#central asian tolkien

[brighter-arda]

Day 2 @tolkienofcolourweek: Miriel Therinde

Image description in alt text

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

"And again she looked at Faramir. 'No longer do I desire to be a queen,' she said. Then Faramir laughed merrily. 'That is well,' he said; 'for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.'" - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, "The Steward and the King"

@lotrladiessource's lotr ladies week || day 2: women of the north + love || éowyn of rohan

[ID: a picspam comprised of 18 images in desaturated reds, browns, and greens.

1: A close-up of Khulan Chuluun, a mongolian actor, looking straight ahead. She has black hair in two braids, one with red ribbon, and is wearing a red jacket / 2: An antique parchment written over with mantras in mongolian script / 3: Reddish-brown text on a black background reading "I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed!" / 4: folded and stacked clothes woven in a traditional central asian style / 5: A field full of wildflowers / 6: The roof of a mongolian ger / 7: The interior of a woven shield / 8: Three przewalski’s horses in a field / 9: Khulan Chuluun, this time in profile. She is wearing a red coat with a furry hood and standing beside a horse / 10: Same format as Image 3, but the text reads "I will be a shield-maiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying." / 11: Grassy fields / 12: A person, shown from the back, wearing a red leather coat and carrying a sheathed knife. Their hair is in a long braid / 13: The entrance to a mongolian ger / 14: Khulan Chuluun wearing a white shirt and embracing someone who holds her tenderly / 15: Same format as Images 3 and 10, but the text reads "I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren." / 16: Cloth with a detailed pattern traditionally from central asia / 17: Grassy green hills / 18: A person looking out of a window. They are wearing a brown coat and furry hat, again in a central asian style /End ID]

[outofangband]

Have you ever considered an environmental (or societal!) worldbuilding post for Taur-im-Duinath? There's so little in canon, I'd be fascinated to know your headcanons.

(This is a somewhat selfish ask as I am writing a fic that will have a significant portion set there, but genuinely love reading your posts -- no rush or pressure on this!)

Environmental World Building Masterlist

Taur Im Duinath is a large forest located in southeast Beleriand. Its name translates to Forest between rivers as it is located between the river Sirion (on the west) and the river Gelion on the east. In its southern reaches on the western border it extends to the lands around the Bay of Balar. The Andram, the wall of rocky hills ending with Amon Ereb in the east, lies directly to the north of Taur Im Duinath

As you said, it is mentioned very little in The Silmarillion, only twice actually. This corner of Beleriand is described as dark, tangled and wild with no elven or human inhabitants save some Avari

It can be difficult to judge exact sizes on Tolkien’s maps but Taur Im Duinath appears to be one of the largest forests in Beleriand

My thoughts

These are more general thoughts and for flora and fauna I gave examples of genuses or families rather than species but if you give me specific categories I can make more detailed posts!

-The climate is not as mild as Ossiriand but is far more mild than northeast Beleriand. The winters do not generally drop below negative one degree Celsius or thirty degrees Fahrenheit. Snow falls lightly in mid winter with sleet often occurring before and after.

-Humidity is higher than the rest of eastern Beleriand excepting parts of central Ossiriand with high rainfall especially in late winter and spring.

-The forest is dense. It is deciduous and coniferous mixed forests with scattered swampier areas which tend to be slightly more open. Most plants must be shade tolerant.

-There is an undergrowth of a variety of species of mosses and ferns as well as fungi. Some species of extremely shade tolerant herbaceous plants grow as well as a wider variety in the wetlands, scattered clearings, and forest edges

-The conifers are primarily spruce, Asian pine, with some fir and even cypress closer to the bay. Tsuga dumosa, a species of hemlock, grows closer to Ossiriand

-The deciduous trees are primarily birch and several species of oak. Ash and tilia species also grow

-Willow and aspen grow in the wetlands and closer to the river with some alders and a few wych elm.

-Animal biodiversity likewise varies throughout the large region. High diversity of small birds, mostly passerine but also nightjars, owls, a few species of ground birds, etc.

-The undergrowth provides habitat for the highest diversity of animals. Lots of Orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers etc) so the forest is rarely quiet though the dense canopy muffles the sounds. Also high diversity of beetles, worms, rolly pollys, snails and slugs, and then toads, salamanders and newts, certain species of wood frogs, and small mammals like shrews especially by the water

I hope this is ok, @polutrope! I wasn’t sure what areas to focus on so please feel free to ask for more specific areas!

