Fantasy

[davem]

Actually, I just added this as an edit to my post on the Golden compass thread in Movies, but it got me wondering if its worth discussing in a wider context. The Edit was:


Actually, it brings up a bigger question - should the ideas & concepts that fantasy explores, whether in book or movie form, be restricted? Isn't fantasy, at heart, about asking the question 'What if?' If a fantasy novel or movie can't present a secondary world in which 'God' is not only evil, but actually a fake, then what can it do - what limits do we set on fantasy worlds - because whatever limits we set on fantasy worlds we are actually setting on the human imagination - we're saying 'You are not allowed to imagine 'X'.' - effectively Pullman's point.

It could be argued that those who object to Pullman's work on 'moral' grounds (not pointing at anyone in particular) are actually objecting to fantasy in general, & to the human imagination in particular. After all, in what way is imagining a secondary world in which 'God' is a fake from whom humanity must liberate itself & find its own way forward different from imagining a world in which the sun is green, or in which animals can speak with humans?

(For the record, I still found HDM (the book - haven't seen the movie yet) increasingly dull as it went on (nearly said 'progressed'!!) & found PP's repetitive haranguing just annoying by the end, so I'm not putting this argument forward as praise of PP.

So, is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs? HDM, apparently, has been removed from the libraries of some schools because of its 'message'.

And the question is, because Fantasy is the purest use of the human imagination, is it right to set limits on it, & refuse readers/movie-goers access to certain secondary worlds, or should there be no limits on what can be imagined? Isn't that the purpose of Fantasy?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

A good point, Mr dave.
A genuinely good work of fantasy is something very rare. The genre has quite a stigma attached to it and many associate it automatically with half hearted attempts at something Tolkienesque. Because The Lord of the Rings has itself become such a bench mark by which almost all other fantasies are measured, it is inevitable that anyone writing in the field is going to be drawn to it in some measure. Positively or negatively. Tolkien was doing something right. This has, in some ways, been a sort of restriction on fantasy, in some ways. But the imagination can go further. Owen Barfield says something along the lines of;

“[Myth] is intimately bound up with the early history of meaning. It is the same with innumerable words; if one traces them back far enough, one reaches a period at which their meanings had a mythical content ... [such as] "panic", "hero", "fortune", "fury", "earth", "North", "South".”

I think that's sort of what I'm trying to say.

A world with a green sun, for example, is a physically different world. As is one with Elves, Dwarves or Deamons. The trouble comes when you start putting ideologies into it. This is the same for all genres, in my opinion, and one cannot single out fantasy. Although, writers with less about them have often given rise to the general none-subtle nature of the revealing of the ideologies. I have said it before, but I think a repetition is in the right place here. I think that when a writer has the idea of writing with a certain message in mind, it can sometimes be difficult to make it subtle, for fear of people missing it. Even Allegories can, at times, be blatantly obvious as to what they are referring to. This can also limit the range of the imagination in fantasy, I think. One must admire Tolkien, for, while there may be a message, or messages, the story is always the important thing. Therefore, you don't get the preachy, rambling speeches of a character talking with the author's mouth which can happen so often. It is better, I would say, to let the reader decide on the moral issues raised in a story, especially a fantasy one. This, in tern, can not only lead to the reader's further engagement with the story, but can also free up the imagination. A lose end is always fun, I think.
A writer called Sean Penn said something that subs it up, for me:

“When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth.”

The imagination can run away with a lose end. But as for what is written down, I don't think there should ever be any limitation on what the mind can conjure up. But it is hard not to fall into Tolkienising* or being preachy. Interestingly enough, in my opinion, C.S. Lewis, in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe at least, is quite clever and subtle with his message, more so than Pullman who whacks you over the head with it. I still get surprised looks from people if I tell them that Narnia can be called 'Christian literature'. I think it is the use of the word 'witch' that puts people off though. ;)

*See, I can make up words too!

[Nogrod]

I heard the news on local radio's morning-show a few days ago and almost snorted my coffee from my nose as I thought that was a nice joke. But it seemed to be true. Vatican really thought it was a matter of such importance that they felt they should make their point known. Oh my... I could come up with a thousand of more pressing problems with the church than one out of hundred non-christian piece of fiction...

But the problem here I think resides in the fact that to us non-believers (or educated people in general) fiction is fiction and to the Vatican (and the newly born Christians & fanatic Moslem alike) it's a battleground of truth.

Or there can be a thing called fiction if it's aligned with the message of the church - as most of the fiction is made looking at the religiously conservative U.S. markets that are the prime targets of international entertainment conglomerates. But even here it's not the faith that counts but the money that can be raised with the help of the faith (or which is lost if the faithful will not accept the product).

I mean no one here in the west complains when Narnia or LotR or HP or Matrix or what have you invoke Christian imagery and teaching; that they blend easily to our Christian culture and in some cases openly call for Christian solutions to life's persistent problems. But when one movie (a book in the first place but it becomes widely known only when a movie has been made) goes to present a slightly different stance everyone's up their toes. And the studios / publishers take a step backwards.

Once again I think you have put your finger into a painful spot davem, and thank you for that.

It comes as no surprise if I say that of course fantasy should probe anything.

If litterature tries to tell things of this world and what goes on in it as such it's called realism.

If litterature tries to make people think in a predetermined way or to cling to already existing ways of thought that please some parts of society it's called propaganda.

If litterature first and foremost tries to sell it's called commercial... or entertainment... or whatever you wish to call it.

A lot of things given to us today are sadly a combination of the two last ones... the second point being in most cases a tool to obtain the last one.

But couldn't fantasy be one of the media where we could actually look at different ways of seeing the world?

I know the mainstream fantasy isn't up to the task as it's too occupied with making money and/or fame and thence trying to find the lowest common denominator.

But "real" fiction / fantasy could do a lot in here. :rolleyes:

[Lalwendë]

Fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction can do and say just whatever it pleases.

It has for some time been a bastion of independent and original thought. Look at some of the outrageous ideas put forwards by the likes of JG Ballard, Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K Dick. It's in this area of fiction where you find the outrages, not in the domain of cosy middle class Booker winning novels (much as some would like to think they are being unique - note that Martin Amis for one did a wholescale rip-off of Kurt Vonnegut in Time's Arrow).

I think the moral panic element has not a little to do with snobbery. It's perfectly OK for someone who appeals to the intelligentsia to diss religion (I could make a list as long as my arm here) and be morally outrageous (or even, just a wee bit challenging ;) ). But as soon as someone does this in mass market fantasy which might appeal to the unwashed masses or in 'kiddies' books, then their wrists must be slapped. Reminds me of how at one time Bibles were only available in Latin, which of course restricted them to the priests, who then had control over what people believed.

But one element of fantasy that can't be ignored is the sheer lack of control of it all. Tolkien really and truly let himself go into it, that's how it comes across as genuine, and you can see the evidence as the language itself loses control into TT and RotK and. However Lewis did not lose control, Narnia is a bit 'constipated' as he got so bogged down with 'message' and all that. Now the weird thing about Pullman is he was trying to 'do a Lewis' but as the madness of the second and third books unfold, it's clear he too got carried away like Tolkien did - his creation took over his story. Same thing happens with Gormenghast as the story takes over and almost disintegrates. It happens with Earthsea too. And Harry Potter; for all those of you who have read book 7, notice how Rowling almost loses control of it all...

[davem]

I suppose one could ask the question 'Are all fans of Tolkien (& Lewis) fans of Fantasy?' or are many only fans of the 'confirmation' of their own beliefs/worldview that they percieve it to contain?

Or, 'Is the true lover of Fantasy one who seeks to enter into a secondary world which is other than their own?' What Pullman does, at least in the first volume, is create a convincing secondary reality, whose inhabitants are 'real' - within their own world. I don't know of any (even its most vociferous opponents) of the work who claim its 'fake', 'unconvincing', 'unbelievable'. Their objection seems to be the exact opposite - its too convincing, too 'seductive' - read Pullman & you may be seduced into his worldview.

In other words, Pullman's work is both offensive & dangerous because, as fantasy, it succeeds. Pullman creates a totally believable secondary world (sorry, fans of HDM, but I'm limiting myself here to the first volume).

So, I think its possible to argue that anyone who objects to HDM/The Golden Compass movie is actually objecting to Fantasy itself - or to any manifestation of Fantasy that challenges their worldview/belief system - which, essentially, is the same thing.

Good Fantasy convinces, bad Fantasy doesn't. But bad Fantasy isn't a 'threat' to Churches or political regimes, or to anyone's personal beliefs - because bad fantasy doesn't convince: it feels fake. Only good fantasy is a threat - because it does convince - of its 'reality', the possibility that a world like that is possible (if only logically possible).

So, one could argue that any Fantasy is only a 'threat' because its a good (ie convincing) fantasy, & that a true fantasy fan would like* it, & that anyone who disliked a convincing Fantasy because they didn't approve of the worldview it presents is not a true Fantasy fan at all.......

*They may not approve of/agree with the philosophy behind it, but they would have to approve it as a Fantasy, as the creation of a convincing & wholly believeable secondary world.

[Lalwendë]

What an absorbing work of 'good' fantasy like Lord of the Rings does is to create other possibilities of life. It opens your mind to other kinds of existence, and that's instantly threatening to those who wish to maintain the status quo.

I liken their hatred to two things.

One stems from fear, and the best way I can describe that is my own refusal to accept that there may be aliens, because at heart, I don't want there to be aliens as they are more advanced and would simply wipe us out (history shows that this always happens, just as the native Americans and the Aborigines were destroyed). So some do not want the possibility of alternate existence put before them because they fear it.

The other thing is control. We (or at least, some of us) live in an ordered world where we know what will happen from one day to another. We don't go to extremes, we accept our lot. But fantasy offers chaos and anarchy simply by its very existence. That's A Not Very Good Thing to some, so they want it to go away. They either tell us its bad for us or ban it if that doesn't work.

The human imagination is a terrible thing. Far better to shut the door, switch on the soaps and peruse nothing more challenging than the Argos book ;) The alternative is to be like Bilbo and be swept into things too big for you, or be like Lord Asriel and want more of it all.

[davem]

Found this piece from the Australian newspaper The Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/what-is-so-bad-about-an-atheist-movie/2007/12/23/1198344881475.html
which explores the ideas we've been discussing here.

But despite a notable tradition of Christian writers of fantasy (including J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), special fear seems to be reserved among some extreme elements of the Christian churches for the genre, which they see as a portal into young, impressionable minds.

You'd think that after harnessing the supposed birthday of their most revered figure to a pagan festival that included divination and witchcraft, they might have more tolerance for the genre, although on Boxing Day in 2005 they were happy to co-opt Narnia, the film version of the allegorical C. S. Lewis novel in which the lion Aslan represented a muscular, militaristic Jesus. That time it was the turn of the devoutly atheistic to be horrified at the thought that their little ones would emerge blinking from the cinema and demand to be taken to Sunday school.

It didn't happen, of course, just as the Harry Potter films (and books) didn't create a junior league of Satan worshippers with their depiction of witchcraft. It remains highly unlikely that young viewers of the latest blockbuster popcorn fantasy fare will begin burning churches and practising their pentagrams. You need to understand something of Christianity to recognise the allusions; even then, they're better seen as the beginnings of healthy debate rather than a Trojan horse for atheism.

So, Fantasy seen as dangerous - if its done well, & offers a convincing alternative worldview, if it says, effectively, 'Things could also work this way.'

Tolkien, in OFS, stated:

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being “arrested.” They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination. But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.

One could argue that what the makers of the TGC movie did was turn good fantasy (again, not using 'good' in any moral sense, but in the sense Tolkien uses here) into bad fantasy. Yet, the moral/religious objections that have been raised to TGC has nothing to do with the fact that its (apparently) not a very 'good' (ie convincing) fantasy, but that this 'bad' (ie unconvincing, in its movie incarnation) fantasy may lead children to read the books, which are 'good' fantasy, but with a 'bad' message.

So, those with a moral objection to TGC (in both incarnations) have an objection to Fantasy qua fantasy - 'bad' fantasy (ie poor, unconvincing, rushed, trashy) would be acceptable to them if the 'message'/worldview it presented was in conformity with their own , but 'good' fantasy is unnacceptable if its message/worldview contradicts or challenges their own. Fantasy is not judged as Art - in the way that Tolkien states it should be judged - but only on its usefulness - 'Does this story confirm me in my belief, & serve to communicate my belief to others?' Art doesn't come into it - utilitarianism is all.

In this context its interesting that Tolkien loved Eddison's fantasy The Worm Ourobouros - despite the fact that he disapproved strongly of the underlying philosophy. Eddison was a master fantasist, & created a totally believable world. As a writer of Fantasy, a creator of secondary worlds, Tolkien appreciated the Art of Eddison, & would never, for all he disliked Eddison's philosophy, have demanded T.W.O. be banned, or boycotted.

Yet, there is the question of personal response. I find Moorcock's Fantasy poor & unconvincing - ie to be 'bad' Fantasy. Everything of his I've read seems fake, unconvincing - I have to force myself to suspend disbelief (or rather, in Tolkien's words, I don't so much have to suspend it as hang, draw & quarter it) just to get through a Moorcock fantasy - yet I've read comments by Moorcock fans that say the exact same thing about Tolkien's Fantasy, which to me is, & always was, absolutely 'real'.

[Lalwendë]

It might be helpful to note that there may seem to be two kinds of fantasy going on. There's Fantasy the genre, and Fantasy the format.

In this idea, Tolkien writes, and heads up, Genre Fantasy. It is self-contained, it doesn't have any underlying 'message', and in a sense, it is far less restricted as it can be free to bend the boundaries of the genre.

On the other hand we have people like Pullman and Lewis who write/wrote Format Fantasy. This is where the form of fantasy is used in order to get across other messages.

I was interested to read an interview with Pullman in which he says this:

I realized early on in thinking about this book, when I found, to my consternation, that I was writing a fantasy. I hadn't expected ever to write a fantasy, because I am not a great fantasy fan. But I realized that I could use the apparatus of fantasy to say things that I thought were true. Which was exactly what, I then realized, Milton had been doing with Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is not a story of people and some other people who've got wings. It's not one of those banal fantasies that just rely on somebody having magic and someone dropping a ring down a volcano. Paradise Lost is a great psychological novel that happens to be cast in the form of a fantasy, because the devils and the angels are, of course, embodiments of psychological states.

Then this had me thinking about how to some (Tolkien for example) the story is all there is and the story is King, but to others (Pullman and Lewis for example) there are many jumbled boundaries between Story and Idea. And you see it again in Magic Realism, where authors play with fantasy and fairy tale to create something different - in for example the case of Isabel Allende fantasy is used as a form of contrast and escape to the brutality of the Pincohet regime, likewise the same happens with Pan's Labyrinth, where Ofelia's 'dreams' are a retreat and ultimately save her brother from a wicked father.

Genre Fantasy of course assumes that we are willing to accept magic, other worlds, strange beasts etc. There are no half-measures. This is maybe why some simply find it 'evil', as right from the word Go it tempts us into thinking there are other ways of existing. However Format Fantasy may, on occasion, offer something more acceptable to those who find the notion of dragons, witches, spells etc disgusting, whether because their preacher says No or being a 'cool' Islington type. It's different because the dragons, witches or spells are there for a higher purpose.

Ultimately, it's the difference between Art and Utilitarianism.

Oh yes, that Pullman interview: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/interview.asp?PID=20784&z=y&cds2Pid=17617&linkid=1071115

Lots of fascinating points about narrative structures, authorial viewpoints and the nature of Story. Though some might be disappointed to find that it's not all about religion. Pullman is not a one-trick pony ;)

[davem]

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece

Interesting how many writers of fantasy fiction make it - Tolkien top, but Peake, Lewis, Rowling & Moorcock also pop up. And this is a list of the greatest British writers since 1945.

Actually, I found this list via a thread on Michael Moorcock's site, & his comment was interesting:

Yes -- that's the problem with being on the list (if only just!) -- you can't write in and argue with it, at least not very easily. I think Fleming is probably on for being an influence and a success, as are some of the other writers. I'm sorry not to see Sinclair there, since he has been very influential as a prose stylist (among other things). His influence on the likes of Self and Ackroyd needs to be acknowledged somewhere. Equally, Alan Moore is a huge influence and, of course, a great success, though largely through books which don't get on fiction best-seller lists. My list would probably start with Moore, in fact, if I took all the mentioned factors into account. Tolkien would probably have to come second. I'd also argue with a number of the other choices but at the same time am glad to see some good names there, including Carter and Ballard.http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showthread.php?p=111195#post111195

" My list would probably start with Moore, in fact, if I took all the mentioned factors into account. Tolkien would probably have to come second."

Have we finally moved away from the cliche that fantasy fiction is the province of geeks? If Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling, Pullman, et al can now be included in such a list can we say that Fantasy is now mainstream? And, further, can we now say that Tolkien succeeded in his aim to take Fantasy back from the nursery?

[Lalwendë]

Moorcock is correct. Where is Alan Moore?

And Gaiman?

Alan Garner is on though. Surprising how many primarily kids' authors like Rowling, Dahl, Garner, Pullman and Lewis are included. But not 'realist' kids' authors like Jacqueline Wilson (Benjamin Zephaniah writes realistic kids' books but is much better known for his poetry).

Note how many of the other authors on that list are known for working with fantasy and sci-fi but outside the bounds of genre. That's following what I said about Fantasy as 'form' as well as 'genre'. Rushdie and Carter are renowned magic realists. John Fowles makes use of the tricks. Doris Lessing and Antony Burgess worked with sci-fi, and Iain Banks writes out-and-out sci-fi as Iain M Banks. Orwell strayed into fantasy and dystopian sci-fi to create his political novels Animal Farm and 1984. Of course then you also have JG Ballard on there...

Otherwise, it's very interesting that a poet tops that list. And such a good one.

[Gwathagor]

I think fantasy is intended to strengthen/reinforce our sense of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Once it ceases to do that, it is no longer valid. Just like anything else, fantasy literature can be either used properly or it can be abused. The placing of limits upon fantasy writing prevents its abuse by immoral imaginations. There isn't anything about the human imagination that makes it particularly 'pure" or 'good'; however, the limits placed upon the imagination liberate it from baseness and ignorance, enabling people write really good stuff. Without those moral limits, fantasy would be rubbish.

