Subject: The 'Balin is a Zionist' offended me more.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-06-25 22:41:00 UTC
As I said, it's insulting and insensitive to both sides of the conflict, and ignores all that Tolkien said about allegory.
That said, it's time to concede. I've vented my anger and recived useful advice.
Link here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/TheLordOfTheRings
I want to know how you think of it. Personally, I hate it, especially the first one and the fifth and fourth to last ones. No, I don't want any disscussion about Tolkien's actual political views (though those intrested can view them here*), I just want to say that I don't like what they are saying under the guise of speculation. I may not be right about this (I'll acknowledge that), but I'm still pissed.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien Once again I don't wan't any disscussion about Tolkien's actual political views. I just want to vent and see what you think of the situation on that page.
From what I saw, they were taking LotR literally (as a manuscript written in Middle Earth, by Middle Earth historians, rather than a fantasy novel by a contemporary of CS Lewis). It's not so much talking about Tolkien's views as it's theorizing about political machinations in M-E.
I especially liked the section on Tom Bombadil. Isn't /anyone/ going to say he's a Time Lord? And the theory that Tom = Angmar, while a bit implausible, certainly did seem to have some literary backing.
On the other hand, I'm biased. It's the first place I've ever seen someone else take the view that M-E is Earth's distant distant /distant/ past, rather than an alternate dimension. Huh. It seemed fairly obvious to me...
The Out of Universe WMG's have "gems" like Balin Being a Zionist and stuff like that. A look at the Archived Disscussion (not the present disscussion, which is on another format) also reveals that someone wanted to put in the classic "Tolkien was a White Supremacist" guess (Check the Wikipedia page for his actual views regarding race).
That said, I made the post when I was angry and wasn't thinking clearly, and now that I've vented my self, I think that I'm going to leave this thread alone.
Some of them were funny (I noticed one of them linked to the Tolkien Sarcasm theories page on the Flying Moose of Nargothrond website, which certainly brings back memories - I used to read that website heaps back in my pre-PPC days).
Others, less so. The "Blue Wizards founded Judaism and Zoroastrianism" and the "Zionist Dwarves" I didn't think were particularly funny.
And yes, I too found the phrase "tiny hobbit skeletons" kind of funny.
Elcalion
But I hated the 'Zionist Dwarves' guess, for reasons that I already elaborated on. The fact that such a person can lurk in the WMG page made me suspect all political WMG entries. However, I acknowledge that I was overreacting and that I needed to be set straight. Sorry.
So, are you intrested in some ligther subject fare?
And I'm a die-hard Tolkien fan.
... It's just that even on Tv.Tropes, it's hard to tell if one is hust being funny or has a chip against the original work on his shoulder, particularly when the arguements get rabid. And they do get rabid. I remember a dispute on the Ron the Death Eater page where my opponent frequently punctuated his arguements with allcaps. I ended up conceding. I think that was probably what soured my opinion of the site as a whole, even though I still frequented it and even created an account under a different name.
Anyway, sorry for being immature. Can we find something else to talk about?
Especially the first one, which looks to have had some serious time spent on it. It flits gently from modern buzzword to obscure literary reference, all with an air of subtle sarcasm. It's a beautiful parody, almost Colbert-esque, albeit from the other side of the political aisle.
As I said, it's insulting and insensitive to both sides of the conflict, and ignores all that Tolkien said about allegory.
That said, it's time to concede. I've vented my anger and recived useful advice.
Hey, my fandom's WMG page broke the server, resulting in it being split in two. It's so long it took me several hours to read it.
At least the LotR WMG page is short, has decent spelling and grammar and doesn't have various people trying to justify their often conflicting, and occasionally completely OOC, ships.
What fandom was THAT? 0.o
To be fair, I don't know nearly as much Tolkien as most of you lot do. But it seems like this WMG page has much fewer intentionally silly theories than most of them do.
I think the first thing is hilarious. "He who controls the pipeweed controls the economy!" I love it. And they spin it out so well. {X D
As for the others, I'm not actually sure which ones you're referring to, but most of the other threads I looked at also made me laugh. It's all total BS and everyone knows it, so it's funny. {= ) And actually, a few even made sense.
As for Tolkien's political views, he specifically stated that LotR was not meant as an allegory--I think he also added that he disliked allegory--so anyone making that sort of accusation can be safely laughed at and/or ignored.
~Neshomeh
...but that's just me. And part of what makes me angry is that even though the Page specifically says Wild Mass Guessing, the tone of most of those posts, especially the "LOTR is a Deconstruction like The Iron Dream" one, leaks so much spite and self-rigtheousness that I'm unable to see it as humor.
There's also the "Balin was a Zionist" guess, which is Canon Defilement, pure and simple. Considering how charged the issue is (I won't elaborate), such accusations, meant in fun or not, are insulting to both sides of the conflict.
The WMG's that made sense, yeah I liked them. I forgot that they also made up a significant part of the page. I liked the ones about the "Orcs being reanimated corpses" and the "One of Aragorn's descendants flubbed up and the Easterlings invaded the West and became the Indo-European anscestors of most of Europe". I guess that I was tarring the whole because of the actions of a few.
Sorry about that. I still have some growing up to do. Thanks for reading my post. It means a lot, you know?
Especially the ones giving the Jedi the Ron the Death Eater treatment. Honestly, they're flawed, not Complete Monsters.
PS: Sorry if I offended anyone from Tv.Tropes. I actually hate making these kinds of posts, as it means that I've misplaced my self-control somewhere. I'll be all right after I get some sleep.
It's not worth my time.
The continued existence of the offense just burns a hole through my mind, and ignoring it felt like an insult to the malinged party. Yeah, it's unhealthy, but I just can't help myself despite the consequences. Sorry.
That said, I will try to do as you say from now on.