[ent-maiden]

Two magical dudes

the blue wizards

in watercolor and pencil.

Tolkien OC Week: Day 4 Forgotten Characters. Not exactly forgotten, but Tolkien ignored these dudes enough in LOTR they might as well be. I suspect they were already killed by the events of LOTR since being missionaries and revolutionaries can be a dangerous job. RIP blue wizards.

I think Pallando is the guy on the left and Alatar is the guy on the right because the guy on the left has a very friendly expression while the guy on the right is more solemn. The guy on the left just seems like the friendly friend you need for a mission. But interpret it how you want. I don't really care who's who. Their appearances were inspired by how I imagine Easterlings and Haradrim would look. So central Asian (with a Vietnamese hat because I saw it on fan art and I liked it) and Persian.

Because I waited so long between drying layers I barely got this in before midnight.

[meirimerens]

god thank you for your response to that person I'm so tired of seeing takes that are like "the kin/the town are a 1:1 representation of the buryats" cuz... they're not... and honestly trying to hammer that point down comes off as quite insulting to the real and actual people they're supposedly represent.

the kin differs from the buryats by their economical system, faith and even medicine methods. the closest thing is the language cuz surprise, unless you're tolkien, coming up with a whole fictional language is hard

well, thank you, i'll guess. i'm not trying to start beef with nobody so everybody behave otherwise daddy's gonna get rude.

i also truly fully whole-heartedly believe the replier has no ill-intention, and probably has great love for the Kin (hence why they entered the discussion). it is also from great love for the Kin that i made the original post, AND from great love that i made my reply to the reply, which i felt ignored some issues that have for years been brought up + decided to seek the opinions of others who have more #knowledge than me.

wrt the kin i'm trying to like, be as... wide in my scope of it as i can and understand that yes, imaginary, bunch of shit not real, but also, very much real inspirations, and in these blurred lines of inspirations/imagination lies..... won't lie some racist biases, and perhaps what we could call intellectual colonialism: taking bits and pieces of real-life cultures for your Storey, while maybe not...... handling it.... the best........ again, i'm not like. The Best Person For The Job because. my sibling on this green earth i'm franco-french. but i try my best to read and listen what is said about the Kin by people for who their (mis)treatment matters most, and most of what i'm reading is. like Not Praise. ykwim..... i have no way of knowing if you, personally, are buryat or mongol or [...] & it's none my business, so i don't know how much of a horse you got in this race, but i'm trying to like. see things. a topic that demands careful examination and multiple perspectives? in the Multiple Perspectives video games? that's crazy.

there's also to me [as a storytellah] the fact that if patho wanted to fully represent all the peoples it is inspired by 1) it would be even more of a hodgepodge, and somewhat even more disrespectful, because the buryat and the mongols, while both Mongolic, are... not the same... they have different names for gods, places, different cosmogonies, [...]. the fact is, patho has multiple inspirations, and like. they're not... interchangeable... because central asian cultures are not interchangeable...... not monolithic......... and 2) it would make it so they can't go as quirky with the story as they did. the religion, the practices, the cosmogonies are invented (if inspired), and are not 1:1 to actual cultures. making it 1:1 to actual cultures would be disrespectful because you'd just... shove a new, fake religion upon these actually-existing peoples. or, you would have to write within the religious traditions of these peoples, which make it so. well. no living beating heart under the town, no albinos, no herb brides, no worms. you can make documentary-like games (i'd argue you should), but i think another thing that can/should be done is games by indigenous people about indigenous people and myths/stories, in the vein of "Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)", by Iñupiat people, with an Iñupiaq main character, about Iñupiat stories/myths. we've discussed it in the big guy but lead writer D., being 1/16 Chinese, perhapssss doesn't really have the same relationship to the Central Asian cultures the Kin is inspired by as someone who is Buryat, or white/Buryat (like artemy), would have.

but at this core, i don't think patho wants to full represent the people it's inspired by. it's a story. it's interested in making a story. to me it appears it's interested in making associations and parallels, maybe even homages?, but never actual direct correlations or representation (which itself can be another discussion. the kin is obviously central asian, from central-asian inspirations: how much of it can be seen as representation? how much of it as appropriation?) it makes up fake people for its fake town dealing with its fake illness. all of those have foundations, have obvious, legible roots, but they're not the same, and i'd argue it's... more disrespectful pretending the kin is 100% [ethnicity] (because. uh. [70 pages document about the mistreatment of the Kin])

