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The Numenorean Kingdoms, part XI - bridge-film material?
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Darkstone
Immortal


Feb 4 2009, 4:13pm

Post #76 of 183 (2953 views)
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Dunno if I could get away with that. [In reply to] Can't Post

I get occasional queries and assertions regarding my exact species.

Wink

But I'm hairy enough that I could at least put down "mammal" without any dispute.

******************************************
The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”



simplyaven
Grey Havens


Feb 4 2009, 4:15pm

Post #77 of 183 (2967 views)
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I was talking about literature [In reply to] Can't Post

and I believe that's why Dreamdeer pointed comicses. Besides, I don't like westerns and I've never liked them. I've watched some but I don't recall paying any attention to such lines as the one Dreamdeer quoted.

I think Grimm fairy tales are absolutely perfect as generations have been raised with them. Fairy tales teach children many things, some of them not pleasant but true. Life is not pink and full of roses and pigeons, right? I would not think twice before I choose children's classics for my son just as I've read them hundreds of times and they had no impact on me in any way which offends other people. I don't find them either sexist or violent in a way which is not justified. Violence in today's movies is not justified as it often is there for the pure pleasure of the public which speaks a lot about the public ad how much we have got used to violence.

Culinary journey through Middle Earth continues! Join us on January 30 on the Main board for a visit at the "Prancing pony"!

I believe


Curious
Half-elven


Feb 4 2009, 4:46pm

Post #78 of 183 (2946 views)
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I love Grimm's Fairy Tales, just as [In reply to] Can't Post

I love LotR and Westerns and many violent movies. The art I love does not have to be politically correct, especially if it was written long ago.

I'm not sure what you mean by justified sexism. But I don't hold 19th-century sexism (based on folk tales from even earlier centuries) against the Brothers Grimm.


simplyaven
Grey Havens


Feb 4 2009, 4:55pm

Post #79 of 183 (2954 views)
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Justified mentioning of evil things [In reply to] Can't Post

in the fairy tales I meant, sorry for the confusion. Fairy tales have always taught children that life is not all about playing and laughing. Long before Grimm were born, fairy tales and folklore tales had the same themes and discussed the same topics - vilolence among them. However, I consider it justified when it explains to children what life looks like outside of their rooms in a way which children understand and accept. As about sexism, I hav enevr thought tales and stories to be sexist but again, in certain societies people are not so focused on such things. In fact, only after I came to North America I found out I had to focus on this because it's a big thing here. The countries I've lived in before had their laws of course about what is offensive and what is not but not to such extent. I guess it's because here there are people from so many different origins and their beliefs are so different and they all have to be respected which is quite complicated sometimes.

Culinary journey through Middle Earth continues! Join us on January 30 on the Main board for a visit at the "Prancing pony"!

I believe


Curious
Half-elven


Feb 4 2009, 5:15pm

Post #80 of 183 (2955 views)
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I judge [In reply to] Can't Post

that sexism by contemporary North American standards is more likely to exist in societies that do not think about such things. Not thinking about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. On the other hand, it could be that North Americans think about it too much.

One thing I learned from fairy tales is that stepmothers are homicidally wicked -- which is very unfair to stepmothers.

All I'm trying to say is that books written in a different time and place are likely to follow social standards different from our own. They can still be great books. If they are great books we should still read them, but if we want our children to share our own social standards we may want to discuss the parts of the books that don't follow those standards.


simplyaven
Grey Havens


Feb 4 2009, 5:37pm

Post #81 of 183 (2974 views)
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Ah hm [In reply to] Can't Post

I feel like Treebeard as I'm apparently out of this time Tongue Of course, you are right there are certain stereotypes in fairy tales as the one about stepmothers but it's not the same in all tales. This particular one is more common in fairy tales written by known authors. It is not that common in folklore tales, for example. There is a good reason for it as authors followed the already established and proven to be successful pattern while the people told folklore tales based on life around them. Folklore tales often told about children raised by adopted families who lived happily with the own children of the family. And there are also children books based on that. Or books about orphans who were raised by their siblings and were happy (as happy as a kid in such situation could be). Right now it's only "Heidi" in my mind but there are more. I don't find explaining books or any work of art to children a very good idea before the children are much older. Simply because small children have better understanding of the world than we do, IMHO. Ours is already too far away from simplicity and it's sometimes the best answer. Just an example on what I learned from fairy tales but mostly I would say from folklore tales: I should not trust strangers nor follow them no matter how nice they look and what they offer me (in the tales usually a fruit or a candy just like in real life) while my parents` warnings only made me curious what would happen if I ignore their warnings.