[Bêthberry]

And the question is, because Fantasy is the purest use of the human imagination, is it right to set limits on it, & refuse readers/movie-goers access to certain secondary worlds, or should there be no limits on what can be imagined? Isn't that the purpose of Fantasy?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but have 'we' here at the Barrow Downs really decided/defined/discussed whether Fantasy is "the purest use of the human imagination"?

And it isn't just fantasy but many forms of language which have been censored/ banned/ repudiated. The novel was disparaged, particularly as reading material for young women, in its early decades. I seem to recall a certain philosopher who would have banned poets from his ideal Republic. There seems to be an uneasiness, a queasiness, with language that too far diverges from history or some sort of touchstone of verifiability.

[Boromir88]

Fascinating thread davem. ;)

One of my favorite fantasy authors (actually I should just say one of my favorite authors) is Terry Pratchett. Pratchett has referred to himself as a "bolshy" (bolshevik) when he was a kid, because after he had read the Lord of the Rings he felt sorry for the orcs and the trolls and thought the Elves were tricksters who were "up to no good." So, Pratchett writes fantasy in a different style then authors such as Tolkien, Pullman, and Rowling. When he first started writing his Discworld novels he said it was just about "getting to the next gag" in his books, but as he wrote more he started focusing more on the story and character development...yet at the heart he still realized he had a gift to make people laugh, and that "gift" I think is still present in all of his stories.

Anyway, the point being, Tolkien, Rowling, Lewis, Pullman, seem to have a more serious tone in their writings. Yes, there are light-hearted moments that I chuckle at when I read The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but the humour doesn't play anywhere near the substantial role in plays in Pratchett's books. I think in Pratchett's books you have the more "serious" undertones, and his acceptance of humanism does show up in his novels, yet that takes a backseat to the "funny gags."

I guess where I'm getting at with all this is to agree with Lal in that Fantasy authors can do whatever they please (which leads to the fantasy genre being dangerous by those who wish to maintain the status quo). When you look at Mark Twain, who wrote stories about the "real world" there were two attempted bannings on his books because they deal with racism. You really don't hear of fantasy books being banned over the topic of racism (which is really interesting because Tolkien had his books attacked saying they were rascist).

I'm going to use Rowling and Pratchett as an example. Why can they get away with racism? Because they are fantasy authors. Why is no one screaming about the werewolf Lupin being an outcast and facing discriminationg? Because he's a werewolf, and werewolve's aren't real. Why can Pratchett get away with the "racial hatred" the dwarves and trolls have for eachother? Because dwarves and trolls aren't real. So, you might say that fantasy authors don't have to fear about being politically correct (something Pratchett loves to poke fun at) as much as authors such as Mark Twain; authors who write about the real world. No one raises hell because Lupin is a social outcast, because he's a werewolf...who cares?

What fantasy authors do have to fear though, is those who want to keep the status quo. Those who want to put a halt to "revolutionary" ideas. Pratchett is a staunch supporter of fantasy, and as he says he likes people who "dress in costumes" (the fantasy "fanatics"), because:
"You never hear about any Trekkie going down High Street with a pump action shotgun."
Fantasy authors can provide their readers with a secondary world, a healthy outlet to escape, keep them interested, keep their minds open; or as I love how Pratchett puts it:
"Stop people from staring at the wall and deciding they want to shoot up a mall."
But, such "secondary worlds" that these fantasy authors create, can be quite dangerous. And as davem points out especially those who are successful. ;)

[Lalwendë]

Running with what Boro says, another factor in fantasy is that it can sneakily deal with things that otherwise people would shut their ears and eyes to. Taking Tolkien as an example, who in the 1950s would have had even the slightest interest in environmentalism? Yet he ran with his feelings on the destruction of the natural environment, expressed his horror of the motor car through showing in a very emotional and even spiritual way the essential value of woodlands. That slipped right under the radar and it's no surprise that the hippies of the 60s picked up on his vision, and that eco-folk still find much of this in his work.

Fantasy has been at the forefront of some of the world's political movements. I believe Tolkien was also taken to heart by many of those involved in calls for the Berlin Wall to come down? If you look at writers such as William Morris and HG Wells you can see how they used fantasy to explore the possibilities of this world and of other worlds. In modern fiction you see Isabel Allende use the medium to explore the horrors of the Pinochet regime, as I said in an earlier post. Then you can take Orwell's 1984, still a potent work for anyone who opposes totalitarianism.

Note, you find that opposition too in Tolkien's work! Which is why I don't buy this line that he didn't have anything political in his work - it's packed with politics.

This is why fantasy is important. It allows the space and freedom to explore and to express thoughts and ideas that otherwise may not get taken seriously or may even be banned. And that's why there should never be limits on it.

[Elmo]

It should be pointed out that having fantasy that has 'a god' goes against what atheists think. So it is no different from having 'godless' fantasy. It if makes a certain yay or nay in this issue it's going to upset some people.

[davem]

I recently found this essay by Poul Anderson http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm & got to thinking....

Does good fantasy have to be rooted in reality to work? Anderson makes some very good points. Does the existence of a Green Sun in a fantasy world mean that humans in that world can be superhumans & break the rules on what humans can & can't do in the Primary world? I suppose the wider question is, what are we prepared to allow a writer of fantasy to get away with? Is there a difference between breaking the 'religious' rules & presenting God as a senile old fake & breaking the physical rules & having a 'Gnorts' gallop his horse non stop for three days straight & then slaughter three dozen warriors with his fifty pound broadsword without breaking a sweat?

Or, in short, how much should a writer - how much can a writer - get away with?

[ArathornJax]

In thinking of this, I haver wondered by the writers of fantasy get away with so much. I believe it is because readers of fantasy are willing to suspend the "rules" and as such I don't think that most readers are worried about what happens. The general reader doesn't worry about how long a man or woman could wield a 5lb or a 50lb sword, or that it won't penetrate armor etc. What they care about is how the hero or heroine overcome the problems or obstacles they face and win the day. The reader wants to suspend their own time in reality and escape somewhere else. I think this is also evident in the world today with the rise of video games and other uses of technology. Perhaps then we have to ask why do so many people want to suspend the reality of this world and escape to another?

I think another thing that we have to acknowledge is that any author includes something of themselves in their writing. Tolkien did. Though he went about to create a myth for England, he infused into the story elements and themes that were at the core of who he was. Whether a conscience decision or unconscience decision, it occurs. Thus even a writer who is not using fantasy to relate a certain view or point, still does to some extent.

Finally I believe that fantasy is so important for so many people for a variety of reasons. But one of them is that fantasy explores the human condition, in ways that are opposite of daily life or reality. In fantasy, good eventually overcomes evil, wrongs are made right, and people are able to become more than what they are, they become better. I think that differs from the real world where evil truly does win and reigns at times and in places in the world. Fantasy then gives or provides to us something to believe in, that people can rise above and be better then they are. This is counter to the reality of life, where we the struggle is to come to terms with who we are, the good and the bad. Fantasy allows each of us to explore the human condition in a safe way, without having to face the reality of our world and ourselves. It inspires us to become more than what we are, hopefully inspiring us to become better than what we are.

[davem]

Dragging this one up because of a recent article in The Times on the Battle of Towton, Palm Sunday 1461 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/article4572704.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Its a long piece, but well worth reading. The important bit for this discussion is the depiction of the battle.It (the Longbow) was slowly replaced by gunpowder . Any terrified peasant could point and pull a trigger, but it took a lifetime of aching, deforming practice to muscle up the 100lb of tug needed to draw a yew bow to dispatch a cloth yard of willow-shafted, goose-feathered, bodkin-tipped arrow 200 yards through plate, through chain, through leather and linen and prayers, into a man’s gizzard. The longbow was the most lethally efficient dealer of death on European battlefields until the invention of rifling and the Gatling gun.

The archers stepped forward and together chucked up what they call the “arrow storm”. An English archer could fire 15 to 20 arrows in a minute – that’s what made the opening moments of battle so horrific. The eclipse of arrows would have crossed high in the frozen air, and in that moment Edward and the House of York had their touch of luck. The thick, stinging curtain of snow slashed the faces of the Lancastrian line, making it difficult to aim or judge distance, pushing their arrows short. And it carried the arrows of York further and deeper into the Lancastrian line. God howled and cracked for Edward that morning, searing the cheeks and freezing the eyes of Lancaster.

The metal-detectors have found the long, broad trench of bodkin points, showing where the first appalling fusillade was loosed. Emptying their own quivers, they began firing back the arrows wasted by their enemies. There may have been half a million arrows fired in 10 minutes that day – the largest longbow shafting in history.

...So the two armies, screaming obscenities or just howling like mad dogs, slithered together and joined one of the most hellish experiences of human ingenuity: a medieval battle in the snow.

At the front line there is little room for swashbuckling or dainty footwork. This is a match of thud and stab. The weapons of choice are daggers and maces. Men with iron sallets buckled to the backs of their necks, so they can’t be yanked forward to offer a spine stab, stare wide-eyed through slits, straining and flailing with short, maddened blows and ache-tensed muscles into the faces of men inches in front of them.

There was a lot of armour about in 1461.

Most men would have had some form of head protection and bits of plate, but the most common protection was a stab vest made from layers of linen sewn together that might deaden the blow, absorb a spent point or a fisted poniard. But this wasn’t about killing the opponent. It was about putting the man in front of you down – on the ground. He’d be dead in seconds.

The most common injuries are to the head and neck, and death must often have come by way of suffocation – the air squeezed from your body under the weight of men behind you, jammed in the mangle of battle. The pressure and the impetus came from the army that wasn’t yet fighting shoving and heaving.

...It snowed all that Palm Sunday. The thick snow deadened the noise of dying whimpers and cawing crows, the shocked and exhausted soldiers too stupefied or disgusted to pursue the rout, the carters and baggage-train servants, the prostitutes and local peasants scuttling up the ridge to harvest the dead, fires being lit for porridge and to mull wine, the breath of the living pluming in the crepuscular white light like small, ardent prayers of gratitude.

You won't find that sort of thing in Tolkien. But should we? Tolkien avoids graphic depictions of actual warfare, but are we to imagine the horrors of Towton taking place in Middle-earth? Or are the battles there 'fantasy' battles? Tolkien placed a high value on 'Escape' as a function of fantasy literature, but is it not dangerous (or at least seriously misleading) to romanticise Towton into Pelennor Fields?

Or to put it another way - Tolkien cast a 'Faery' glamour over the woods & hills & peopled his world with gods, Elves & monsters, & I think we're better for being exposed to that vision. But are we better for his casting that same glamour over the battlefield?

[Morthoron]

Its a long piece, but well worth reading. The important bit for this discussion is the depiction of the battle.

You're right, that's an excellent description of Towton (and medieval battle in general). The biggest battle ever to be fought on English soil is also one of the least known.

You won't find that sort of thing in Tolkien. But should we? Tolkien avoids graphic depictions of actual warfare, but are we to imagine the horrors of Towton taking place in Middle-earth? Or are the battles there 'fantasy' battles? Tolkien placed a high value on 'Escape' as a function of fantasy literature, but is it not dangerous (or at least seriously misleading) to romanticise Towton into Pelennor Fields?

Or to put it another way - Tolkien cast a 'Faery' glamour over the woods & hills & peopled his world with gods, Elves & monsters, & I think we're better for being exposed to that vision. But are we better for his casting that same glamour over the battlefield?

One could say that Tolkien was not one to glorify war (although his works are full of it); however, let us say rather that he minimized the savagery of war in his decriptions of battles (to the point at the Battle of Five Armies we miss the action nearly altogether). I think this harkens back to Tolkien being more of a chivalric, rather than modern writer. We don't see great big bloody scenes with arms and legs lopped off in Sir Walter Scott either (although Tolstoy painted some grim pictures).

Is it misleading and dangerous? Well, I suppose in giving a romanticized picture of battle Tolkien might not have been doing anyone any favors, but then again offering a truly graphic and horrifying depiction of battle might have precluded me from reading his books to my children (just like I won't let them see Schindler's List until they have reached an age where they can comprehend the enormity and true terror of that important film).

I suppose it all depends on the audience you wish to reach.

[davem]

Its less a matter of graphic depictions of violence in war, more of the fact that death in battle in M-e is depicted (in the main - there are odd exceptions) as glorious, as tragic, certainly as heroic - but virtually never as being as ugly, dirty & sick as death in medieval battle actually was. But is that OK, as 'its fantasy'?

EDIT.

I think this brings up a number of questions as regards Tolkien's attitude to warfare - is he saying via his depiction of battles in his fiction 'This is what medieval warfare was like.' ?(clearly wrong - medieval battles were not such 'chivalrous' affairs), or is he saying 'This is what battles ought to be like.' ?(big moral question there - should violent death be presented in such an 'uplifting' way?). Or is he simply saying 'This is how battles are fought in my fantasy world.'? Why would Tolkien, who had seen real death in battle (he referred to the 'animal horror' of the Somme) want to present battle in such a 'sanitised' way? And do we excuse him because he wrote 'fantasy'? When does fantasy become lying?

(yes, I am being provocative.....)

[Bêthberry]

Well, Tolkien's depiction of fantasy eschewed an explicit depiction of Evil. We don't get much explication of Sauraman, of how he fell to his power-tripping ways, nor really of his alleged magnificant eloquence (Gandalf's verba jousting with him not withstanding). Most of LotR focusses on the members of the Fellowship and their efforts and their response to Evil. Perhaps Tolkien's sanitised battle scenes are part of this deliberate decision not to focus upon evil but upon what is required by those who choose good.

At the same time, it is worth thinking about how war has been 'covered' in history. How often in history has it been said that war has been glorified in order to persuade men to fight--pro patria gloria and all that? Hasn't it been an element of the twentieth century that people began to examine, acknowledge, publicise just how horrible battle is? Or perhaps that began with the American Civil War? Look at all the public monuments to war and see the difference between tradition monuments and modern ones. Perhaps this is Tolkien's traditionalism coming to effect and his distaste for the modern emphasis on ugliness.

[davem]

Perhaps Tolkien's sanitised battle scenes are part of this deliberate decision not to focus upon evil but upon what is required by those who choose good.

.....Perhaps this is Tolkien's traditionalism coming to effect and his distaste for the modern emphasis on ugliness.

But it still leaves us with evil & ugliness of war being presented as, if not 'good' at least glorious...

Does aesthetics justify lies? Tolkien knew first hand what death on the battlefield was like ('animal horror') & yet do we get that from his stories?

Or are we meant to? Do his Elves, Men (& Orcs) die suffocating in mud & choking in their own blood - death must often have come by way of suffocation – the air squeezed from your body under the weight of men behind you, jammed in the mangle of battle. The pressure and the impetus came from the army that wasn’t yet fighting shoving and heaving., do they butcher each other The weapons of choice are daggers and maces. Men with iron sallets buckled to the backs of their necks, so they can’t be yanked forward to offer a spine stab, stare wide-eyed through slits, straining and flailing with short, maddened blows and ache-tensed muscles into the faces of men inches in front of them. but Tolkien, for aesthetic reasons, chose not to mention it?

In short, are the battles in M-e as gross & brutal as Towton but the horrors glossed over by Tolkien so as not to shock or traumatise the reader, or, in his 'Secondary World' are those aspects of war absent? Are Tolkien's battles 'fantasy' battles or real ones - & can he justify such 'fantasy' battles, where grief, loss & 'pain' are undeniably present as well as glory & chivalry, but where the real ugliness & brutality of war the two armies, screaming obscenities or just howling like mad dogs, slithered together are absent?

How would a reader with no knowledge of actual warfare (either by personal experience or by historical study) take Tolkien's battles - does Tolkien actually contribute to the pro patria gloria idea - intentionally or otherwise? Yet if he does, is that OK because he's writing fantasy?

[bilbo_baggins]

How would a reader with no knowledge of actual warfare (either by personal experience or by historical study) take Tolkien's battles - does Tolkien actually contribute to the pro patria gloria idea - intentionally or otherwise? Yet if he does, is that OK because he's writing fantasy?

I have to say I believe that Tolkien's depiction of battles do contribute to idea of pro gloria patriae in the minds of fresh readers. Whether this is intentional is not as easily answered... honestly I have no clue. Obviously, Tolkien did not include the grossly vivid concepts of battle that he had personally witnessed, but I believe that he did not mean to intentionally delude younger readers into believing battle to be a purely beautiful and noble event, either.

Contributing to the idea of noble war is not wrong in any way. Some might take offence at the possible delusion of otherwise ignorant readers, but there are many poems, classical and modern, that glorify battle (although the trend in modern poetry seems to paint a truthful picture of battle). Just because Tolkien's genre is fantasy does not change his right as an author to depict battle in any way he pleases. In fact, if the reader would only understand that it is fantasy, then the author should logically be given even more liberty to "lie" about such things.

...When does fantasy become lying?

Isn't fantasy the epitome of lying? All fantasy lies at some basic level, and I don't believe that lying about wars or battles somehow changes the premise of fantasy, or the justification of lying in that genre. You could say that at some point, fantasy becomes absurdity, but introducing nobility in a battle scene is not absurd, by any means.

[skip spence]

Actually, it brings up a bigger question - should the ideas & concepts that fantasy explores, whether in book or movie form, be restricted?


No, it shouldn't.

Furthermore, isn't the very categorization "fantasy" a restriction in itself? I certainly think so. I mean there are many great works of fiction that easily could be classified as fantasy, or sci-fi, but isn't for reasons unknown to me. Take for example Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, Orwell's 1984, or the works of Astrid Lindgren. Now these works are rightly admired by much of the literati, whereas fantasy books usually are dismissed as lowbrow trash for nerds, sometimes unrightfully, but perhaps often not. I guess what I'm saying is if you set out to write a fantasy-book, you will inadvertedly end up writing something derivative, often in the shadow of Tolkien, although it might be well worth reading anyway.

For what it's worth, my advice to a budding fantasy-writer would be to forget about the genre and just try to write a great work of fiction. I don't think Tolkien set out to write a fantasy-book or laid any restrictions on himself based on what he thought the genre demanded.

[Bêthberry]

Isn't fantasy the epitome of lying? All fantasy lies at some basic level, and I don't believe that lying about wars or battles somehow changes the premise of fantasy, or the justification of lying in that genre.

Indeed. I do believe it has been said in the past that 'poetry never lieth, because it affirmeth not' or something to that effect.

:)

[davem]

Tolkien's Mythopoea http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html is clear on his own position - that Fantasy is not (or should not be) about lies

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers bencath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

[skip spence]

I think fantasy is intended to strengthen/reinforce our sense of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Once it ceases to do that, it is no longer valid. Just like anything else, fantasy literature can be either used properly or it can be abused. The placing of limits upon fantasy writing prevents its abuse by immoral imaginations.