(i also think this... """blurred line"""... allows for a... in-game and out-of-game [esp. fandom] a certain like. distance. or maybe suspension of disbelief. about the racism. like "oh, they're not a real culture, therefore i'm not showing Actually Racist(tm) biases when i depict members of the Kin as engaging in ritualistic sexual abuse, as being sexually violating or violent,..., because they're Not Real, so it's okay" which is. methinks somewhat braindead take. seen with my two eyes against my will to be fair)

tldr

An Imaginary People that's Not Real while taking from obvious inspirations because that's what you do when you write a story; you make shit up, especially if you plan on getting quirky wit it in ways no Actual Culture is because you're putting. Worms and the living beating Heart under the town and a Tower that defies the laws of physics (fake and gay?) and nobody.. has those. + it'd be way weirder if those women you're killing and making sexualize themselves were meant to be Real Ethnicity. i'd argue that'd be worse. so yeah. imagined. HOWEVERRRRRR[1][2][3][4][5]

[trans-leek-cookie]

the thingw the orcs in dunmeshi is sth i skirt around bc like u said it is. not a great modern take on orcs. obv not the worst it could be and kui at least did engage w trying to write a more involved lore on them rather than just having this be the same “orcs are big uncivilized brutes” version 8000000 but that element is still there. and i do think “its not the worst” is hardly what i would want to set my highest expectations to jdhdgksgd

tumblrs being a bitch n not letting me put images in so I'll just paste the text from the other ask

Nodding. ty for the info on the ways halfling racism can be compared to irl examples in “the middle east” like that rly is such a close comparison i wonder if it was at all intentional… AND FR on the whole . wishing we knew what they called themselves bc the “halfling” “half foot” thing i rly cant help but think abt how it feels like irl examples of certain groups being denigrated to category slurs its like. LOL. dunmeshi makinh me feel party to fictional racism and microaggressions against my will...

Idk Abt skirting around bc I think it's smthn we should face head on, but at the same time I'm not in a place where I can really add onto the discussion wrt orcs as a white/East Asian person. IIRC ppl have said tolkiens orcs are black and/or central Asian (Mongolian I believe) coded, which is meaningful cause he's influenced so much of modern fantasy, and thats. Y'know. Not great. Also the orcs in dungeon Meshi are essentially an indigenous group from what I remember so that's also a whole mess. Again, my opinions arent very meaningful when it comes to this, but I feel like it's incredibly disappointing to see an author who's clearly capable of nuanced and interesting commentary on racism in the context of real life and fiction (even if it's not always great it's clear she's thinking about it in some depth) really just. Fall back on tropes. Bc for the other races - human is a wider category than usual, tall men aren't always the Everyman, elves are long lived but that doesn't make them wiser, and halflings are mature, worldly and resourceful, which I feel like does a lot to break free of typical fantasy pigeon holeing. But the orcs are just sorta... The Bad Guy but Not That Bad I guess? Theoretically it's a departure from the "super evil forever no exceptions" idea of the but it's still so far behind what needs to be done to make it less of a lazy, racist trope.

Yeah, again I'm not west Asian or Arab like I said, but between reading stuff ppl online write n talking to my Iraqi friend + rereading dungeon Meshi and really trying to analyze it, it kinda stood out to me. I will say I was a little unconfident posting about it bc it's 3 things (4 if you count the name note) but theyre still really notable at least to me. The hand/foot cutting is I feel the most explicit? Because that's such a fucked up stereotype it just stands out immediately. I don't necessarily know if the half foot/middle east connection was intentional, because I assume Japan/Asia in general has a different relationship with West Asia (since they are the "far east" in comparison, so "Middle East" wouldnt really make sense?), but it could be one of those things that colonialism managed to spread. I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but even if it wasn't intentional I think it's a very interesting parallel in how language can be used to categorize people as "normal/other". So i can't say if its intentional or not, but it's definitely an interesting lens to consider the story thru. Id also say I believe halflings are said to be native to a place that's east from where the story takes place, but not the eastern continent (which is p much easy Asia). I've seen some ppl take this to mean eastern Europe, and I don't think that's wrong, but I think u could also think of it as west Asia? Idk if we ever got much info on it in story, so I might be missing some details. (Honestly I'd personally HC that halflings are generally mixed Eastern European/West Asian- not to conflate the two, but rather Im imaging the majority of them are in a kinda blended culture).

