Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

skasion posted:

hmm I�m not sure, but it seems like the imperialist colonists from overseas who live for centuries, are all seven feet tall, and declared war on god are...bad?

On the other hand, they only get stopped after the last thing. Kicking around the other, shrimpier humans was presumably frowned upon by god and pals, but wasn't actionable. Defying your betters? That's an atlantisin'.
Tolkien had issues. You don't have to be HP Lovecraft levels of horrible to write stories filled with disturbing under-and-over--tones.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2019 22:54

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:15

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

euphronius posted:

Don�t get why the all father would create elves to be not compatible with evil after he create evil in the first place

~*Mysterious Ways*~^TM

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 17:22

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

ChubbyChecker posted:

this could be said about lotr too

Nah, he rose above it by having Aragorn fight a troll at the gates instead of big black guys with neon-red tongues and making the orcs look like morlocks instead of 'the less lovely mongol types,' so the fantasy of the whole wicked world wanting the brave saxons dead is left tastefully implied rather than bellowed.
Mind you, it's not like rising above that means much. See exhibit: haradrim.

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Aug 30, 2020

# ¿ Aug 30, 2020 14:48

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Skellybones posted:

The Haradrim mumakil-driver is the happiest, most fun-having guy in the whole series, and the Easterlings are absolutely fabulous in their wardrobes and cosmetics. I can't consider them negative portrayals.

Tolkien thought that evil is not knowing your place, Peter Jackson says it's about living your best life for yourself and your kaiju mammoth.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2020 16:31

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Alhazred posted:

Something he pointed out that I haven't thought about before is that war elephants is often used to show that the one who's using them is an evil foreign tyrant.

ACOUP posted:

The peculiar nature of the Greek and Roman source tradition is mostly to blame for the �bad rap� that war elephants tend to get in modern historical and fantasy fiction � the pattern of source preservation means that readers of Greek and Latin are forever looking at elephant-kings from the outside. Because modern fantasy literature (not to mention historical fiction!) is built with the Greek and Latin source tradition (among other later European traditions) as its foundation, this attitude about war elephants has sunk into western fantasy.

This doesn�t have to be the case. In Indian epic, the war elephant can have much the same tone as a king�s �noble steed� (think Snowmane from Lord of the Rings), and a hero skilled in fighting from elephant-back much the same feeling as masterful horsemen like the Rohirrim. Fantasy literature, especially, provides an opportunity after all to break out from the patterns imposed by the accidents of the Greek and Roman source tradition and view the world from another angle. We should use that as a way of considering new perspectives. Hannibal�s elephant � Surus (yes, we know the name of Hannibal�s elephant) � has a story too (and so did his mahout � whose name we do not know).

This entire series is really interesting and has left me wondering why the hell I didn't investigate this blog more fully after I read his incredibly thorough teardown on Sparta.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2020 18:51

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Imagined posted:

In Middle Earth "fair" = best, "swarthy" = lesser/ tainted. Brown is cruel and wicked.

But I'm pretty sure every single time the specific phrase "black men" is mentioned it's specifically referring to the Nazgul.

Well, at Pelennor fields there's also "[...]Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues."
So that Sure Is A Thing.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2020 01:26

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

What Tolkien was (consciously or unconsciously) doing with his dwarves in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was developing a positive, philosemitic version of the norse-mythology dwarf, which could stand in opposition to Wagner's anti-semitic dwarves. So you have a bunch of brave, hard-working, heavily-bearded outcasts wandering from land to land deprived of their birthright home, dealing in gold and metals, and speaking and writing a semitic language.

Mind you, he stops to carelessly jam his entire foot through it in chapter 12 of The Hobbit with:

quote:

There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don�t expect too much.

which still certainly tops Alberich but loving hell that's not saying a lot.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 01:33

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Runcible Cat posted:

Unexpected my arse; Hieronymous Alloy called it 18 months ago:

Hieronymous Alloy posted:
We're gonna see Sauron's dick, aren't we.

