|
He'd profane the throne in someway. "Eru sucks" is more meaningful to someone like Tolkien, than the scatology of the 20th century.
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 00:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 10:42 |
|
|
Data Graham posted:Olsen got another spit-take out of me recently in one of his episodes on Morgoth's Ring where he talked about a later unpublished draft of Melkor and Ungoliant destroying the Trees, where Melkor stopped off at the empty Council Ring and "defiled the throne of Manwë" and he's like "So what'd he like, pee on the throne or whatever" sounds like a double decker
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 00:07
|
|
|
Southpaugh posted:He'd profane the throne in someway. "Eru sucks" is more meaningful to someone like Tolkien, than the scatology of the 20th century. The earliest known joke is about farts.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 00:29
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:Olsen got another spit-take out of me recently in one of his episodes on Morgoth's Ring where he talked about a later unpublished draft of Melkor and Ungoliant destroying the Trees, where Melkor stopped off at the empty Council Ring and "defiled the throne of Manwë" and he's like "So what'd he like, pee on the throne or whatever" Read this as stripped off instead of stopped off and I think it works better tbqh
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 00:51
|
|
|
mossyfisk posted:The earliest known joke is about farts. And Tolkien was born a high victorian Catholic Englishman.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 01:02
|
|
|
SHISHKABOB posted:I bet it's an orgy in Numenor. New thread title please.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 02:28
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:New thread title please. I thought we'd already settled on Numenorgy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 04:19
|
|
|
I support full nudity in this show if they use Elise the Great's elf anatomy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 04:25
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I thought we'd already settled on Numenorgy. This is acceptable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 04:48
|
|
|
The people in Bree and the Bree-land were probably really inbred, right?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 06:06
|
|
|
Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:The people in Bree and the Bree-land were probably really inbred, right? Why?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 11:29
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:Why? They were inbreed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 11:46
|
|
|
Sorry to draw away from the sex and nudity but I've been having a debate with my D&D group about Orcs and we've gotten into a fight over inherent evil and whether or not Orcs are racist caricatures. Its gotten to the point where I've laid out my argument for why Orcs, while cruel and evil, aren't inherently evil precisely because of their manufactured misfortune and fear of their overlords means they have enough self awareness to recognize their own victimhood. I've also sent my group a two part article arguing that the Orcs are fantasy analogies for very racist depictions if Asian culture, a comparison that Tolkien invites with his letter describing them as unsavory mongol types. https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/1/13/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-i-a-species-built-for-racial-terror https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/6/30/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-ii-theyre-not-human The reaction has not been good. I've had two members of the group accuse the writer of being long winded and stretching facts before even reading the articles, one person argue via a formalist theory that the text itself doesn't support the asian caricatures (but apparently being based off European goblin folklore is still allowed? I dont remember that being explicit in the texts), and my personal "favourite" (read: yikes) statement being one contrarian dick proclaiming that Orcs aren't people because they aren't like the Haradrim or Easterlings who are human. Why yes, im the only English major graduate with a focus on literature in this group. I can understand disagreeing with the article but the level of defensiveness that I've seen is pretty shocking, as is the lack of self awareness about how their responses actually sound. I mean, this is the level of argument I'm dealing with. quote:If the Lord of the rings is a mirror than one dimensional races or characters are problematic since nothing is ever like that. If it's an escape where the world is easier and things make sense without the messiness that if life it doesn't matter. Which not only do I think is a weak argument but also really misses the point if what Tolkien was trying to do. Of course fiction is simplified compared to reality but it is out of necessity for plot and story purposes. But tolkien didn't do it to make an escapist world easier than the messiness of real life, poo poo gets complicated in Middle Earth. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Oct 7, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:01
|
|
|
I think even Tolkien never figured out if they were inherently evil or what they were.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:05
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I think even Tolkien never figured out if they were inherently evil or what they were. I think he was onto something by the end hinting at them being more victims of circumstance than unthinking tools of evil. He just never got there before he died, but he was approaching something to that angle.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:08
|
|
|
