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perc2 posted:Yeah, the massive influence of the medieval period in Europe on fantasy is all pervasive, with pretty much all best-selling fantasy that I can think of adopts a kind of "eurocentrism"; the protagonists are beset by fantastical analogues to powers on its periphery - Carthage, Islam, Mongols, etc, and the "exotic" beasts that come with them. Even Tolkien doesn't really put much effort into it (let alone someone like GRRM *cough* Dothraki *cough*) and so these cultures get the same lazy treatment and othering we've seen 800 times before. I suppose at least with Tolkien he has Arda as a proto-Earth and a mythology for England, he's not really trying to hide it's written from a certain perspective. Yeah, look at CS Lewis for another example. The Calormen are exotic Arabian-Nights-flavoured brown people with idol worship and deserts and big noisy dirty cities and a flowery untrustworthy roundabout way of talking and sit cross-legged and eat weird food and lust after de white wimmin. And fantasy, by and large, hasn't improved much since that was written.
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Oct 3, 2020 21:59
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And also the drat Calormenes only walk rigid and looking grumpy while the visiting Narnians are happily bouncing about swaying their arms and dancing. Its like Lewis never walked down a street in a London neighborhood in his life.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:07
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Tolkien has evil elfs and evil dwar...ves and lots of evil “white” humans It’s bad tho I agree
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Oct 3, 2020 23:10
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Death to Bill Ferny
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Oct 3, 2020 23:16
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In my last read through, the thing that made me cringe the most was Tolkien’s repeated use of “black men” to refer to Sauron’s human allies. I’m not entirely sure whether he literally meant black men or, like, black = bad/evil kinda thing. But either way it’s super problematic so there’s little meaningful difference.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:18
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By the way I’m playing LOTRO (It’s good)
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Oct 3, 2020 23:19
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euphronius posted:Tolkien has evil elfs and evil dwar...ves and lots of evil “white” humans and tolkien made the irish work for saruman
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Oct 3, 2020 23:21
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Mahoning posted:In my last read through, the thing that made me cringe the most was Tolkien’s repeated use of “black men” to refer to Sauron’s human allies. I’m not entirely sure whether he literally meant black men or, like, black = bad/evil kinda thing. But either way it’s super problematic so there’s little meaningful difference. In Middle Earth "fair" = best, "swarthy" = lesser/ tainted. Brown is cruel and wicked. But I'm pretty sure every single time the specific phrase "black men" is mentioned it's specifically referring to the Nazgul.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:56
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Imagined posted:But I'm pretty sure every single time the specific phrase "black men" is mentioned it's specifically referring to the Nazgul.
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Oct 4, 2020 00:00
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It’s the color of their robes
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Oct 4, 2020 00:00
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Arcsquad12 posted:And also the drat Calormenes only walk rigid and looking grumpy while the visiting Narnians are happily bouncing about swaying their arms and dancing. Patrick Stewart tried his damnedest to make the Calormenes sound Cockneyish in the audiobook he did (instead of giving them a generic Arab accent) but with the best will in the world that is not his strong suit
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Oct 4, 2020 00:16
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Data Graham posted:Patrick Stewart tried his damnedest to make the Calormenes sound Cockneyish in the audiobook he did (instead of giving them a generic Arab accent) but with the best will in the world that is not his strong suit holy poo poo i need to hear that
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Oct 4, 2020 00:17
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https://www.amazon.com/Last-Battle-Narnia-C-Lewis/dp/0060597828 Or your audiobook provider of choice e: jesus christ I'm remembering how he voiced Farsight the Eagle, with this like high-pitched cooing cry, lord it's embarrassing to even think about
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Oct 4, 2020 00:23
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Imagined posted:In Middle Earth "fair" = best, "swarthy" = lesser/ tainted. Brown is cruel and wicked. Well, at Pelennor fields there's also "[...]Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues." So that Sure Is A Thing.