Sauron's dick and balls will be of unseemly size, symbolically flaunting both his self-importance and covetous desire for the material world. You'll be able to tell the heroes by their tiny and refined genitals, which represent their cool rationality and civilized nature in accordance with the noble ideals of the ancient greeks.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 19:52

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Waterbed Wendy posted:

i wonder if sauron uses a body double for his dnbs much like how he uses a gross weirdo for his mouth

The rider was robed all in hair, and purple was his lofty helmet; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-d�r he was, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: 'I am the Balls of Sauron.'

e:fb

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 20:09

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

SoggyBobcat posted:

B�r and his three sons.

The only relevant thing they do is fail to turn evil as their pals do and subsequently self-destruct against them, which is sadly sort of a footnote's footnote.

Data Graham posted:

He waxeth great

Exceedingly great, and I am shamed for forgetting those crucial passages that explicitly state so.
"I wonder if this is a contrivance of the enemy" said Boromir. "They say in my land that he can govern the storms in the Mountains of Shadow that stand upon the borders of Mordor. He has strange powers and many allies"
"His schlong has grown long indeed," said Gimli, "if he can draw snow down from the north to trouble us here three hundred leagues away."
"His schlong has grown long," said Gandalf.

_{i am going to stop now}

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 21:28

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Ynglaur posted:

Stupid sexy Shelob.

Yeah, there's no way it's anything as vanilla as elf/dwarf. It's going to be this and pages and pages of unseemly detail on how Ungoliant slowly and insatiably sucked the life out of the Trees while Morgoth watched.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2020 14:59

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Is his heart noble, aching, or fierce?

edit: if it's filled with sorrow just send him down to the morgue, there's nothing to be done.

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Dec 10, 2020

# ¿ Dec 10, 2020 21:44

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

"Elendil the Tall only had one ball."

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 21:49

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Oh my god Sauron is Dennis Nedry.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 00:34

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Shibawanko posted:

brow is destiny

Pretty good post/avatar combo there.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 13:58

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

ChubbyChecker posted:

yes, but not because he hadn't heard about christ, but for making a sapient creature his toilet

# ¿ Apr 11, 2021 17:25

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Compromise for the next attempt: Grendel AND his mother are both sexy but fully clothed; Beowulf is both completely naked and a monster.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2021 00:13

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

euphronius posted:

At no point do any of the Wise (minus Saruman) ever say Saurons victory is inevitable . That is not a theme.

I might be completely out of it, but isn't it said at the council of elrond that giving the ring to bombadil to hide would be pointless because not only would he probably lose it, but sauron would just take him down after he was finished inevitably beating everyone else?

# ¿ Dec 18, 2021 18:14

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Pham Nuwen posted:

Speaking of hobbits in the Shire, give me a movie that's just 3 hours of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin wandering through the Shire just like the very start of Frodo's journey in Fellowship.

We already saw that with the whole Sam-taking-a-step-that's-the-farthest-from-home-he's-ever-been cut, but sadly it appears to have been DMCA'd.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2021 23:55

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

I really wish we had more Tolkien content that was published in his lifetime. Not The New Shadow type poo poo but a feature complete Silmarillion.

I dunno, I kind of want to know what Tolkien's story about the damned kids forming devil cults because of youth culture and rock n roll would've looked like if he'd written it.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2022 16:30

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Yes, that's precisely why I wish I could see it: it would've been a wonderful (and likely sanctimonious) trainwreck.

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 22, 2022

# ¿ Jan 22, 2022 21:30

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Data Graham posted:

And lol she was shrunken

'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and lmao into the West and remain Galadriel.'

# ¿ Jan 24, 2022 14:43

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Ravenfood posted:

Which, you know, is racist. It is somewhat countered by the hobbits being referred to as the least of beings (iirc) and yet they are the ones to destroy the Ring. Still not great.