P.S. I don`t want my child to share any of my standards. I would like him to set his own standards just like I was let to build my own understanding. I can only hope I`ll be able to give him the same freedom while introducing to him the best samples of history, literature, music, etc. and letting him gain his knowledge. Of course, I`m ready to answer his questions.

Culinary journey through Middle Earth continues! Join us on January 30 on the Main board for a visit at the "Prancing pony"!

I believe


Dreamdeer
Valinor


Feb 4 2009, 6:02pm

Post #82 of 183 (2938 views)
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Ramping down the words [In reply to] Can't Post

I believe that the author of the post you are responding to intended to ramp down the words, not escalate them, saying that Tolkien belongs in neither extreme position. In fact, racist seems like too strong a word. Prejudiced--and mildly at that--seems more appropriate. Everyone is prejudiced about somebody. I have had to fight my prejudice against New Yorkers by meeting some really lovely ones, for instance.

A true racist would consider intermarriage between races anathema. Tolkien often featured marriage above one's station as a reward for achievement. Still a bit prejudiced, with the whole implicit idea of station, but a vast improvement over real racism.

Elros, I keep reading something in your posts that seems quite apart from the issue to my reading of it. You repeatedly describe good achievements in your family as something that you feel angry about being made to feel ashamed of. I keep trying to figure out what that has to do with anything. It would only fit the conversation if you saw some correlation between their achievements and their race. Is that what you're trying to say? I'm going to ask you point blank. Do you believe that achievement sets apart your race and/or class?

I wish to address another thing that you said. Nobody is "pissing on Tolkien's grave." We have all, repeatedly, acknowledged that he was advanced for his day. We admire him as a human being. We are examining his work as literature, a separate thing. It does have prejudiced elements. The author probably didn't even realize that they were there, but we are more aware today--in part because people like him promoted the sort of moral growth that led to today's level of awareness.

This subject touches a lot of wounds. I have, at times, gotten angry, because the discussion stirred up old hurts from the prejudice that I have suffered--in classism and racism both. Simplyaven has gotten hurt by reminders of how her elders got stripped of everything by a revolution. You get angry because salvos aimed at racism hit innocent bystanders who happen to share the same coloration as those who are guilty. We all have one thing in common--we have all suffered from generalizations about who we are, based on something other than our actual behavior. We may all come from very different backgrounds, yet we can heal each other's wounds by loving each other beyond the superficial differences.

Tolkien struggled to wake up from this. His books skyrocketed to popularity during an era of questioning the old assumptions, through the civil rights movement, and in fact they helped to spur the questioning onward. One saw his books everywhere in the hands of radicals, hippies, and reformers--not in the hands of the maintainers of the status quo, who despised them. His writing deserves to be studied as transition-literature, not only because it reveals a past which we have outgrown, but also because it helps to document the process of outgrowing it. In doing so, we have to admit that he wasn't there yet, but we also have to admit that he helped lead the way to get where we have arrived today.

Tolkien has repeatedly been called a conservative, even a reactionary. I think that's too coarse, a caricature of who he really was. He was also a reformer, a changer--what one might see as the opposite. He wanted to restore something essential that we had nearly lost. We needed this "essential" to change the shape of what was then the future, into what we have today--to transform the direction of "progress" away from a galloping surge over a cliff which Tolkien had the foresight to see. Since "progress" was the battle-cry most often hurled against indigenous people the world over, including in this country, I am eternally grateful!

An aspect of that essential is restoring to Europeans, especially to the British Empire, their own sense of lost indigenous culture--to patch up the holes in the broken mythos with invention of his own. Sometimes, because of the upbringing which he had, this took on prejudiced overtones--he couldn't help it. But the overall direction of his work led out of the morass of prejudice that inspired the distortion of what "progress" was supposed to mean.

He did not oppose all change. He approved of change for the better. He just felt that progress had taken a wrong turn. And it had. As we scramble today to save the world from man-made ecological disaster, to save the wisest parts of indigenous culture around the world from oblivion, to re-establish a moral compass in an era sick of selfishness, and to eradicate the very concept of wars of conquest for conquest's sake, it sure looks like he was right!

Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!