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Oct 4, 2020 01:26
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I’ve never noticed before how that’s a “four corners of the earth” type thing. Since Variags=Varangians, that is northmen as seen by easterners. Only instead of west you get south and mega south Dark skinned people are a pretty hostile bunch in LOTR, but the heroes are on the side of a colonial rump state of a gigantic oversea empire of very fair skinned people which fell only after centuries of exploiting and terrorizing the swarthy natives and eventually started to literally hunt them for human sacrifice to the devil. skasion fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Oct 4, 2020 |
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Oct 4, 2020 01:46
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euphronius posted:It’s the color of their robes The Steward and the citadel guards of Minas Tirith wear black too.
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Oct 4, 2020 08:58
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euphronius posted:By the way I’m playing LOTRO yeah its the most faithful depiction of the books i bought the whole shebang back in the day before it was freemium, like the luxury edition with expansions and a dumb little replica one ring, but i stopped using it and didnt convert my account or whatever so i dont think i can still get any perks from that if i were to try to play again
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Oct 4, 2020 15:30
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umbar guys are the descendants of the "king's men" in numenor who were just regular numenoreans except they were assholes if the dunlendings are irish are the lakemen supposed to be the dutch by the way?
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Oct 4, 2020 15:33
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Shibawanko posted:umbar guys are the descendants of the "king's men" in numenor who were just regular numenoreans except they were assholes iirc rhovanion was the rohirrim's ancient homeland, so that would make also them english or some sort of germanic
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Oct 4, 2020 17:38
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Shibawanko posted:yeah its the most faithful depiction of the books They updated the graphics It looks ok even the 2007 zones
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Oct 4, 2020 17:39
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Runcible Cat posted:Yeah, look at CS Lewis for another example. The Calormen are exotic Arabian-Nights-flavoured brown people with idol worship and deserts and big noisy dirty cities and a flowery untrustworthy roundabout way of talking and sit cross-legged and eat weird food and lust after de white wimmin. The Calormenes are a step beyond that though. While in most Fantasy there is some kind of "Islamic" east outside of the stories middle ages Europe analogue, it usually (as discussed in this thread) comes from the authors own unchallenged ignorance and reliance on the Greco-Roman historical tradition. And they exist more as a context to show that Not!Europe is not the entirety of the world. The Calormenes on the other hand are straight up Muslims. Like their whole point in the story is to be explicitly real world Muslims whose opposition to the heroes comes from their "evil" religion. They hate Lion Jesus and their god is literally real life Satan in disguise.
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Oct 5, 2020 11:55
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euphronius posted:Tolkien has evil elfs and evil dwar...ves and lots of evil “white” humans The issue with Tolkien is ultimately that while the text shows that white men can be bad, it never shows that men of color can be good. I agree that he does say that no men are innately evil, but the fact is that whatever implications or messages he thought he was communicating, we never see a character of color who isn't a literal Satan-worshiping bad guy. Combine this with other racialist bits of prose or turns of phrase, and his equation of the Uruk-Hai with Mongols, and yeah. So yeah, while it was white men who hosed up so hard the broke the world, we at least also get to see white men who are heroic, kind, and compassionate. The crimes of some random exotic easterner under Sauron may pale in comparison to those of a Numenorean, but they are also the only example of their race/culture we have and so it is implicitly a racist depiction. The implicit message, intentional or not (and I like to imagine the latter), is that while white men have the capacity for evil, men of color lack the capacity for good.
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Oct 5, 2020 12:06
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galagazombie posted:The Calormenes are a step beyond that though. While in most Fantasy there is some kind of "Islamic" east outside of the stories middle ages Europe analogue, it usually (as discussed in this thread) comes from the authors own unchallenged ignorance and reliance on the Greco-Roman historical tradition. And they exist more as a context to show that Not!Europe is not the entirety of the world. The Calormenes on the other hand are straight up Muslims. Like their whole point in the story is to be explicitly real world Muslims whose opposition to the heroes comes from their "evil" religion. They hate Lion Jesus and their god is literally real life Satan in disguise. iirc in forgotten realms the arab like people were also arabs from earth
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Oct 5, 2020 13:32
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I thought in FR that most of the NotWhatever cultures are descended from transplants from Earth. Like the NotEgyptians are legit the descendants of real Egyptians, likewise the NotAztecs and so on and so forth.
