Why I hate LOTR
There’s a lot of LOTR here. I’ve never read it or seen the film, but I did hear the radio version, and I've osmosed enough of the rest to have a pretty good idea about it, and here’s how I decode it. The fact that it was written in the ’40s is, I think, significant.

So, there’s this race of stout yeoman folk – jolly and decent, on the whole, and attached to the land. Call them hobbits. Did I say folk? Sorry. I meant “Volk”. So there’s these volkisch types who’re getting on with life. There is, though, a threat from the East. Damned Mongol Bolsheviks get everywhere, see. This threat from the East has an army of black riders. Important that they’re black. The only thing that can save the jolly volkischers from themselves and from the East is a caste of wise, benevolent wizards. What hobbits need is a Führer principle! Maybe there’ll be a small band of pure warriors to protect the jolly volkischers, too. Something like an SS. These protection units are all human. Like hobbits in many ways, but taller, purer, and probably blonder, too.

It’s important, see, that you can deduce a person’s moral characteristics from his race. All hobbits are stout and jolly and not deep thinkers - all blut und boden; all elves are essentially the same; all orcs are essentially the same. Think you can have a good orc? You might just as well talk about a trustworthy darkie. Oh, yes. And the deeply untrustworthy, grasping, gold-obsessed, treacherous one? Just to make sure, probably ought to be called something like… ooooh, let’s see. “Golum”. Yes. That’s good. Very Yiddish. Dirty, greedy yids. Them and the Mongol Bolshies from the East. Gonna destroy the jolly volk.

But it’s OK in the end, because the volkischers will get their Führer and their SS to save them from the foreigners and from themselves. Hurrah!

And that is why I hate LOTR.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:20, 36 replies)

Wow
Talk about reading too much into things. I just read a story, set in a fictional universe, about some people who overcome some hardships and fight some baddies, devices widely used in storytelling for centuries. And yes, the baddies wear black clothes, because scary things happen at night when it's dark.

I think you might be a watermelon.
( St3cks, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:23, closed)

?
maybe reading a bit too much in but that doesnt make him racist does it
(Gravity's Raincoat, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:26, closed)

Troll
and not the Tolkein variety either ;-)

I jest, but if you're serious, then talk about reading too much into things! If you're not serious, then you're trolling, and should prepare for incoming lotr fanboys to smite thee verily with swords of +1 and whatnot

I couldn't give a toss however, I liked the book, but couldn't care less if other people do or not. Different folks etc
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:26, closed)

...
Yeah - maybe I over analysed it a bit. But - sensitive PC soul that I am - that's the thing that hit me most clearly about it.

I'm not a troll. Honest. Do they feature in LOTR? Nor, St3cks, am I racist.

Now: I think I have to take cover while my inbox explodes...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:29, closed)

Radio LOTR
I've got a copy of that that I tape to taped, using a microphone not leads, when I was a kid. It rocks
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:29, closed)

Next:
Humpty dumpty as a victim-symbol of fascist dictatorship and totalitarian regimes
(frankspencer, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:29, closed)

@frankspencer
Now there's a thought...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:31, closed)

Oh, I'm sorry
Your message seemed to say 'I think Tolkien might be a racist', I was just seeing how you reacted to the same statement.
( St3cks, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:31, closed)

St3cks
I'm open to rebuttal and - if it's there - refutation. Go for it. The elements are there for the taking...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:33, closed)

oh yeah
I like the bit where the hobbits blow up the Death Star.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:33, closed)

JRR Tolkien was on the front line in WW1
"Tolkien served as a communications officer during the Battle of the Somme, and came down with trench fever on 27 October 1916. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest friends, including Gilson and Smith of the T.C.B.S., were killed in the war. In later years, Tolkien indignantly declared that those who searched his works for parallels to the Second World War were entirely mistaken."
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:33, closed)

I tend to scoff at the idea that
people always write books/poems/art/whatever with a deep message in mind.

I had however heard that the underlying theme of LOTR is about industrialisation vs rural, hippy, elf-like, tree-hugging.

I love the book, despite finding at least a third of it incredibly boring.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:34, closed)

^chennoble^
And when the author is the best authority on what he writes, that might make a difference. But there is no reason at all to think that the author of something is the best authority: the continued existence of academic literature departments is predicated on the rejection of this notion.

T's service in WWI is also irrelevant, isn't it?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:36, closed)

Pardon me
but I couldent help noticing that your icon is a gollywog.

how does this factor into your post
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:36, closed)

@Willenium
Not at all.

