Re: 'The Lord of the Rings' Is Not the Far Right's Playground

On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 18:43:06 -0000 (UTC), Schlomo Goldberg
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Steve Hayes <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> 'The Lord of the Rings' Is Not the Far Right's Playground (extract)
>
>Are you sure Tolkien wasn't far right? I mean, he definitely wrote how
>Western European-looking people were protecting their homelands from
>hordes of nigg... I mean, orcs.

In one of his letters, Tolkien described how he thought Orcs should be
portrayed in a projected movie (never done).

The description matches the one for "Huns" (IIRC, could be "Mongols")
in Gibbons. So, no, they were protecting their lands from people who
fit the stereotype. Hun or Mongol, they made a lasting impression on
the European mind.

The Southrons, OTOH ... but they were just a conquered category of Men
(as were the Wainrider Eastrons), not Orcs. In the book, Sam even
develops some sympathy for one of them. And they pose a threat to
Gondor that reduces Gondor's defences at the critical time.

>Aragorn was D=FAnedain:
>
>> In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, the D=FAnedain
>> (/?du?n?da?n/; singular: D=FAnadan, "Man of the West") were a race of
>> Men, also known as the N=FAmen=F3reans or Men of Westernesse =
(translated
>> from the Sindarin term).

The D=FAnedain in Middle Earth were only a part of the population. The
main Man ruler, Denethor, was not a pureblood D=FAnedan, for example.
Yet he and his two sons did a great deal to hold back Sauron (Faramir
being, of course, rather more successful).

The Far Right is also the group the howled when /The Hunger Games/
came out because they thought it was a world with no non-whites in it.
The Far Right is a bunch of ninnies who project their foul beliefs
onto anything they can.
--=20
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"