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Oct 5, 2020 13:37
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in conan stories there was stuff about which modern day nations were descended of which fantasy nation
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Oct 5, 2020 13:43
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Yep. I've always found Conan's racial politics rather interesting. My favorite angle is how the undying racial hatred that is older than civilization and has survived at least one apocalypse is... Scots vs Native Americans.
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Oct 5, 2020 13:46
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:The issue with Tolkien is ultimately that while the text shows that white men can be bad, it never shows that men of color can be good. I agree that he does say that no men are innately evil, but the fact is that whatever implications or messages he thought he was communicating, we never see a character of color who isn't a literal Satan-worshiping bad guy. Combine this with other racialist bits of prose or turns of phrase, and his equation of the Uruk-Hai with Mongols, and yeah. yeah, there wasn't even a token good swarthy man
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Oct 5, 2020 13:50
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The Balrog Also I don’t think Tolkien would be into tokens
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Oct 5, 2020 13:51
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Yep. I've always found Conan's racial politics rather interesting. i wonder if the scopes monkey trial being on the news made him really interested in evolution and darwinism, because his stories were full of stuff about different races and nations evolving and devolving. eg. in the story about the mirror ape conan spends some time after the fight pondering on its evolutionary path
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Oct 5, 2020 13:57
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Oct 5, 2020 14:04
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I was also going to mention there's probably some dimension of classism with the orcs too, although as I looked into how orcs talk in the books, I realise that cockney/working class accent thing is probably an interpretation by the films. They are far more well spoken in the books, almost to the point of flamboyance on occasion...Grishnákh posted:'You speak of what is deep beyond the reach of your muddy dreams, Ugluk,' he said.
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Oct 5, 2020 14:04
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ChubbyChecker posted:yeah, there wasn't even a token good swarthy man Even Lewis had that good fresh-faced Calormene kid who converted to Aslanism at the last minute
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Oct 5, 2020 14:05
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I liked the Calormenes as a kid, and thought they were cool, so Lewis' heavy handed characterization more or less went right over my head. Which is funny. Also I have probably read The Last Battle the least of all the Chronicles of Narnia. I never liked it, and even as a kid I thought what Lewis did to Susan was bullshit. So my primary interpretation of the Calormenes is from The Horse and His Boy, which overall has a much more positive view of the Calormenes, if you just ignore how much Lewis wants you to hate their religion (which I did).
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Oct 5, 2020 14:36
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galagazombie posted:The Calormenes are a step beyond that though. While in most Fantasy there is some kind of "Islamic" east outside of the stories middle ages Europe analogue, it usually (as discussed in this thread) comes from the authors own unchallenged ignorance and reliance on the Greco-Roman historical tradition. And they exist more as a context to show that Not!Europe is not the entirety of the world. The Calormenes on the other hand are straight up Muslims. Like their whole point in the story is to be explicitly real world Muslims whose opposition to the heroes comes from their "evil" religion. They hate Lion Jesus and their god is literally real life Satan in disguise. I still think they're more Generic Fantasy Exotic Middle-Eastern-Flavour rather than a specific anti-Muslim slur, though that's just my opinion. They don't have dietary or representational restrictions as far as we see, and Lewis presumably knew enough about Islam that he'd've be more specifically insulting if he really wanted to be lovely to Muslims in particular. Though they're still "treacherous demon-worshipping brown people who want to enslave the nice free white people who worship correctly" so yeah, that's nitpicking really. ChubbyChecker posted:i wonder if the scopes monkey trial being on the news made him really interested in evolution and darwinism, because his stories were full of stuff about different races and nations evolving and devolving. eg. in the story about the mirror ape conan spends some time after the fight pondering on its evolutionary path No, that was A Thing back then. Helena Blavatsky and Theosophy are what you want to look into if you're curious; she wrote massive proto-New Age books about how various human races had evolved from Root Races on Lemuria and Atlantis and whatnot. This wikipedia article is a decent summary but dingdingding oldschool racism warnings. This is the kind of stuff HP Lovecraft was getting his ideas on race from if you need any further warning. perc2 posted:I was also going to mention there's probably some dimension of classism with the orcs too, although as I looked into how orcs talk in the books, I realise that cockney/working class accent thing is probably an interpretation by the films. I think they took that accent from the Hobbit trolls (and their talking purse). Data Graham posted:Even Lewis had that good fresh-faced Calormene kid who converted to Aslanism at the last minute After having her back ripped open to teach her to be Thoughtful About The Lower Classes. Though funnily enough nothing like happened to our Gormless Nice White Hero. I guess Rishda Tarkaan wasn't violently pissed off and vengeful when he found out his new slave had taken off with his warhorse then....
