The Last Ring-Bearer.

[Kai]

Now translated from the Russian. http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html

Concept: JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings can often be taken as a piece of racist propaganda. In 1999, Dr. Kirill Yeskov wrote a reversal of this story, telling what the war was really about, in real world terms of power and economics. In this light, Mordor becomes an enlightened kingdom of many races, with great high culture and learning, with Sauron as the enlightened king, trolls become the great smithers and miners, oracuen become sympathetic characters as people. Opposing, the Free Men of the West are shown as power hungry and cruel, horrific in their methods, and Gandalf as a racist fool. Dr. Yeskov reconstructed this story after finding ways that the Middle Earth maps and the Lord of the Rings propaganda don't line up.

A link to the PDF: http://www.sendspace.com/file/a75r7u

[Adios]

 
After I wake up some more I will have to read it.

[Cain]

Excellent.

Of course, it is clear to anyone who has read Tolkein's letters that he was in fact deeply troubled by certain aspects of the Lord of the Rings, including his portrayal of Orcs in particular, but so many fail authors further down the line have cribbed this aspect from his writing without even thinking about the implications of it, so I'm OK with people picking at it to prove a point.

[Kai]

Excellent.

Of course, it is clear to anyone who has read Tolkein's letters that he was in fact deeply troubled by certain aspects of the Lord of the Rings, including his portrayal of Orcs in particular, but so many fail authors further down the line have cribbed this aspect from his writing without even thinking about the implications of it, so I'm OK with people picking at it to prove a point.

I meant "racist propaganda" more from an in world portrayal view. As in, the Free Men of the West, the victors, wrote the story. Revisionist history, if you will.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, this is just silly.   

[Kai]

Okay, this is just silly.   

Yeah, showing smugy humans as people is pretty silly too, I guess. Wait, what?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, this is just silly.   

Yeah, showing smugy humans as people is pretty silly too, I guess. Wait, what?

Last I checked, Martin Luther King Jr didn't eat people.

Sometimes a fantasy novel is just a Goddamn fantasy novel.

[Kai]

Okay, this is just silly.   

Yeah, showing smugy humans as people is pretty silly too, I guess. Wait, what?

Last I checked, Martin Luther King Jr didn't eat people.

Sometimes a fantasy novel is just a Goddamn fantasy novel.

Meh.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, this is just silly.   

Yeah, showing smugy humans as people is pretty silly too, I guess. Wait, what?

Last I checked, Martin Luther King Jr didn't eat people.

Sometimes a fantasy novel is just a Goddamn fantasy novel.

Meh.

Well, okay.  Then we'll need to examine/get rid of:

1.  JRR Tolkien
2.  Samuel Clemmens
3.  Shakespeare
4.  Kipling
5.  Herman Melville

I could go on for days, but I think you get the point.

TGRR,
Shameless upholder of horrible racists like Mark Twain.

[Cramulus]

In his foreword to the work Tolkien expressed his dislike of allegory: "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical... It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted."

Tolkien also writes, "... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presences. I much prefer history, true or feigned. ... I think many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides to the freedom of the reader, and the other in the proposed domination of the author." [1]


so it sounds like while Tolkien did not intend his works to an analogue of the real world, he was open to the idea that his readers might be able to use his work to talk about real issues.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fuck.  Outrage Crammed.   

[East Coast Hustle]

The premise is pretty ridiculous, but if it's well-written it sounds like it could be a fun read anyway.

[East Coast Hustle]

but yeah, Orcs weren't a different race in the sense that we use the term today, they were an entirely different species. A species that ate other sentient species, sometimes just for fun.

If being anti-orc makes me a racist, then so does being, say, anti-polar bear or anti-baboon.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

but yeah, Orcs weren't a different race in the sense that we use the term today, they were an entirely different species. A species that ate other sentient species, sometimes just for fun.

If being anti-orc makes me a racist, then so does being, say, anti-polar bear or anti-baboon.

Poor cave trolls.  They just want to make stuff and maybe snack on someone or two, and these awful White people show up and fucking their shit.

[Adios]

Wow. I took the whole thing as a funny.