Christ, I never expected this flaming. I'm beginning to recognise how Pooflake felt during the PC-gone-mad question...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:37, closed)

Refute what?
I'm saying, you're reading too much into things, and if you see things like that when you analyse what is essentially a story book designed for entertainment, then you're thinking about it too much.

The concept of goodies and baddies is well established in literature, and the idea of a gentle farming folk being the loveable race who gets caught up in the middle of a war they don't understand is by no means a reference to anything. It's just a story, which I enjoy reading. And playing the MMO of :P

EDIT: Also, you can't really say you didn't expect flaming, if you posted something mildly outrageous and anti- something which is generally regarded as well-loved among geeks, on a QOTW which is about geeks, and is therefore likely to attract a geeky readership.
( St3cks, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:40, closed)

Interpretation
Literary criticism synopsis for those who didn't spend years at it: the meaning of a book is a synthesis of what the writer wrote, what the reader brings to it and the context/culture in which it is read. Therefore, each book has a different meaning to each reader and reading - none of which is authoritative.

Why else would people be banging on about Shakespeare (who in my opinion was useless at plot and characterisation but a poet in his prose)?
(frankspencer, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:49, closed)

^
Look, Look! He's having a go at bloody Shakespeare now!
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:56, closed)

Let's get something straight here...

LOTR: I think it's alright. Enzyme doesn't. However, I am as thick as pigshit in cement and Enzyme is quite staggeringly clever. Vive la difference! It won't stop us cracking open the vino next time we meet and having a bloody good laugh.

Make of that what you will.

Also, Enzyme is:

a) Not a racist
b) Entitled to his opinion

*breathes*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:03, closed)

You forgot
the blatant misogyny

There are no strong female characters in the book
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:03, closed)

Grabs pitchfork
Lets burn him........ :-)
( Trollman, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:05, closed)

Burn Him, Burn Him
Sorry, I just wanted to join in with the crowd. Enzymes post wasn't remotely racist.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:06, closed)

Thanks, Pooflake
But I've told you before, I'm not clever. I'm just good at looking clever. Big difference.

Cheers!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:07, closed)

This old chestnut again
The 'threat from the East' has been interpreted, IIRC, as having echoes of the rise of fascism in the 1930s across Europe (quite popular in Britain in the 30's), that Hitler chap, and the workers paradise of the Soviet Union.

It's an accident of history and geography, folks. The bad guys have to come from somewhere: if it had been an invasion from the South then you'd have the Septics claiming it was based upon the 'Merkin Civil War (personally I prefer the term 'War of Northern Aggression' as it has a nicer ring to it but hey) and then tweed-wearing types would be identifying the various, and I point this out FICTIONAL, ethnicities within LOTR with another bunch in reality.

It's a book. The author wrote it during a particularly turbulent time in history. He may have been affected by current events at the time, but it's a frigging book. I quite like it, in it's place, but I have no desire to dress up as an elf. The movie was okay too...



Oh fuckit. BURN HIM. BURN THE APOSTATE, THE SCOFFER AT ALMIGHTY TOLKIEN.
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:21, closed)

Enzyme
"i've never read it, or seen the film."

Well then. You're making your viewpoint pretty shaky in that case, aren't you?

I'm not particularly arsed about Tolkien, but just to put a different spin on things, you might not have known that he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (same college as me) and wrote some incredibly boring books on OE philology. A lot of the made-up languages, names and even the compositional style of LoTR are derived from Old English literature. So...with this in mind, might not the cultural overlords from the east relate to the Vikings?

(Actually, the most-commonly held view is that the rise of Mordor and its evil dictator represents the rise of Facism in Hitler's Germany...and IMO it makes a lot more sense to read it that way.)
(jennymnemonic, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:30, closed)

I grew up
loving the books reading them over and over, i think even if they had a darker meaning to them i never noticed it and all that the books did for me was create a fantasy world in my head of orcs and dragons and lost kings.

*Puts on white hood and goes crossburning*
( Trollman, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:32, closed)

re: the philology
Tolkien was a frickin' nerd. C.S. Lewis was a much better writer, even with the biblical allegories.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:34, closed)

On a side point...
"But there is no reason at all to think that the author of something is the best authority: the continued existence of academic literature departments is predicated on the rejection of this notion."

Well of course it is - they're justifying their existence.