Who then is to decide just what is the true, the good and the beautiful? The Catholic Church? Perhaps the Imans of Iran? Are you?


There isn't anything about the human imagination that makes it particularly 'pure" or 'good'...

This I agree with. And it includes your imagination and my own. I do believe we all should have a right to express it however, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else directly.

[davem]

Of course, it could be argued that in LotR Tolkien is offering the 'ideal' Just War. It is Good vs Evil. Yet, in an ideal world there would be no war at all. Of course, Tolkien looked back to a time when things were better - even war was 'better' before Man introduced Machines into the mix. But that's a lie. War was never neat, clean & chivalrous. The kind of war Tolkien describes could only happen in a fantasy world. Yet that could be applied to every aspect of Tolkien's world - the woods, mountains, seas are not those of our world, but 'perfect' versions of them - even evil & monsters in his world are perfect examples of the 'evil' & 'monstrous'.

Maybe Tolkien needed to write about an honourable, just, war in 'compensation' for the one he'd known - perhaps the War of the Ring was the war he wished he'd fought in?

[Morthoron]

Hmmm...But from Tolkien's conservative point of view, perhaps there was such a thing as a righteous war, even if the savagery of battle presented 'animal horrors' to the combatants. Certainly, both the wars against the Kaiser and later Hitler were presented as conflicts against aggression, and were considered to be necessary to rid the world of evil (as Churchill's harangues during both World Wars made abundantly clear, at least from a propaganda standpoint). The lines of good and evil were clearly delineated during both conflicts (at least until the cynical manuevers of Stalin muddied the waters).

It would seem then that Tolkien did subscribe to the 'just war' concept, at least from a storytelling standpoint (fighting the long defeat, perseverance in the face of certain destruction, the malnourished and puny London clerks and Oxford undergraduates transformed into Hobbits trundling off for king and country, etc.). One doesn't get the same gloomy prospects and disillusionment espoused by writers of the 'Lost Generation' (like Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Siegfried Sassoon, T.S. Eliot or D.H. Lawrence). Rather than confronting the ghosts of Flanders in a modern method, Tolkien's therapy seemed to be to subsume himself in a chivalric or medieval world where virtue and truth still made sense and were applicable to war (along the lines, but not necessarily as reverentially as Froissart, who glorified chivalry even when noting that the Black Prince was slaughtering whole towns of innocent civilians). Perhaps the hope attendant in Tolkien's religion precluded him from falling prey to the cynicism of many of his literary peers who survived WWI.

I am not sure. Perhaps your take that Tolkien needed an honorable war to expunge the horror of his own experience is correct. *shrugs*

[bilbo_baggins]

Tolkien's Mythopoea http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html is clear on his own position - that Fantasy is not (or should not be) about lies

Hmmm, this is very good. Tolkien himself has made the point, I believe, that man does not inherently lie, and that he should not be a Grima Wormtongue as it were...

But the second bold section in your quote states that it is our right to fill our world with fantastical creatures, etc. Either Tolkien is promoting mass hallucination and belief in his construction of M-e, or, we have to admit that his works are, on a basic level, a deception. To say that his works are about lies is wrong, I admit. I should choose a better way of phrasing it. Perhaps I can't even phrase it properly...

... because the dragons and Elves are breathing down my neck. It was no deception!

[davem]

Perhaps, in spite of what Tolkien states in Mythopoea, Fantasy (in the sense of creating a Secondary World) is about creating a world in your own image - one where the woods are peopled by Elves, where the gods walk, & where battles are simple, straightforward affairs of good against evil & where those on the side of right ultimately win out.

(Or where 'God' is a senile, useless spirit from whom humanity can attain liberation in order to be free to build the 'Republic of Heaven'). Perhaps it really is no more than wish-fulfilment, however an author attempts to justify it with philosophical/theological theorising. The likes of Towton never happened in M-e because Tolkien didn't want it to. Which means that no fantasy (Secondary World) is superior to any other (other than in the quality of its creation, & its believability). To argue that Middle-earth is in someway 'superior' to the world(s) of HDM in a moral or ethical sense is pointless, because both Secondary Worlds are ultimately simply the head trips of their respective creators. Setting limits/restrictions on what may be included in a fantasy world is ultimately to attempt to set limits on what a human being feels he or she lacks. Both Tolkien & Pullman are responding to a perceived 'wrongness'/lack in the Primary world by creating a Secondary World in which that wrongness is put right.

And yet, the question still remains - do writers of Fantasy have an obligation to reflect certain Primary World realities (from the horrors of war to the dangers of smoking)?

[Lalwendë]

For whatever reason Tolkien chose not to be overly graphic in his descriptions of war in Lord of the Rings, but you can't say the same is true of all his work; Children of Hurin is pretty graphic and brutal. I'd say he utilised lightness of touch when writing battle scenes in LotR, our horror at death comes more from being invested in the characters who are hurt, lost or killed.

As for writing of good/evil wars, the War of the Ring is neither, it is simply a war of survival, a war in which, if you do not stand up and fight will certainly result in death or thralldom.

The writer does not have to be overly graphic to portray horrors, they merely have to be just graphic enough. If anyone has had the uncomfortable experience of reading The Road they will know what I mean - in that there are a couple of simple scenes which are not overly described but which are so utterly horrific you cannot scrub them out of your head. Tolkien does the same thing - it's enough to have the Witch King threaten Eowyn with some barely sketched horror or to mention a few of the Orcs' fighting methods to have the skin crawling. He doesn't need to go further.

And yet, the question still remains - do writers of Fantasy have an obligation to reflect certain Primary World realities (from the horrors of war to the dangers of smoking)?

They can and should do exactly as they please or it ceases to be fantasy ;) The very idea of setting limits on it is vile.

[Bêthberry]

If one accepts the statement I quoted above--that poetry never lies because it never affirms anything--and if one accepts that by poetry Spenser meant all literature--then the answer would be simple. A fantasy writer, as a writer of all literary forms, is bound only by the quality of his or her sub-creation, by the aesthetic demands required to create a 'great reading'. 'Lies' just doesn't cut it in this perspective. In fact, I would suggest that the Mythopoeia poem isn't about lies at all but about the quality of sub-creation, that creativity and artistic vision has its own drummer and is not beholdin' to any other kind of vision.

The problem for Tolkien arises, I think, when he elaborates upon his Legendarium by calling it a prehistory of our world. That then invites comparisons between Middle-earth in the Third Age, First Age, Second Age, etc, with our world. The denizens of the earlier ages are similar to mythological types in other early world literatures. What Tolkien appears to have been wanting to depict, at least in LotR, is the 'moment' when that mythological world fades away into a world more in conformity with our 'Seventh Age.' It is the time when the elves, dwarves, dragons, orcs fade away, even though Tolkien suggests that hobbits still exist with a highly developed ability to hide from our view. It is possible that his difficulty in writing or completing stories for the Fourth Age relates to this loss, that the really inspiring aspect for him was the waning of this mythological time.

For Tolkien, a world perspective which does not allow for wonder, imagination, creativity, the ferment of ideas, as much as a moral stance which allows one to differentiate among the Lobelias, Frodos, Boromirs, Grimas, and Gollems, must remain essential. It is a perspective which grants constant vigilance against human error, which recognises that humans are so prone to aspects of power that they can easily fall into error. That concept of human psychology is absent from much in "progressive thought" that grants to mankind--usually the males of the species--the absolute right to totally dominate other human beings and the natural world. One doesn't need idealism or God or gods to understand that humans are prone to their own self satisfaction which can have disasterous consequences. In fact, Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia suggests that when men replace God/the gods with their own pitiful power tripping--"head tripping" in davem's words-- by thinking that a name is what makes a thing exist, they fall into error. This might not be a caution against human willfulness which Pullman acknowledges, but the baddies in Pullman are every bit as prone to this Tolkien error as any villian in Tolkien.

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

[davem]

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

Tolkien does ask us to question our own claims to power. He also offers 'answers', solutions, responses, which, while they may work well in his world, may not work in ours - may in fact have the opposite effect. A fantasy writer can indeed show us "things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different" but his offered solutions may make things worse rather than better if put into practice in our world. The Shire may be a bucolic idyll wherein we may all secretly wish to dwell but no Hobbit ever died of lung cancer or cirrhosis - we can have the Shire as our solution to the Primary World evils of the desire for power & environmental destruction....but not exactly Tolkien's Shire, which is a Fantasy. In fact, there was a housing development in Bend, Oregon, called The Shire, with houses 'inspired' by Tolkien's creation - its just gone bankrupt due to the credit crunch (don't think they had those in Middle-earth....). There's no lung cancer, cirrhosis or credit crunch in M-e for the same reason there's no animal butchery like Towton in its wars (or homosexuality for that matter) because its Tolkien's fantasy & he controls what exists in that world. Tolkien is the gatekeeper. Certainly some of the horrors of the Primary World have echoes in the Secondary - but by no means all of them. And when they find place there it is in the form Tolkien wishes them to have & the solution of them is Tolkien's own & works in his world not so much for logical reasons but because he says it does.

But that's because its a Fantasy & so anything can happen. Yet smoking does cause cancer, excessive drinking does result in alcoholism & death, & if you go to war & arm yourselves with swords, maces, daggers, spears & arrows you get ugly bloody butchery not noble death rounded out with beautiful speaches a la Boromir & Theoden,

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

[Lalwendë]

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

Some readers do not want to separate fact from fiction ;) And while that might be funny when you get people who live their lives as though they really are Klingons, Hobbits or centurions or whatever, it does have a dark side. Plus a lot of people believe everything they read a bit too easily.

In that respect, fantasy can be a dangerous thing. Tolkien was free to describe his battles how he liked, and he chose to leave them lightly described and the reader free to make up his/her own mind about how they worked. Course, that does mean that you can get stupid people who think "Wow, running round with swords is coooool" and then actually doing just that and hurting others (just as you get stupid people who think Grand Theft Auto is also something to recreate in the real world).

But why should the author's Art have to be changed just because some people are stupid? Or even because down the line, his books might be read by a whole generation of people who had no direct experience of the horrors of war (remembering that Tolkien and his generation knew full well how nasty war was and had no need of a graphic description as they lived it every night in their nightmares)?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

Tolkien does ask us to question our own claims to power. He also offers 'answers', solutions, responses, which, while they may work well in his world, may not work in ours - may in fact have the opposite effect. A fantasy writer can indeed show us "things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different" but his offered solutions may make things worse rather than better if put into practice in our world. The Shire may be a bucolic idyll wherein we may all secretly wish to dwell but no Hobbit ever died of lung cancer or cirrhosis - we can have the Shire as our solution to the Primary World evils of the desire for power & environmental destruction....but not exactly Tolkien's Shire, which is a Fantasy. In fact, there was a housing development in Bend, Oregon, called The Shire, with houses 'inspired' by Tolkien's creation - its just gone bankrupt due to the credit crunch (don't think they had those in Middle-earth....). There's no lung cancer, cirrhosis or credit crunch in M-e for the same reason there's no animal butchery like Towton in its wars (or homosexuality for that matter) because its Tolkien's fantasy & he controls what exists in that world. Tolkien is the gatekeeper. Certainly some of the horrors of the Primary World have echoes in the Secondary - but by no means all of them. And when they find place there it is in the form Tolkien wishes them to have & the solution of them is Tolkien's own & works in his world not so much for logical reasons but because he says it does.

But that's because its a Fantasy & so anything can happen. Yet smoking does cause cancer, excessive drinking does result in alcoholism & death, & if you go to war & arm yourselves with swords, maces, daggers, spears & arrows you get ugly bloody butchery not noble death rounded out with beautiful speaches a la Boromir & Theoden,

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

Essentially, your complaint that fantasy isn't realistic is a complaint that has been lodged against all forms of literature, particularly by those with an ideological axe to grint. Remember Plato's complaint about poets and how he dealt with them? Think of the Vatican's list of proscribed books. Or think of how political correctness has developed out of quite legitimate complaints (in themselves, when addressed to conditions in the Primary World).

Rather than bowlderizing literature or censoring it or calling down fatwahs upon authors who violate ideas of the Primary Realm, perhaps it is well to remember that literature, as with all art, exists to delight and to instruct. If people choose, as Lal has said, to be more delighted than instructed, that is the freedom allowed in a democratic Primary World. As is the freedom allowed to complain about the sub-created world. It all just works to develope human communication.

by the by, just in the interests of clarity, I notice that the quotation you attribute to me in your post, davem, is not a completely correct transcription. My original sentence read:

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

Must have been an incomplete c&p. :)

[Bêthberry]

Its less a matter of graphic depictions of violence in war, more of the fact that death in battle in M-e is depicted (in the main - there are odd exceptions) as glorious, as tragic, certainly as heroic - but virtually never as being as ugly, dirty & sick as death in medieval battle actually was. But is that OK, as 'its fantasy'?

EDIT.

I think this brings up a number of questions as regards Tolkien's attitude to warfare - is he saying via his depiction of battles in his fiction 'This is what medieval warfare was like.' ?(clearly wrong - medieval battles were not such 'chivalrous' affairs), or is he saying 'This is what battles ought to be like.' ?(big moral question there - should violent death be presented in such an 'uplifting' way?). Or is he simply saying 'This is how battles are fought in my fantasy world.'? Why would Tolkien, who had seen real death in battle (he referred to the 'animal horror' of the Somme) want to present battle in such a 'sanitised' way? And do we excuse him because he wrote 'fantasy'? When does fantasy become lying?

(yes, I am being provocative.....)

Yes, even though you were/are being mischieviously provocative, perhaps davem you might wish to consider writing a paper on Tolkien and war in response to this call for papers which Estelyn posted on her LJ:


Next year's Tolkien Seminar will be in Hanover, Germany, April 24 - 26. The topic will be: 'Violence, Conflict and War in Tolkien'. For anyone interested in presenting a lecture, here is the Call for Papers: http://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/deutsche-tolkien-gesellschaft/tolkien-seminar-2/tolkien-seminar-2009/"

To make the link work: Call for papers on Violence, Conflict and War in Tolkien (http://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/deutsche-tolkien-gesellschaft/tolkien-seminar-2/tolkien-seminar-2009/)

I'm sure you would make a stellar contributor, davem.

[davem]

Hmm - don't know that I've either the time or the energy at the moment - however, I did find this interesting piece about Tolkien & his Somme experiences (which I linked to on another thread, but seems relevant here) http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=716&pageid=23&pagename=Arts

[alatar]

Fantasy is a certain means of saying something that you don't think would go over well if stated directly. Fantasy is the sugar that makes the medicine go down, and as an author, you may see the world (or just yourself) as needing to take the medicine. You add a few elves and princesses, castles and dragons, and suddenly you have all of the necessary parts to carry your message.

This link sarcastically lays out the formula for writing successful fantasy (http://ezinearticles.com/?Writing-Epic-Fantasy---Taking-a-Courageous-Approach-to-the-Genre&id=182304).

My other favorite author, though more a scifi than fantasy writer, once said,


I'm working on a book that I'll publish next year. It's called "The Dosadi Experiment." It concerns a massive psychological experiment on a large population without their informed consent. The implications are all around us. You see, you can do this in science fiction because you're talking about another world, another people. It's way over there. (laughs) The reality comes back later.

Note that this way of saying one thing while meaning something more important is used in more than just fantasy writings. A partial-preteristic view of the Christian Book of Revelation by John of Patmos (Also called 'the Apocalypse of John') uses what I would call flowery language to describe the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD by the Romans under Nero. One could not write such a book with the Romans hanging about, but could if the Romans were "Babylon" and "the beast;" your intended audience would know of whom you spoke, and the authorities would be none the wiser.


Regarding war, maybe Tolkien thought that his and following generations would know about the horrors of war first or second hand, and so why then fill in the details when persons imaginings/knowledge would work better. Or maybe he wanted to leave that horror behind and yet depict battles. Our family had a great uncle who participated in the battles in WWII, and he never spoke about what had happened to him 'over there.' He obviously didn't want to remember or reminisce about that, and that always struck me, as boys always brag about how tough they are, how many fights they'd been in, and how gross it all was. This man, in his silence, said much about the horror, and me only a child.

Did Tolkien consider this same thing, sanitizing his wars (albeit he did have the orcs toss 'head shot' over the walls of Minas Tirith) so that readers could fill in the gaps from the silence? Did he think that his readers would reject the addition of 'reality' into a fantasy text? How would it have helped knowing that Theoden's spleen was lying next to him, and that the King was slowing asphyxiating from his collapsed/punctured lungs etc?

Not sure what is meant by, "that poetry never lies because it never affirms anything;" regardless, this topic begs noting that famous (or infamous) poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.


"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Just makes me want to jump upon a horse and ride into a valley surrounded by enemy cannon (or is it canon?), all due to some 'issue' with my commander, whether he was confused, angry, stupid, etc, and so get the joy of watching my fellows get their heads shot from their bodies, bodies blown into too large of pieces (I can still see the man that I spoke to, and not just bits), and pieces of flesh and bones that now will feed the worms...

My father had me watch the 1930's film version of All Quiet on the Western Front (not a particularly gory film) before the government banned it again just so I could get a different take on war. Rah rah! :rolleyes:

[davem]

You realise how long it is since you've regularly posted when you try & rep people & find you can't ...anyway..

One argument is that the only responsibility a fantasy writer has is to create a convincing secondary world, internally consistent & true to its own laws, but.. what if a writer does their job so well that they convince a reader that war is cool & exciting & that, if death results it is a beautiful & poignant thing, rather than ugly & dirty butchery? Or that smoking is an entirely safe activity?

Is a writer of Fantasy literature absolved of any responsibility for such things, in the way a writer of other kinds of fiction is not?

[alatar]

Is a writer of Fantasy literature absolved of any responsibility for such things, in the way a writer of other kinds of fiction is not?
You know already know, or soon will know (with the young'n running about), the answer to this question.

"He/She/It made me do it!"

