re: #321 Expand Your Ground

This being back before Policitcal Correctness required even fantasy worlds to also represent the Ideal World.

Well, yeah. Tolkein’s representation of all non-white races as inherently evil or corrupted is pretty shitty, but the the white races are all pretty badly off, too. Everywhere you go, leaders are corrupted, the desire for the Ring overwhelms people, and nobody is shown as being really particularly brave, more just fighting out of complete goddamn desperation.

Really, only Aragorn, Eowyn, and Faramir are shown in a pretty-purely positive nature, from the human races. And the hobbits all rock, of course, but they’re rocking in a specifically un-hobittish way, by leaving the Shire and getting involved.

I think it’s safe to say that Tolkein didn’t think much of any society, any group, but he thought individuals could rise above.