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The Marquis de Leech

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9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Tolkien is describing individuals (the group of the Fallohides) in racial terms, just as he is doing with the Vanyar, the Noldor, the Teleri, and other racial groups he is doing throughout the series.

That is implicitly racist, especially with the Eldarin races. There are some intermarriages there but they are exceptional, not the rule. They homogeneous group both racially and culturally. All Noldor are artistically inclined, all Vanyar are close to the Valar, all Teleri like music and like to hang out at the sea, etc. The various characters are just stereotypes of their races.

If your major source of food is through hunting, you're going to be more mobile and transient - it's going to give you more opportunities to meet other people and creatures than if you stay at home and grow crops. Add in the Fallohides' height (making them less vulnerable to nasties), and you've got a culture that is more likely to know something of the outside world. Alternatively, since hunting is hit or miss, the Fallohides' food supply is going to be more vulnerable - which means a smaller population. It's called working through the implications of cultural attributes, and since we don't meet any individuals from this hobbit strain (they're in the distant past), we can't comment about individuals.

On the Elven front - how do Maedhros, Celegorm, Caranthir, Amrod, Amras, Fingolfin, Fingon, Aredhel, Finarfin, Finrod, Orodreth, and Galadriel fit into the notion that "all Noldor are artistic"? Maglor is a singer, and ends up beside the sea - but he's not a Teler.  Eöl is into craft-work, and is no singer - but he's no Noldo.

As for intermarriages: we've got  Finwë and Indis, Turgon and Elenwë, Aredhel and Eöl, Finarfin and Eärwen, Galadriel and Celeborn. Aegnor loves a human. As opposed to the inter-Noldo marriages: Finwë and Miriel, Fëanor and Nerdanel, Fingolfin and Anairë - and that's kind of it. Even if we assume that Curufin and Mahtan had Noldorin wives, that means the Noldor are just as likely to marry outside as inside.

As for stereotypes, how on earth do Fëanor, Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, and Curufin have identical personalities? Full-blooded Noldor every one (so far as we know), and even from the same immediate family, yet each very different.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 25.2.2017 at 4:59 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

LV,

Finwe (the king of the Noldor) married a Vanyar.

I know that. But that doesn't change the fact that he describes people by racial terms rather than describing them as individuals.

On 26.2.2017 at 1:51 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

On the Elven front - how do Maedhros, Celegorm, Caranthir, Amrod, Amras, Fingolfin, Fingon, Aredhel, Finarfin, Finrod, Orodreth, and Galadriel fit into the notion that "all Noldor are artistic"? Maglor is a singer, and ends up beside the sea - but he's not a Teler.  Eöl is into craft-work, and is no singer - but he's no Noldo.

I wasn't very precise there. The Noldor are not just artists, they are also craftsmen and linguists. And, of course, the Vanyar are actually artists, too, having created very fine poetry and songs. But we are still learning about these people as a people, not on an individual. Some have individual characteristics but they usually also seen in relation to their racial or collective characteristics.

The Teleri/Sindar were very great silver-smiths, by the way, depending what version you use. In one draft even Celebrimbor is a Sinda. In that sense Eöl fits in there just fine.

And in another version Eöl is actually one of the proto-Noldo who stayed behind, never going into the West in the first place.

On 26.2.2017 at 1:51 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As for intermarriages: we've got  Finwë and Indis, Turgon and Elenwë, Aredhel and Eöl, Finarfin and Eärwen, Galadriel and Celeborn. Aegnor loves a human. As opposed to the inter-Noldo marriages: Finwë and Miriel, Fëanor and Nerdanel, Fingolfin and Anairë - and that's kind of it. Even if we assume that Curufin and Mahtan had Noldorin wives, that means the Noldor are just as likely to marry outside as inside.

As for stereotypes, how on earth do Fëanor, Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, and Curufin have identical personalities? Full-blooded Noldor every one (so far as we know), and even from the same immediate family, yet each very different.

We actually don't know who the sons of Feanor married, Finwe-Indis, Turgon-Elenwe, Finarfin-Eärwen, and Finrod-Amarie seem to be rather unusual. In many of the other cases we see how your group identity overlaps everything else, for instance in the unhappy marriage of Aldarion and Erendis.

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On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 2:54 PM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

What Fantasy would have looked like without Tolkien:

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/fantasy-without-tolkien/

Many thanks for your excellent essays.