Over the years I always found it odd when a parent, after some tragedy befalls his/her child, looks for some cause of the problem without the use of a mirror. Song lyrics, video games, sugar content, TV, cartoons, and surely fantasy have all been blamed for bad/stupid/fatal behaviour, and yet what of the millions exposed to the same that just somehow miss the message? :rolleyes:

It's like science; you might want to consider to what use your creation will be put before letting the monster out the door. That said, you can't keep people from exercising their right to be stupid, and I would make sure that the back of the title page had some of that loyerly language absolving you of everything...just in case. ;)

[Lalwendë]

Well indeed. There are, alas, one or two stupid people in the world who would stick their hand in the fire if you told them to do so ;)

I can also think of a couple of well known religious texts which some stupid people have taken as carte blanche to do some very cruel things. Just because that particular prophet didn't consider that somewhere down the line an idiot might be inspired to pick up a Kalashnikov doesn't mean he shouldn't have said that his religion was really cool, in his opinion ;)

Same goes for fantasy. If someone is such a clown that they think wearing a replica One Ring really will make them invisible then it's not really the writer's fault. Obviously there are limits, such as it would have been unwise of JK Rowling to fill the Harry Potter books with examples of Draco Malfoy dealing crack behind the broomstick sheds, but mostly, the writer isn't to blame for the fools who (mis)read his books.

In the case of Tolkien's depictions of war, in my opinion, it's about the Aesthetic he chooses.

[davem]

Yes, but, when I talk about an author's 'repsonsibility' I mean 'responsibility' to the truth - ie, to be honest about what war involves. Should you show the facts about death in battle because they are the facts? Should some Hobbits die of lung cancer because that's what happens to some smokers in the primary world?

Or can the author just say 'This is my world, & in my world battles don't involve such butchery, & smokers don't get cancer'? But if the author takes that approach, completely divorcing 'his' world from the real world, can he/she expect us to treat anything else in that world seriously? I'm not suggesting that not showing the reality of warfare involving people attacking other people with sharpened bits of metal will lead to readers going out & joining the army, because it will give them an overly romantic view of battle (or that showing Hobbits smoking with impunity will encourage readers to take up smoking). I'm asking whether writing in the Fantasy genre absolves the writer from any responsibility to tell the truth about those things?

[alatar]

Yes, but, when I talk about an author's 'repsonsibility' I mean 'responsibility' to the truth - ie, to be honest about what war involves. Should you show the facts about death in battle because they are the facts? Should some Hobbits die of lung cancer because that's what happens to some smokers in the primary world?
Is the author's intent 'telling a story,' or writing a detailed description of the horrors of war? I don't have the text with me (I get searched at the door), so from memory I don't think that the Battle of Azanulbizar was written to make it seem as if war were fun. From near Rauros to the Pellenor (I think), in LotR we continually lose named persons in battle. Theoden loses his son (off stage) and his Doorwarden Háma, who we got to meet (and whose corpse gets abused). The dour-handed Rangers suffer losses, and we lose Denethor II from madness. Don't know how dim of a bulb one has to be to not see that, in war, not everyone comes back, physically and mentally, even when your side wins.

We are given some description of Lothlorien - to me, not enough - so that we can at least picture what the author had in mind regarding Paradise. Enough may have been written to demonstrate the otherworldliness of the place. How much description then do we need to visualize something that is far more common (and base)?

Or can the author just say 'This is my world, & in my world battles don't involve such butchery, & smokers don't get cancer'? But if the author takes that approach, completely divorcing 'his' world from the real world, can he/she expect us to treat anything else in that world seriously? I'm not suggesting that not showing the reality of warfare involving people attacking other people with sharpened bits of metal will lead to readers going out & joining the army, because it will give them an overly romantic view of battle (or that showing Hobbits smoking with impunity will encourage readers to take up smoking). I'm asking whether writing in the Fantasy genre absolves the writer from any responsibility to tell the truth about those things?
War is ugly and smoking/tobacco are bad. What more do we need to say? War, when defending one's land against an aggressor bent on slaughtering you, is a good thing even when people do get ground up like so much meat. Tobacco, still a legal product, when used in moderation, does not have to lead to cancer/emphysema in all cases.

Does a fantasy author have to go through all of these caveats? Or can he/she simply show that some things are bad, some good, and one has to choose between?

[Morthoron]

You realise how long it is since you've regularly posted when you try & rep people & find you can't ...anyway..

One argument is that the only responsibility a fantasy writer has is to create a convincing secondary world, internally consistent & true to its own laws, but.. what if a writer does their job so well that they convince a reader that war is cool & exciting & that, if death results it is a beautiful & poignant thing, rather than ugly & dirty butchery? Or that smoking is an entirely safe activity?

Is a writer of Fantasy literature absolved of any responsibility for such things, in the way a writer of other kinds of fiction is not?

Allow me to amplify on Tolkien a bit, and then I will reply directly.

As I inferred in a previous post, perhaps the time period in which Tolkien was writing precluded such graphic presentations of reality (whether in a fantasy or fictional presentation). Editorial boards and censors certainly were more prevalent than they are now (consider the present ludicrous movie rating system as the afterbirth of more stringent earlier censorship). James Joyce's Ulysses, first published in its entirety in 1922 was banned in the U.S. as pornographic and obscene (although nowadays it is merely annoying), which a district court judge didn't overrule until 1932.

If one looks at the movies of the time period, the sanitization is near complete in regards to war represented in films (Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn's blades are not even required to puncture their enemies' bodies to cause instantaneous death). Ethically speaking, wholesale lopping of heads and body parts was forbidden during most of the first half of the 20th century, and it seems certain Tolkien would have to subscribe to some level of self-control in the matter of graphic presentation (even though, as Alatar pointed out, there is the head-lobbing of the orcs at Minas Tirith).

Another classic fantasy of the 1st half of the 20th Century, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, also doesn't dwell on gorgets being knit to necks by axes or knights struggling on with arrows through their testicles or through their cheeks or noses (as detailed in the chronicles of Dom Pero Nino, a famous 15th century Castilian knight). The time period and the taste of the readership (or perhaps more so the taste of the censorship) must be taken into account for the level of graphic violence or sexuality presented in a novel (or movie).

Now, to your posits, davem.

I don't believe the writer of a fantasy (or fiction) is bound to present factual data in a graphic manner, nor is a writer bound by a sense of morality or ethics to maintain an idealized view of 'the good' or the 'correct' because such ideas are transient and relative even geographically and individually during any specific era. The writer may present truths or lies depending on his/her perspective in an effort to sway the reader to their point of view, or may try to impress upon the reader an altered vision of reality based on the author's perception, whether for political, religious or emotional ends, or a writer may simply create based on their personal convictions and store of knowledge and not care at all if what is published meets anyone else's criteria.

During WWI H.G. Wells referred to Germany as 'Kiplingistic', obviously equating the Kaiser's roughshod imperialism in terms of Kipling's jingoistic glory of war. I mention that because I saw you posted a poem elsewhere on this forum regarding the death of Kipling's son in WWI. Who then was right, Wells, with his aversion to senseless war and foolhardy glory, or Kipling's reverence of righteous war and patriotism?

So, in the end, a writer is not absolved nor seeks absolution for what he writes, his work is accepted or not accepted on whether or not it is read. There are many works of literature that were derisively panned or ignominously ignored during an author's lifetime that are now considered classics, and conversely, many great classics are now considered tedious, overwrought and dated. In the end, most writers who cater directly to an audience are viewed as hacks, while authors who followed their own convictions are considered visionary. *shrugs*

[davem]

I don't believe the writer of a fantasy (or fiction) is bound to present factual data in a graphic manner, nor is a writer bound by a sense of morality or ethics to maintain an idealized view of 'the good' or the 'correct' because such ideas are transient and relative even geographically and individually during any specific era.

Now I've found a moment to get back to this thread....

In his book on Towton Christopher Gravett speaks of bodies found in a grave pit from the battlefield:

The skeletons demonstrate the damage of which medieval weapons are capable, probably in many cases against partially unarmoured bodies. The fact that arrows can punch through bone reinforces the visual record of contemporary manuscripts & shows, for those who look carefully, that flesh was cut through like butter as shafts buried themselves almost up to the fletchings in unprotected bodies. Such wounds inflicted on war-horses helps demonstrate that here was one reason why armoured riders frequently dismounted in battle. Secondly, multiple wounds & possible mutilation show the ferocity that is unleashed in a battle when adrenalin is pumping & comrades are falling. In the bitter climate of the time, with scores to settle, there was little charity shown to a wounded foe. The other item of note is that several of the skeletons exhibit previous wounds that had healed up. Here were men who in some cases had experienced the horrors of close combat & suffered for it , yet had faced the same agonies again on that freezing, bleak field on Palm Sunday. (Gravett 'Towton 1461')

The highlighted section reinforces the point I'm making here - men behave in a less than 'ideal' way on the battlefield - adrenalin, anger, desire for vengeance all make otherwise ordinary, decent blokes behave like orcs. Yet in Tolkien's world only the Orcs behave like orcs. Knights in armour bearing shining swords may look cool on screen or in paintings, but anyone who has seen actual armour & genuine medival weaponry can have no doubts that they are designed to hurt, maim & kill real human beings. A knight in shining armour in a pre-Raphaelite painting is a beautiful image. A man at arms on the battle-field bearing down on a partially armoured footsoldier & about to stove in his skull with a pole-axe is not. Maybe Tolkien felt the medieval world (& by extension medieval warfare) was more 'civilised' than the meat grinder of the Somme, but actually there was little difference in terms of behaviour, only in terms of the technology used to dispatch the enemy. Tolkien clearly knew this, but chose not to acknowledge it - chose, in fact, to say the opposite. The point is, one doesn't have to describe in graphic detail bereaved & vengeance driven Gondorians hacking apart & mutilating Orcs & Southrons - one can simply state that they did it. But in Tolkien's world they simply didn't 'descend' to that level. Yet, given what we know of human nature, we have to say 'only in Middle-earth'.....

EDIT

Its not, I think, that Tolkien glorifies war so much as 'sanitises' the rough end of it. One example that springs instantly to mind is the death of Boromir. The fact that he dies pierced by arrows means that when Faramir sees the Elven boat bearing him pass by he looks as if he is sleeping peacefully & thus even in death he retains dignity. He does not die on the recieving end of an Orc poleaxe which takes off half his face so that Faramir sees him looking like he died an agonising death, choking on his own blood & broken teeth . We don't encounter any of our heroes with ugly, badly healed facial wounds.

WARNING - THESE LINKS SHOW THE EFFECT OF MEDIEVAL WEAPONS ON THE SKULLS OF VICTIMS FROM THE GRAVE PITS AT TOWTON. AVOID LOOKING IF YOU'RE AT ALL SQUEAMISH.

Poleaxe blow to face http://www.the-exiles.org/Images/lejuepoleaxe/image11.gif
Various head injuries from pole weapons/swords http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/archsci/depart/resgrp/towton/

[Morthoron]

Its not, I think, that Tolkien glorifies war so much as 'sanitises' the rough end of it. One example that springs instantly to mind is the death of Boromir. The fact that he dies pierced by arrows means that when Faramir sees the Elven boat bearing him pass by he looks as if he is sleeping peacefully & thus even in death he retains dignity. He does not die on the recieving end of an Orc poleaxe which takes off half his face so that Faramir sees him looking like he died an agonising death, choking on his own blood & broken teeth . We don't encounter any of our heroes with ugly, badly healed facial wounds.

I would agree that Tolkien offers a sanitization of war, but as I mentioned previously, I think that has a lot to do with 1) the heavier censorship and higher moral codes of the time, and 2) the 'dignified' presentation of a a fierce faery epic in the medieval mold (like TH White's Once and Future King, or its precursor Le Mort D'Arthur), which purges the utterly gross from its heroes, and does not dwell on the true mayhem and obscene violence that was medieval war. Another instance from an earlier period, Shakespeare's Henry V, presents a glorified version of Agincourt as well, considering a great number of France's preux chevaliers died not of battle wounds inflicted by Henry's noble few, but rather horribly drowning face down in mud, unable to rise from the muck due to their armor, or by stealthy kerns jabbing their daggers through the visors of the fallen.

I suppose in regards to a medieval faery tale, many readers of the time (and presently for that matter) do not necessarily want to dwell on arrows ripping through testicles, gorgets knit to necks by axes, and brave knights walking about dazedy with their disemboweled entrails dripping in their bloody hands. We really don't see such presentations of graphic violence in fantasy literature until the 1970's (like Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), or in films of a medieval nature even later on, like Braveheart (if you remember Excalibur from the 70's, it rarely even displays any blood on those ultra-shiny metal coifs).

[davem]

But (& maybe this is just me) I never get the sense that the kind of 'attrocities' we've both noted (including at Towton both noses & ears being hacked off fallen - but not necessarily dead- opponents) are not commited by the 'good guys'. Again, I'm not asking for graphic descriptions of such attrocities in Tolkien's work - I don't think that would work - but I am asking about the absence of such behaviour on one side. Tolkien's Men are good, upright & entirely moral even in battle while watching their best friends hacked down by Orcs. And if a warrior can fall under a hail of arrows (no graphic desriptions of blood spurting or internal organs bursting) he could also fall by being 'struck in the face' by a poleaxe or halberd (again no more 'graphic' description than that would be needed). Deaths in Tolkien seem to be overly clean & neat &, while tragic, are not really shocking or disturbing to the reader - in reality just about every death in a medieval battle would be horrible.

Death may be Tolkien's theme, & the inevitability of it is clearly laid out before the reader, but the fact of ugly, violent dying is avoided not, I repeat, not because Tolkien refuses to indulge in graphic descriptions of killing, but because Tolkien's characters all tend to die clean & tidy deaths - & usually live long enough to make a moving final speech...

[Morthoron]

Death may be Tolkien's theme, & the inevitability of it is clearly laid out before the reader, but the fact of ugly, violent dying is avoided not, I repeat, not because Tolkien refuses to indulge in graphic descriptions of killing, but because Tolkien's characters all tend to die clean & tidy deaths - & usually live long enough to make a moving final speech...

Yes, but all such Tolkienish requiems, dirges, soliloquoys, threnodies, elegies and epitaphs are due to his adherence to the classical form. Here we have an 'old school' Oxford Don steeped in Beowulf and Arthurian cycle translations (and more important to my point, his love of Greek drama in his youth); thus, his prose was considered archaic in style even when it was first published (and almost alien to the bulk of fiction produced in the 40's and 50's), and hence, I suppose, its timeless quality.

Take Greek tragedy, for instance. From what I can recall of my brief encounters with Aristotle (I would add Racine and Corneille, but I'm not sure if Tolkien was interested in French tragedy), noble characters do not indulge in the gross and they do not knowingly commit reprehensible acts (these vile acts, such as cold-blooded murder, are generally reserved for the nemesis of the piece). Evil is never rewarded (which is very Tolkienesque) and those with noble character retain this inherent quality even when facing death or worse. There is a reason Tolkien coined the term eucatastrophe from the Greek.

Boromir is a near perfect Greek tragic hero, don't you think? Boromir exhibits the four principal characteristics of a tragic hero: 1. He is of noble birth, 2. He has a tragic flaw (hamartia), 3. He has a reversal (a catastrophe), and 4. he undergoes a catharthis, or recognition, a realization of his own flaw that caused his reversal. And, as is usual in Greek tragedy, his recognition comes too late to prevent his succumbing to the reversal.

Such attention to classical form leads inevitably to the death speeches (Shakespeare's plays are chock full of them), the lack of viciousness and sanguineness in the noble characters (like Aragorn or Faramir), the inevitable fall of evil characters, and the many tragic heroes in Tolkien's work that follow the Greek example (Turin and Boromir as prime examples).

I really don't think Tolkien had it in himself to portray violence of a truly sustained and graphic nature. It was just not part of his literary experience. And perhaps because he personally experienced the horrors of WWI, it stratified his reliance on classical forms, whereas other authors and poets of the WWI era sought catharsis through venting that horror, and thus are considered more 'modern' than Tolkien.

[davem]

Not much time for a long reply at the moment, but I did want to just throw out the following -

You're right in everything you say about Tolkien's motivation, about the sources he draws on & how hw has used them. But

Tolkien had seen real warfare. He knew how men behave in battle, & principally, he knew that when men fight & die such deaths are not clean & tidy, but dirty, painful & ugly, & usually leave the victim neither time nor capacity for a noble speech. A real life Boromir would in reality have been more likely to die screaming for his mother & spewing blood- & the sound of tens of thousands of such death screams (not just from men, but from animals too) across the Pelennor would have added an extra hellish dimension.

The real point is - Tolkien may be true to his traditional sources but he is lying through his teeth when it comes to the reality of death in battle - & he must have known he was lying . Does the fact that he was writing a 'fantasy' novel excuse him? Was he presenting the opposing view to a WWI veteran like Wilfrid Owen - or was he trying to pretend that he hadn't written what he did? One can right about a morally justified war, but ought one to lie about such a simple fact of human nature that when men fight & kill in battle they do horrible things to each other, & that an arrow in the gut, or a sword slash to the face, is a vicious & ugly way to die. Is such a 'fantasy' morally justifiable after the Somme?

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.

[Morthoron]

The real point is - Tolkien may be true to his traditional sources but he is lying through his teeth when it comes to the reality of death in battle - & he must have known he was lying . Does the fact that he was writing a 'fantasy' novel excuse him? Was he presenting the opposing view to a WWI veteran like Wilfrid Owen - or was he trying to pretend that he hadn't written what he did? One can right about a morally justified war, but ought one to lie about such a simple fact of human nature that when men fight & kill in battle they do horrible things to each other, & that an arrow in the gut, or a sword slash to the face, is a vicious & ugly way to die. Is such a 'fantasy' morally justifiable after the Somme?

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.

Yes, clearly Tolkien took another path than Wilfrid Owen, Robert Graves or Siegfried Sassoon:

(Excerpt from 'Counter-attack', 1918)
The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps
And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.
And then the rain began,— the jolly old rain!

(Excerpt from 'Suicide in the Trenches', 1918)
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

I suppose, in retrospect, that it is for the very lack of graphic violence and dwelling on the gross and horrific that Tolkien receives such adulation, and a wide demographic of readers. I doubt very much that Tolkien's work would find its way into grade school (or primary school) libraries if he dwelt on clumps of brains and clots of hair and sodden buttocks like Sassoon. It is the restrained nature of the presentation that allows it to be enjoyed by eight year-olds and eighty year-olds alike.

I don't recall him referring to this topic specifically in his letters, but I'll give them a brief perusal over the weekend to see if he offered any clarifications regarding his depictions of battle or violence.

