I suppose it seems very odd to say, and it certainly never occurred to me years ago, but one day, as I went about reading the criticisms of the Lord of the Rings, especially following the debut of Game of Thrones, it occurred to me that there was often a sort of "racist" undertone behind the manner in which the Lord of the Rings books would be written off by whoever it was that was critiquing them.
Now, this of course is going to sound very strange to people, especially considering the fact that no one except people with white skin appear in Lord of the Rings....but the way it's coming off as racism to me is basically because, well, most of the criticisms that seem to get launched at the stories are all due to the fact Tolkien wrote not just men into the tale -- but also elves, hobbits, and dwarves. Yes, again, they're all white, but it still doesn't change the fact that a certain degree -- if not a very large degree -- of racial differences are at work within the lord of the rings theatre. It also doesn't change the fact that this exact plot detail , you'll come to find if you read about what people think of the tale enough...is exactly why they tend to write it off as "childish" or "infantile". How on earth, after all, can mature Americans possibly take seriously a tale that isn't about - who else?- but a masculine and courageous white man. For anyone who has seen Lord of the Rings knows that, while our old friend the masculine white man is present, we also meet other strange and beguiling people, like the oddly effeminate and beautiful elves, or the unusually sensitive and young looking hobbits, or of course the wise wizards who are, much to the shock and awe of weapon loving Americans, able to actually solve things just using spells and their minds.....
Now Years ago, like I said, this chiding of Lord of the Rings for having these ridiculous other races within it who didn't act like grown white men ought To act often made sense ...especially when you consider the fact that there was no other filmed fantasy back then (on the mainstream) to really compete with it. However, after Game of Thrones came out, where, it would seem to me, nothing but rather regular (and extrmely violent) men and women exist as the most central characters, I began to see this prejudice against the elves, hobbits, and dwarves in LOTR more clearly. This is really because, in each article I would read about GoT, I would be told that it was just so adult in comparison to Tolkiens work, and so real, and so ...what? Well, mature I guess. And yes, much of the reason they're saying it's more mature for fantasy is because it's more gruesome -- and I applaud GoT for that -- but , let's face facts, these people are also saying it is more "adult" because it doesn't rely on characters of other 'rather comical races' (so we are told they are comical) like Lord of the Rings does. If anything, Game of Thrones is really nothing more than a rather far fetched story of medieval times with a few dragons thrown in. As far as I am concerned, coming from the deep dungeons of the fantasy genre, there is next to nothing fantastical about Game of Thrones. But of course, you're talking to someone who was raised playing that absurd dawn of the 21st century online video game called EverQuest...where there are, if I remember right, seventeen different races to include ...and almost all of them are blasting off incredibly vivid magic spells left and right, evry time you see them, all day long. They are also, to those of hs who ran through out the world of EverQuest, not at all 'comedic'. No. What they were was dead serious for us. Just like, of course, the elves and dwarves and hobbits were dead serious for JRR Tolkoen when he wrote the tales he wrote.
But alas, look again at how these races have been interpreted by the mainstream and you'll find that they are indeed the real reason behind why this story has been so mocked and belittled, and why it has now Ultimately fallen off the pop culture bridge and been swiftly replaced -- by adults who grew up Watching it --- by Game of Thrones. In fact, every time I see Game of Thrones, I'm always reminded of a phenomenon that used to often puzzle me when I would play EverQuest with friends. What phenomenon you ask? It is the phenomenon of the person who sits down to play it, and for some reason, out of all those seventeen races, they only ever choose to play a human. I never understood it as a kid, nor do I understand it now: Why would you play a fantasy game and perpetually choose human? When so many other options are there for you? Looking at George Martin of course and his absurd success and I start to get it, since his success all quite seriously relies on that exact choice: He's like the one fantasy author who got pulled up from the sewers , and I swear I think a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the whole story really never goes beyond a male and human point of view. He's that guy I abhorred violently as a child, the gamer who only ever plays human. In fact, even women, it turns out, lose , in George Marrins world. There have been numerous complaints about that. There were often complaints about women lacking in Tolkiens world. There were none about rape though....
You see, while Tolkiens world is indeed a rather old one now, and somewhat quaint, there also exists the undeniable fact that the entire thing was actually - especially in the beginning ---about an idealistic camaraderie between living beings of difference. This is , in fact, so much the case that it's even there in the title of the first book , the Fellowship of the Ring. The fellowship of course implying that the dwarves, the men, the elves, and the hobbits(as well as the Wizards) are all coming together , and reconciling their racial differences, in an attempt to overthrow a terrible and venomous evil that is about to overtake and destroy Middle Earth. All of this in Martins world of Westoros and so on does not exist of course. If it did, it would have been called childish and infantile and no one would want to watch it. At least, no one in the mainstream, who we must remember are the coolest people on earth .
Indeed if Martin had tried to get anywhere close to the sort of fantasy Tolkien implemented, we would be told it was too 'simple' and 'nice', et cetera. If he had included other races in it , instead of merely 'dothraki' (which just seem to be enormously masculine men) we would be very sternly told it was an absurdist tale to be thrown either to children and fools or utterly ignored. In other words, if George Martin had chose to play the game as anything other than a courageous brawny white man with a warhammer or a longsword, no one would have tuned into his story at all. He would have lost....or he would have simply been relegated to some sort of "eternal childhood" pile, which us essentislly where Lord of the Rings and other stories like it sit to this day. Indeed look at the names of other authors who have , unlike Martin, actually taken a page from LOTR, and tried to include other races, and you'll see immediately that all of them seem to have their hands tied by the "eternal childhood" bullshit these people void of all imagination chain them in. One fine example is the author RA Salvatore, whose been writing for years from the perspective of a "dark elf". Salvatore has no film adaptations like Martin of course, though he's better than him, because...well, God, how the hell can you really make a film about a thing called a dark elf? How could a grown man possibly sit and watch that? For is not the apparently immortal first rule of cinematic or TV success the idea that all the central characters must be exactly like the grown people watching them outside of the screen? White men can apparently only watch white men, white women, white women, and black folks , black folk. In fact, when it comes to the Lord of the Rings , I can even recall reading once that the entire reason Tolkien invented the hobbits (which he did long after he had invented all the other stuff) was because he was trying to find a way to appeal to the mass audience -- and at that point he did imagine it would be Vhildren. So even Tolkien, yes, was working with this sad paralyzation, but he so clearly wished he wasn't....
Hence I ask: what if we were somehow able to get beyond this limiting thing? What if we were somehow able to reach a collective pass where we were able to watch things about characters who are not like us in any way...but love them alll the same? And take them SERIOUSly?
What on earth would happen then?
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