Tolkien Is a Bigot, Take 100,713
As the premiere of
Return of the King approaches, Tolkien's much in the news, which can mean only one thing -- it's time for every semi-literate ijit who's ever touched a copy of
Lord of the Rings to start
ranting about how racist and sexist Tolkien was. The problem with such criticisms is that it invariably relies upon a facile reading of the text -- "Hey, there are pseudo-Norse themes in here, just like the Nazis used. And all the good guys are white!" -- that falls apart if you look at the story in any detail.
Attacks on Tolkien generally begin by claiming he depicted the bad guys in racist ways; this usually comes in two flavors:
- The orcs are charicatures of other races,
- Sauron's army consists of Southrons and Easterlings -- the non-whites of Middle Earth.
Let's start with the orcs -- this criticism is usually accompanied by a quote from the books, like,
[Orcs are]squat, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant-eyes.
Johann brings up that line fairly early in his screed, and just over a year ago, John Yatt
wrote in the Guardian that,
In the evil corner, the orcs of Isengard: "A grim, dark band... swart, slant-eyed" ... To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy [Wow, dark and swarthy], broad-faced - it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm.
Okay, I'll paypal a shiny nickle to the first person who can tell me which race is "swart" (literally, "black") and has eyes that could be described as slanted. The fact is, the orcs are a hodge-podge of traits, assembled like a Mr. Potatohead from the whole range of human facial features into something alien. Or, as
Jonah Goldberg said in response to Yatt,
One is tempted to ask who is the real racist here? On the one hand we have people -- like me -- who see horrific, flesh-eating, dull-witted creatures with jagged feral teeth, venomous mouths, pointed devilish ears, and reptilian skin, and say, "Cool, Orcs!" On the other hand we have people, like Mr. Yatt, who see the same repugnant creatures and righteously exclaim "black people!" Maybe he should spend less time vetting movies for signs of racism and more time vetting himself if, that is, he free-associates black people with these subhuman monsters.
And do note that to put forth this argument, its proponents have to pick-and-choose what traits they use -- they'll point out every instance of "slant eyes" but ignore the "clawlike hand[s]" (II.III.3 "The Uruk Hai"), the "great, flat, toeless [feet]" (I.II.5, "The Bridge of Khazad Dum") and "eyes ... like coals" (ibid) (presumably that last means refers to hot coals, i.e., glowing red). Either people like Johann and Yatt are being intentionally dishonest when they make these claims, or they have such a jones to prove Tolkien racist that they can't be bothered with such niceties as facts.
Nor do they fare much better when they try to argue that Sauron's Army of Ultimate Evil is filled with all the non-white races of the world. This line of attack fails on two fronts.
Firstly, it supposes that those who fight for Sauron are evil, when at every turn Tolkien tells us that the Dark Lord wishes to enslave the entire world to his mind -- why would anyone suppose that the Haradrim and Easterlings are willing followers of Sauron? As Sam (whom Tolkien considered "the chief hero" (Letter #131) and moral center of the story) thinks upon first seeing a dead Haradrim:
He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.
--II.IV.4, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"
To see that Sam's on the right track, that Sauron levied his army by threat, just consider what happens in the Battle before the Black Gate once Sauron's power is broken:
And those that were deepest and longest in evil servitude, hating the West, and yet were men proud and bold, in their turn now gathered themselves for a last stand of desperate battle. But the most part fled eastward as best they could; and some cast their weapons down and sued for mercy.
--III.IV.4, "The Field of Cormallen"
Seems pretty conclusive to me that Sauron's human army didn't want to be there, save the few collaborators. For this to be racist, so would any movie depicting hordes of Germans and Italians murdering their way across Europe and Africa.
The second problem with this argument is that a substantial number of the white characters are, in fact, bad guys -- from traitors and collaborators like Bill Ferny, Ted Sandyman, Grima Wormtongue, and Saruman himself, to Gondor's nemeses, the Corsairs of Umbar.
The Corsairs are, in fact, rather significant, since they are Numenoreans just like Aragorn and the Rangers and Gondorans; but they're evil Numenoreans who came over the sea late in the Second Age and colonized the lands of the South. In
The Silmarillion, Tolkien depicts them as evil men who subjugated the natives of Middle Earth using superior technology. Indeed, those who read
The Silmarillion will find that the Numenoreans aren't the master race that many critics of Tolkien assert, but rather a technologically advanced civilization that received the favor of the Valar (gods or angels) for services rendered in the First Age -- and squandered that favor over the next three millennia, until they finally decided to mount an invasion of Valinor itself (Heaven), and Eru (God) had to step in and complete destroy them.
And why did the Numenoreans, a civilization of supposed
uber-mensch, decide to mount such a fool-hardy attack? Part of it was that they'd become overweening, intoxicated with their power and jealous of the Valar; and partly because Sauron had come to Numenor and subverted the royal family, feeding them lies to turn them from the path of good ... just as he undoubtedly did in Rhun and Harad and all the other countries that later sent him troops during the War of the Ring. In fact, Sauron did far worse in Numenor -- he turned most of the population into Morgoth (Devil) worshippers, making them actively evil, whereas other men he merely enslaved.
Only a small percentage of Numenoreans remained loyal to Eru and the Valar, and they escaped to Middle Earth where they established the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.
Compare this to Johann's description of the Numenoreans:
Ideals of "blood" and its purity are always sloshing around his narrative. For example, the Men of Gondor - "the high men" - are descendants of the Numenorians [sic], the greatest of all warriors. Over the centuries, they have become "degraded" because of breeding with inferior races. When their bloodline is pure, as in Aragorn's descendants, the strength of the original Lords of the West is retained.
Except that Aragorn's descendants won't have the strength of the Numenoreans of old -- Tolkien's world-view is fundamentally medieval, grounded in the idea that the world is winding down like a clock, the magic draining away so that each age is less than the one before. Aragorn himself is something of a throwback, the greatest of his line since Isildur, but even Isildur wasn't as great as his ancestors.
Nor is it correct to say that what makes Aragorn great is his Numenorean blood. What's significant is that he's from the line of Numenorean kings -- albeit a side-branch -- and the Numenorean Kings are descended from Earendil, who can count most of the heros of the First Age as his ancestors -- including Melian, one of the gods. This isn't like being a pure-blooded "Aryan," but rather the equivalent of someone who can mark Odysseus, Achilles, Hector and Agamemnon on his family tree. This is pretty common in mythology (and soap operas), and no more racist than Darth Vader turning out to be C3P0's, Luke's, and Leia's father.
Seriously folks, if you ever notice that the most popular book of the last fifty years is racist and no one's trying to get it banned from schools, perhaps you should reread it in more detail to see if you're missing something, otherwise you're just going to look like a maroon.