Yeah, somewhere in the Letters there's a bit about how he isn't happy with the depiction of Orcs as inherently, irredeemably evil. As per my comment above, it was a fundamental conflict with his Catholicism -- it's a question that Catholicism doesn't really have satisfying answers for("can demons or fallen angels repent and find forgiveness?") Of course *in a given d&d campaign* Orcs are whatever the DM says they are. But just inherently evil orcs are relatively boring. Doomed by circumstances orcs are far more interesting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:13
|
|
|
The letter you're thinking of is a response to Auden, who had needled him a bit about whether it was heretical to have irredeemable orcs. (This was a joke) Tolkien being Tolkien goes back to the text to counter-argue that LOTR doesn't depict the orcs as irredeemably evil, it portrays them as victims of tyranny, "ruined and twisted", therefore implicitly originally good and capable of being good again -- though maybe only through a higher power.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:29
|
|
|
gently caress even Sauron was offered forgiveness after the War of Wrath and the Akallebeth posits he was even genuine in his desire to repent at first, before fear of punishment got the better of him and he fled. Inherent evil being applied to people really bothers me because, like the asian caricatures, it's just another level of "othering" a group in order to make a convenient adversary or scapegoat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 14:32
|
|
|
Later in life he was agonizing over this exact question for years and it's what drove him into an endless cycle of rewrites to bring Orcs more into line with a worldview that was more consistent with Catholic theology and he gridlocked himself into a feedback loop of "make the universe more mechanistic, make Orcs into corrupted Elves" "wait this isn't anywhere near as fun or interesting anymore" "make them more magical and mysterious, manufactured constructs" "poo poo now free will is all hosed again, AAAHH"
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 15:55
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:Sorry to draw away from the sex and nudity but I've been having a debate with my D&D group about Orcs and we've gotten into a fight over inherent evil and whether or not Orcs are racist caricatures. Its gotten to the point where I've laid out my argument for why Orcs, while cruel and evil, aren't inherently evil precisely because of their manufactured misfortune and fear of their overlords means they have enough self awareness to recognize their own victimhood. have you tried playing with fun people instead of angry people?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 18:58
|
|
|
ChubbyChecker posted:have you tried playing with fun people instead of angry people? Fun, non-angry people who regularly play D&D? Good luck.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 22:19
|
|
|
I mean the one who is most adamant about them not being people and Tolkien being completely blameless is also a contrarian asshoke by nature who as a rule always argues against whatever is being discussed. He thinks he's playing devil's advocate but comes off instead as being contrarian for the sake of it and relying heavily on whataboutism. I'm not saying you have to go to university to be capable of critical analysis but its pretty obvious that he's never really done research beyond primary sources, hence his vehement disagreement with the idea that Tolkien could have ever been influenced by the society he grew up in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 22:44
|
|
|
Any word if the 4K version will be available streaming? I don't see myself buying a physical disc player ever again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2020 22:58
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:Any word if the 4K version will be available streaming? I don't see myself buying a physical disc player ever again. Everything on Blu-ray is available streaming 
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 00:11
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:Any word if the 4K version will be available streaming? I don't see myself buying a physical disc player ever again. I can't imagine they'd go through this effort solely for a physical media release at this point.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 01:03
|
|
|
I'm so glad this excerpt from the audiobook is on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_jDZzb0Xo
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 21:20
|
|
|
Such a great reading. Martin Shaw has a perfect voice for it and he gets hardly anything wrong IluVATar being one glaring exception e: VV 
Data Graham fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Oct 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 21:23
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKHOrLqVn-o You want to talk about perfect voices?
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 21:44
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKHOrLqVn-o Holy poo poo I had no idea this existed. Thank you, and RIP Christopher Lee.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 21:46
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:Sorry to draw away from the sex and nudity but I've been having a debate with my D&D group about Orcs and we've gotten into a fight over inherent evil and whether or not Orcs are racist caricatures. Its gotten to the point where I've laid out my argument for why Orcs, while cruel and evil, aren't inherently evil precisely because of their manufactured misfortune and fear of their overlords means they have enough self awareness to recognize their own victimhood. Thanks for those articles, they're a really interesting take. I'm dubious about the writer's claim that the Asian-coding was deliberate and purposeful on Tolkien's part, but at this point the original intent's kind of irrelevant. But yeah, it certainly sounds like your D&D group just wants to keep orcs as murderfodder and thinks anything else is "bringing politics in" or somesuch crap. What does the contrarian dick think about the peopleness of presumably-just-as-unhuman elves?
