The Great Tolkien Legendarium Thread

[zompist]

Ugh. That review reminded me again that, whenever Lewis wrote or talked about scientists, he assumed as a matter of course, not even in need of being demonstrated in any way, that they were all completely amoral, with no sense of right and wrong whatsoever. That was, of course, a clear violation of whatever number the commandment against bearing false witness has in Lewis' preferred numbering scheme.

No, he didn't. He specifically includes a character, Bill Hingest, a scientist who resigns from the evil linstitute on the grounds that what they're doing isn't science.

The book isn't about science, it's about power.

[alice]

More specifically, wanton thoughtless destruction in the name of progress. Which is why a claim I once read on an official Objectivist website, that Atlas Shrugged should be considered a sequel to LotR, is utterly ridiculous.

I guess that was a stereotypical USAnian geeky teenage boy, or geeky former teenage boy, who assumed that

1) Lord of the Rings is Good,

2) Atlas Shrugged is Good, too,

and therefore

3) Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged, being both Good, therefore clearly have to be the same thing.

Which is, of course, not exactly a particularly mature or intelligent understanding of how the world works.

No, it isn't, although of course that's not how such a teenage boy would see it. It was very definitely a *former* teenage boy; IIRC the claim was argued at considerable length and with a lot of reasoning, albeit flawed.

[Raphael]

Ugh. That review reminded me again that, whenever Lewis wrote or talked about scientists, he assumed as a matter of course, not even in need of being demonstrated in any way, that they were all completely amoral, with no sense of right and wrong whatsoever. That was, of course, a clear violation of whatever number the commandment against bearing false witness has in Lewis' preferred numbering scheme.

No, he didn't. He specifically includes a character, Bill Hingest, a scientist who resigns from the evil linstitute on the grounds that what they're doing isn't science.

The book isn't about science, it's about power.

OK, thank you. I might have overgeneralized from what I heard about his sparring with Arthur C. Clarke.

[zompist]

I liked the Narnia books as a child, but as an adult I'm afraid they leave me a little cold. They're more overtly intended as Christian apologetics, aren't they?

Yes, but fortunately, they don't work as that. The Christian elements went right over my head as a kid.

I hear mixed things about the Space Trilogy, is it worth reading?

I'd say only the first book (Out of the Silent Planet). It has the same vividness featured in the Narnia stories, applied to what it's like to walk on the Martian surface or talk to an alien. And it has a comic deconstruction of the drive to colonize the galaxy which is worth reading.

Perelandra, no— even Lewis says somewhere it's for his fellow believers. It applies an SF concept to religion ("What if you could prevent the Fall?") but the execution is lacking.

That Hideous Strength is like an overstuffed Victorian house into which Lewis stuffed all his ideas, passions, and nightmares. It has good bits but Orwell has put his finger on the main structural problem— once God is involved, the suspense is lost.

[Glass Half Baked]

RE: the "dwarf" talk. The original form seems to have been dweorg, which would yield dwarrow (c.f. beorg becoming barrow), except the final g became h in some dialect that then supplied the term that the standard language uses. So far, so normal. But what if this aberrant form became standardized across the language? Then archaeologists would get excited about finding a "Bronze Age long barf."

[Ares Land]

More specifically, wanton thoughtless destruction in the name of progress. Which is why a claim I once read on an official Objectivist website, that Atlas Shrugged should be considered a sequel to LotR, is utterly ridiculous.

The fascination of the Sarumans of our times for LotR never ceases to amaze me!

The opposition to "progress" and technology is very apparent, though. I think a lot of people kind of skim on the loving description of trees and go straight for the battle scene.

[Travis B.]

Concerning LotR and Atlas shrugged, consider the following quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

[WeepingElf]

Concerning LotR and Atlas shrugged, consider the following quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

That's a very good one, thank you!

[Raphael]

Concerning LotR and Atlas shrugged, consider the following quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Stuff like this reminds me of how weirdly different the North American bookish-fourteen-year-old experience in some aspects is from the bookish-fourteen-year-old experience in some other places, including where I grew up (at least back then).

[alice]

I'm not sure if this has been done before, or if it's even suitable for the ZBB, but... how would LotR look if it was brought in line with modern sensibilities (1) sensitively and properly, and (2) stereotypically woke?

[Raphael]

I strongly suspect that at least some of the fantasy published in the last 20 or 30 years fits the one or other of these descriptions, but I haven't read much of it, so I can't tell.