Going back to the discussion about social class in the Shire, I'm just reading The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration England by Ian Mortimer.  Gregory King, the late seventeenth century statistician, made a distinction which I think sums up perfectly the difference between the Tooks and Brandybucks on the one hand, and the Bagginses, Sackville-Bagginsess, Chubbs, Burrowes etc,. on the other.  He distinguished between The Great  at the top of society, and The Rich just below them.  The Great could get away with being atheists, rapists, drunkards, adulterers, duellists,  profaners of the Sabbath, or worst of all, Roman Catholics, without endangering their social status.  For the Rich, any of these things would have meant social and professional ruin.

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  • 1 month later...

I agree that it is quite amazing how central the blood lineages are to the plot and how "uncritically" the idea seems to be presented.

The SoIaF setting would actually have been brillant for a reductio ad absurdum of dynastic ideas. I mean, the Baratheon dynasty has been in place for only about 15 years at the beginning of the narrative. It is so obvious that their claim to the IT is not based on "special blood" or a long lineage but on sheer power or rather the (unstable) support of a majority of the 7 kingdoms and the diplomatic and dynastic ties that keep them in balance.

Similarly, the Targaryens apparently really do have "special blood" that made them dragonlords and thus gave them the power to rule. So it seems like a fantasy defense of "natural" dynasties rather than a twist on them.

 

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On 3/24/2017 at 11:57 PM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Fifteenth and last post on McGarry and Ravipinto.

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/of-j-r-r-tolkien-and-status-quos-part-xv/

Thanks again to TrackerNeil for giving me so much to write about.

You realize you wrote far, far more on this than Dan and I ever did? ;) If it makes anyone buy this book, my editor will be grateful as well. (We don't make a dime from this.)

I'm not going to defend anything we wrote--we had our chance to speak and that's that--but I urge everyone to be critical not just of The Lord of the Rings but of all media. Critical analysis is vital to understanding art, and it's not harsh but loving. Trust me, we wouldn't have set out to write and publish this if we didn't love Middle-Earth and those who dwell there.

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17 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I agree that it is quite amazing how central the blood lineages are to the plot and how "uncritically" the idea seems to be presented.

The SoIaF setting would actually have been brillant for a reductio ad absurdum of dynastic ideas. I mean, the Baratheon dynasty has been in place for only about 15 years at the beginning of the narrative. It is so obvious that their claim to the IT is not based on "special blood" or a long lineage but on sheer power or rather the (unstable) support of a majority of the 7 kingdoms and the diplomatic and dynastic ties that keep them in balance.

Similarly, the Targaryens apparently really do have "special blood" that made them dragonlords and thus gave them the power to rule. So it seems like a fantasy defense of "natural" dynasties rather than a twist on them.

 

We really do need to get the series finished, in order to be able to compare fully with Tolkien's world.

If Aegon, Arianne,  Daenerys were to reduce cities to ashes, and cover the land with gibbets and stakes, in order to pursue their dynastic claims, will this be portrayed critically, or uncritically?  If the Starks return to power and carry out a purge of their enemies, will that be portrayed critically or uncritically?

Tolkien would certainly have portrayed such actions very critically.

 

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

We really do need to get the series finished, in order to be able to compare fully with Tolkien's world.

If Aegon, Arianne,  Daenerys were to reduce cities to ashes, and cover the land with gibbets and stakes, in order to pursue their dynastic claims, will this be portrayed critically, or uncritically?  If the Starks return to power and carry out a purge of their enemies, will that be portrayed critically or uncritically?

Tolkien would certainly have portrayed such actions very critically

Mind you, Tolkien had Mordor destroyed by a volcano so that the heroes don't have to learn peace with it since they were exterminated as a species.

We also have Martin's DOTD novella to show how he treats such a Queen.

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1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Mind you, Tolkien had Mordor destroyed by a volcano so that the heroes don't have to learn peace with it since they were exterminated as a species.

Mordor wasn't destroyed. You've got the agricultural fields in the South being given to the enslaved peoples, and Aragorn making peace with the Haradrim.

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2 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Mordor wasn't destroyed. You've got the agricultural fields in the South being given to the enslaved peoples, and Aragorn making peace with the Haradrim.

That's true, yes, but I think CT's main point was that the parts of Mordor where the "evil" citizens dwelt were destroyed, and their inhabitants with them. That spared Aragorn the onerous task of having to decide what to do with the orcs and trolls who'd served Sauron. That is the point I think he was making, and an interesting one to discuss, in my view.

