[ SECRET POST #2594 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2594 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 094 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen posts about the portrayal of Orcs and the Haradim in Tolkien being racist... If I remember rightly, the arguments were that Tolkien describes Orcs as 'black' (at least once -- I searched a pdf) and presents the entire race as 'bad', and the Haradim are small and dark and from the east. (Though, personally, I think the Haradim are modelled on the Normans, who did, after all, destroy Anglo-Saxon England pretty much overnight).

[(Anonymous)]

The Haradrim, or Southrons, came from the South and had elephants, from which it is not unreasonable to conclude they're not white. The Easterlings came from the East and were also, I believe, implied to be not white. The Southrons and Easterlings are indicated to be serving bad masters rather than inherently evil by nature, but are still on the wrong side. In my opinion, this is the thing to discuss if you want to discuss racism in Tolkien.

The interesting thing about orcs being all bad is that Tolkien couldn't make up his mind where they came from because of that. The version that made it into the Silmarillion and so is nominally canon is that they are descended from elves who were twisted by Morgoth, the Satan-analogue, because the devil cannot create, only distort. However, he later decided that this was a problem because if they were descended from elves, the orcs should have free will and the ability to choose between good and evil, and there is no indication they did.

[rapunzelita]

Well, I'm not necessarily thinking about equating fantasy races to real-world racism; it's more the very idea of fantasy races (up to calling them "races") that bothers me somewhat. I'm not saying that it's not a good idea - there are some works that use it as a way of having diversity. It's just the idea of "those are the dwarves and they are good at crafting things and making machines, those are the elves and they're good at standing around in the woods and weeping and singing mournfully*" that bothers me - the idea that "this 'race' does this thing well, that race does that thing well", and that it's inherently within their nature (and not just because their culture emphasises those particular things) that kind of bothers me.

*Sorry I have been reading the abridged version of the Silmarillion.

Now I'm not saying that those things are racist, but more that they kind of play into the same kind of system that we like to have where we separate the world into neat little categories and then go "this is us, this is them" (not necessarily with the good/evil sort of parallel), when really it's far more complicated than that. It's just that even the works that actually criticise this with the inclusion of fantastic racism (like Dragon Age does with the elves being a travelling people that tends to run into similar problems that the Romani and other traveller populations face in reality) don't really question the fact that there are races to begin with.

For instance, I'd be interested to read a dwarf/elf/human world in which the protagonist has all three ancestries and keeps wondering which of the three they are or are supposed to be, and the way it conflicts with their identity, with what they'd like to be, and with their struggle to accomplish important things. Or something that uses some other way to question the way the lines seem to be very clearly defined between the different groups and their cultures, when interfertility and cultural exchange is clearly happening.

(Like in Skyrim you have all those people from different areas and different species hanging around, which is awesome because yay diversity, and the "nordic purity" crap that Ulfric and his gang have going on is clearly depicted negatively, but on the other hand I don't remember seeing a person mentioning that they're half-Redguard half-Dunmer, you know? Though to be fair there are quite a few interracial marriages if I remember well, at least between different human cultures)(And people, if I'm wrong about Skyrim please tell me it will give me more excuses to love the game :p)

Hrm. Sorry, I kind of got side-tracked?

[(Anonymous)]

those are the elves and they're good at standing around in the woods and weeping and singing mournfully

Silmarillion elves are good at everything.

Except common sense, they're not so good at that.

[rapunzelita]

Haha, then again the Silmarillion was written by elves, so that would explain that ;)

And no, they're not so good at common sense... Feanor is a good example of that.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Of course it was written by Elves! The only copies available by the time an enterprising translator like Bilbo came along and started translating it into Westron is the copies he found in Rivendell!

What's more, it's written by Sindar Elves, or at least Noldor who have practically become Sindar anyway! (I have muses with problems with Sindar Elves. They mildly resent that the history books are so Sindar-bent.)

[(Anonymous)]

I just assumed they were the victims of the worst form of brainwashing imaginable and left it at that. Morgoth was one of the Valar, essentially a major demigod gone bad. I have no problem imagining that he was capable of irreparably poisoning the souls of an entire sub-species, trying to subvert the will of Illuvatar by taking their free will away.