[sparklecryptid]

Right now I am arguing uselessly with my OC. The Isakai'd one, not the Thranduilion one. That's Colfileg (tentative name, trying to find the best way to name him 'little golden bird' could also be Glorfileg maybe? There are a bunch of words that mean Gold in Sindarin. *grumbles* No canon word for 'purple' but there's like six sindarin words that mean gold/golden? Really Tolkien?), he's older than Legolas and has been in the Trauma and Trouble long enough he's presumed dead when isekai'd OC and Celeg get dropped in. (Also Celeg is trans bc I have yet to read a trans!Celegorm story. And bc he said so.)

Me: Okay we are NOT doing HP, that route is closed off. No vampires, and I haven't touched any Shadowrun books in years. Same for the Percy Jackson novels. As cool as a Nephil OC might be, no Supernatural. I'd have to watch it again.

OC: *nods*

Me: Naruto? That could be neat, but like, too OP once things start moving...

OC: Oh yeah, no, not Naruto.

Me: and I don't know enough about One Piece really, also I don't think I feel like the worlds are a bit too oil and water, at least for me.

Me: MDZS maybe? A modern cultivation AU so you could have read Tolkien? Also, possibility of immortality to match lovely new elves you are definitely going to end up in SOME kind of relationship with? *squints* But I don't think you're central asian, so... If it's a modern cultivation AU, there could be multicultural Cultivators? Maybe?

OC: *tugs on red hair the ONLY feature we've agreed on* I mean- there ARE central asian people with red hair. But YOU don't know anything about them culturally. And I'm probably gonna be american just bc that's what you know best, right? *pauses* I guess I don't HAVE to have red hair-

Me: No, no we both agreed that having Celeg and Thranduils son fall in love with a redhead is funny. How about Star Wars? You could be a jedi and wouldn't have to have any earth race really?

OC: A jedi could be fun! But then I wouldn't get to know anything about Tolkien.

Me: Ah, heck. I forgot. Might be worth it tho. We could cook up a Modern dnd AU maybe? Cup of Shadowrun, cup of modern cultivation, double handful of all the neat DnD character races there are now?

OC: could be neat, I'd still have to look mostly human tho or elven? I don't think an aasimar or a tiefling would do well in Arda. Also, do you want to worldbuild that much for a world I'm not gonna be in again?

Hahaha I’m afraid I’m going to be no help here because all the worlds my ocs come from have a More Backstory than is Needed. Usually I take a world like ours and adjust a Few Things to make things sad for OC dearest before yeeting them into someplace.

ALSO TRANS CELEGORM MY BELOVED. I have never seen a trans!celeg story before but I’m just !!!! About it.

Us: okay there’s a bunch of words for gold but like. Can we have a purple?

Tolkien: no.

Us: but purple is nice!

Tolkien: -dumps a bunch of words for gold and silver on us-

Us: ok :(

[makalauriels]

@attheexactlyrighttimeandplace

Weren't the Istar and Nori heading to the land of Rhûn at the end of season 1? Are the writers of ROP going to make a connection between the two arcs (Nùmenor and the Harfoots/the Istar) through Elwing?

Well since these are examples of not commonly accepted theories that can still be justified... Short answer: Not likely. More relevant to the Second Age and the rise of Sauron is the future Ringwraith, Khamûl the Easterling. Either we will see him or the rise/battle against the cult of Morgoth in The Stranger and Nori's Adventures in Rhûn. Long nerd rant answer under the cut

If we take Tolkien's conceit that these are just "tales that he has translated", then Elwing's flight and turning into a bird falls squarely as a variant of the folktales about the Animal Bride (most commonly a swan), a tale so old it is speculated to have originated in pre-historic times. Contrast this with Elrond and Elros as immortal and mortal twin brothers, which is Indo-European in origin and shares similarities with Leda and her twin sons, Castor and Pollux.

Characteristics of this myth include:-

Man spies on celestial being

Man steals maiden's clothing/animal skin

They marry and the maiden gives birth to children

Maiden regains clothing/animal skin

Maiden returns to the Heavens

Elwing is a maiden of divine descent (through Melian the maia). In this variant, no theft by Eärendil (thankfully) occurs. Instead, we have the attempted theft of a Silmaril, a desperate escape, and the transformation into a bird instead. After which, the celestial maiden departs for "heaven".