Except for that FUCKER Sandyman who was UPPITY and had ideas ABOVE HIS STATION, and of course, the vile Lotho Sackville-Baggins, who wanted more of something than what nature had ordained him and paid for it with his wretched and worthless life in accord with Eru Iluvatar the most powerful of all who sees fit that all lesser people with such wickedness as to have ideas above their kind will lead themselves to their own destruction.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2022 00:52

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Ravenfood posted:

Oh yeah for sure. By "still not great" I didnt mean that the hobbits didnt become great, just that having the hobbits do things the "great people" couldn't doesnt mean that it isnt still a bad look.

Yeah, it's that patronizing kind of 'well, aren't you adorably noble in your humble little tiny way!' head-tousling fondness. The point of the Hobbits is that look, it's not all bad being predestined to be inherently lesser beings, because lo even the most pathetic little pipeweed-stuffed loser is still All Part Of Greater Things, unto such mysteries are beyond even the Wise, and so what if you're insignificant metaphysically and physically you too can through the power of Humbly Knowing Your Place be abstractly compared to a mouse defying a rhino for the sake of its mouse spouse and fulfill the will of the Almighty.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2022 01:09

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

euphronius posted:

I�m not trying to be profound (lol). Numenoreans were taller, lived longer, had claims on kingdoms, could use magic, and so on . (Not even getting into the elves) Ok if you want to say that isn�t necessarily objectively good I understand that point.

Well, at least there was no moral element to the story asserting that some ethnic groups are just biologically superior by divine right.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2022 23:03

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Phy posted:

Ulmo knows where you live

The average human or elf is up to 60% Ulmo by weight.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2022 22:52

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Imagined posted:

Maybe they were werewolves.

Maybe they was waswolves.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2022 00:20

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's not the anachronism that bothers me about Sexy Shelob, it's that it just strikes me as crass commercial capitalism sexualizing literally anything vaguely female because sexy art sells more copies of the game than a non-sexualized spider would.

Tolkien's Middle-Earth: A Non-Sexualized Spider

Also if we're talking Bored of the Rings, it's sort of interesting that Shelob being Sauron's ex is something it and shadow of whatever have in common.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2022 13:58

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Tree Bucket posted:

Your av is you when you roll over a log to reveal something with eight legs and a bristly carapace.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 01:36

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

By gawd that's Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo's music!

# ¿ Sep 30, 2022 19:51

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Tree Bucket posted:

how about you ring a dong dillo ring a dong hop along right out of this thread?!

# ¿ Nov 25, 2022 18:20

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Mahoning posted:

�I cannot self-terminate, Sam.�

�Of course you can, Mr. Frodo. And I�m self-terminating with you!�

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 14:53

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

euphronius posted:

Iirc in the earlier drafts of lotr, Aragorn had 0 claim to Gondor and was going there because the Gondorians were doing an open casting call for a King.

Please tell me this was also when he was still being written as a hobbit with wooden feet.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2023 18:10

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

CommonShore posted:

quote:
That which gave me most uneasiness among these maids of honour (when my nurse carried me to visit them) was, to see them use me without any manner of ceremony, like a creature who had no sort of consequence: for they would strip themselves to the skin, and put on their smocks in my presence, while I was placed on their toilet, directly before their naked bodies, which I am sure to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotions than those of horror and disgust, yes, quite sure, quite sure indeed, hahahaha, absolutely sure,, why the very IDEA

# ¿ Mar 26, 2023 12:33

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:15

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Bruceski posted:

Gandalf is a Yakuza character. Throws off the robe, has a massive tattoo under there.

Tree Bucket posted:

The grey old wizard chuckles half-heartedly before standing up. "You think just because you beat fifty of my best knife-wielding and ring-toting hobbits, single-handedly, without so much as a scratch on you, that you can beat me, the unspoken second in command to the unofficial head of the order of the Istari, the Maiar that are denied their full power? You must be out of your mind." In a single flawless motion, he tears off his staff, wizard robe, and hat, revealing that the two thousand year old at best man who chain smokes and whose face appears to be constantly melting off has the physique of Tulkas. His beard and crooked nose remain immaculate as you grab him by the head and drag his face across every available Balrog within a ten foot radius.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2023 16:27

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