One Racist to Rule Them All

We could all participate with a good old fashioned biblical stoning. Group fun!

[TheZeroMan]

On the random connecting thing from Tolkien to other sources check this one out.

These I've come up with randomly though I suppose others who are much smarter than me have alreasdy thought of:

The the riders of Rohan resemble Normans. I.e Vikings that settled down and focused on becoming a heavy calvary. In the books they were wandering and helped defend gondor and thus were given the land, I believe if look through history you can find other examples of a people giving land to travellers who could defend the land. The british hired danes and vikings to protect them from other danes and vikings.(with mixed results )

The Easterlings and southerns may resemble africans, middle easterners, and such because that just what people would look like if you evolved in that climate... that just seems logical to me.

Though who looks at the Uruk-hai and says THEY LOOK LIKE ME!

Gondor seems almost like the Roman empire. Period of warring , Long period of peace, then slowly crumbles, splits in two, and one half survives. Arnor and Gondor. Roman half of the empire and the Greek half.

The Wild men seem very germanic, and are constantly haassing the more civilized kingdoms....

I don't think that JRR actually wrote his books and mythology setting out to parrellel anything but he just drew on all his sources as any good writer does...

anyway yea.

[Dante]

Originally Posted by Derek R.

We could all participate with a good old fashioned biblical stoning. Group fun!

Not for the stonees, but hey, I'm in.

*Goes to call a Hulking Hurler from the RP forum*

[Tor]

Originally Posted by Derek R.

We could all participate with a good old fashioned biblical stoning. Group fun!

Why does Monthy Python come in mind?

-Are there any women here?

[Devon Lake]

We could all participate with a good old fashioned biblical stoning. Group fun!

Don't you think pithy posts about slaughtering a poster are a little... dumb for a discussion topic? I dunno, it just reminds me of the whole, "NEWBIE! ME EATS YOUR FACE!" stuff...

Anyhow, it's pretty obvious that Tolkien was influenced by stuff; The whole "One ring to rule them all" things is the EXACT same plot as the Nibelungenlied (Or whatever) Tolkien was more inspired by stuff than copying it. There's so many bits and peices from different European literary traditions (Especially mythological lore) that it really can't be the rip off of any one thing.

I'm sure WWI was influential to, because if you look at literary history pretty much every writter of the era was influenced by the great war. Even the scenery. He describes the good places as fool of trees and nice and natury, and the evil places pretty close to Industrial Revolution city filthy; it's not that it's social comentary, it's jsut that his preferences for living space peaked into all of that pathetic fallacy stuff.

[Viktor Von Russia]

I'm really surprised that people are surprised (I think somewhere, my grammar teacher is crying) by the similarities that Tolkien made between Middle Earth and, well, Earth. The name he chose to give his world is a pretty good indication that he didn't want to create a world all that dissimilar from our own.

The WWI references are probably the most frequent among the similarities. Mordor aka Germany vs. the western Allies I thought was pretty obvious. I recall hearing somewhere that the Dead Marshes were inspired by the piles of bodies in the war.

[Muffin Mage]

Tolkien spent most of his time in sub-Saharan Africa, and didn't see many piled bodies.

Just letting you know.

[Lycanthrope]

Um... I've heard much to the conterary. How can Mordor not be inspired by a WWI battlefield. The following description can be applied to both:
The flash of fire and thunder rumble in the distance as a cloud of smoke obscures the very sun itself. the land is bleak, burnt, scarred. Hords of enemies wait just over the next rise, waiting to kill with overwhelming force. Poisonous vapors swirl through the air.

As for the entire racist question, I find myself agreeing with Zero. Arda (the world of middle earth and its surrounding continents) was openly made to resemble Earth in many reguards. I believe tolkien comments that the men of the South and East were not so much evil as misguided into supporting sauron. In the middle ages, cultural and national identity was one in the same. Groups of people and ethnicities often went to war, although often spirred by religious biggotry, (note, crusades). In Lord of the Rings, Sauron managed to dominate the lands of the south and east through subtle intrigue, and managed to rally their alliance in the battle. Also note that either Merry or Pippen (I can't remember which one) did say, when Faromer whent off to fight the men of the south, that he did not like to see men battle amongst themselves. As for the Uruk resembling the native americans, wtf? I don't even see where that's coming from at all.

There are rumors that they'll be a Hobbit coming next.

[Muffin Mage]

With bad logic, you could say that black is purple...

Anywho, no. Tolkien was most definitely deployed to South Africa.

And I don't want there to be a Hobbit. Peter Jackson couldn't pull it off.