travelling north

Lee Berman · 07 Jun 2010, 18:28 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 14:28:22 -0400
Subject: (urth) travelling north
Message-ID: <SNT123-W32A92E5ABD17EC8D289E38CFD50 at phx.gbl>

>>And Tolkien would weep a silent tear to see his work called "allegorical."
>Hmph, then he shouldn't have had created all those bad guys as
>dark-skinned guys from south and east riding elephants.

>Only the guys from the south ride elephants.  The humans from the east aren't
>described as dark-skinned, as I recall.  Maybe you're talking about the orcs, though.
>Nor should he have allowed "eagles" to save the day at the end of his two big
>(hobbit-involved) wars.                           
If people have suggested that the eagles represent the United States, that's just
>horrible.  I'm not going to dispute that the eagles might have led people into
>such interpretations, though.
Jerry Friedman

Well, I am a Tolkein lover and was only being tongue-in-cheek critical. Still, he
couldn't help being a man shaped by his time and his culture. Why couldn't his 
southern elephant riders be blondes or red haired with freckles? Why were his 
"Easterlings":

>...Men who lived in the east of Middle-earth, who mostly fought under Morgoth
>and Sauron.The Easterlings were short and muscular; they were dark of skin, eye,
>and hair. .they are armed with long halberds, scimitars and rectangular metal
> shields. Their armour is inscribed with a script which resembles Tengwar mixed
>with Persian...In early design concepts, the Easterlings wore turbans and their
>helmets bore crescent moons, but director Peter Jackson requested that references
> to real-world cultures be avoided.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlings

And I would think a British author writing during and just after WWII would use hawks or 
harriers or falcons or any bird of prey other than eagles if he was hoping to avoid
all hint of allegory. 		 	   		  
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