

>> No.1234572

>>1234461
>From this we can see that Tolkien was:

>a) A Luddite
Yes
>b) A xenophobe
ehh NO
>c) Possessed of a banal mind
Oh come on.

>> No.1234605

Stealing OP's topic here, but at the high school I went to a lot of my fanatical Christian friends told me repeatedly that LotR is a Biblical allegory.

I've been reading posts here, but someone please confirm for me this is bullshit. Please. Maybe then I'll read the books because I hate reading missionist/"i'mma convert you heathens" literature.

>> No.1234606

>>1234565
He also hated the "wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine," for the record.

>> No.1234614

>>1234605

Maybe you should pick one up and try reading it. If you start feeling the urge to pray or go to church you can put it down.

>> No.1234634

>>1234614

Because I'm a lazy motherfucker, why else?

>> No.1234654

>>1234460
You were THAT kid in your eight grade English class, if you didn't know.

My advice to you is that you stop reading and go and do some coloring, child.

>> No.1234674

>>1234460
But your view of it makes it something less than art. If tolkein had wanted to be dogmatic about what he meant, he wouldn't have written a fucking novel. He would have written an essay.

Also, the concept of interpretations outside of the authors has been around since, well, the invention of the written word. Get used to it.

>>1234461
>correct meaning
Ha ha.

>> No.1234685

>>1234383
>op is racist
exactly.

>> No.1234686

>>1234391
Numenorans are aryan, Hitler said that the aryans first lived in atlantis. And this was not merely his own idea but a common one in racialists of the time. This paralells to "Numenor".

Stocky short creatures obsessed with things of monetary value who want to reclaim "The Lonely Mountain"(Zion) where they once prospered.

Asians, elves. Orcs, germans.. No just no.

>> No.1234696

ITT: Racists making arbitrary parallels that were never intended.

Seriously, if you try hard enough you can juxtapose any two things.

>> No.1234705

Tolkien was a racist. His fans tend to be piggy white boys who can't dance, who will deny to the death his racism even as they deny the significance of their having no black friends.

>> No.1234706

Hobbits are children, gandalf = daddy