[davem]

But its the kind of death, rather than the 'graphic' description of it, that I'm questioning - though Tolkien is actually quite graphic as far as descriptions of death go in his work. Its just that the 'graphic' detail confirms how clean & noble death in battle is in his world. Boromir is 'pierced with many arrows', & he dies in the arms of his King, confessing his sin & being absolved...but 'fortunately' not a one of those 'many' arrows hits him in the face & he doesn't utter his final words punctuated by bloody coughs.

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words. But

If Tolkien's claim that LotR is about Death is to be accepted, even given the fantasy form & the freedom it permits a writer, shouldn't we expect an honest depiction of the process? Even death in a just war (whatever a 'just war' is) is more often than not painful & ugly.

[Andsigil]

Again, Tolkien acknowledges the inevitability of death but not the reality of how people actually die in battle. He lies about it. Now, its a fantasy novel, & Tolkien is free to create a secondary world where death in battle is always neat & clean & leaves one enough time to speak one's moving final words.

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion. Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that.

There's no "sin" here in Tolkien's writing. I'm not certain why you've contrived an obligation for Tolkien to portray death scenes graphically. And if he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then you may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor kings excuse themselves to use the bathroom and graphically describing that, as well.

[Bêthberry]

In many ways Tolkien partakes of a certain Edwardian (if not Victorian) attitude towards military pursuits, so it is quite possibly a cultural value he demonstrates.

This Edwardian trait is not represented in this war memorial, the very beautiful and very moving memorial to the Canadian dead at Vimy Ridge: Walter Allwards' Stone Memorial at Vimy (http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=memorials/ww1mem/Vimy). See this multimedia version: Experience Vimy (http://205.207.146.197/indexen.html)

Rather, Tolkien's depiction of war more closely resembles the kind of heroic stance represented by these statues:

Marshall Foch in London:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/MimsyBorogroves/heroicstatuesFochLondon2.jpg

(This one is rather different from the statue over his tomb at Les Invalides in Paris, so I am assuming it represents a British style of war memorial.)

Wellington in Hyde Park, London:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/MimsyBorogroves/heroicstatuesWellingtonHydePark.jpg


Edward VII in Queen's Park, Toronto, transplanted from Delhi, India and so representative of the colonial or empire style; note that he is not here given his nick name of endearment, Tum Tum:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/MimsyBorogroves/heroicstatuesEdwardVIIQueensPark.jpg

I am allowed but three images per post, so I cannot show any more to exemplify the idea that Tolkien participates not just in a heroic style from ancient epics but also in what was for him a contemporary cultural preference. (For instance, the statue of Wellington on horseback in Glasgow, which was initially presented as one of these heroic equestrian models, now sports, with civic acceptance, a traffic cone on Wellington's head. This is a particularly Scottish response which does not seem in keeping with Tolkien's war model; nor is it emulated south of Hadrian's Wall.)

We can imagine a Middle earth war memorial to the War of the Ring in this style which would display Gandalf astride Shadowfax rather than a sorrowing figure of a woman mourning her war dead.

(btw, I would swear I received a notification of post #52 in which it was attributed to Lalwende rather than davem. *insert kindly smile here* )

[davem]

Why would you think this? Tolkien gave some fairly graphic death scenes in The Simlarillion.

Not that it makes the story better or worse; the story... none of his stories are about that. I'm not certain where this obligation to portray death scenes graphically comes from. If he's to be criticized for this contrived obligation, then one may as well fault him for not portraying love scenes as graphically as possible. Or for not having Noldor elves excuse themselves to use the bathroom.


Its to do with how people die, not how graphically that death is described - or whether it should be/needs to be described realistically - go back to the Poul Anderson essay I linked to a while back http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm - is Anderson right? Even though Tolkien does not depict love scenes one assumes that the act takes place because there are children in the stories. One assumes that characters use the bathroom even though Tolkien doesn't mention it - & that is the whole point: if Tolkien was to depict love-making or toilet practices we would expect them (even if only obliquely) to be 'true' to the basic facts of the primary world (ie babies are not brought by the stork or get found under gooseberry bushes & bodily waste products do not turn into rainbow coloured bubbles which pop out of the character's ears). This is because Tolkien repeatedly stressed that 'Middle-earth' is meant to be this world in the ancient past.

The original question was about how much freedom a writer of fantasy should have, & what boundaries, if any, are required. If a writer like Pullman can be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of Christianity, can (should?) Tolkien be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of death in battle (as just one example)?

EDIT the idea that Tolkien participates not just in a heroic style from ancient epics but also in what was for him a contemporary cultural preference.

Yes - & that would stand if Tolkien had written LotR pre-WWI, or if he hadn't lived through the horror of the Somme. But he wrote it during WWII, & he knew the reality of battle, so he's not writing from ignorance, but actually denying the truth in order to present a falsehood more easily & effectively.

[Andsigil]

Its to do with how people die, not how graphically that death is described - or whether it should be/needs to be described realistically - go back to the Poul Anderson essay I linked to a while back http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm - is Anderson right? Even though Tolkien does not depict love scenes one assumes that the act takes place because there are children in the stories. One assumes that characters use the bathroom even though Tolkien doesn't mention it - & that is the whole point: if Tolkien was to depict love-making or toilet practices we would expect them (even if only obliquely) to be 'true' to the basic facts of the primary world (ie babies are not brought by the stork or get found under gooseberry bushes & bodily waste products do not turn into rainbow coloured bubbles which pop out of the character's ears). This is because Tolkien repeatedly stressed that 'Middle-earth' is meant to be this world in the ancient past.

The original question was about how much freedom a writer of fantasy should have, & what boundaries, if any, are required. If a writer like Pullman can be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of Christianity, can (should?) Tolkien be criticised for his 'misrepresentation' of death in battle (as just one example)?

Anyone can be criticized for anything. Our responsibility is to look at the criticism, its origins, and its reasons, and then decide if it has merits.

For example, I find Phillip Pullman to be petty and repulsive. He mocks Lewis and Tolkien- men who wrote for the good of people, and admits that he only wrote his series to tear down their works.

(Ironically, I find Pullman to the personification of Tolkien's Melkor: bitter at not being able to create, he instead takes the creations of others, twists them, and then congratulates himself on his own genius.)

The sad part is that, because he is crafty with words (and, oooooh, so avant garde, dahhhling...), people ignore that he's brassy, uncouth, and unimaginative. At the risk of being repetitive, it's quite sad that so many people like someone whose only objective is to tear good things down. Sad. Very sad.

So, criticism of a bitter, petty iconoclast like Pullman is different from criticism of someone like Tolkien, who had no malice behind his work.

As for Tolkien, graphic portrayal of death would take away from his writing style, which was based on lore (for lack of a better term) and, especially in the Silmarillion, reflective of that style.

All I see are apples and oranges here.

[davem]

As for Tolkien, graphic portrayal of death would take away from his writing style, which was based on lore (for lack of a better term) and, especially in the Silmarillion, reflective of that style..

Again, its not about 'graphic' descriptions - its about the simple facts of how a person dies if, say, he is 'pierced by many arrows', or if his horse rears up & then falls on top of him. When you read that Boromir was laying there stuck like a pin cushion did you at any point think 'Hmm, I wonder whether that will have an adverse effect on his bodily well-being as it would if it happened to someone in our world?' Probably not. Boromir was pierced by many arrows. He died. The point is how someone in that position would have died. If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

[Bêthberry]

Yes - & that would stand if Tolkien had written LotR pre-WWI, or if he hadn't lived through the horror of the Somme. But he wrote it during WWII, & he knew the reality of battle, so he's not writing from ignorance, but actually denying the truth in order to present a falsehood more easily & effectively.

Well, first of all, if I remember the Letters correctly--they aren't at hand--it was the experience of the Somme which inspired and intensified Tolkien's intimate preoccupation with the heroic epic and started him off on his imaginary life with the Legendarium, so whether he wrote LotR in the twenties or the forties, it's imaginative roots lay with his WWI experiences. And that would include Edwardian culture, which, some here have suggested, highly colours his Shire. A writer's imaginative inspiration does not march lock step with historical chronology but answers to a different drummer and there's a great deal more in LotR which fits with gentrified Edwardian (and even Victorian) culture than the battle scenes. His sensibility was not modern, although his intellect was superb. We might as well ask why Victorians glorified war. After all, the crucial point about Tolkien's work is change or metamorphosis, from one age to another, so why shouldn't his sensibility lie with the age that passed, the Edwardian one, rather than with the sensibility that came of age as a result of the War to end all Wars?

We really do not know how Tolkien coped psychologically with his war time experience and the loss of his close friends. We do know that something caused a writer's block during his writing of LotR during WWII. But we do not know if his writing was a deliberate, conscious falsehood or if rather it represents his imaginative preoccupation with battle epics such as Maldon and Beowulf. He is not writing 19C novels of realism (or empiricism as it sometimes is referred to). He is weaving something else entirely. We can discuss the quality of his depictions but in good faith we can't ascribe to him lies and falsehood.

EDIT: Any more than, as Gwathagor mentions below, all artists are so described. I suppose this was why Plato gave poets a bad rep.

[Gwathagor]

If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

If we are going to set down that rule, the trouble then becomes deciding to what extent and in what detail he must represent his scene in order for it to be depicted "honestly." Regardless of the author, regardless of the book, there will always be information left out - and so, according your principle, every single work of literature is simply a different degree of dishonesty.

But authors have been lying in order to tell the truth for thousands of years, and I see no reason for them to stop now.

[Andsigil]

Again, its not about 'graphic' descriptions - its about the simple facts of how a person dies if, say, he is 'pierced by many arrows', or if his horse rears up & then falls on top of him. When you read that Boromir was laying there stuck like a pin cushion did you at any point think 'Hmm, I wonder whether that will have an adverse effect on his bodily well-being as it would if it happened to someone in our world?' Probably not. Boromir was pierced by many arrows. He died. The point is how someone in that position would have died. If Tolkien follows Primary world 'laws of nature' in having arrows kill a person, should he not also be bound by the same Primary world laws in depicting how they would kill him? We know how men in the heat of battle behave (& Tolkien had seen it first hand) so should he not depict it honestly?

Again, I ask you why you contrive this obligation for him to depict violence graphically. And if violence has to be, then why not sex, too? Or mundane functions of the body? Etc, etc, ad infinitum.

[mark12_30]

"it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry."

[Lalwendë]

I started off disagreeing with davem, that Tolkien did show war 'as it was', but he's right - there is something oddly sanitised about how he presents war of this style (in fact war of any type - all war is grim). I know what davem means - it's not that we don't have descriptions of sinews being torn from bodies and eyes popping as arrows meet them, it's that we don't actually know how many of these people died or were injured at all.

This shouldn't really be an issue, however it is very much an issue if Tolkien was trying to tell his readers about the cruelty and brutality of war. How can we know just how cruel and brutal war is if all we are shown is clean swords and high words on the battlefield? It wasn't like that. War of that type was bloody and visceral and we merely get glimpses and have to fill in the gaps ourselves. And if we have no knowledge of the realities of a medieval style battle and all we have to go on are films and TV shows then we're never going to get a picture of just why this war was brutal.

If Tolkien was trying to avoid showing us medieval warfare as it was then we have to ask why? Him trying to ape classical literature isn't really acceptable as a reason to my mind as his primary interest was not in classical literature but in Northern epic and the Icelandic sagas certainly don't scrimp on brutality.

War does odd things to the mind. I wonder if Tolkien actively tried to avoid the grimmer realities, and why did he do this? Did he do it in some way to try and make his heroes seem somehow 'higher' than us? We know Eomer has a 'fell' mood on him but we don't know what he does. To some he will cleanly chop off Orc heads, but to others he would likely be cutting ears off living Orcs and laughing as he does so. Should Tolkien have left room for us to read into it what we liked according to our knowledge of military history?


In many ways Tolkien partakes of a certain Edwardian (if not Victorian) attitude towards military pursuits, so it is quite possibly a cultural value he demonstrates.

Yes, I think you're onto something here. Tolkien, despite his experience, seems to cling more to the old world view of battle if we merely take his descriptions of military action as an example (neatly leaving aside any underlying philosophy...too much a can of worms). Like the older style war memorials, his depictions of war are what you could almost call undemocratic - we see the leaders mostly, the main characters, we see very little of the 'ordinary Tommy' shaking in his boots as Orcs swarm around him. It's a very old view of things - to be swept away after WWI, and exemplified by a change in the statuary - see the stark and democratic Cenotaph designed by Lutyens which commemorates no one leader, but all involved equally.

To be fair, it may be a necessity of the way he writes as we follow characters and experience Middle-earth through their eyes and conversations, and to bring in random other characters may disrupt that flow. But still there are sticking points as davem says, like the various death scenes which are wholly unrealistic. Still sad of course, but not real, and not enough to put us readers off taking up swords.

Interesting too, as prior to WWI death in War (and out of war, too, so it seems) was almost taken as a given and was something that in general was not abhorrent, and seen as inevitable or as fulfilling a 'duty' but nowadays it's universally seen as utterly tragic, often criminal and evil; and with that shift in thought we also moved from Arts which focussed on the leaders/heroes and moved into Arts which examined the ordinary folk caught up in it all. Did Tolkien move on too?

It's a question worth asking and not trying to avoid just because we love Tolkien so much!

(Ironically, I find Pullman to the personification of Tolkien's Melkor: bitter at not being able to create, he instead takes the creations of others, twists them, and then congratulates himself on his own genius.)

I beg to differ 100% ;)

[davem]

Yep - I did originally post this as Lal - one of the problems of sharing a computer...

"it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry."

War, real, true, war, is not 'purged of the gross', though. War is gross - except, perhaps, in Tolkien's depiction, where is is tragic, moving, heart-breaking, but never really, truly, gross. If Pelennor Fields was depicted in all its Primary World reality, with the ground a bloody morass, men dying in agony, trying to stuff their spilled entrails back into their stomachs, screaming for their mothers & sweethearts, with arrows & spears skewering them, limbs missing (oh, imagine Braveheart meets the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan), then we'd have a very different take on the event, & on the story as a whole. And let's not forget the attrocities committed out of fury & vengeance on helpless & dying opponents.

Oh, & all the 'good guys' line up to fight - there are no white feathers handed out, no-one deserts, either from cowardice or sheer bloody terror (& thus there's no need for such 'cowards' to be executed as a lesson to others....)

What we do get is a competition between Legolas & Gimli to see who can slaughter the most Orcs.

But why is all that missing? And is it ok that its missing? Does the fact that Tolkien was writing a 'Fantasy' novel excuse that absence?

Is 'purging the gross' sufficient excuse?

[Andsigil]

I beg to differ 100% ;)

Lalwendë,
You are most free to beg and differ, and do both at 100%. I'll find Pullman and his cheap works loathsome, regardless. ;)


davem,
Again, Tolkien depicts love in the Rings and in the Silmarillion. However, he doesn't get bogged down describing, as Shakespeare called it, "the beast with two backs". Nor is there any need. Nor, most importantly, would it fit the style of writing he used which was reflective of ancient epics.

So, why contrive this odd requirement for him to describe war in bloody detail? Just curious, but why is it so important to you?

[Rumil]

Weell,

Does the Prof minimise the suffering and grossness of war?

Go not to the elves for they will say both yes and no!

Yes, obviously no graphic descriptions of horrendous injuries.

No, the clues are there if you look for them

What on earth am I on about? Well, JRRT wrote when every adult knew more than they wished about the reality of war, his generation, what was left of it, served in the horror of trenches, then everyone was exposed to total war and strategic bombing in WW2. So he doesn't need to describe it all in graphic terms.

Those that know are given the cues - Sam deploring the battle of men versus men, the dead marshes, the decapitated head missiles, it is plain that there are atrocities and 'grossness' in Middle Earth warfare, but they are left, mostly, to the imagination. Surely this is even more disturbing? I'm thinking Alien (horror film) versus Aliens (action film). The less you describe, the more you force the reader's imagination into overdrive.

On the other hand, could the book have been too graphic? Was Tolkien writing for children, teenagers or adults? If it were in any part the first two, then graphic violence would not have been permitted in the 50s.

I think Tolkien knew how gross mediaeval warfare was, the Viking blood-eagle etc. As for Towton, the likelihood is that most people were killed when fleeing, not during the fighting, but that makes little difference really. He hints rather than describes, perhaps that is all that was possible at the time?

I must say that certain authors who depict violence most graphically seem to enjoy writing about that sort of thing a bit too much, this to me is un-attractive. The Prof had been there, seen all that and didn't (for the sake of his own and his readers' sanity) wish to dwell on it.

This doesn't seem unreasonable to me, wonder if he would have written it differently nowadays?

[Morthoron]

Rumil brings up several good points, and the more one considers Tolkien's battles (I am speaking of those in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit), the more we find Tolkien eschewing direct combat sequences altogether for battles being recounted after the fact. At least two of the most important battles (to the plot, at least) are the Battle of Five Armies and the Battle before the Black Gates. In both cases, the battles are interrupted before they get heavy (in one, Bilbo is knocked unconscious, and the other Pippin is smothered beneath a troll). The actual battle scenes are described later under much more favorable circumstances.

And if anyone has spoken at length to any war vet (like my father, a WWII vet, for instance), they recall the glorious events or the fun times they had. You have to literally pry any reminiscences of horror out of them with a crowbar (if they'll reveal them at all). They don't want to talk about it unless they are forced to (and this is particularly true of WWI and WWII vets for some reason). Tolkien's reminiscences of horror (like the faces in the Dead Marsh) are subtle reminders of his personal war experiences, rather than the overt statements made by Owen, Sassoon or Erich Maria Remarque.

Tolkien's books are epics presented in a classical, nearly mythological form (the Sil more so than LotR, but nevertheless legendary elements literally appear on every page); therefore, the plot centers on the noble heroes (even Samwise the Everyman is Jack in the Beanstalk, for all intents and purposes), and the crises and eucatastophe are fairy tale in quality (a quest, a ring, the destruction of an immortal evil, etc.). Tolkien was strident, almost vehement, that LotR was not allegorical to WWI or WWII, and for good reason. It has nothing to do with real world conflicts; rather, it has everything to do with Faery and a rousing tale on the grand scale.

[davem]

I think Tolkien knew how gross mediaeval warfare was, the Viking blood-eagle etc. As for Towton, the likelihood is that most people were killed when fleeing, not during the fighting, but that makes little difference really. He hints rather than describes, perhaps that is all that was possible at the time?

