Yeah the shit he was writing was seriously a work of it's time, it's clear he had racist views on people. I've also read on here that he based orcs being dark skinned on soldiers in WWI being dirty from trench warfare, not sure how true that is. Shame all of this wasn't fleshed out more, I know there's campaigns that take place in the east in some of the LOTR tabletop games.
IIRC later on he started writing in notes and letters about expanding on the east with the blue mages helping active resistance movements and this being critical to the defeat of Sauron by disrupting reinforcements, but its still pretty clear what he focused on writing narratively about and what was written as more off to the side lore.
I think there's some truth to it, but Tolkien was always adamant that LOTR isn't a metaphor for anything in particular, it just is what it is. Obviously that doesn't mean certain elements were inspired by and taken from real life, however.
Yeah the shit he was writing was seriously a work of it's time, it's clear he had racist views on people. I've also read on here that he based orcs being dark skinned on soldiers in WWI being dirty from trench warfare, not sure how true that is. Shame all of this wasn't fleshed out more, I know there's campaigns that take place in the east in some of the LOTR tabletop games.
IIRC later on he started writing in notes and letters about expanding on the east with the blue mages helping active resistance movements and this being critical to the defeat of Sauron by disrupting reinforcements, but its still pretty clear what he focused on writing narratively about and what was written as more off to the side lore.
I think there's some truth to it, but Tolkien was always adamant that LOTR isn't a metaphor for anything in particular, it just is what it is. Obviously that doesn't mean certain elements were inspired by and taken from real life, however.