Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Subject: Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2020-05-29 14:49:14 UTC

The critics are wrong that:

-Tolkien just wrote about Absolute Good vs Absolute Evil. The Noldor in the First Age were kind of awful [Gestures at all three Kinslayings, plus the whole colonialism thing], the Numenoreans literally went from good to evil, and the Gondorians were hecka racist (they literally assigned people moral status based on how closely they were related to Numenoreans). Then you've got all Gondor's Imperialist Adventures, and things like the way most of the Shire is quite happy to accept Saruman's fascist state (it's only the misfits in Buckland who really stood up to him before Frodo arrived). Meanwhile, the Evil Peoples are mostly being forced into it by Sauron, whose methods of dealing with rebellion include a) feeding people to werewolves, b) human sacrifice, c) burning entire countries so hard they don't recover for three thousand years, and of course d) the ever-popular slavery. They're not exactly enthusiastic converts, is what I'm saying.

-Tolkien's Good Guys were all white. There's a series of posts (and a download) on this at the Ask Middle-earth blog, but the upshot is that the Rohirrim were white, as were the House of Hador in the First Age, the Vanyar over in Valinor, and the Fallohide branch of Hobbits (the Took-Brandybuck lineage; note that 'Fallow-hide' means 'pale-skin'!). Pretty much everyone else in Middle-earth is either up for grabs, or confirmed darker-skinned.*

*'Brown' and 'swarthy' are the usual terms; I think the only time Tolkien intensifies more than this is one instance of 'black'.

The critics are right that:

-Tolkien's Bad Guy Races are all non-white. They are. There are evil members of the good races, and occasional sympathy for members of the evil ones, but that doesn't change this fact.

-Much of this isn't exactly obvious. Gondorian racism is there in Lord of the Rings if you already know to look for it, as is the fact that two thirds of Hobbits are non-white, but it's in no way highlighted. The fact that the most prominent characters in various races come from the paler parts of those races - Legolas has a blond dad, Galadriel is half Vanyar, Frodo, Merry and Pippin are all Fallohides - is a huge contributing factor here.

Ultimately, Tolkien on race is a very similar question to Tolkien on women. When he addressed it at all, he generally did so decently - but he mostly just ignored it entirely.

Reply Return to messages

Jump to this post's position in the thread ↴

Plothole Patch, new sporking chapter and Tolkien beta sought after! by Mirage Fontane on 2020-05-20 13:20:41 UTC Writing Beta request Reply

I don't know if y'all recall this interlude that I've written in the Tolkien-verse, but doctorlit pointed out a nice big plothole in it that I hadn't noticed at the time about pretty much the whole fic having been rendered moot with a few neuralyzers (which had apparently vanished from my memory when I wrote this). I have a few more missions under my belt that I'm hoping to post sometime, so I figured it would be time to polish this story a little so that it would line up with my other ones. Is the plot still contrived? Probably, but it's no longer borderline impossible, I think.

Also: I have an absolutely horrendous Tolkien badfic three-part mission written that I've been hoping to publish now that I have a lot more time on my hands to get back into writing (what with the whole lockdown thing and all). It's seriously one of the worst fics I've ever read, guys - it's got every sexual trigger warning I can think of and then some, and the canon-violation levels are so impressive I was praying for Bleeprin myself by the end of it. It's a Bleepfic, all right. The first part has already been beta'd by Zingenmir, but the other two are still mostly unedited... so if one of our Tolkien nerds with a strong stomach could help me out with another opinion, I'd be most grateful.

Update: since I'm getting back into writing, I'm also picking up my sporking of Tillie Cole's novel Raze again. It's been months, guys, my apologies - but I'll be back with more absurdity and sappy romance very soon. Please enjoy this snippet of sporking until then. (The link has been broken for a while because Dreamwidth kept eating half my post, but it's fixed now, more or less.)

Paging Huinesoron about elven traits! by Mirage Fontane on 2020-05-27 20:51:05 UTC Reply

Hi, hS!

Nesh has pointed out something to me during the betaing of this mission that I'm a little hung up on. One of my agents has brown skin outside of disguise, and it was something I kept about her when I wrote her disguised as a Middle-earth elf (since I wasn't very comfortable with changing her skin color). Nesh told me that this might be a bit too much of a canon stretch, but also advised to ask you on this particular subject. Could a brown-skinned elf in a Tolkien mission be explained away (or just... not be pointed out to begin with), or is it really too big a divergence from canon?

Oh, I love this one! by Huinesoron on 2020-05-27 22:23:41 UTC Reply

Short answer: please go for it!

Three quotes from the Silmarillion:

"The Vanyar were his people; they are the Fair Elves... next came the Noldor... the greatest host came last, and they are named the Teleri..."

Tolkien often uses 'fair' to mean 'pretty', but here he's comparing the Vanyar to other Elves. He may mean 'blonde', but may also mean 'pale'.

"The seven sons of Feanor were... and Caranthir the dark..."

Why is Caranthir 'dark'? Again, there are several possibilities, but see also:

"Ar-Feiniel she was called, the White Lady of the Noldor, for she was pale, though her hair was dark..."

Aredhel Ar-Feiniel is the White Lady because she is pale. If the Noldor were all pale, this would be... a really dumb nickname. XD

So we can infer the possibility of non-pale elves; but since everyone knows Tolkien's Elves are white, that must be the best we can do, right?

