{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6140", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6140, "subject": "Gummed up works or got lives?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2011-12-16T17:08:08+00:00", "last": "2011-12-16T17:25:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-12-16T17:08:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gummed up works or got lives?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote:\nOn 12/15/2011 10:21 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think, by todays standards, Tolkien's geo-social biases might not be\nconsidered so\n\npolicially correct. I mostly mean his implication that those dark-skinned\ntypes from the\n\nsouth and east are evil and not to be trusted. Conversely that north and\nwest are the \"good\"\n\ndirections, not to mention those wonderful (american) eagles who always\nfly in at the last\n\ncrucial moment to save the day. If he'd used falcons it just wouldn't have\nworked the same,\n\nI think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dead on. Much of our Western myths, and as they are perpetuated today by\nHollywood, involve the brave and capable few who are besieged by the\nweak and cowardly many. This has little basis in reality, of course, and\nit has always struck me as a bit pathological. And so often the few are\nblond and big and the many dark and small. So too with Tolkien." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "West is certainly a good direction. North less so - in the first age\nmaterial the North is the seat of evil (and it's not Tolkien's fault\nthat wasn't published first). By the time of LOTR the region has been\ndevastated.\n\nIt is indeed true that dark-skinned people from the South, apparently\nAfricans, figure among Sauron's hordes - though that's because they've\nbeen subjected by him; at the end of the war they are liberated. It's\nalso true that the Uruk-hai, Man-orc crosses, have dark skins. On the\nother hand there are plenty of light-skinned villains as well. (It's\nnot clear that the easterners are dark-skinned; they can be read\nsimply as eastern Europeans. Though that might bring its own\nproblems.) As for small. the principal heroes, the hobbits, are small,\nand some, though not all, of their opponents are unusally large." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4EEB7F13.4090303@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-12-16T17:25:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Gummed up works or got lives?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/16/2011 12:08 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 12/15/2011 10:21 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think, by todays standards, Tolkien's geo-social biases might not be\nconsidered so\n\npolicially correct. I mostly mean his implication that those dark-skinned\ntypes from the\n\nsouth and east are evil and not to be trusted. Conversely that north and\nwest are the \"good\"\n\ndirections, not to mention those wonderful (american) eagles who always\nfly in at the last\n\ncrucial moment to save the day. If he'd used falcons it just wouldn't have\nworked the same,\n\nI think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Dead on. Much of our Western myths, and as they are perpetuated today by\nHollywood, involve the brave and capable few who are besieged by the\nweak and cowardly many. This has little basis in reality, of course, and\nit has always struck me as a bit pathological. And so often the few are\nblond and big and the many dark and small. So too with Tolkien." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "West is certainly a good direction. North less so - in the first age\nmaterial the North is the seat of evil (and it's not Tolkien's fault\nthat wasn't published first). By the time of LOTR the region has been\ndevastated.\n\nIt is indeed true that dark-skinned people from the South, apparently\nAfricans, figure among Sauron's hordes - though that's because they've\nbeen subjected by him; at the end of the war they are liberated. It's\nalso true that the Uruk-hai, Man-orc crosses, have dark skins. On the\nother hand there are plenty of light-skinned villains as well. (It's\nnot clear that the easterners are dark-skinned; they can be read\nsimply as eastern Europeans. Though that might bring its own\nproblems.) As for small. the principal heroes, the hobbits, are small,\nand some, though not all, of their opponents are unusally large." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Few are large. Most are smaller than Men. The main thing is that there \nare apparently millions of them and they fight like girls. ;)" } ] } ] }