back when I made my masked ainur post for Tolkien Fashion Week, I was also playing around with some gandalf designs. I couldn’t settle on one I liked so I dropped them … but in retrospect, I think I like both haha
now look, i'm not here to tell you that you can't dig too greedily and too deep, but if we find you've failed to provide the miners with appropriate PPE, this operation will be facing some hefty fines
(*covering my ears and furiously imagining a universe where Túrin is happy*) Alternate timeline where Beren and Lúthien come back to visit Doriath after the quest for the Silmaril. Here, Túrin twisted his ankle in the woods and Lúthien is carrying him home. (Beren is giving moral support.)
I think there's a broader problem behind the LotR-is-progressive-actually thing, which is. hm. probably the actually dangerous part.
which is the idea that if someone has sound values, it means they're coming from the same political position.
no one ideology or philosophy has the monopoly on ideas like "total war is bad" or "you should be nice to people" or "power corrupts". these are ideas that the majority (not all! but most!) of the world holds. you cannot believe that everyone who holds these beliefs is politically aligned with you, or sets the same boundaries on those ideas.
this is how you get drawn towards abhorrent ideologies. you want to believe LotR is progressive because it contains good and resonant political ideas you (a theoretical progressive) hold as part of your progressivism. this is also how people who start out on the left come to believe in "protect women" transphobia, or classical conservatism, or neoliberalism, or even nationalism and borderline fascism. this is the ideological pipeline.
and I don't think that means you throw the whole man away. I think there's a danger that you go the other way, and you start to say "well, they don't really hold those values" or "they don't mean those values", or even "those values, as stated, are bad actually".
I think it's so important, in media criticism if only as practice for life, to recognise and hold the competing ideas of "these are genuine, good values that come from recognising a real issue in the world, and I may be able to learn from them" and "the framework here is not one I accept or like, and this creator is not my political ally."
more specific tolkien thoughts under the cut
the thing is, I do not find Tolkien's philosophies personally abhorrent. I disagree with them, but I also think they're coming from a good place: he clearly valued social responsibility, mercy, forgiveness, respect for people regardless of their standing, seeking after knowledge, finding contentment in small things. his works condemn selfishness and prejudice (at least against Real People, we're not reopening the orcs-and-trolls issue), glory-seeking, people who want power for its own sake, arrogance and bigotry.
these are all values that I agree with! but the framework that he puts them in is a traditionalist Catholic conservatism which believes the way to attain those values is to have the Right People in charge and to engage in a clearly-stratified heirarchy where responsibilities and rights are socially enforced by top-down custom.
I believe the way to attain those values is an egalitarian anarcho-socialist structure where we build social norms from the bottom up, encourage political and religious questioning, and emphasise the direct relationship between responsibilities and outcomes.
we do not agree about politics or ideology.
but I see a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater in a lot of media criticism and political discussions at the moment, where "Tolkien shares values with me" means "Tolkien is politically aligned with me". Tolkien is progressive. Tolkien is liberal. Tolkien is a leftist. (On the other side: Tolkien is a fascist. Tolkien is a free-market Thatcherite. Tolkien is a nationalist.)
and I think that part of how we get "Lord of the Rings is a progressive narrative" is the scary part. because you see it constantly. this assumption that if someone says something you agree with, they're saying it as you would say it, and it's self-evidently aligned with your belief.
this is why you get people saying they can't understand why right-wingers think LotR is for them, because LotR preaches the Good Things and surely fascists only like the Bad Things! this is... not an uncommon take. arguably it's a take Tolkien himself had.
but people don't come to political positions magically in a fully-formed state. they develop moral values, and their political position is shaped by those.
I think it is worth discussing ideas like "it would be good if, like Aragorn, leaders did not want their positions of power and viewed them primarily as duty rather than privilege" or "being satisfied with a lower- or middle-class existence with a nice garden and a loving family is a healthy response to being presented with the sight of immense wealth and power". and I think it's important actually to consider them in the spirit intended (insofar as it was intended), because Tolkien's conservative ideas come from somewhere. they come from an intelligent man recognising genuine issues in his society and being frustrated with them. but that doesn't mean we have to accept the solutions offered, or say that these are progressive/left-wing concerns.
idk man i'm writing this instead of my essay i need to shut up so i'm leaving this unconcluded
Aragorn n Legolas r so funny to me bc people who don’t know lotr well see gruff manly ranger and elegant princely elf but they don’t know what i know. they don’t know that Aragorn is the long haired sensitive softboy writing sad poetry on his livejournal about not being able to show his girlfriend the awesome new song he wrote for her on his guitar meanwhile Legolas is doing backwards kickflips over gimli at the skate park bc gimli double dog dared him then he and gimli climb the tree at Aragorn’s house n yell at him through the window to come play halo
the fact that the tra la la lally elves don’t show up when frodo et al. arrive in rivendell implies a few options to me:
they are only there some of the time or at certain entrances (possible but prosaic, includes the potential for tra la la lallying as shift work)
elrond’s magic has some kind of built-in warning system and they cleared out to avoid potential danger (plausible and realistic considering that i don’t think team tra la la lally is either interested in fighting or skilled in emergency response)
the changing political climate and increased danger around rivendell resulted in all tra la la lallying activities being moved inside the valley (which begs the question of where, and if they just manifest barbershop quartet style beneath guests’ windows)
elrond didn’t know about it until bilbo unwittingly mentioned the experience over dinner, and all roadside tra la la lallying was brought to an end (either petering out without the allure of secrecy or simply by the power of elrond’s consternation)
the whole thing was contrived solely to troll the dwarves (elucidates the standout conformity of only these elves to historic ‘tree-dwelling hippies’ stereotypes)
bilbo fully made it up (this was revealed when merry and pippin cheerfully asked elrond when the tra la la lallying would start, and elrond said ‘gesundheit’)
assuming the tra la la lally elves are real, though, i’m so certain that it was a celebrían-manufactured conceit made permanent by her shameless use of a parting wish to a weeping and dock-bound elrond right before they were sundered for centuries. she was leaning over the rail of the boat to valinor shaking her fist and yelling that they had to sing the song she wrote and not some sad sappy poem meant to attract maglor. yes, with all the tra la la lallies. or else.
The die is cast.
Now comes the test, in which my boast shall be made good, or fail utterly. I will flee no more. Turambar indeed I will be, and by my own will and prowess I will surmount my doom – or fall. But falling or riding, Glaurung at least I will slay.
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