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Oct 5, 2020 15:00
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sweet geek swag posted:I liked the Calormenes as a kid, and thought they were cool, so Lewis' heavy handed characterization more or less went right over my head. Which is funny. Also I have probably read The Last Battle the least of all the Chronicles of Narnia. I never liked it, and even as a kid I thought what Lewis did to Susan was bullshit. So my primary interpretation of the Calormenes is from The Horse and His Boy, which overall has a much more positive view of the Calormenes, if you just ignore how much Lewis wants you to hate their religion (which I did). Me too. I loved Tashbaan, still do....
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Oct 5, 2020 15:03
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perc2 posted:I was also going to mention there's probably some dimension of classism with the orcs too, although as I looked into how orcs talk in the books, I realise that cockney/working class accent thing is probably an interpretation by the films. They are far more well spoken in the books, almost to the point of flamboyance on occasion... There are classist elements in how they’re represented as a whole but orcs are not all a single social class. Their vicious, master-slave internal class structure comes up several times. Grishnakh talks pretty because he’s a political officer from Lugburz, and he openly thinks of the Isengarders as provincial trash with delusions of grandeur. The Isengarders in turn think of themselves as an elite over other orcs and have no patience with Grishnakh, still less with the mountain goblins.
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Oct 5, 2020 15:29
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perc2 posted:I was also going to mention there's probably some dimension of classism with the orcs too, although as I looked into how orcs talk in the books, I realise that cockney/working class accent thing is probably an interpretation by the films. They are far more well spoken in the books, almost to the point of flamboyance on occasion... The Orcs aren't necessarily lower class, but one thing that does get left out of a lot of analysis of LotR through the lens of race is how specifically modern and Western they come off as. The Two Towers posted:'No! I heard that one of them has got something, something that's wanted for the War, some elvish plot or other. Anyway they'll both be questioned.' The Two Towers posted:You ought to know that they're the apple of the Great Eye. But the winged Nazgûl: not yet, not yet. He won't let them show themselves across the Great River yet, not too soon. They're for the War - and other purposes.' The Two Towers posted:"Yes," said Gorbag. "But don't count on it. I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay," his voice sank almost to a whisper, "ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. Something nearly slipped you say. I say, something has slipped. And we've got to look out. Always the poor Uruks to put slips right, and small thanks. But don't forget: the enemies don't love us any more than they love Him, and if they get topsides on Him, we're done too. But see here: when were you ordered out?" If you took out the names, and the references to elves and nazgul, you could probably put those lines in a book set in the early 20th century without anybody noticing. They don't use any of the archaic language or style that basically everyone but the hobbits and Ioreth uses, and they also use distinctively modern (western) slang, like talking about 'the War', or such and such being 'the apple of their eye'. Jo Joestar fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Oct 5, 2020 |
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Oct 5, 2020 15:44
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Jo Joestar posted:The Orcs aren't necessarily lower class, but one thing that does get left out of a lot of analysis of LotR through the lens of race is how specifically modern and Western they come off as. yeah, orcs were meant to be industrial age soldiers
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Oct 5, 2020 15:53
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I mean much as Tolkien disliked allegory it's pretty obvious from his writing that the Orcs represent industrialization and the dehumanizing effects of modernized warfare. Them speaking more like contemporary people fits with that. Also, I distinctly remember the Telmarines in Narnia were explicitly Spanish conquistadors that got lost at sea and fell through time into Narnia. I wonder if Lewis ever intended for the Calormenes to have arrived in that world through similar means. It doesn't excuse the Muslim caricatures.
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Oct 5, 2020 15:55
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Runcible Cat posted:After having her back ripped open to teach her to be Thoughtful About The Lower Classes. I was talking about Emeth, in TLB
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Oct 5, 2020 16:04
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