I have no opinions about or emotional connections to LOTR. It might be about the Nazis, or it might equally be about little men Tolkien made up in his head. Didn't stop me shitting on his grave though.
(rampants, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:27, closed)

I'm not defending LoTR from being by today's PC standards racist and sexist
because back then PC didn't exist.

To blame it for either makes little sense. Imagine, if you will, that eating meat has become socially unacceptable in 40 year's time (and no, I'm not a veggie). It wouldn't make sense then to review stuff created today and say "oh, JK Rowling was at fault because they serve up lots of meat at Hogwarts". The same thing applies to LoTR and to the Narnia books.

So it doesn't make sense to criticise them by today's moral standards, but only as to whether they are well-written.

That in itself is difficult to quantify - well-written as in "highbrow" or well-written as in engaging enough to appeal to many people, which presumably is why anyone would write a book and then publish it ? The former, no, it almost certainly isn't. The latter, it obviously is.

Enzyme, by all means feel free not to like LoTR - it's not my favourite book either - but like I've said, it's nonsensical to apply today's moral judgements on something that was written in a completely different social environment. And trying to "PC-ize" published works is akin to Orwellian re-writing of history - something to be avoided at all costs.
( I_Was_Mordred, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:30, closed)

well
I, for one, would be interested in reading the revisionist version of LOTR where the hobbits are accused of willful destruction of property and the orcs form a self-help group.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:48, closed)

Hee-ya!
Wow, what a response to an opinion on a series of books! Jeez, people...

Tolkien, as I recall, wrote the stories for his son who was serving in WWII at the time. He'd write a chunk and send it to him- at least, he did so for The Hobbit. I don't know about the rest of them.

At that time WWII was very much a permeating factor in everyone's lives. Ever notice how people who were young in those years have certain traits in common, such as being extremely thrifty and conservative? That conflict made a huge impression on everyone who was around at the time, regardless of whether they served or not. And I'm sure that was especially true of Tolkein. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the war had to have had an influence on him.

Sure there was racism in his books, at least by today's standards. It was prevalent back then. Look at The Lone Ranger or any of the Westerns of the day- Indians and Mexicans were not portrayed nicely. In my memory Chinese were portrayed in cartoons on TV in very broad stereotypes, and Germans were shown as being Nazis whether they wore a uniform or not. It really wasn't until the 70s and 80s, after the popularity of Polish jokes faded, that PC began to take hold. Judging older works by today's standards is really not fair, as standards change over time... but if they bother someone, that's that person's right to be bothered. Enzyme's perfectly right to hold his opinions, whether you agree with them or not.

And for those calling Enzyme a racist- pull your head out of your ass, you silly little shit.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:11, closed)

Hooray!
I love a good literary criticism argument - if I'm a nerd about anything at all it'd be on art and literature criticism.

(Actually, the most-commonly held view is that the rise of Mordor and its evil dictator represents the rise of Facism in Hitler's Germany...and IMO it makes a lot more sense to read it that way.)
jennymnemonic

Spot on!

And another thing - criticising creative works and examining the greater resonances within them is one of the great pleasures of life (aside from sex and chocolate of course).
By all means look at a picture, read a book, watch a film and just take from it the simple pleasures - it looks nice, it's a good story, it made me laugh/moved me to tears and so on.

BUT spend a little longer examining that work and the rewards are huge. The connections between art, literature, music and film of any period in history are all there just waiting for the interested audience to simply scratch the surface.


OMG...I *am* a geek! I'm a cultural studies geek....
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:52, closed)

CS Lewis
Is he the one who wrote about Jesus being in a closet? Nothing worse than a biblical allegory for ruining a book. Unless it's Grapes of Wrath.
(frankspencer, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 15:45, closed)

Haha!
Scrolling down the page quickly, this title stopped me dead! 33 replies lol! I, er, love LOTR. While reading this post, I realised my mind was formulating an outraged rebuff for each point. I caught myself though..... geeky yes but I've almost beaten it!
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 16:25, closed)

Wrong
Wrong JRR Hartley I mean Tolkien... started writing the lord of the rings and the hobbit (ideas for a story anyway) during WWI.
(3:16, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 17:16, closed)

@ Chickenlady
If you understand the culture and history of a period, you can also throw in psychology, sociology, religion, science.....really any number of things, and understand more about what happened and why.

I especially liked this to understand the reasoning behind different psychological theories based on the culture of the time as it helped me to make very good grades in college/university without having to actually study quite as much.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Sat 8 Mar 2008, 4:30, closed)