(I don't want to speak for you, CT, and if I have gotten you wrong I'll remove this comment.)

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On 12.5.2017 at 7:33 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I'd not say so. The setting is pretty much the same. As a fictional world Martinworld is very much a variation of Middle-earth, as many fantasy worlds are, being stuck in a backwater setting of a patriarchal society in a fake medieval Europe.

That said, women clearly have voices of their in Martin's series. In Tolkien's ... not so much. Three of the four major Hobbit characters are essentially ruling class - the gentry rules if there are no royals and no high nobility, and it is actually misleading to compare the Hobbit culture to the Rohirrim, Eldar, or Gondorians because they are different (vice versa, the Starks, Lannisters, etc. aren't the same as the Baratheons and Targaryens in ASoIaF - the latter are royalty, the former just (high) nobility, that isn't the same class as any nobleman or blood royal will tell you).

The comparison between Ned-Joffrey and Denethor-Aragorn is also somewhat problematic. Eddard Stark isn't the hero of the story. The whole point of his story is that he failed to understand what the true threat was. He was not supposed to become Hand and involve himself in politics. His place was at Winterfell where he was supposed to raise his children and prepare the world of men for the coming winter (and the Others).

Ned supporting Joffrey against Stannis and Renly rather than turning against him would have changed nothing. The story might turn out that they were all false kings who would not have helped mankind to defeat the Others.

The proper comparisons would be Jon-Frodo and Dany-Aragorn. They are the people that are likely supposed to save humanity by fighting the true enemy in some fashion that is not necessarily connected to glory as well as the last scions of very special and ancient royal bloodline.

But we don't yet know how the story is going to end, nor how whoever is going to sit on the Iron Throne will get there and what kind of legitimacy he or she will use to justify such a claim.

It is very likely that such a person (or such a royal couple) is going to gain legitimacy not just through a royal bloodline but also quasi-divine signs (like the dragons) and especially the victory over the Others. In that sense there might be great similarities there.

However, Tolkien's Aragorn clearly has a much nobler royal bloodline than Daenerys-Jon. And not only that, but (unlike any of George's characters) he was crowned king by an angel of the lord. Aragorn is a king who rules by the divine right of kings in a very literal sense, something that no king in Martin's story can claim (because gods and their messengers don't show up in his story). He is also a king who is set apart from 'lesser men' by his very nature, his longevity which is going to allow him to remain among his people 'all the days of [their] life' (as the Eagle of the Elder King so poignantly announces), which makes him an absolutist king in every sense of the word. Not to mention his elven queen and the fact that he is going to choose himself when he is going to die.

13 hours ago, SeanF said:

Tolkien would certainly have portrayed such actions very critically.

He might have, but in Tolkien's books the heroes are heroes (and would never do such things). In George's world the heroes have to do gruesome things, too, to survive.

And who knows, perhaps they will also have to pay the price for their actions? Characters like Arya and Tyrion certainly deserve some severe punishment for the crimes they committed (Arya for the innocents she killed, and Tyrion for Shae and how he treated Tysha).

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6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That said, women clearly have voices of their in Martin's series. In Tolkien's ... not so much. Three of the four major Hobbit characters are essentially ruling class - the gentry rules if there are no royals and no high nobility, and it is actually misleading to compare the Hobbit culture to the Rohirrim, Eldar, or Gondorians because they are different (vice versa, the Starks, Lannisters, etc. aren't the same as the Baratheons and Targaryens in ASoIaF - the latter are royalty, the former just (high) nobility, that isn't the same class as any nobleman or blood royal will tell you).

Except that the reader is supposed to identify with the hobbits - they're audience surrogates, being ordinary people in a world full of epic figures. Yes, hobbits are different from Rohirrim, Eldar, or Gondorians, but only because hobbits are supposed to be mundane and average. That is their purpose (otherwise why have them?).

This is one of Tolkien's more unique influences on the genre - the idea of Epic Fantasy centred around Joe Bloggs. A more traditional fantasy author would certainly have Aragorn as the protagonist, since that is what an Epic is supposed to be all about. Martin has no such Joe Bloggs figures as his protagonists - by contrast, his three major protagonists consist of a Targaryen chick with special blood, a secret heir with special blood, and the son of the wealthiest lord on the continent.

I would also argue that the reader is supposed to see Ned as the good guy (specifically, a good guy who makes mistakes).

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