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 22:41
|
|
|
Runcible Cat posted:Thanks for those articles, they're a really interesting take. I'm dubious about the writer's claim that the Asian-coding was deliberate and purposeful on Tolkien's part, but at this point the original intent's kind of irrelevant. I don't think the racial coding was intentional but I do think that the unconscious influence of the society Tolkien was raised in played a part in coloring his depictions. The racial coding of Asians as the "Other" across history and literature does track. I just think its the benign racism of an author who didn't think through the connotations that his writing invites. Unintentional and unfortunately harmful, but not actively malicious. So I disagree with the article about Tolkien's intent but I do agree with the societal impressions leading to Tolkien making those depictions the way they are. As for Elves, he says that they are people because they're alive since Eru is the only being who could make true life. No, I don't know why this means that corrupted elves turned orcs aren't also alive. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Oct 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 22:56
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I don't think the racial coding was intentional but I do think that the unconscious influence of the society Tolkien was raised in played a part in coloring his depictions. The racial coding of Asians as the "Other" across history and literature does track. I just think its the benign racism of an author who didn't think through the connotations that his writing invites. Unintentional and unfortunately harmful, but not actively malicious. So I disagree with the article about Tolkien's intent but I do agree with the societal impressions leading to Tolkien making those depictions the way they are. Oh absolutely; the whole "mindless evil invading horde" story concept I can so easily see unconsciously picking up traits from anti-Asian "Yellow Peril"-type propaganda now it's been pointed out. And then being perpetuated because "that's what orcs are like, Tolkien said so". And ah, rules lawyering. True life is life created by Eru and in the shape Eru created it by definition so there. (I go by the definition that when you hear orcs talking they sound like people. Not particularly pleasant people, but still people bitching about their job and their rear end in a top hat bosses and those assholes they have to work alongside and hey why don't you and me and a few of the guys ditch this shithole and take off somewhere on our own.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 23:49
|
|
|
I've always thought of the Orcs/Mongols comparisons as deliberate but not reflective of Tolkien's authorial racism (whether or not it existed), and some people read what they want to see out of the Letters excerpt instead of what is there. In the original conception, Middle-earth was not a purely fantasy world; it was supposed to be a mythological version of England, where the English-analogues are protagonists because they created the mythology. Linguistically, "orcs" are demons in this mythology. When a culture creates demons, it is distinctly possible that some characteristics would be based on historically aggressive foreign cultures. And that is the choice that Tolkien took in creating that mythology. He does not say in the Letters that Mongol-types are ugly, only that Europeans perceive them to be so, and certainly there were and continue to be different cultural standards of beauty. I think it's perfectly valid to read Middle-earth orcs as misunderstood victims of millenia of oppression. They only get extremely problematic in the derivative works.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2020 02:07
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:Why? Not a lot of them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2020 06:03
|
|
|
How would people feel about race-blind casting in a Tolkien production? You can't remove the focus on different races and bloodlines that pervades everything, but I don't think you need to keep the racial coding specifically. You might want to keep certain groups (hobbits and rohirrim come to mind) as homogenous english-looking people but for say, the Noldor or the Numenoreans or even Gondor and Harad I'm not going to complain if they contain people from all races. Fëanor and his sons can be black. I wouldn't give a poo poo and I don't think it would change Tolkien's story. The orcs take some more thought to adapt but Tolkien left enough that you can certainly do a much less "evil hordes that deserve to die" take than what Jackson or DnD do.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 18:30
|
|
|
I mean we can make Juan "Johnny" Rico into a white fascist boy scout and that turned out better than the original book, anything is possible.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Oct 18, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 18:43
|
|
|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:How would people feel about race-blind casting in a Tolkien production? I don't see how you can argue against this without coming off as a tremendous rear end in a top hat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 19:02
|
|
|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:How would people feel about race-blind casting in a Tolkien production? You can't remove the focus on different races and bloodlines that pervades everything, but I don't think you need to keep the racial coding specifically. You might want to keep certain groups (hobbits and rohirrim come to mind) as homogenous english-looking people but for say, the Noldor or the Numenoreans or even Gondor and Harad I'm not going to complain if they contain people from all races. Fëanor and his sons can be black. I wouldn't give a poo poo and I don't think it would change Tolkien's story. There is literally no reason to treat the elves as a homogenous skin color group. they are a fuckin fantasy race and have as many enclaves in different geographic regions as humans do. Same for the Numenoreans. I mean, according to latitude Numenor would be Mediterranean as gently caress, definitely not lily white.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 19:14
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:There is literally no reason to treat the elves as a homogenous skin color group. they are a fuckin fantasy race and have as many enclaves in different geographic regions as humans do. Same for the Numenoreans. I mean, according to latitude Numenor would be Mediterranean as gently caress, definitely not lily white. I've always considered the Numenoreans to be essentially Romans, down to the Arnor/Gondor split replicating the East/West split of the Roman Empire. If you wish to pursue the Roman analog, then it would make sense for the Numenorean nations of Middle Earth to include many races, as the Romans incorporated peoples from their conquests. On the other hand it would seem weird to have say the Rohirrim be too varied? Casting for such a project... is not a job I would envy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 19:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 10:42 |
|
|
The very fact that you cannot simply take a peice of text and create some kind of 1-for-1 visual facsimile of it means it will always be an interpretation, an imagining. It's influenced by some source material rather than a direct effort to manifest the text in film, as if the two were intertwined and "the same thing". The usual line you'll hear from someone about book adaptations is, "oh it's nothing like the book", which rests on the assumption that the creators are trying to make it the book. It's not the book, much in the same way contemporary editions of The Bible probably look "nothing like" the original texts or oral tradition. With this in mind, you could completely film any part of the Legendarium with a cast of exclusively non-white actors and still communicate the stories, world and characters just fine, much like how Paapa Essiedu can play Hamlet on stage. It's all ideological in the end - critics of ethnic and racially diverse casts are more than happy to see White Jesus framed on the wall, and that's meant to be the bedrock of their cultural identity. perc2 fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Oct 18, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2020 19:34
|
|