Dreamdeer
Valinor


Feb 4 2009, 6:08pm

Post #83 of 183 (2937 views)
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Wicked stepmothers [In reply to] Can't Post

The Brothers Grimm routinely transformed abusive mothers into wicked stepmothers, to try and tone down the shocking idea that someone's biological mother could do such dreadful things. The original folktales dealt with children surviving child abuse. Even more shocking, the demon lovers in a number of stories were originally incestuous fathers!

Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!


Beren IV
Gondor


Feb 4 2009, 6:32pm

Post #84 of 183 (2962 views)
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Environmental depredations [In reply to] Can't Post

Of course, the real problem is that although a race may be ill-defined genetically since it can interbreed and merge with other races a species is not. Our species, Homo sapiens, is unquestionably guilty of a great deal of bad behavior towards other species (we've cause a lot of extinctions...). Is it possible for a species to be guilty, even if an ethnicity cannot?

The paleobotanist is back!


Dreamdeer
Valinor


Feb 4 2009, 7:23pm

Post #85 of 183 (2927 views)
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We're in good company [In reply to] Can't Post

Humanity is not the only species capable of environmental depredation. Locusts are notorious for it. Deer in winter will kill off huge swathes of forest by nibbling all the bark off of trees, if hampered from migrating to warmer climes. Elephants who get hold of fermented fruit will crash about and destroy their environment shockingly in a single wild day. Speaking of fermentation, we base the entire wine, beer, and liquor industries on the predictability of yeast polluting themselves to death.

We are not inherently evil. Far from it--we at least have the intellectual capacity to hopefully stop ourselves short of total destruction.

Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!


Elros
Rivendell


Feb 4 2009, 7:29pm

Post #86 of 183 (2933 views)
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I guess I will just never understand [In reply to] Can't Post

 

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Elros, I keep reading something in your posts that seems quite apart from the issue to my reading of it. You repeatedly describe good achievements in your family as something that you feel angry about being made to feel ashamed of. I keep trying to figure out what that has to do with anything. It would only fit the conversation if you saw some correlation between their achievements and their race. Is that what you're trying to say? I'm going to ask you point blank. Do you believe that achievement sets apart your race and/or class?

No, I believe they set apart my parents and I. I felt this was applicable because my entire reason for responding to Curious' post and getting this whole ball of wax in the first place was because Tolkien made the Edain and Aragorn the greatest of Men due to their deeds in the First and Third Age, respectively. That is why they are portrayed as being so high and noble. They accomplished something, just as my parents did. Yet, if we acknowledge that accomplishment, somehow we are being racist or classist towards anyone else. Other people (in real life, not here on the boards, obviously) are the ones bringing classism into the picture with my parents.


Quote
This subject touches a lot of wounds. I have, at times, gotten angry, because the discussion stirred up old hurts from the prejudice that I have suffered--in classism and racism both. Simplyaven has gotten hurt by reminders of how her elders got stripped of everything by a revolution. You get angry because salvos aimed at racism hit innocent bystanders who happen to share the same coloration as those who are guilty. We all have one thing in common--we have all suffered from generalizations about who we are, based on something other than our actual behavior. We may all come from very different backgrounds, yet we can heal each other's wounds by loving each other beyond the superficial differences.

I don't relate that strongly to any of the characters in a story that run around trying to get rid of a dark lord, but if I did, I guess I could relate to the Numenoreans and their descendents in Middle Earth. Highly educated for their time, successful at physical competitions, wealthy, perhaps a bit prideful. Why is it that anytime the heroes in the story fit my lifestyle, it is considered racist or classist? If you are allowed to feel hurt because of what a fake character in a book says, why can't I have any feelings about what real human beings are writing?

I had never even thought about what skin color any of the characters in LOTR were until I came here and had it pointed out to me. I don't look at people by their skin color, so why would I care? If Aragorn was a blue-skinned Smurf, I would still like him the best. If we want to be free from predjudice and racism in the real world, why do we go around looking for it in the make-believe world? That's what I can't figure out. Is their prejudice in LOTR? Yes. Is it easy to ignore? For me it was. But I don't look at myself as a color, I see myself as a person.


N.E. Brigand
Half-elven


Feb 4 2009, 8:11pm

Post #87 of 183 (2941 views)
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Tolkien wrote a poem about drugged elephants. [In reply to] Can't Post

The distant ancestor of Sam's poem was published in 1927 as "Iumbo, or ye Kinde of ye Oliphaunt". It's set in India not Middle-earth.