Well... no. Check this out:

"... the house of Beor. The Men of that house were dark or brown of hair, with grey eyes; and of all Men they were the most like to the Noldor..." (The Silmarillion: Of the Coming of Men into the West)

"There were fair-haired men and women among the folk of Beor, but many of them had brown hair (going usually with brown eyes) and many were less fair of skin, some indeed being swarthy." (HoME XII The Peoples of Middle-earth: Of Dwarves and Men)

Conclusion: the Noldor were dark-skinned, and it's only the fact that their most prominent representatives in the Third Age (Elrond and Galadriel) are mostly non-Noldo* that makes us think they weren't.

(If pressed for backstory, they'd want to be from Rivendell or the Grey Havens in the Third Age; the other Elven realms were pretty low on Noldor.)

hS

*Galadriel is 1/4 Noldor - her grandparents are 2 Teleri, one Vanya, and Finwe the High King of the Noldor. Elrond has one half-Noldorin grandmother (Idril, who's half-Vanya) who married a half-Beorian (Tuor), plus great-granddad Beren, who is noted as being one of the paler Beorians (because Tolkien gave him his own sandy hair).

Oh, good. by Neshomeh on 2020-05-28 17:14:37 UTC Reply

I was basically going on the assumption of endemic racism typical of the time period, what with the well-known criticism of Tolkien's evil races all being dark-skinned; therefore the most pure beings, the elves, must be light-skinned. That's a great point about the House of Bëor resembling the Noldor, though—I did turn up that quote about them ranging to swarthy when I was poking around the wikis for help.

I wonder about the Northmen, though (Rohirrim, Dunlendings, Men of Dale and their descendants). The Rohirrim are sort of half Norse, half Asian Steppe nomads in inspiration, right? ... And now I've actually looked up the Dunlendings, who are said to be dark of skin and hair (shocker), but their ancestors were kin to the folk of Haleth (noted elf-friends) and the folk of Bree (basically normal people), and the Númenóreans kinda treated them like crap, so their enmity toward the usurpers is pretty justified. And they're not fans of orcs, either.

So like... are the critics basically just wrong about this? {= O

~Neshomeh

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. by Huinesoron on 2020-05-29 14:49:14 UTC Reply

The critics are wrong that:

-Tolkien just wrote about Absolute Good vs Absolute Evil. The Noldor in the First Age were kind of awful [Gestures at all three Kinslayings, plus the whole colonialism thing], the Numenoreans literally went from good to evil, and the Gondorians were hecka racist (they literally assigned people moral status based on how closely they were related to Numenoreans). Then you've got all Gondor's Imperialist Adventures, and things like the way most of the Shire is quite happy to accept Saruman's fascist state (it's only the misfits in Buckland who really stood up to him before Frodo arrived). Meanwhile, the Evil Peoples are mostly being forced into it by Sauron, whose methods of dealing with rebellion include a) feeding people to werewolves, b) human sacrifice, c) burning entire countries so hard they don't recover for three thousand years, and of course d) the ever-popular slavery. They're not exactly enthusiastic converts, is what I'm saying.

-Tolkien's Good Guys were all white. There's a series of posts (and a download) on this at the Ask Middle-earth blog, but the upshot is that the Rohirrim were white, as were the House of Hador in the First Age, the Vanyar over in Valinor, and the Fallohide branch of Hobbits (the Took-Brandybuck lineage; note that 'Fallow-hide' means 'pale-skin'!). Pretty much everyone else in Middle-earth is either up for grabs, or confirmed darker-skinned.*

*'Brown' and 'swarthy' are the usual terms; I think the only time Tolkien intensifies more than this is one instance of 'black'.

The critics are right that:

-Tolkien's Bad Guy Races are all non-white. They are. There are evil members of the good races, and occasional sympathy for members of the evil ones, but that doesn't change this fact.

-Much of this isn't exactly obvious. Gondorian racism is there in Lord of the Rings if you already know to look for it, as is the fact that two thirds of Hobbits are non-white, but it's in no way highlighted. The fact that the most prominent characters in various races come from the paler parts of those races - Legolas has a blond dad, Galadriel is half Vanyar, Frodo, Merry and Pippin are all Fallohides - is a huge contributing factor here.

Ultimately, Tolkien on race is a very similar question to Tolkien on women. When he addressed it at all, he generally did so decently - but he mostly just ignored it entirely.

hS

Great! by Mirage Fontane on 2020-05-28 08:42:48 UTC Reply

This was something I had hoped to be able to keep about Agent Hurley. I figured that if I was really pressed for an explanation I could come up with something back when I first wrote her this way, but I'm happy to see that canon supports what I've done here.

Thanks a lot! :)

How long is the mission in wordcount? by Neshomeh on 2020-05-20 22:41:25 UTC Reply

I think I'm probably the beta you need and will volunteer regardless of length, but I'm a flake with a tendency to procrastinate and be distracted by other projects. I try not to be, but I know myself better than to guarantee anything, so fair warning. E-mail, if you need it, is neshomeh dot soul at gmail dot com.

Glad to see the Raze MST is back! Your link is broken, though.

~Neshomeh

15 141... words... by Mirage Fontane on 2020-05-21 09:32:20 UTC Edited Reply

Or 45 pages. It really is a horrendous fic. I'll email you in just a bit - thank you for volunteering, this fic really needs to be chased out with a broom from the canon.

Also, I know, I've been having some technical difficulties with Dreamwidth - I had to delete the original post because the site kept eating half of it. Everything was visible in my text editor, but as soon as I posted, the sporking disappeared from a certain point onwards. I'll post a new link as soon as I figure out how to fix this, I just didn't want to keep updating the original post.

Update: new link to the sporking is up now!