NP "racist" Tolkien?

[Dave Monroe]

I was always waiting to find out they were brothers. 
Not having kept up on all the backstory published
since The Silmarillion, I'm not sure if their
natures/origins were ever addressed ...  

--- Mutualcode at aol.com wrote:
> Ya know, the thing that always made me a little
> suspicious, as I slogged through TLOTR, was the
> relationship between Gandalf and Saruman. Weren't
> they of the same ilk, or at least class? 

Racial issues aside for the time being, what's
interesting is how Saruman goes from "The White" to
"The Many-Coloured" (well ... okay ...).  Refraction a
la Newton.  Analysis.  A breaking apart.  Scientism.
Mechanism.  "Dark Satanic Mills."  Gandalf, on the
other hand, is apparently promoted from "The Gray" to
"The White."  Shadow to illumination ...  

I've always been interested, however, on the guys who
DON'T get theor starring turn.  The Green Lantern
Corps.  001-006, 008 and 009 (see Thunderball; I wanna
make the movie about what the REST of those guys do
there).  And what happened to that long-necked,
four-armed guy on the Jedi Council in The Phantom
Menace?  Or the female Yoda?  Or, for that matter,
Radagast the Brown?  Cf. St. Francis of Assisi ...

http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~bouvin/tolkien/radagast.html

Tolkien didn't even bother to assign poor Pallando and
Alatar their own individual colors ...

http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~bouvin/tolkien/otheristari.html

> There was some commonality between the footsoldiers
> on both sides, as well, and, if their racial 
> antipathies hadn't been manipulated by their leaders
> so much, who knows? 

I like Brin's take on this.  Exactly the kind of thing
ignored when dehumanzing, demonizing an enemy.  One
thing in fiction, perhaps, but I think we've felt its
effects in real life for, well, ever.  Krauts.  Nips. 
Gooks.  Sand-Niggers.  Et al.  Paul Verhoven showed
this in action on Heinlein's quintessentially
dehumanized, demonized "bugs" in Starship Troopers. 
And don't forget those hapless independent 
contractors who surely must have been working on that
uncompleted second Death Star when she blew ...

http://www.whysanity.net/monos/clerks3.html

> The Dwarves always struck me as being potentially
> good union organizers. I think their main loyalty 
> was to a job well done, and not any particular
> "boss."

They were made out to be more loyal to their horde
(the Arkenstone et al.) in The Hobbit.  Though
craftsmen nonetheless.  But nothing so democratic as a
union.  A guild, on the other hand ...

> Anyway, I think Tolkien's main paranoia was not so
> much "the negro" as the hordes of swarthy Mongols,
> which, under the reign of Ghengis and the rest of
> the Khans, had swept across the  steppes of Asia
> and threatened both Europe and The Holy Land in the
> thirteenth century.

Well, again, I don't think Tolkien had a "paranoia" or
whatever, but, yeah, I've always read the Orcs (not to
mention the Klingons ...) as "Mongol."  The
harsh-sounding language, the "slanted eyes," and I
distinctly remember a "sallow" amongst the "swarthys"
somewhere along the line.  The Hobbit, I believe, vs.
the trilogy.  They got darker (cf., again, the
Klingons, who these days are largely played by
African-American actors).  But who's Trent?  Lost me
...
 
> The Ring, of course, is the real enemy- because of
> it's multiplication of effect. 

Brin makes a point of its "democratization" of power. 
Anyone can wear it.  Though not control it ...

> Racial stereo-typing is quite natural

Anything but natural, of course.  Naturalized, maybe,
in that ultimate of ideological operations, but ...

> and, in and of itself, not evil. In fact, ignoring
> racial characteristics, which serves to strip them
> of their power, may be just as bad as demonizing
> them. 

Well, this is of course a complicated issue, and none
of us are likely to hit on a panacea for racism ...

> In the presence of The Ring, however, everyone 
> becomes the same. The Ring leaves a swath of entropy
> in its wake.

This I do not disagree with.  Entrpic indeed.  And 
twen-cen lit'rachure abound with entropy: wastelands,
ash-heaps, blasted heaths, whatever.  Thanks ...

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com