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Dreamdeer
Valinor


Feb 4 2009, 8:14pm

Post #88 of 183 (2948 views)
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Distinctions [In reply to] Can't Post

There is nothing to be ashamed of in being grateful to your forebears for giving you advantages. I am intensely grateful to my forebears for passing on a strong love of self-education, even when it sometimes had to go underground, a passion for reading, for poetry, for storytelling and story-listening. I am grateful to my father for being the only guy in the trailer-park who needed two spaces, one for his trailor and one for the refurbished grayhound bus that held his library (the bus was named "Shadofax", by the way.) I am grateful to my grandmother who would come in from the graveyard shift at the Convair factory, watch us kids pop up from bed eager to be read to, and wearily but patiently read us back to sleep from the Louis Untermeyer anthology, "Story Poems", where I soaked up Byron, Browning, Frost, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Whitman, Rosetti, and all of the other great poets from an early age. I am grateful for growing up with weekly trips to the public library, from which we carried stacks of books precariously held from toppling over by our chins.

The difference is in those who act as though their forebears accomplishments were their own, who act as though they were better than others not for their own deeds, but simply for inheriting the fruits of the deeds of others. That would be false pride, not true gratitude. If I had inherited the libraries of my parents and grandparents, and thought that flaunting the books made me a fine person, yet did not bother to read any of them, then I would not deserve respect.

Or if they had stolen their library, maybe even killed for it (as some robber-barons have enriched their heirs through murderous means) then I would have cause for shame over the library--yet I could still ennoble myself by striving to do reparation with the ill-got education. After all, the Rooseveldts made their fortune off of the opium trade, yet the descendants of these drug-lords became honorable people in later generations, whose reparations made up for the sins of their forebears.

Inherited wealth, by itself, is nothing to either apologize for or congratulate oneself for. All depends upon the choices that one makes in response. Shall it be gratitude, or entitlement?

Elrond made sure that Aragorn grew up with gratitude, not entitlement. He would not hand over all of Aragorn's inheritence until the man had earned it. In this he showed his love and wisdom. And Aragorn himself showed wisdom, for he both restored the glories of the best of his ancestors, and made reparation for the worst of his ancestors.

There's no room for black and white dichotomies here. Who we are, in relation to our ancestors, depends upon how we respond to all of the subtleties of our heritage.

Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!


Beren IV
Gondor


Feb 4 2009, 8:18pm

Post #89 of 183 (2936 views)
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But do they cause extinctions? [In reply to] Can't Post

The answer, of course, is yes - most of the extinctions that we have caused have been on islands, and much of that is indirect: we introduce other things to the islands, particularly rats and various carnivores, and they actually cause the extinctions. Nonetheless, our misdeeds in this arena far outweigh any of the misdeeds we have done to ourselves.

The paleobotanist is back!


Elros
Rivendell


Feb 4 2009, 10:01pm

Post #90 of 183 (2917 views)
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Tell me something i don't know [In reply to] Can't Post

Lessons like those you talk about were lessons I learned from my parents long ago, and lessons I will teach my first child when he arrives soon. I was far from spoiled growing up, as you seem to imply. Everything I've accomplished, I've done as a result of my own abilties and work ethic. Here is the line in Curious' original post that got me on the subject to begin with:


Quote
Tolkien's focus on the long line of Numenorean kings strikes me as classist and perhaps racist.


I still fail to see what is wrong with Tolkien focusing on the Numenoreans, something I feel he did in recognition of their deeds in the First Age. This is what all my posts have been trying to figure out. Tolkien can't control our thoughts. If someone reads LOTR and focuses solely on the fact that orcs have dark skin, so he must be implying he or she is an evil person, I don't see that as being Tolkien's fault. Again, I don't see people as colors or dollar signs, so it is very hard for me to understand how other people could. If they do feel that way about themselves because of hurts done to them in the past, it is neither their own fault nor Tolkien's. It is the fault of the person or persons causing the hurt in the first place. That's why I see it as pissing on Tolkien's grave when the finger is pointed at him.


a.s.
Valinor


Feb 4 2009, 10:32pm

Post #91 of 183 (2967 views)
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Eurocentricity [In reply to] Can't Post

What a lot of interesting subthreads. Gosh, you leave the place alone for awhile and all of a sudden there's a hot topic being discussed behind your back! Sheesh.

Just kidding.

I'm not sure where this reply belongs so I'm just replying to the main post.