But again, its not the detail in which the fact is described, but the acknowledgement of the fact itself. And I'm principally asking whether its acceptable to avoid mentioning it. Does Tolkien honestly depict the facts of warfare - & if so, is that ok, as he's writing a 'fantasy'.

The Prof had been there, seen all that and didn't (for the sake of his own and his readers' sanity) wish to dwell on it.


So, he does 'sanitises' warfare? He makes it seem less brutal & ugly than it is? War is good guys vs bad guys & those who fall in battle are granted a heroic death? As I said, this avoids the need to question the morality of war - no-one in M-e would question whether it was right to fight against Sauron - hence no white feathers being handed out & no-one runs, or panics or suffers shell-shock & gets taken away & shot at dawn. There's this whole dimension of warfare which is entirely absent from Tolkien's depiction of warfare - & its the most difficult part. Did Tolkien avoid it because it wouldn't have been 'acceptable' at the time he was writing, or simply because he didn't want to have to deal with that kind of thing? Does writing fantasy excuse one avoiding unpleasant facts of reality - & if so, what value does it actually have?

[Lalwendë]

Yes, obviously no graphic descriptions of horrendous injuries.

No, the clues are there if you look for them

What on earth am I on about? Well, JRRT wrote when every adult knew more than they wished about the reality of war, his generation, what was left of it, served in the horror of trenches, then everyone was exposed to total war and strategic bombing in WW2. So he doesn't need to describe it all in graphic terms.

Those that know are given the cues - Sam deploring the battle of men versus men, the dead marshes, the decapitated head missiles, it is plain that there are atrocities and 'grossness' in Middle Earth warfare, but they are left, mostly, to the imagination. Surely this is even more disturbing? I'm thinking Alien (horror film) versus Aliens (action film). The less you describe, the more you force the reader's imagination into overdrive.

On the other hand, could the book have been too graphic? Was Tolkien writing for children, teenagers or adults? If it were in any part the first two, then graphic violence would not have been permitted in the 50s.

There's no need for graphic descriptions of injuries, but likewise, there was no need for Tolkien to simply gloss over the fact that Eomer, Aragorn, Legolas etc must have done things like cut the arms and legs off Orcs, put arrows in the eyes of Variags and decapitate Men of Khand. Our heroes simply disappear and a couple of pages later there is a battle won. It's interesting looking in HoME as the final product is not too much different from the notes he wrote.

That's particularly pertinent when it comes to Tolkien's writing style as he is so often accused of lingering descriptions of landscapes and so forth, and we all know he can write lingeringly and effectively of horrors, but when it comes to battles, we almost get little more than a synopsis. Especially with Pelennor. It was OK for people of Tolkien's generation to simply read a rough outline and then fill in the gaps, but to people born since 1945 and who have never served or read much about warfare then battle is just something out of a video game - filling in the gaps isn't possible.

And if anyone has spoken at length to any war vet (like my father, a WWII vet, for instance), they recall the glorious events or the fun times they had. You have to literally pry any reminiscences of horror out of them with a crowbar (if they'll reveal them at all). They don't want to talk about it unless they are forced to (and this is particularly true of WWI and WWII vets for some reason). Tolkien's reminiscences of horror (like the faces in the Dead Marsh) are subtle reminders of his personal war experiences, rather than the overt statements made by Owen, Sassoon or Erich Maria Remarque.

I think this goes to the heart of it. It's likely that Tolkien had no artistic reason for leaving out the details of battle at all, it's probable that he simply did not like to write about it because it was painful.

So we know that Eomer got a blood lust on him, but we don't know what atrocities he commits. We know there must have been a body count as the good guys won, but we don't know how they won beyond the kind of description of strategy you might find in a text book. And our heroes must have been brutal - can you imagine the Orcs giving any quarter? Not a bit. And so nor would our heroes have done.

It was Tolkien's perogative to do this of course, but if he was intending to portray war as bad, as something to be avoided, then did he do the right thing?

[Morthoron]

It was Tolkien's perogative to do this of course, but if he was intending to portray war as bad, as something to be avoided, then did he do the right thing?

My take on Tolkien is that he viewed war like millions of other WWI or WWII vets, it had to be done. I say WWI and WWII because those were perhaps the last two 'righteous' wars that had to be fought to rid the world of an ultimate grasping evil (any beyond those, wars get so muddied one isn't quite sure who is exactly right or wrong and which party is evil). The wars in both the Hobbit and LotR are of a defensive nature, and beyond that Tolkien is quick to point out that war of an aggressive nature is an evil, as when the Numenoreans went from benevolent teachers to cruel tyrants of Middle-earth.

That's a quick take, anyway. I'm rapidly typing this while pounding down some coffee before I leave for work. I am sure, like everything else Tolkien, there are points to the contrary I have not considered in my groggy state.

P.S. So, Lal, what I was trying to convey regarding Tolkien was that he certainly put forth the proposition that war is inherently evil and that peace is an infinitely better lifestyle; however, he also stressed attention to duty, of loyalty and self-sacrifice that was a mirror of all the young lads of the BEF and the American volunteers (and yes, all those silly French persons too) who without complaint surrendered their lives at the Somme, the Ardenne and Belleau Wood. Tolkien's view tends toward the bravery of the individuals in war (both great and small characters) and how single acts of valor instill that feeling throughout the corp, rather than the nameless and faceless masses that are mowed down as they near enemy lines, or the ones who died of gangrene in a field hospital or of wasting diahrrea in a latrine.

[Lalwendë]

My take on Tolkien is that he viewed war like millions of other WWI or WWII vets, it had to be done. I say WWI and WWII because those were perhaps the last two 'righteous' wars that had to be fought to rid the world of an ultimate grasping evil (any beyond those, wars get so muddied one isn't quite sure who is exactly right or wrong and which party is evil). The wars in both the Hobbit and LotR are of a defensive nature, and beyond that Tolkien is quick to point out that war of an aggressive nature is an evil, as when the Numenoreans went from benevolent teachers to cruel tyrants of Middle-earth.


Yet I always see that the War of the Ring is a 'righteous' war and one carried out to rid the world of evil, and whereas WWII is usually seen in that way too, WWI isn't, it's more often seen as a pointless war in which whole brigades were slaughtered just to advance a trench by a few yards in the mud.

[Morthoron]

Yet I always see that the War of the Ring is a 'righteous' war and one carried out to rid the world of evil, and whereas WWII is usually seen in that way too, WWI isn't, it's more often seen as a pointless war in which whole brigades were slaughtered just to advance a trench by a few yards in the mud.

The European political lunacy that led up to WWI was pointless; the generals' (particularly the French generals, with the BEF in a subordinate role) reliance on the Offensive as the only strategy was pointless; the German refusal to seek a mediated settlement after realizing three months into the War that they could not win, and at best would spend years in a bloody stalemate, yet kept on blindly fighting anyway, was pointless; the Versailles Peace Treaty, a vengeful and counterproductive piece of vendetta, which virtually guaranteed a second war, was pointless.

However, the British, French, American, Australian and Canadian men (as well as countless other allied countries) who fought on the front lines did not consider that expending their lives for a few feet of precious ground was pointless. The Germans and their Austro-Hungarian allies were aggressors intent on carving up Europe (which they would eventually achieve in WWII), and they would have succeeded, to the detriment of European history, had the Guns of August not been silenced.

It was a horrible war, horribly managed. But the megalomaniacal Kaiser Wilhelm would have eventually forced a war one way or another even if Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated in Sarajevo. The war was an inevitably due to the belligerence and ego of one man: Wilhelm, just as 20 years later a second German fanatic would singlehandedly be the cause of over 20 million deaths.

[obloquy]

But again, its not the detail in which the fact is described, but the acknowledgement of the fact itself.

No, your issue is clearly with detail, not honesty. Tolkien acknowledges and portrays the gritty truth of war: lots of people die on both sides. That is "the fact," and anything more descriptive than that is "the detail in which the fact is described."

Even if Tolkien had written that all the warriors in those days died by disintegrating before any damage to their bodies occurred, it would still be an honest and acceptable depiction of war in Middle-earth. One could only accuse Tolkien of sanitizing warfare in this hypothesis if one imagines (irrationally) that Tolkien intended for the patently fantastic rules of an explicitly fantastic world to be transferred to the "Primary World" to illuminate certain truths. With the information Tolkien does provide, one might reasonably imagine all the severings and disembowelments one wishes. That Tolkien does not imagine them for us does not make his depiction dishonest, though it does indicate that preaching of the horrors of the battlefield was not his objective.

[davem]

No, your issue is clearly with detail, not honesty. Tolkien acknowledges and portrays the gritty truth of war: lots of people die on both sides. That is "the fact," and anything more descriptive than that is "the detail in which the fact is described."
My point is that one does not have to go into graphic descriptive detail, spending a paragraph describing the effect of a poleaxe blow to the face. One can simply state that 'X was hit in the face by a poleaxe' - rather than 'X was felled by a blow'. The first brings home the horror of battle in a way the second doesn't (&, btw, removes X's chance of making a profound farewell speech in the way that most men who fell in battle were denied that. They didn't get the chance to say goodbye.)

Even if Tolkien had written that all the warriors in those days died by disintegrating before any damage to their bodies occurred, it would still be an honest and acceptable depiction of war in Middle-earth. One could only accuse Tolkien of sanitizing warfare in this hypothesis if one imagines (irrationally) that Tolkien intended for the patently fantastic rules of an explicitly fantastic world to be transferred to the "Primary World" to illuminate certain truths.

Tolkien repeatedly claimed that 'Middle-earth' was our Primary world in the ancient past. The same rules apply - a sword blow or arrow strike will have exactly the same effect on the Pelennor as it would at Crecy.

That Tolkien does not imagine them for us does not make his depiction dishonest, though it does indicate that preaching of the horrors of the battlefield was not his objective.

Which actually creates the impression that the battlefield is not all that horrible a place - or at least not as horrible as it actually was. If rape is used as a weapon of war & a means of intimidation (as it pretty much always has been) we may not require a writer to describe the act in detail, but we would require him not to refer to it as 'making love to the women on the opposing side without their consent'.

If we look at the slaughter of Towton, or Agincourt ( soldiers screaming in pain sans limbs & innards, faces crushed & hacked open with bladed weapons, men at arms trampled & suffocating in the mud, mutilation of the dead & dying, men fleeing in terror being cut down - often by their own side, or executed later for 'cowardice', etc) are we to take it that that kind of thing didn't happen on the Pelennor against Easterlings & Southrons at the hands of Gondorians & Rohirrim , or that it happened, but Tolkien chose not to mention it? If its the latter then our whole impression of the nobility of the Men of the West is dealt a body blow. If its the former, then they were so different from men in battle in the primary world, particularly in the dark age & medieval period, then we have no real connection with them emotionally & psychologically anymore than we have with Robert E Howard's 'mighty-thewed barbarian'.

(This must be my fifth edit - but I wanted to just go back to Obloquy's statement:

Even if Tolkien had written that all the warriors in those days died by disintegrating before any damage to their bodies occurred, it would still be an honest and acceptable depiction of war in Middle-earth.
Which goes to the heart of this thread - how much freedom does a writer of Fantasy have? Does he or she have the right to depict war, & death in battle, as a nice, clean, civilised thing or God as a senile old fake? Is it simply the case that a writer of fantasy can set down on the page whatever they can imagine, or do we have the right to request they reside within particular boundaries? It would seem to me that many more folk are offended by Pullman's employing his freedom as a writer of fantasy to depict God in the way he does than they are by Tolkien's cleaned up & sanitised battlefields.

What I've been wondering all along is why that would be the case - or is it simply that they like what Tolkien did but dislike what Pullman did - are the boundaries to be set for a Fantasy writer's freedom determined simply by personal taste or whim? Pullman is not justified because I didn't like what he did, but Tolkien is justified because I did like what he did?

[skip spence]

While the depictions of battle are sanitized in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings they are not so in The Silmarillion. I will quote a few parts from the chapter "Of The Fifth Battle".

The beginning of the battle:
The Captain of Morgoth sent out riders with tokens of parley [...] With them they brought Gelmir, son of Guilin [...] and they had blinded him. Then the heralds of Angband showed him forth, crying: 'We have more such at home, but you must make haste if you would find them; for we shall deal with them all when we return even so.' And they hewed off Gelmir's hands and feet, and his head last, within sight of the Elves, and left him.

By ill chance, at that place in the outworks stood Gwindor of Nargothrond, the brother of Gelmir. Now his wrath was kindled to madness, and he leapt forward on horseback, and many riders with him; and they pursued the heralds and slew them, and drove on deep into the main host. And seeing this all the host of the Noldor were set on fire...

Of the fall of Fingon:
At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him; and he fought with Gothmog, until another Balrog came behind and cast a thong of fire about him. Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.

Of the fall of Huor:
There, as the sun westered on the sixth day, and the shadow of Ered Wethrin grew dark, Huor fell pierced with a venomed arrow in his eye, and all the valiant Men of Hador were slain in a heap; and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.

[davem]

Yes - as I acknowledged before, the Orcs behave like Orcs - they do nasty things to the good guys, but the good guys are never Orkish. The ugliness of a medieval battle rarely enters the pages of Tolkien. & when it does, it is surrounded with a golden poetic glow:

all the valiant Men of Hador were slain in a heap; and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.

[Mister Underhill]

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

[skip spence]

Yes - as I acknowledged before, the Orcs behave like Orcs - they do nasty things to the good guys, but the good guys are never Orkish. The ugliness of a medieval battle rarely enters the pages of Tolkien. & when it does, it is surrounded with a golden poetic glow:

I get your point and agree partially too (though I don't agree that an author should be criticised for being poetic). It's true that we never get any direct descriptions of the ugly deeds of the good guys but that they occur nonetheless is easy to perceive. Here's another quote from the Silmarillion regarding the Third Battle:

...they defeated the servants of Morgoth, and pursuing them across Ard-Galen destroyed them utterly, to the least and last, within sight of Angband's gates.

They destroyed them to 'the least and last'... That must have been a brutal slaughter of the Orcs and within sight of Angband's gates too, for all their mates to watch. And don't tell me that they didn't plea for mercy towards the end, when the battle already was lost and they were routed by the vicious Noldor. Nevertheless, they were slaughtered without mercy, every single one of them. Was that really necessary?

[Andsigil]

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

Agreed.

[Lalwendë]

While the depictions of battle are sanitized in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings they are not so in The Silmarillion. I will quote a few parts from the chapter "Of The Fifth Battle".


Yes, this is maybe the oddest thing. We know Tolkien was capable of describing horrors without going OTT but also without simply glossing over them, and that included describing what happened in battles and skirmishes. He writes about them in other works, but why not in Lord of the Rings?

In fact, in Lord of the Rings, he is also perfectly capable of describing the pain Frodo felt as he was stabbed, and the fight with the Wargs in Hollin, and we even get a little (but not a lot) more description of the military action at Helm's Deep. So why, when it gets to the mother of all battles, does he skip most of it out? It's interesting comparing the actual text with the outlines in HoME because there's not too much more descriptive text added...

Actually, what might help here (I'll put my teacher head on now) is to look closely at the most significant part of the text for details of what actually happened on Pelennor, so here it is for your enjoyment:

Hard fighting and long labour they had still; for the Southrons were bold men and grim, and fierce in despair; and the Easterlings were strong and war-hardened and asked for no quarter. And so in this place and that, by burned homestead or barn, upon hillock or mound, under war or on field, still they gathered and rallied and fought until the day wore away.

Then the Sun went at last behind Mindolluin and filled all the sky with a great burning, so that the hills and the mountains were dyed as with blood; fire glowed in the River, and the grass of the Pelennor lay red in the nightfall. And in that hour the great Battle of the field of Gondor was over; and not one living foe was left within the circuit of the Rammas. All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or Mordor; and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumour of the wrath and terror of Gondor.

Aragorn and Eomer and Imrahil rode back towards the Gate of the City, and they were now weary beyond joy or sorrow. These three were unscathed, for such was their fortune and the skill and might of their arms, and few indeed had dared to abide them or look on their faces in the hour of their wrath. But many others were hurt or maimed or dead upon the field. The axes hewed Forlong as he fought alone and unhorsed; and both Duilin of Morthond and his brother were trampled to death when they assailed the mumakil, leading their bowmen close to shoot at the eyes of the monsters. Neither Hirluin the fair would return to Pinnath Gelin, nor Grimbold to Grimslade, nor Halbarad to the Northlands, dour-handed Ranger. No few had fallen, renowned or nameless, captain or soldier; for it was a great battle and the full count of it no tale has told. So long afterward a maker in Rohan said in his song of the Mounds of Mundburg:

We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales ever,
to Arnach, to his own country returned in triumph;
nor the tall bowmen, Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

[davem]

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

But what we're discussing is the reality of 'medieval' warfare (setting aside the fact that a number of (minor, admittedly) Shakespearean characters do speak naturalistically) & the question remains whether a writer of fantasy has an obligation to reflect the reality of battle (among other things) honestly. Men in battle, when the adrenalin is pumping & their friends are being cut down beside them, do horrible things & death at the pointy end of an arrow or the blunt end of a battle-hammer, or with lungs full of bloody mud is horrible & not at all poetic.

So. Is the fact that Tolkien was writing a fantasy novel, set in a 'Secondary' reality, enough of an excuse for avoiding (or at least toning down) the truth - especially when there is a risk of misleading the reader into believing that such things didn't happen? Should a novel about war, whether a 'fantasy' novel or not, honestly reflect the facts about war?

Or, as Tolkien himself stated:

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being “arrested.” They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination. But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode. (On Fairy Stories)

There is a requirement that fantasy not be used 'frivolously' or 'only half-seriously'. However 'fantastic' the world created it must be treated seriously & honestly. He further states:

Fantasy does not blur the sharp outlines of the real world; for it depends on them.

Or does it? Should it? Should fantasy be the ultimate escape, allowing an author the freedom to do as he wishes with the raw material of the primary world, & with the products of his imagination - he can, if he wishes create a world where the sun in green, where death on a battlefield is clean & neat, or where 'God' is a senile control freak - or absolutely anything he or she wants, because 'its fantasy' & anything is permitted. But not if it 'depends on the sharp outlines of the real world' as Tolkien himself states is vital.

[Morthoron]

...We know Tolkien was capable of describing horrors without going OTT but also without simply glossing over them, and that included describing what happened in battles and skirmishes. He writes about them in other works, but why not in Lord of the Rings?