The Swan Maiden as Ancestress motif, however, is Eurasian/Central Asian in origin and not found in Indo-European myth. If I were a folklorist, I might conclude that a cultural exchange happened that lead to the integration of this motif into the existing Swan Maiden myth of the Númenoreans.

Therefore, it is highly likely that a significant population of Rhûnic people groups exist on Númenor and their folktale was then integrated into the dynastic myth of the House of Elros.

Tolkien's Legendarium is so convoluted that the lore channels covering Rings of Power have been struggling to explain it, and thus incorrectly coming to the conclusion that it departs from lore.

This is actually incorrect because this batshit mess is capable of justifying a range of insane theories and providing me with endless entertainment.

Some of my favourite pet theories that can be textually justified:

One of the sons of Fingolfin was actually assigned female at birth. This is based on a line in Annals of Aman where "Isfin, daughter of Fingolfin born" was crossed out and replaced with "Fingolfin only had one daughter" indicating a clerical error that was later corrected.

The inclusion of Elwing as a Swan Maiden Ancestress, a folklore motif only found in the tales of the peoples who originated in the modern Altai Mountains, is indicative of Numenorean contact with Rhûnic peoples. Perhaps even, that a significant number of Numenorean subjects were of Rhûnic ancestry and the cult of the Swan Maiden Ancestress was incorporated to solidify the status of the Line of Elros as god-kings.

[essenceofarda]

also i've been fondly remembering this fic i started YEARS ago that takes place roughly 30-40 years after the destruction of the ring, where Prince Eldarion (son of Aragorn and Arwen) was fighting in a battle against Rhun and got injured, and along with two Gondorian soldiers managed to escape, and found themselves under the protection and care of a nomadic family in/from Khand (back then I was more influenced by the movies so Eldarion was more of your typical white boy and the family from khand were influenced by Central Asian cultures) and the daughter of the family was this young fourteen year old girl who gets tasked with basically babysitting Eldarion while he's recovering from his wounds, and the family/she doesn't know who he is they just know he and his men are from Gondor and need help/healing, and she and Eladarion become friends (obvi nothing romantic happens bc he's a grown adult and she's a child) but anyway, they become good friends, and have a few adventures over the course of the first part of story, and then he leaves and returns to Gondor, but also at the very beginning she had taken the Elessar jewel and then lost it, but then finds it as an adult and like, makes this epic trek to Minas Tirith to return it to him, and the story is basically primarily found family and how friendships can breech language, cultural, the passage of time, and other barriers, and i'm not sure if anyone would be interested in a fic that has no romance and is based in friendship/found family and basically has only original characters lol but anyway. That's an old fic I suddenly remembered just now even if I was a different kind of tolkien fan back then i still remember it fondly :')

[i-just-like-commenting]

After re-reading all the Second Age material in the Appendices

I’ve got what I call the three Really Valid Complaints about “Rings of Power” (based on reviews and plot summaries and clips, as I do not have Amazon Prime), plus one that is very Not Valid:

1) They’re collapsing what little we know of the history. While the nitty-gritty of Numenorean history is nowhere laid out like it is for Gondor and other Third Age nations, and the creators don’t have rights to the Akallabeth, it does have a timeline and a list of rulers (male and female, since they practiced absolute primogeniture). Miriel and Pharazon are rulers from the very end of the Second Age, 2000 years after the first appearance of Sauron and 1000+ years after the forging of the rings. Elendil’s presence indicates that this is near the end of the Second Age. Which means they’ve collapsed the timeline so that all the major events of the Second Age are going to happen in a single generation, completely eliminating the millennium of Sauron’s domination of Middle Earth. Plus they’ve depicted Numenor as isolationist when by its downfall they were a colonialist empire (ala what Tolkien was living in). The Numenoreans took down Sauron because they saw him as competition.

2) Durin III and Durin IV should not be living at the same time. Durin III was one of the dwarves given a ring of power, good catch on the writers, but “Durin” is more of a title given to dwarven rulers who closely resemble their primordial ancestor, not just a name you give your kid. If they weren’t collapsing the timeline, and early seasons covered the forging of the rings while a time skip left later seasons with Numenor and Sauron’s downfalls, they could have saved an actor switch by having the same person play Durin III and Durin IV centuries apart as part of the dwarves’ reincarnation beliefs.

3) Galadriel is depicted like her First Age self, not her Second Age self. By the time Sauron appeared, she was married, building Lothlorien, and probably already the mother of Celebrian. Her daughter, for what it’s worth, is a total cipher and would have been a much better character to use here as not only could you make up what she’s like but also she’d have a romance with a character general audiences know, i.e. Elrond, with a connection to the films as Arwen’s mom.

