feotakahari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feotakahari) wrote2019-06-21 09:54 pm
feotakahari) wrote2019-06-21 09:54 pm
On Tolkien and racism, sort of
I once read a book series where all the good guys were likable individuals and all the bad guys were one-note stereotypes, and there wasn’t even a pattern to which stereotypes. Saudi good guy = pretty cool, Saudi bad guy = generically sinister, loves to torture people, basically everything you’d expect when the bad guy in a book is Saudi. American good guy = basically okay, American bad guy = self-righteous but really just motivated by power and control, relies on overwhelming force and technological superiority, basically everything you’d expect when the bad guy in a book is American. The end of the second book revealed the true villains, and they were such blatantly racist Japanese stereotypes I decided not to read book three.
There was a sort of postscript where the author talked about his work, explaining how he wanted to write a story like The Lord of the Rings, but set in our world rather than a fantasy world. I’m not sure if it even matters whether Tolkien was racist. If this is how people think they should pay tribute to him, something has gone horribly wrong.
There was a sort of postscript where the author talked about his work, explaining how he wanted to write a story like The Lord of the Rings, but set in our world rather than a fantasy world. I’m not sure if it even matters whether Tolkien was racist. If this is how people think they should pay tribute to him, something has gone horribly wrong.