[Travis B.]

I'm not sure if this has been done before, or if it's even suitable for the ZBB, but... how would LotR look if it was brought in line with modern sensibilities (1) sensitively and properly, and (2) stereotypically woke?

At some level I don't even want to think about what a 'stereotypically woke' LotR would be like.

[Raphael]

Actually, I think trying to come up with at least half-way plausible ways how a society or at least community in a world with medieval technology might end up with somewhat modern sensibilities, woke or not, and might try to defend itself against attempts by the nearest king or emperor to destroy it before it gives his subjects any ideas, might be a seriously interesting conworlding challenge.

[Lērisama]

I'm not sure if this has been done before, or if it's even suitable for the ZBB, but... how would LotR look if it was brought in line with modern sensibilities (1) sensitively and properly, and (2) stereotypically woke?

Both have been done. I don't want to be the one to induct you into the world of YA fantasy¹², but a quick google search will reveal many books of, err…, questionable quality, and after you've sifted through the Hunger Games rewrites of highly variable quality, you will find some LOTR rewrites of varying quality.

¹ Teenagers from about 14–15 up to adults
² YA is a bigger market, so publishers try to put anything they can into it, so “repeats of a thing we know there's a geeky teenage fandom for” fits into that category.

---

Edit: I fear none of them will even attempt Raphael's standard. The villain is almost certainly a stereotypical EEVIL villain of EVIL™, rather than a coherent character.

[Raphael]

This reminds me, wasn't there once a legend about a relatively egalitarian, by medieval standards, republic that somehow emerged in the middle of the medieval Islamic world and managed it to survive for a few years, or perhaps a bit longer, before it was destroyed by the neighboring rulers, who couldn't allow something like that to exist in their midst? That would be a medieval Islamic rather than a medieval European setting, so it wouldn't be a 1:1 equivalence of what alice is suggesting, but perhaps it might be close enough.

While we're at it, there's my own old abandoned Péchkizhénk project, which starts out early modern instead of medieval in technology, but it is more egalitarian than real-life societies in that period usually were. Then again, it's basically a military dictatorship ruling over a society structured around a system of institutionalized child labor, so it's not really in line with modern sensibilities: https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=527

[zompist]

I'm not sure if this has been done before, or if it's even suitable for the ZBB, but... how would LotR look if it was brought in line with modern sensibilities (1) sensitively and properly, and (2) stereotypically woke?

To some extent that's exactly what Peter Jackson did. The major change was beefing up Arwen's role. (There were other changes, but they were mostly to excise subplots he didn't think were necessary.)

Of course, you might also want to (re-)read Chomsky & Zinn's commentary. (Warning for the humor-challenged: this is parody, not actually by Chomsky & Zinn.)

But really, the best response to LOTR is to write your own fantasy epic.

[Travis B.]

Of course, you might also want to (re-)read Chomsky & Zinn's commentary. (Warning for the humor-challenged: this is parody, not actually by Chomsky & Zinn.)

Lol.

[Ares Land]

This reminds me, wasn't there once a legend about a relatively egalitarian, by medieval standards, republic that somehow emerged in the middle of the medieval Islamic world and managed it to survive for a few years, or perhaps a bit longer, before it was destroyed by the neighboring rulers, who couldn't allow something like that to exist in their midst? That would be a medieval Islamic rather than a medieval European setting, so it wouldn't be a 1:1 equivalence of what alice is suggesting, but perhaps it might be close enough.

It sounds like the legend of ="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester ... ester John. Though I don't recall it being egalitarian; it's simply said to be a Christian kingdom.

[Raphael]

This reminds me, wasn't there once a legend about a relatively egalitarian, by medieval standards, republic that somehow emerged in the middle of the medieval Islamic world and managed it to survive for a few years, or perhaps a bit longer, before it was destroyed by the neighboring rulers, who couldn't allow something like that to exist in their midst? That would be a medieval Islamic rather than a medieval European setting, so it wouldn't be a 1:1 equivalence of what alice is suggesting, but perhaps it might be close enough.

It sounds like the legend of ="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester ... ester John. Though I don't recall it being egalitarian; it's simply said to be a Christian kingdom.

No, I'm pretty sure I remember it as a legend among Muslims, not among Christians.

[hwhatting]

Hmm... I remember Spengler writing something about egalitarian groups in the Muslim world... in the 9th century? Don't have my copy of Decline of the West at hand, and I'm not sure how reliable he is as source for historical facts anyway...