Actually, what might help here (I'll put my teacher head on now) is to look closely at the most significant part of the text for details of what actually happened on Pelennor, so here it is for your enjoyment:

...We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales ever,
to Arnach, to his own country returned in triumph;
nor the tall bowmen, Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

Isn't the text you referenced the perfect example of an Anglo-Saxon elegaic verse? As I said before, Tolkien is offering a tale of Faery (or in this case, a legendary war if you prefer) in its classical form, presented as it would be heard by those in mourning of their battle-slain kin or for later generations as sung by bard or minstrel.

As far as Lord of the Rings being approached differently than Tolkien's other works (like the Silmarillion), with nothing further to go on but my own intuition, I believe LotR was written in its certain style because it was, after all, initially a sequel to The Hobbit, as required by his publishers. Tolkien, of course, pushed the envelope in his own inimitable manner, and forced integral elements of his own beloved mythology (The Sil) into LotR so that the story fell in line with the older chronology of Middle-earth without sacrificing the cute, little Hobbits his publisher was clamoring for (I can see Unwin now: "But dash it all, John Ronald, the hobbits...where are the blasted Hobbits?").

Hmmm...but it seems I've lost my train of thought, or where I was going with this, but as The Hobbit was a children's book, and whereas LotR is less so, it is still within the realm of being read to children without requiring censors and expletive deletions, and there are clear-cut villains (and heinous traitors who get their deserved comeuppance) who do nasty things, and noble heroes who are above reproach (or at least repent of their folly 'ere the end). Black and White with very little Gray (as we argued about a year or so ago) -- this is the make-up of Faery as Tolkien sees it, or at least as he presents it in LotR; whereas, things are not so black and white in The Sil (in fact, good guys are often the bad guys as well in the 1st Age, selfish and even Oedipal), which is a much more scholary and adult read than either The Hobbit of LotR.

[davem]

We recently got around to a similar discussion on another board, & I wanted to maybe take up the ideas here, This is part of a post I made there, regarding Tolkien's depiction of the suffering & death of the Land, as opposed to people..


An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.

...there was no more for the new mill to do than for the old. But since Sharkey came They're always a-hammering and a-letting out a smoke and a stench, and there isn't no peace even at night in Hobbiton. And they pour out filth a purpose; they've fouled all the lower Water, and it's getting down into Brandywine. If they want to make the Shire into a desert, they're going the right way about it

The great chimney rose up before them; and as they drew near the old village across the Water, through rows of new mean houses along each side of the road, they saw the new mill in all its frowning and dirty ugliness: a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking outflow. All along the Bywater Road every tree had been felled.

The Old Grange on the west side had been knocked down, and its place taken by rows of tarred sheds. All the chestnuts were gone. The banks and hedgerows were broken. Great waggons were standing in disorder in a field beaten bare of grass. Bagshot Row was a yawning sand and gravel quarry. Bag End up beyond could not be seen for a clutter of large huts. 'They've cut it down!' cried Sam. 'They've cut down the Party Tree!'..... It was lying lopped and dead in the field. As if this was the last straw Sam burst into tears. 'The Scouring of theShire'

Those are just examples - we all know the chapter, & the repeated emphasis on the damage done by Sharkey's ruffians. We also know what happens when the four companions return:
Nearly seventy of the ruffians lay dead on the field, and a dozen were prisoners. Nineteen hobbits were killed, and some thirty were wounded. The dead ruffians were laden on waggons and hauled off to an old sand-pit nearby and there buried: in the Battle Pit, as it was afterwards called. The fallen hobbits were laid together in a grave on the hill-side, where later a great stone was set up with a garden about it. So ended the Battle of Bywater, 1419, the last battle fought in the Shire......, though it happily cost very few lives, it has a chapter to itself in the Red book, and the names of all those who took part were made into a Roll, and learned by heart by Shire-historians. The very considerable rise in the fame and fortune of the Cottons dates from this time; but at the top of the Roll in all accounts stand the names of Captains Meriadoc and Peregrin.



What's interesting is Sam's response:

The trees were the worst loss and damage, for at Sharkey's bidding they had been cut down recklessly far and wide over the Shire; and Sam grieved over this more than anything else. For one thing, this hurt would take long to heal, and only his great-grandchildren, he thought, would see the Shire as it ought to be.

The damage done to the Shire gets paragraph after paragraph. The destruction is described in graphic detail. The death of the 19 Hobbits gets a sentence & no account of how they died, whether quickly or slowly, in pain or not. Their burial gets another sentence. Then there's no further mention of them. The 'important' thing is the healing of the Shire, replacing the trees & putting right the damage to the land.

The 'culmination' of the chapter could have been the burial & the ceremony, & it would have been both beautiful & moving & brought home the central theme of the book - loss, & the inevitability of death. Instead what we get is a chapter that deals with the destruction & healing of the natural world .....,( oh, & by the way a few Hobbits got killed in the process, but let's not get sidetracked by trivialities....). Even our beloved Sam grieves over the loss of the trees more than anything else.....er..more than anything else - more than the fact that 19 innocent Hobbits gave their lives to save the Shire??

Again, the emphasis is on the destruction of the natural world, the pain & necessity of healing, Arda.

I've focussed there on the descriptions of the suffering of the Shire, but the depictions of the suffering & death of the land of Mordor is even more graphic & sickening. Why is Tolkien's hand freer when he is depicting the pain & death of the land than when he is depicting the pain & death of people?

EDIT

Another aspect of the reality of war that is worth considering is the suffering of non-combatants during wartime. The women & children have been evacuated from Minas Tirith, which again means that we are spared some of the real horror of war. This from Randle Holme III (1627-99), describing the (English - yes, we also had one.....) Civil War siege of Chester in December 1645

Eleven huge granadoes like so many tumbling demi-phaetons threaten to set the city, if not the world, on fire. This was a terrible night indeed, our houses like so many split vessels crash their supporters and burst themselves in sunder through the very violence of these descending firebrands ... Another Thunder-crack invites our eyes to the most miserable spectacle that spite could possibly present us with – two houses in the Watergate skippes joint from joint and creates an earthquake ... The grandmother, mother and three children are struck stark dead and buried in the ruins of this humble edifice, a sepulchre well worth the enemy's remembrance. But for all this they are not satisfied, women and children have not blood enough to quench their fury, and therefore about midnight they shoot seven more in hope of greater execution, one of these last lights in an old man's bedchamber, almost dead with age, and sends him some few days sooner to his grave then perhaps was given him. The next day six more break in amongst us one of which persuade an old woman to beare the old man company to heaven, because the times were evill. Our ladyes all this while, likewise merchants, keepe their sellers (ie cellars) & will not venture forth in these tymes of danger

[LadyBrooke]

(This is every thought I’ve had reading the entire thread, so some of this deals with stuff from pages back. It is also very long and possibly incoherent.)

To me the greatest horror (or victim) of war is not the dead, but those who, though living, are unable to cope or recover from what they experienced. This is what struck me the most about the ending of Lord of the Rings - Frodo is unable to find healing when he goes home. And though we can hope that he does find it over the sea, is that really a happy ending? I can’t consider it one because he (and Bilbo) are separated from their friends and families. And that to me is the greatest tragedy - one that I have seen too often in real life - those who are living but at the same time not, who are still fighting the war everyday in their minds. And Tolkien shows this with Frodo.

Dealing with the issue of lung cancer and Hobbits smoking, forgive me if I’m wrong, but was it even known at the time Tolkien was writing the books that smoking could kill people. From what I recall from my last Health class that link was only discovered in the late 60s or the 70s, while the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were written/published before that - in which case it would have been impossible for Tolkien to have dealt with that issue - in the same way it would have been impossible for say Shakespeare to have predicted that one day some idiots would try to dislike “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” because they think Oberon’s use of that flower resembles a date rape drug - yes, that is what some people I have the misfortune to have to spend time with think. Also some people have mentioned that people of Tolkien’s generation and the next would have been able to comprehend the reality of war and fill in the blanks but later generations wouldn’t. And this is one reason given for why Tolkien should have filled in the details. I have to disagree, for I believe that a writer’s utmost responsibility is to write the story they like, not a story for people generations and decades later. I haven’t seen the fact that very few people can comprehend the reality of life in Greece or Medieval Britain given as a reason to not read the Iliad or the legends of King Arthur.

The fact that Tolkien doesn’t describe agonizing deaths in LotR doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. Theoden’s death for one would have been absolutely horrific - especially if the horse wasn’t instantly dead but managed to kick him before dying. A horse lying across any part of your body can crush/shatter the bones. As somebody who has owned or taken care of 7 different horses and a miniature horse in the past year and some odd months I can safely say that a terrified horse is dangerous and will hurt you even if you are their favorite person in the world. The fact that he was able to gasp out a final speech does not mean that it wasn’t horrific. There is also the Dead Marshes which show that contrary to my generations view (and here I show how young I am, that the only war I have ever seen is the Iraqi war) that soldiers’ bodies are always brought home, they aren’t. Sometimes they are left on the battlefield due to the sheer logistics of bringing them back. Sometimes they aren’t enough people left (Didn’t Tolkien say that Thraundial only brought a third of his people back?) The idea of faces staring back at me from where they fell in battle - orcs, elves, humans all mixed together - haunted me for weeks.

Also you can find examples of horrific deaths in the other books - especially the Sil with Finrod being torn to shreds by a werewolf, Morgoth trampling Fingolfin (or was it orcs and Fingon), that guy that got killed in the Paths of the Dead etc. But they too, aren’t described in deep detail - we don’t get “and Finrod’s blood was splattered all over the walls, with his one of his arms lying in the corner, blah, blah, etc. etc.,” and that is part of what sets Tolkien apart. The fact that the horror is expressed without having to be graphic about it. He doesn’t have a responsibilty to describe the horrors of war to the public. Indeed, why should the reality of war have to be described to people in fiction? I would far prefer to have it taught in the schools, where people would have to deal with the reality of it, but so far none of my history classes have really touched on it. And I think most parents would throw a fit if school books started describing the reality of war for teenagers - Even when dealing with the Holocaust and Anne Frank most of my teachers have glossed over the eventual fate of her and the others.

Hmmm.......Trying to think of bad behavior on the part of the good guys (without actually going and getting the books, which requires going to the basement which does not have a good heating system, and it is currently in the 20s) all I can think of off the top of my head is the hunting of the Drudain (is that right?) by the Rohirrim. Certainly not good behavior.

[davem]

LadyBrooke - Thanks for a thoughtful contribution. Again, its difficult - despite being accused a few times of wanting to see graphic depictions of violence, I'm not suggesting any such thing. The point I was making is simply that we do not get a real sense of the animal horror of battle, & the question I was asking is simply this - 'Knowing the truth, that a battle is a terrible, ugly, disgusting place (medieval battlefields stank - of blood, vomit & excrement. The sreams of the wounded & dying were so terrible that they would be burned into the memories of those who experienced them even into old age - something which is still the case, even in our own 'modern' warfare). Many posters have given reasons why Tolkien avoided that aspect of battle, but my main question remains unanswered - 'Should Tolkien have avoided that aspect, & does the omission leave out something of vital importance?' And, again, why are his depictions of the suffering & death of the land so graphic (of Mordor - "The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows. ..."

people in the story, however badly wounded, don't 'vomit the filth of their entrails' on the earth but the earth itself does.

And something really weird just happened - googling to get that last quote I came across this essay, a review of the Jackson movies http://leesandlin.com/reviews/05_0107.htm which says many of the things I've been saying here (see, its not just me)

What's odd, though, is that Tolkien himself knew exactly how fake it was. For all you can tell from the movie, Peter Jackson might never have witnessed a violent act in his entire life, but Tolkien had been in battle: he had been a signalman on the front lines in World War I. He learned there firsthand that battle is squalid and gory and desperately confused. But when he wrote The Lord of the Rings he deliberately turned his back on the reality and put this pale Arthurian kitsch in its place.

That's not to say that the reality is missing. In fact Tolkien's experience of real warfare pervades The Lord of the Rings -- just in disguise. You can detect its presence from the quality of his prose, which tends to grow more forceful and impassioned whenever the secret subject makes itself felt.....

The Lord of the Rings is essentially a recasting of the war into an emotionally bearable form. Everything that made the war such a psychic torment is carefully contained, or eliminated from Middle Earth altogether. Nobody in the hobbit fellowship displays cowardice under fire; nobody ever accidentally kills somebody on his own side; nobody goes mad in the heat of battle. The warriors don't get bored or irritable or horny on their long journey to Mordor; not even the studly Aragorn ever sneaks away from camp at night to look for the nearest elf bordello. The few people in the book who oppose the war invariably turn out to be under the malign influence of Sauron. Even at the climax before the Black Gate of Mordor, when our heroes make a useless, suicidal charge against a fixed position (as tended to happen quite often on the western front), nobody suggests, even as a theoretical possibility, that their noble commanders might be fools.

It's an adolescent view of war, which is one reason the book tends to take adolescent readers by storm. You can see it reflected in every frame of the movie's battle scenes, which are teenage daydreams to the highest power, spiffy and dry-cleaned and sparklingly pretty, the best video games ever. The on-screen body count may be higher than Saving Private Ryan and Dawn of the Dead combined, but when the camera swoops and dives and soars over the swarming chaos of the virtual battlefield, somehow it never catches a glimpse of anybody writhing gracelessly in agony or sloppily bleeding to death. No wonder the movie copped only a PG-13 rating for its "epic battle scenes." "Epic" evidently means "wholly unreal." It's not true violence; it's barely even movie violence. It's just a million orcs blowing up real good, the way orcs are supposed to.

This fantasy may have been emotionally necessary for Tolkien. But it's dangerous for the rest of us to buy into. The danger isn't that we're bound to be disillusioned -- it's that we might not be. If the perennial success of the book and the celestial box office of the movies prove anything, it's that too many people still daydream of war in exactly the same way Tolkien did (in some cases because they learned it from him). Tolkien advocated a war of annihilation against the orcs, and that's harmless, because there are no such things as orcs. But then a real war breaks out, and orcs mysteriously start appearing on the other side. During World War II, Nazi propagandists called black American soldiers monkeys; American propagandists called Japanese soldiers monkeys. At Helm's Deep, Gimli and Legolas hold a contest to see how many orcs they can kill. Ask yourself whether anybody might be playing that game right now in Iraq.

The Lord of the Rings ends with the enemy not just defeated but annihilated: Sauron and all his works go up in a puff of smoke and are never seen in Middle Earth again. Even for a daydream, this is pretty infantile. But given the terms of Tolkien's war, is there any other way it could have gone?

David Jones was psychically broken by World War I, and, unlike Frodo, he didn't get to sail for elf heaven to be healed. He dedicated In Parenthesis to the soldiers he fought beside, "to the memory of those with me in the covert and in the open from the blackwall the broadway the cut the flats the level the environs" -- but he also dedicated it to "the enemy front-fighters who shared our pains against whom we found ourselves by misadventure." Frodo writes his memoirs at the end of The Lord of the Rings, but there's no such dedication to the orcs.

OK, now I don't go all the way with the writer - Tolkien was writing an 'epic romance' not reportage. I think he fails to appreciate Tolkien's art, & insults his work unnecessarily... but I don't think he's completely wrong. A very real, vital aspect of war is absent from Tolkien's war epic, & I certainly think its valid to ask why that's so, & what that means.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

OK, now I don't go all the way with the writer - Tolkien was writing an 'epic romance' not reportage. I think he fails to appreciate Tolkien's art, & insults his work unnecessarily... but I don't think he's completely wrong. A very real, vital aspect of war is absent from Tolkien's war epic, & I certainly think its valid to ask why that's so, & what that means.

Hmm, didn't you just say that Tolkien was writing an epic romance, not a war epic? :) That, perhaps, is why something about war is "missing" from Tolkien's work, I think: he's not really writing about war. He's writing about a changing world, about the growing pains of a world shifting from one in which "magic" is real to one in which it is only a memory, and a fading memory at that. The world of Men will not be without its own achievements, but the Art he so often associates with the Elves will not be of such a high degree; if I recall correctly, Faramir acknowledges this in his talks with Frodo, saying that the Men of Gondor have become more like the lesser Men of Rohan, and have lost much of their knowledge and skills that once made them the greatest of Men. I do think that the ravages of war upon the land made a great impression on Tolkien, and this comes across clearly in his writing. His experience with the human suffering it entailed may have been too personal for him to communicate effectively (or in a manner which would have felt appropriate to him). We do see some of it in the suffering of Frodo, and the changes wrought on the other Hobbits of the company, and as someone recovering from PSTD, I find it quite sufficient. Others will not, obviously. To each their own.

[davem]

Hmm, didn't you just say that Tolkien was writing an epic romance, not a war epic? :) That, perhaps, is why something about war is "missing" from Tolkien's work, I think: he's not really writing about war. He's writing about a changing world, about the growing pains of a world shifting from one in which "magic" is real to one in which it is only a memory, and a fading memory at that. T.

No - he is writing about war. He's just not writing about it realistically. People die on the field, but they don't really die. Like in those old westerns, when shot they grab their chests & fall over stone dead, quickly & cleanly. They end up dead - & the tragedy of that is plain for all to read; the loss felt by those who survive them is undoubted - they just don't DIE an ugly, animal death to get there, & anyone who has read any mistory of war knows that that's how people did die in battle.

Tolkien wrote about a war, about battles, about killing. He wrote a novel about death in which no-one really dies - they just get dead.

[Rumil]

Hi all,

Davem, mst say that in some aspects I do agree with you, while inclining to your 'opposition' in others. As I've not entirely sorted the 'whys and wherefores' in my own head, I'll confine myself to nitpicking the article you quoted.

Nobody in the hobbit fellowship displays cowardice under fire Though the soldiers of Minas Tirith do

nobody goes mad in the heat of battle
Eomer gets rather carried away at the Pelennor

The warriors don't get bored or irritable or horny on their long journey to Mordor
Who knows? Practically nothing is said of the warriors on their journey to Mordor!

at the climax before the Black Gate of Mordor, when our heroes make a useless, suicidal charge against a fixed position
No they don't, they defend the 2 ash hills

nobody suggests, even as a theoretical possibility, that their noble commanders might be fools though the Rohirrim come pretty close to it on the way to Helm's Deep

Nobody in the hobbit fellowship displays cowardice under fire; nobody ever accidentally kills somebody on his own side; nobody goes mad in the heat of battle. The warriors don't get bored or irritable or horny on their long journey to Mordor; not even the studly Aragorn ever sneaks away from camp at night to look for the nearest elf bordello. The few people in the book who oppose the war invariably turn out to be under the malign influence of Sauron. Even at the climax before the Black Gate of Mordor, when our heroes make a useless, suicidal charge against a fixed position (as tended to happen quite often on the western front), nobody suggests, even as a theoretical possibility, that their noble commanders might be fools.
All of these happen (in 1st Age context) with Turin and his pals

[LadyBrooke]

Okay I think I understand what you’re saying now davem and will try to address what you’re asking. Do I think that Tolkien avoided the horror of war, should he have avoided that aspect, and does it leave out something of vital importance?