What is not a Really Valid Complaint is the diversity casting. While Tolkien generally leans towards over-representing white-looking people in his books, the Harfoots are in fact dark-skinned, as are many peoples around Middle Earth, and there’s no real reason not to think that this might carry over to elves and certainly to dwarves who are mostly described by beard-color not skin-color. If you look to Silmarillion the three houses of men who founded Numenor are coded as Mediterranean, Central Asian, and Nordic, but without that it’s still not absurd to think that a country founded by three ethnicities might, just might, be diverse. Whether the representation is good or sufficient is an entirely different issue and as I haven’t seen the show I can’t comment on that level of detail.

“But Tolkien intended--” No. Tolkien has been dead for over fifty years, he’s not around to give you that information. He had internalized biases which even he admitted to. But the man was also anti-Nazi and anti-Apartheid, critical in his works of imperialism and “race purity,” and a devout Catholic who believed everyone was equally a child of God. He is not your white supremacist ally even if his writings betray the deep cultural and racial biases held by many of his time. Maybe he did imagine most of his characters appearing white, but we’re not beholden to that and nobody is betraying his vision by diversification. It may be messing up in other ways, but not in this.

[brighter-arda]

Rivers of Ossiriand

For day 2 of @tolkienofcolourweek

Part 22 of toi's indigenous tolkien series

[Image description: seven panels, all except the first panel are divided by a line shaped like the river

1. a hualapai woman standing in a river. on left is white lilies and text = Gelion

2. a black woman sitting on a rock in water. on right is a river between rocks, text = Ascar

3. young southeast asian woman. on left is a tree and river, text = Thalos

4. a southeast asian woman washing herself in a stream. on right is water under trees, text = Legolin

5. a black woman in a white dress underwater. on left is blue water, text = Brilthor

6. tajik woman with black braids. on right are white water flowers, text = Duilwen

7. brown latina woman wading in water. on left is a river in mountains, text = Adurant]

[vintagerpg]

Nazgul’s Citadel (1991) is another entry into MERP’s line of sourcebooks that are endlessly fascinating but of dubious utility. The entirety of this one details the titular citadel, give or take. Worse, it belongs to Akhorahil and is situated far to the south, in Greater Harad. This is the region of Middle Earth that Iron Crown entirely made up — there is pretty much no basis for anything in this book within Tolkien’s writing.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is certainly…alien. Back in the day I had a real hard time with the books detailing the south of Middle Earth, partly because they just seemed so far removed from the central conflict, partly because they took their design inspiration from non-European cultures and that just didn’t jibe with my idea of Middle Earth. It still doesn’t, but I’ve warmed up to this stuff — no one says you have to use it for a Tolkien-inspired campaign. In fact, a large portion of my MERP books were owned by a fellow who heavily annotated them as the basis of a mythic Asian campaign.

Anyway, again, the citadel is not a place players are going to visit in the course of a normal campaign. The book doesn’t even offer the sort of detail on evil machinations that is in Empire of the Witch-King. It is just a highly detailed, largely impregnable citadel of evil. And that is kind of…awesome? Like this place is crazy, a total death trap, but reasonable in the sense that the second most powerful evil sorcerer in the world would TOTALLY live in a massive citadel shaped like a dragon and would put his throne room in its open mouth.

It needs more art though. How on earth do you publish a book like this without an exterior view?

[emmrichvolkarnage]

that jrrt rb was in part me getting in my Angry Emotions about how people have been harassing the cast of rop online and how the reactive response has overwhelmingly been “well jrrt would have hated you being racist!”

like actually i doubt tolkien would have had as strong of a stance as you think, for one—there’s frankly horrific stereotypes about the mongols/east asians in the orcs, and the antisemitism of the hobbit is quite frankly so central to its story that you can’t tell if without it! you can’t delve into even the basics of like, peter jackson’s movies even without noticing the entire main cast is white as a bare minimum, let alone crack the silmarillion and not notice this guy’s weird about women. “tolkien would have told you off” is flimsy and unusable as a point of refute.

and two, i don’t think you should stop being racist because a dead white author would have tutted a bit about it when people are being harmed by these attitudes and mentalities here and now

i get the urge to want to align a story that has greatly impacted you to your morals and one up someone with extremely destructive bias, but to erase the extremely present problems in tolkien’s legendarium to no true scotsman a fandom is. cartoonishly bad and weird.

