I mean the whole Tolkien is racist thing is kind of a red herring. Tolkien was writing from a strictly medievalist perspective with a strong basis in European myth. The orcs=POC thing is fundamentally misunderstanding the novels. Tolkien depicted the sentient creatures in his world as part of a divine chain of being similar to how medieval Europeans viewed the world. The orcs are evil because they were created by Morgoth, they’re essentially demons. There is no “orc race” to be racist against. The fact that they are depicted as “dark” is more due to the Christian symbolism that is so prevalent in Tolkien’s writing. The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times. The dark skinned men fighting on sauron’s side in the war of the ring are explicitly said to not be inherently evil, just under the influence of sauron’s literal mind control. In fact there is no “race” of men depicted as inherently evil. Remember that every “race” of men is meant to be proto European and the Easterlings and Haradrim, if we’re looking at the actual text, strictly are not analogues for Africans or asians.
The kings of Gondor themselves were descended from the numenoreans who were depicted as being superior to other men due to their closeness to the elves, (which are never depicted as “white people”), yet were corrupted by Sauron, turning to evil and having their civilization destroyed. Nevermind the fact that Tolkien himself directly addressed these criticisms of his writing and strongly dismissed any implication that LOTR contained racialist allegory, the writing speaks for itself. So yes Tolkien is racist if you deliberately misunderstand the perspective and intention of his work.
The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times
Tolkein himself was firmly in a racist society and there's nothing i know of to indicate he acknowledged concepts of race weren't immutable constructs. his contemporaries in history academia would be going off about teutonic races and asiatics---how we think of history in regards to race was constructed post-Tolkien, or at least after he'd written the books.
Beyond this, you can make a convincing argument all that preoccupation with blood & lineage and the reduction of pure pedigree (numenoreans / elves) through miscegenation is clear racial framing.
I think a certain amount of racism was present in the lord of the rings, but far less than the average book at the time. For this reason, I give Tolkien a pass. However, most Tolkien-esque works are less complex and thought out, so anything that could be racism does become racism. For example, the elves, which are in Tolkien's work a very complex people with links to nature and the gods and thier own failures and successes, are just idealized br*tish people in Tokien-esque works. The same is true for every one of his races. Goblins are greedy and have large facial features, but become explicitly anti-semetic in Terf lady's works. Orcs have somewhat sou-east asian traits, mostly because that is the opposite of European beauty standard when Tolkien wrote, but look African in a certain RPG. The movies don't always help, and the fact that we see derivatives from derivatives makes this even worse.
That's kind of deliberate though. Redguard definitely presents the Empire as imperialist invaders, the philosophical foundation of all three Empires is basically Alessian anti-elf genocide, it was literally built on the murder, death, and betrayal of the people who co-operated to found it, and a lot of it being "Good" is because Imperial aligned people have repeatedly rewritten the fabric of time of elide away any awkward things. Talos himself in Morrowind states it's time for the Empire to die.
That doesn't mean the other factions are good, though. Aldmeri literally want to destroy the world, Bosmeri want to eat people, Dunmeri have based gods but stole and murderered their way to power and are hardcore slavers. Dwemer literally were trying to reformat the hard drives of creation and replace it with them.Nords are the Worst, Bretons make their Forsaken cousins look like angels
Pretty much everyone in the Elder Scrolls is a giant raging douchebag...except the Argonians (and to a lesser extent Kajihit and Orcs) which ARE presented as mostly good in the subtext.
i dont think it does. they're hardly heroes in morrowind or skyrim, and i wouldnt say oblivion plots onto a political analysis very well. and they're the baddies in that Redguard game.
Isn't that the point though? You're not meant to look at those things and go 'ah, good.' Like in Skyrim, Windhelm is a racist shithole. You can just kill most of the racists.
In Skyrim there's a famous chef called the Gourmet who keeps his identity a secret because he is an Orc. Most of the people you meet are sure that they must be a Breton.