What is racism? It has to be more than simple prejudice, a simple belief that one race is better than other races. One could be prejudiced without causing a problem for other people, if personal prejudice did not enter into any decisions made or actions taken in a social context. But unfortunately for our brothers, we live in social groups and whoever finds themselves in charge gets to make the rules we all live by, thereby making individual prejudice a dangerous thing.

So racism must imply some kind of result or action; not just the feeling or belief in a superior race but social decisions based on that belief, such as segregation, restriction of basic rights, and anything up to attempts at complete annhilation of another race based on prejudice. It's the human actions against our brothers based on the differences in perceived "race" that is the inevitable result of unacknowledged prejudice (or acknowledged prejudice that is not effectively curtailed) that is the problem for others.

And I might ask: who gets to determine what is racist, the person with the prejudice or the person experiencing the sting of the prejudice? I'd say the latter.

Tolkien was not a racist in the sense of advocating superior status for one race or another in real life. We know this from several of his letters: he deplored the Nazis and anti-Semitism, for instance. He was not an active racist, in other words.

It would be surprising to me if he did not, however, have a Eurocentric point of view in the sense that he thought European white races to be the superior ones based on history to his point in time.

To pretend that this didn't influence his writing of ME history is as wrong, in my opinion, as trying to pretend his personal views of the worth of women did not influence his writing. There is probably a reason there are few strong women in his stories and many (most) even of those we know only in relation to a male character's main role. There is probably a reason that the best and brightest of the characters in ME are white males; however, one shouldn't lose count of the small and meek nobodies (the hobbits, in other words) who actually save the world.

In other words, there may be inherent prejudice in whom Tolkien chooses to be the "master races", the Kings of Gondor vs. the Swarty Southrons, for instance. Or that not only are all the Elves white (as far as we know) there are no equivalent "swarty bad guy elves". The Elves are, as a race, superior to Men, and all the Elves are white-skinned. Whether that was intentional or non-intentional, it is.

But the heart of the story is that we are all fallen men, every last one of us from the high to the low.

Tolkien's story isn't a tribute to racism--doesn't excuse racism or endorse it explicitly--anymore than it endorses misogyny. But I should be able to point out the dearth of women as heroic characters in LOTR as a criticism, and I should be able to point out the Eurocentric, white-skinned point of view of LOTR as a criticism, without castigating the author personally. To recognize prejudice is just to recognize prejudice, our own or others.

Just my rambling thoughts on the matter.

a.s.

"an seileachan"

Some say once you're gone, you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you'll rest in the arms of the Savior, if sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're coming back in a garden: bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.

Iris DeMent



Call Her Emily


N.E. Brigand
Half-elven


Feb 4 2009, 10:57pm

Post #92 of 183 (2936 views)
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Is Aragorn better than everyone else because he's Númenórean? [In reply to] Can't Post

Some readers think that in The Lord of the Rings, the quality of an individual is dependent on his or her bloodline. For Curious, the appendices in particular seem in their close attention to the survival of Elros' blood to emphasize that Aragorn alone is worthy to be king. Whether or not Tolkien intends this can be disputed: I have done so by noting that the Northmen of Rhovanion are among Aragorn's ancestors. But suppose Tolkien did make this point more explicitly -- would it be silly of readers to be concerned? Only if it is equally silly of them to admire aspects of Tolkien's characters, like the heroes' refusal to give in to despair, I think.


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Tell me something I don't know.


The Appalachian Trail passes through fourteen states.
Last month was the second-snowiest January ever in Cleveland.
Madison Square Garden was once P.T. Barnum's "Hippodrome".
The Plethodontids are the largest salamander family.
Smith of Wootton Major's grandfater was named Rider.

Do any of those statements qualify?

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Curious
Half-elven


Feb 4 2009, 11:08pm

Post #93 of 183 (2918 views)
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What does the First Age [In reply to] Can't Post

have to do with Aragorn? According to Appendix A, quite a bit, based on the purity of his blood. I know it's a fantasy, and that premise still makes me uncomfortable.

I also hope I am clear that I do not judge Tolkien the same way I would a contemporary author. The fact that there are distinct races and subraces and class distinctions in LotR -- and I hope we can at least agree that such races and subraces and class distinctions do exist within Tolkien's fantasy -- does not make Tolkien a Nazi or an evil man. But it does imply that he was not as sensitive to the issue of race or class as we might be today.