[kunosoura]

it’s really interesting to me that even while he codified the “hordes of orcs” trope and all that, explicitly basing their appearance on (a corruption of) central asian features, tolkien still pictured them with distinctive ethnic groups, ideologies, and conflicts between them. The orcs of the Misty Mountains are myriad, diverse, and used to tending to their own business; they’re treated as inferiors by the Mordor orcs whose indigenous proximity to Minas Morgul is used to justify their supremacy. Then there’s the uruk of Minas Morgul, the distinctive and well-equipped forces that follow the Witch-King and clash with the Mordor orcs over splitting Frodo’s loot, and the Uruk-hai of Isengard, the forces Saruman either specifically bred or merely formed into a distinctive force using some Misty Mountains orcs and the elbow grease of ideology.

There’s constant tension and conflict between these groups. A lot of fantasy works inspired by Tolkien flatten orcs into a single ravening horde, with conflict being random and anarchic violence inspired some inherently violent nature, which contrast to Tolkien’s vision of corrupted men that nonetheless still formed tribes and groups with customs, technologies, disciplines, and conflicts.

It’s just interesting how reliably generic fantasy gets it worse than even Tolkien.

[chinesegal]

Tolkien's orcs have racist implications. There, I said it.

From the way he compared them to "least-lovely mongol types", describing them as "flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes".

That doesnt sound like a description of white people at all.

In the Silmarillion Beren disguises himself as an orc by painting his face with mud, basically doing blackface, which implies that orcs have dark skin.

As for the claim that since orcs are depicted as "barbarians" and Rome considered celts and germanics barbarians this means orcs are germanic. Its bullshit though, because even if you disregard the descriptions implying that orcs have non-white features and dark skin, Rome and Greece considered anyone not speaking greek or latin a barbarian, including the scythians who lived in areas including the near east and central Asia, and the huns which were part east-and west Asian.

Butthurt Tolkien dudebro fans who want to insult me can jump off a cliff. You are doing the equivalent of flinging shit everywhere like a male hippo doing a courtship display if you try insulting my intelligence for pointing this out.

[gurthang]

001 | Silm?

Ooooo thank you sm!!

Favorite character: Mmmmmaedhros

Least Favorite character: Maybe Glaurung? Terrible incest dragon worm

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): HM HM OKAY so in no particular order:

Maedhros/Fingon because I’m Predictable and also because Them

Nerdanel/Feanor because they’re a mess and they’re so colorful and passionate and young and earnest and I love them for it

Maedhros/Figures Of Political Authority

Beleg/Turin because Beleg is so sweet and dedicated and I’m soft

Look I never meant to ship silvergifting but this is how I’ve ended up

Character I find most attractive: fingon but as a girl and a morally dubious vampire  haha i mean what. Ummm the I think the most I’ve ever been attractiveness-sniped was with fem!sauron? Which is. Embarrassing. I have no non embarrassing answers to this question.

Character I would marry: Nerdanel...

Character I would be best friends with: I don’t know! Celebrimbor seems friendly, Beleg also seems like good best-friend material...

a random thought: I want more content of elves doing drugs. I want elf pharmacology meta. how do drugs interact with osanwe I Want To Know. Grabby hands.

An unpopular opinion: I DONT REALLY HAVE UNPOPULAR OPINIONS? The best I can offer are Rare Hot Takes. Rare Hot Take: Feanorians are central asian nomads and doriath is imperial china and that’s That

my canon OTP: Russingon? Like I don’t care if russingon is canonically platonic because as a platonic relationship it’s still my OTP 

Non-canon OTP: I feel like my non-canon ships are all... convoluted AU shenanigans that I’m too embarrassed about too discuss lmao

most badass character: THIS IS A HARD ONE I’m inclined to pick Maedhros but I’m obviously biased?? Fingon and Fingolfin both had standout badass moments, Haleth is a badass, Morwen is a badass, Luthien is a badass... the silm is sort of packed with badasses.

pairing I am not a fan of: I’m very not a fan of sibling incest

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): I think Maeglin got rough treatment. Tolkien why did u do this to my boy, leave him olone

favourite friendship: Celebrimbor+Narvi!

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: okay so I know that I said I would marry Nerdanel but. In a scenario where I wasn’t marrying Nerdanel, I do think she would be a really good mom!