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I mean the whole Tolkien is racist thing is kind of a red herring. Tolkien was writing from a strictly medievalist perspective with a strong basis in European myth. The orcs=POC thing is fundamentally misunderstanding the novels. Tolkien depicted the sentient creatures in his world as part of a divine chain of being similar to how medieval Europeans viewed the world. The orcs are evil because they were created by Morgoth, they’re essentially demons. There is no “orc race” to be racist against. The fact that they are depicted as “dark” is more due to the Christian symbolism that is so prevalent in Tolkien’s writing. The idea of race as we understand it doesn’t exist in LOTR, just as it didn’t exist during medieval times. The dark skinned men fighting on sauron’s side in the war of the ring are explicitly said to not be inherently evil, just under the influence of sauron’s literal mind control. In fact there is no “race” of men depicted as inherently evil. Remember that every “race” of men is meant to be proto European and the Easterlings and Haradrim, if we’re looking at the actual text, strictly are not analogues for Africans or asians. The kings of Gondor themselves were descended from the numenoreans who were depicted as being superior to other men due to their closeness to the elves, (which are never depicted as “white people”), yet were corrupted by Sauron, turning to evil and having their civilization destroyed. Nevermind the fact that Tolkien himself directly addressed these criticisms of his writing and strongly dismissed any implication that LOTR contained racialist allegory, the writing speaks for itself. So yes Tolkien is racist if you deliberately misunderstand the perspective and intention of his work.
Tolkein himself was firmly in a racist society and there's nothing i know of to indicate he acknowledged concepts of race weren't immutable constructs. his contemporaries in history academia would be going off about teutonic races and asiatics---how we think of history in regards to race was constructed post-Tolkien, or at least after he'd written the books.
Beyond this, you can make a convincing argument all that preoccupation with blood & lineage and the reduction of pure pedigree (numenoreans / elves) through miscegenation is clear racial framing.
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I think a certain amount of racism was present in the lord of the rings, but far less than the average book at the time. For this reason, I give Tolkien a pass. However, most Tolkien-esque works are less complex and thought out, so anything that could be racism does become racism. For example, the elves, which are in Tolkien's work a very complex people with links to nature and the gods and thier own failures and successes, are just idealized br*tish people in Tokien-esque works. The same is true for every one of his races. Goblins are greedy and have large facial features, but become explicitly anti-semetic in Terf lady's works. Orcs have somewhat sou-east asian traits, mostly because that is the opposite of European beauty standard when Tolkien wrote, but look African in a certain RPG. The movies don't always help, and the fact that we see derivatives from derivatives makes this even worse.
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is it tho? monarchy is part-and-parcel to the setting, depiction =/= fetishization
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That's kind of deliberate though. Redguard definitely presents the Empire as imperialist invaders, the philosophical foundation of all three Empires is basically Alessian anti-elf genocide, it was literally built on the murder, death, and betrayal of the people who co-operated to found it, and a lot of it being "Good" is because Imperial aligned people have repeatedly rewritten the fabric of time of elide away any awkward things. Talos himself in Morrowind states it's time for the Empire to die.
That doesn't mean the other factions are good, though. Aldmeri literally want to destroy the world, Bosmeri want to eat people, Dunmeri have based gods but stole and murderered their way to power and are hardcore slavers. Dwemer literally were trying to reformat the hard drives of creation and replace it with them.Nords are the Worst, Bretons make their Forsaken cousins look like angels
Pretty much everyone in the Elder Scrolls is a giant raging douchebag...except the Argonians (and to a lesser extent Kajihit and Orcs) which ARE presented as mostly good in the subtext.
i dont think it does. they're hardly heroes in morrowind or skyrim, and i wouldnt say oblivion plots onto a political analysis very well. and they're the baddies in that Redguard game.
Why
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I really don't think it does this but I've only played Morrowind and newer.
All fantasy is fascist, unironically agree.
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Isn't that the point though? You're not meant to look at those things and go 'ah, good.' Like in Skyrim, Windhelm is a racist shithole. You can just kill most of the racists.
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In Skyrim there's a famous chef called the Gourmet who keeps his identity a secret because he is an Orc. Most of the people you meet are sure that they must be a Breton.
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