And sure, my reaction is based on my experiences, not Tolkien's. But I certainly don't imagine myself doing anything on Tolkien's grave. To me it seems I am just pointing out the obvious. And I don't think it does Tolkien any good to deny the obvious.


Elros
Rivendell


Feb 5 2009, 1:14am

Post #94 of 183 (2906 views)
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Sorry to get you involved again Curious [In reply to] Can't Post

I just quoted your line from before to get my posting privileges back.

I can certainly agree that Tolkien made (and rearranged) many different races and classes in LOTR. I guess our society hadn't made as much progress as I thought it had that it had, but that's probably due to ignorance on my part. I really am happy to say I have lived my life free from racial prejudices, both in my lifestyle and the lifestyles of the people around me. I had always thought that was a good thing, but perhaps it's not. (And I don't intend that as sarcasm.) I guess I'm just a look forward kind of guy. We can't change the past, so why not learn from it for the present and future?


Elros
Rivendell


Feb 5 2009, 1:31am

Post #95 of 183 (2943 views)
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They do indeed! [In reply to] Can't Post

Thanks, NEB. I'm waiting for the guys to SportsCenter to come and announce Kobe dropped 61 at the Hippodrome the other night.


Dreamdeer
Valinor


Feb 5 2009, 4:55am

Post #96 of 183 (2919 views)
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Easy now... [In reply to] Can't Post

I did not intend in the least to imply that you were spoiled. I was objectively trying to get away from sweeping absolutes by describing a wider range of variation, from spoiled to altruistic. I made no judgment as to where you fit in this spectrum. I grieve for whatever unfair experiences you have undergone that have sensitized you to perceived insults. I've been doing a bit of that, myself, for which I am sorry.

Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!

(This post was edited by Dreamdeer on Feb 5 2009, 5:02am)


sador
Half-elven

Feb 5 2009, 8:01am

Post #97 of 183 (2937 views)
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It's good you're back! [In reply to] Can't Post

Just about the swarthy Haradrim - don't a lot of them have in fact Numenorean blood? King's Men's blood, of course - but Numenorean nontheless?

Note that Faramir mentiones "the wild Easterlings or the cruel Haradrim" ('The Window on the West') - although he denies the kinship with the Haradrim there.

I once had an argument with Curious (see here, his response and the whole sub-thread), about Bill Ferny; I suspected he was a member of a fallen aristocracy (based on his house and his manner) - in fact, I picture him as a remnant of the Dunedain of Rhudaur; Curious argued that Ferny was lower-class, because of his swarthy complexion!
Well, genetically at least, he sure had a lot of Breelanders' blood in his vein (and perhaps a bit of orc as well, from the good ol' Angmar days?) - but I think the swarthiness of the Harad Black Numenoreans allows for such speculation.

"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory" - Aragorn


Darkstone
Immortal


Feb 5 2009, 2:34pm

Post #98 of 183 (2882 views)
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MOS is Númenórean. [In reply to] Can't Post

But Aragorn is descended from rebel Númenóreans, that is, from the Faithful.

One might also note Faramir's rebellious streak towards Denethor, in whose blood Númenór still runs true. Which of the two is "better"? (I vote for rebel Faramir.)

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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”



Ghills
The Shire

Feb 5 2009, 3:53pm

Post #99 of 183 (2889 views)
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Did not mean to give offense [In reply to] Can't Post

I'm very sorry that my words seem to have offended you. I was simply trying to say that times have changed since the books were written, and that being an extremist does not help anyone.


Curious
Half-elven


Feb 5 2009, 3:54pm

Post #100 of 183 (2933 views)
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Better does not [In reply to] Can't Post

necessarily mean more virtuous, as Tolkien shows many times over, from Melkor to Lotho. But the better or superior races are leaders, for better or for worse. Aragorn could have failed the test fate gave him, taken the Ring, and turned evil; but he still would have been a leader among the evil, as is the Mouth of Sauron or the Witch-king. Faramir and Imrahil, on the other hand, no matter how virtuous, could never be worthy of the throne of Gondor, because their blood is not pure. And men of lesser lineage should not even think about it.

It's an aristocracy in the mythical sense, where heroes were often required to have divine blood in their veins -- and yes, myths are also often racist, if other races are mentioned, or more likely classist. But of course the authors of such ancient tales, even more so than Tolkien, often grew up in societies where class distinctions were taken for granted.


(This post was edited by Curious on Feb 5 2009, 4:02pm)

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