Well, in LotR and TH I do think that something of the true horror of war is missing, aspects we can see quite clearly in CoH and Sil. Pondering why this is I was reminded of something that one of my great-uncles once said. He said that the horror was something that could not be described by him because it was something that was such a personal part of him that he could not lay it bare before other people. At the same time though he wrote it all down but he kept it locked in a safe because he didn’t want others to see it. Perhaps this is part of the reason why LotR and TH are so sterilized. It is very hard to publish something dealing with a personal piece of you even if it is a fictionalized account.

Also some people deal with stress and grief in different ways and perhaps the nice warfare of LotR and the horrors of the Sil and CoH are simply the different ways that Tolkien dealt with his memories. I cannot remember where I read it, but wasn’t LotR’s writing difficult for Tolkien during WWII. Perhaps this is because he had to face the reality of war again as his sons were fighting and he couldn’t ignore it in his writings.

Now for the second part of the question, should he have avoided that aspect? I am a big supporter of the thought that a writer’s principle responsibility is to write what is right for that writer. It would be easy to say yes or no, but in the end I don’t think it would have been LotR if he had changed that aspect of it, and more importantly it wouldn’t have been the story he wanted to tell. So in the end I have to say that he did what was right for him.

Finally, I don’t know. I think even if he had included the most horrific elements of war he could have imagined it wouldn’t have rivaled the reality of war in our present time because there are no machine guns or gas chambers in ME. Therefore did he leave out something of vital importance? I can’t answer that question. If we say that he did, where does the buck stop? Do we start going after every book for not having a realistic view of war? Do we go after Shakespeare for misrepresenting historical events? Nancy Drew for not being true to the Great Depression? s it leave out something of vital importance?

[Morthoron]

davem,
The reviewer is, of course, correct on some points; however, he loses his moral high ground by being utterly ignorant of the original story, and even of PJ Jackson's intent for the movies.

The Lord of the Rings is essentially a recasting of the war into an emotionally bearable form. Everything that made the war such a psychic torment is carefully contained, or eliminated from Middle Earth altogether. Nobody in the hobbit fellowship displays cowardice under fire; nobody ever accidentally kills somebody on his own side; nobody goes mad in the heat of battle. The warriors don't get bored or irritable or horny on their long journey to Mordor; not even the studly Aragorn ever sneaks away from camp at night to look for the nearest elf bordello. The few people in the book who oppose the war invariably turn out to be under the malign influence of Sauron. Even at the climax before the Black Gate of Mordor, when our heroes make a useless, suicidal charge against a fixed position (as tended to happen quite often on the western front), nobody suggests, even as a theoretical possibility, that their noble commanders might be fools.

Does Aragorn being horny for someone other than Arwen make the movie better? Does getting the clap from a bar wench in Edoras somehow enrich the story, and what other more important item needed to be edited out to make way for yet another secondary storyline in a tale already overflowing with separate storylines? Do you think Tolkien got into someone's pants in France, ignoring the fact that Edith was waiting for him back home? Would he ignore his Catholicism for a cheap night out?

Nobody in the Fellowship displays cowardice? I would suggest the Fellowship was chosen precisely because they could overcome fear. They all display doubts and fears at times, but they move ahead in spite of them, just as millions of other soldiers have over the centuries. Cowardice in a disciplined army is an anomaly, not the rule, and those that flee are branded for life.

As someone already pointed out, Aragorn's army at the Black Gate defends two hills, not as Jackson portrayed the charge in the movie; however, what does it matter that they defended hills or attacked head on? It was a suicide mission, a tactical means of buying time for the real mission to succeed. They knew they were outnumbered, and they knew they had no chance of winning. I would suggest the only fool in this instance is the reviewer, who just doesn't get it.

It's an adolescent view of war, which is one reason the book tends to take adolescent readers by storm. You can see it reflected in every frame of the movie's battle scenes, which are teenage daydreams to the highest power, spiffy and dry-cleaned and sparklingly pretty, the best video games ever. The on-screen body count may be higher than Saving Private Ryan and Dawn of the Dead combined, but when the camera swoops and dives and soars over the swarming chaos of the virtual battlefield, somehow it never catches a glimpse of anybody writhing gracelessly in agony or sloppily bleeding to death. No wonder the movie copped only a PG-13 rating for its "epic battle scenes." "Epic" evidently means "wholly unreal." It's not true violence; it's barely even movie violence. It's just a million orcs blowing up real good, the way orcs are supposed to.

Again, would the movie had been better if it received an R rating? How about going all the way and just making it X rated, with Saturnalian Rohirrim copulating wildly with their horses and dwarves bumping stubbies, while orcs eat the brains of children as they quiver with still beating hearts? Does that somehow make the movie (or the book, for that matter) better? The reviewer in his blithe inanity wishes to restrict the viewing of the movie to adults, and not just ordinary adults, but those who relish burst craniums and spewing disembowlments (and whore houses on a weekend furlough). The enduring legacy of Lord of the Rings is that it can be read by children and adults, and enjoyed by a wide spectrum of readers. Why pick on just Lord of the Rings? How about the utter lack of graphic violence in Star Wars? Or the Narnia Chronicles? Or the Wizard of Oz, for that matter? I want to see the crushed body of the Wicked Witch of the East pulled in fleshy shreds from under Dorothy's house!

people in the story, however badly wounded, don't 'vomit the filth of their entrails' on the earth but the earth itself does.

OK, now I don't go all the way with the writer - Tolkien was writing an 'epic romance' not reportage. I think he fails to appreciate Tolkien's art, & insults his work unnecessarily... but I don't think he's completely wrong. A very real, vital aspect of war is absent from Tolkien's war epic, & I certainly think its valid to ask why that's so, & what that means.

Bottom line, if it contained the type of graphic realism you are asserting is necessary, I most likely would not have been allowed to read it in grade school because it would not have been allowed in the library, and a fundemental part of my literary experience would have been witheld. My daughter would not be allowed to read it, nor could she watch the movie with me, and an endearing part of the bond we share would be utterly lost.

I'll take the fantasy over the disembowelments.

[Gwathagor]

To me the greatest horror (or victim) of war is not the dead, but those who, though living, are unable to cope or recover from what they experienced. This is what struck me the most about the ending of Lord of the Rings - Frodo is unable to find healing when he goes home. And though we can hope that he does find it over the sea, is that really a happy ending? I can’t consider it one because he (and Bilbo) are separated from their friends and families. And that to me is the greatest tragedy - one that I have seen too often in real life - those who are living but at the same time not, who are still fighting the war everyday in their minds. And Tolkien shows this with Frodo.



I think that it can be considered a happy ending; Frodo made a conscious sacrifice and was content with it. And sacrifice is beautiful.

[davem]

I think that it can be considered a happy ending; Frodo made a conscious sacrifice and was content with it. And sacrifice is beautiful.

Unless you're the sacrifice - in which case it probably hurts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder .

Let's look at a specific example - one main charater's reaction to an event & how that even is presented to us readers. In the battle of Bywater 19 Hobbits are killed. They are (we assume) killed by Ruffians, not by 'Friendly Fire' in the chaos (though a reading of real wartime events - say from the English Civil Wars - reveals a lot of incidents of gross stupidity, not simply from the commanders, but from idiot soldiers discharging firearms at their own side, or from prisoners held on powder wagons being given lights for their pipes & blowing themselves & surrounding soldiers to pieces... however, I digress). 'kay, so, these Hobbits are killed....how? By Ruffians with knives, whips & clubs. How do we think they actually died? Blow to the head which brings instant death? Stab through the heart which leads to painless oblivion? No - maybe one or two of them if they were very lucky, but anyone who has read up on medieval combat will know that most of those deaths would have been drawn out affairs of possibly a few hours, with lots of blood, screaming & unpleasant odours. They would, in the main, have been Hobbiton Hobbits who Sam would have known all his life... but for him the felled trees 'were the greatest loss'. This isn't simply a refusal on Tolkien's part to give us the graphic detail of how people really die in battle - its a flat refusal to acknowledge that its actually bad. If Sam is truly more devastated by the loss of the trees than the loss of the Hobbits then there's something up with Sam. The idea that the Shire could drift back to normal afterwards & only Frodo carry a burden of pain & suffering says a lot about the other Hobbits capacity for not giving a damn about the loss of their friends.

So much death happens, but it has so little longs term effect on people - the survivors hold a funeral, sing a song about the fallen, & then plant some trees. And it seems to me that we don't actually question this - Tolkien's depiction of battle is romanticised - & that is my point: there are not only two alternatives - either you do what Tolkien did, & present death in battle with a romantic, elegiac glow or you go in for a pornographic depiction of blood, snot & vomit which would sicken the majority of readers & make the book unreadable. There is a third alternative - to acknowldge the horror of actual death by not simply stating 'X dozens, hundreds or thousands lay dead' or 'X was cut down by axes '& walked never again in the flowering meads of his homeland under the evening stars' - which is a way of not writing about how X died. As I said earlier - most of the casualties in LotR don't really die, they just get dead. Alive one second, dead the next with the unpleasant transition avoided.
LotR is about death, but its not about dying - which is odd in a war novel.

But, again, as I keep getting accused of wanting slo-mo close-ups of graphic violence in the book.... why does Tolkien shy away from the depiction of dying in a book about death, is that honest, & are we, as readers, deprived of something if that aspect is left out? We've been discussing on another thread the effect of medieval weaponry - the damage that an axe will inflict over that of a sword - & we've talked about how an axe, or battle hammer doesn't have to penetrate to kill, 'cos it will still break bones & burst internal organs beneath armour with the force of impact. How many people died on the Pelennor with that kind of injury? (What did they do with the corpses btw - another thing Tolkien avoids dealing with - the casualties (apart from the main characters), having made the quick, clean, painless transition from living to dead, conveniently disappear from the text without the need for the gathering up of body parts & burial of bits.

Tolkien is omitting facts here - facts he had learned from personal experience.

(Anyway, really have to run....)

[Gwathagor]

Unless you're the sacrifice - in which case it probably hurts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course it hurts, but that does not detract from (and maybe adds to) the beauty of willing sacrifice - which, I should add, is objective and has nothing to with the beholder.

[davem]

Of course it hurts, but that does not detract from (and maybe adds to) the beauty of willing sacrifice - which, I should add, is objective and has nothing to with the beholder.

Including suicide bombers?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The duality was present in Tolkien's mind, certainly. Here is a passage he wrote shortly after his war service:

'Aye, often enough,' said Eriol, 'yet not to the great wars of the earthly kings, which are cruel and bitter, whelming all in their ruin all the beauty of the earth and of those fair things that men fashion with their hands in times of peace -- nay, they spare not sweet women and tender maids, such as thou, Veanne Melinir, for then are men drunk with wrath and the lust of blood, and Melko fares abroad. But gallant affrays have I seen wherein brave men did sometimes meet, and swift blows were dealt, and strength of body and of heart was proven.'

Again, the 'great wars' are of Melko, as the ghastly moonscape of the Western Front was transferred to Sauron: it was almost as if Tolkien envisioned war as he knew it being the enemy, and wrote of its defeat by 'gallant affrays.'

Still, it's a bit much to expect a man like Tolkien to write with mud-and-dung realism. He never describes Aragorn relieving himself behind a bush, nor does he detail the process by which Sam and Rosie produced all those children. They are to be assumed, in the same way blood and gore are to be assumed.

There is probasbly something to be mined comparing the hopelessness of the War of the Jewels, written in its essentials in the shadow of the pointless First World War, with the triumphalism of the War of the Rings, written during the Second- even bloodier than its predecessor, but a war nonetheless with a point and a purpose.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Suicide bombers? Say, rather, kamikazes, in whose willingness to die in defense of their homeland by sinking enemy ships there was a terrible beauty. One could also mention Leonidas' Spartans.

[davem]

Still, it's a bit much to expect a man like Tolkien to write with mud-and-dung realism. He never describes Aragorn relieving himself behind a bush, nor does he detail the process by which Sam and Rosie produced all those children. They are to be assumed, in the same way blood and gore are to be assumed.

But are the blood & gore to be assumed? Does Tolkien really intend us to see the shattered, hacked up bodies, the adrenalin driven attrocities commited by the 'good' guys as well as the Orcs, the 'cowardice', the 'friendly fire' incidents, the 'camp followers'? Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? If I assume that some Gondorian troops tortured & mutilated Easterling prisoners, or that their commanders arranged for 'cowards' to be executed at dawn, is that acceptable? I'd say not - because those things clearly did not happen in M-e, anymore than people actually 'die' instead of going rather quickly & neatly from quick to dead (unless of course they have a moving death speech to make before the end).

And that still leaves the problem of Sam's grief being greater for lost trees than for lost Hobbits.

But the question still remains 'Should Tolkien have avoided that aspect, & does the omission leave out something of vital importance?'

Tolkien decided to omit real dying in his story about death - is that something he should have done? If he honestly knew, as he did, that death in battle was a horrible, sickening thing should he not have made that clear? And by omitting it did he not miss out one of the essential points of why death is terrible - death is a terrible thing not just because it deprives the survivors of the victim's presence, but because the ending of one's life on the field is gross, agonising & generally without dignity. In fact, he did not simply omit to mention he horror of dying in battle, he created a world in which such horror is largely absent. In battle one is reduced to the state of an animal in an abattoir, hacked down & left to die in the mud. One may die for a noble cause, but the way one dies is rarely noble & on the field a dying knight & his dying horse are far more similar than many like to think. Except in Middle-earth.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But are the blood & gore to be assumed? Does Tolkien really intend us to see the shattered, hacked up bodies,

No more than he expects us to see reeking scat emerging from Strider's fundament.

the adrenalin driven attrocities commited by the 'good' guys... Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? If I assume that some Gondorian troops tortured & mutilated Easterling prisoners, or that their commanders arranged for 'cowards' to be executed at dawn,

Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? No, actually, I don't believe so. The Thrid Age was I think palpably different from whatever Age this is, and not just because the fantasy creatures are gone.

I sometimes liken Tolkien's idea of the progress of moral evil to an ink-drop in a glass of water: at first a distinct black globule, which starts to send out streamers and tendrils until it is all dissolved- but the water is now grey. We live in the Grey Age. The War of the Ring occurred when the ink-drop and its tendrils were still coherent- Sauron and his minions- but much of the water (Elves and many Men) was still largely clear or only slightly dingy. So, no, the Men of Gondor would not commit atrocities, just as, we are told, they do not lie, "not even [to] an Orc."

I'm not sure what really would have been gained had Tolkien written some grimly relativistic work wherein both sides were all right bastards. His thesis was that the Good exists and is worth defending, which remains true today as it did in the Forties- even though we know that the Allies didn't "set out with all unspotted soldiers." After all, his theory of Recovery is a process of viewing the world through a different prism.

[davem]

No more than he expects us to see reeking scat emerging from Strider's fundament.

But were the broken, hacked up bodies actually there?Did people actualy DIE, or did they just get nicely DEAD.

I'm not sure what really would have been gained had Tolkien written some grimly relativistic work wherein both sides were all right bastards. His thesis was that the Good exists and is worth defending, which remains true today as it did in the Forties- even though we know that the Allies didn't "set out with all unspotted soldiers." After all, his theory of Recovery is a process of viewing the world through a different prism.

In WWI there were decent Germans - ordinary young men who fought bravely & died horribly - it wasn't a case of good allies & evil Huns. Same applies in WWII. Yet in M-e the enemy are uniformly evil & can be dispatched with impunity. We never feel the tragedy of war - the waste of life on both sides (apart from Sam's moment of questioning in Ithilien - Sam wonders if the young man is truly evil, but for all we know he might have been. Sam's questioning shows us Sam's humanity, but we never see any 'humanity' among the enemy. And if we had we wouldn't have the story we have. If we got to know the Easterlings or Southrons as people we wouldn't have been able to tolerate their easy slaughter.

So, the 'truth' about how people die in battle, what human beings do to each other on the field, is absent. Should it be? Its an omission, but do we lose or gain by that omission? To repeat my earlier point:

there are not only two alternatives - either you do what Tolkien did, & present death in battle with a romantic, elegiac glow or you go in for a pornographic depiction of blood, snot & vomit which would sicken the majority of readers & make the book unreadable. There is a third alternative - to acknowldge the horror of actual death by not simply stating 'X dozens, hundreds or thousands lay dead' or 'X was cut down by axes '& walked never again in the flowering meads of his homeland under the evening stars' - which is a way of not writing about how X died. As I said earlier - most of the casualties in LotR don't really die, they just get dead. Alive one second, dead the next with the unpleasant transition avoided.
LotR is about death, but its not about dying - which is odd in a war novel.

[obloquy]

But were the broken, hacked up bodies actually there?Did people actualy DIE, or did they just get nicely DEAD.

There's no reason to assume some kind of magic prevented the mutilation of bodies slain with the cruel weapons of the age. Therefore, that death happened in a real way seems patent enough, and Tolkien's refrainment is perhaps to do with this presumption.

So, the 'truth' about how people die in battle, what human beings do to each other on the field, is absent. Should it be? Its an omission, but do we lose or gain by that omission? To repeat my earlier point:

Yes, it should be absent. In part because what is happening in Middle-earth is largely NOT what "human beings do to each other," but rather what humans and orcs do to each other. Orcs are manifestly evil, intended to be strictly unsympathetic. One might argue that what orcs do to humans (or more broadly what any warring humanoids do to one another) might be relevant. But really, it seems pretty clear that Tolkien's purpose was decidedly not to illuminate these grisly truths, for those reasons you have yourself beaten to death. Perhaps one reason that Tolkien refuses to embrace an allegorical reading of his story is exactly your point: any correlation of LotR's conflicts to the wars of the 20th century would be dishonest and dehumanizing.

[davem]

There's no reason to assume some kind of magic prevented the mutilation of bodies slain with the cruel weapons of the age. Therefore, that death happened in a real way seems patent enough, and Tolkien's refrainment is perhaps to do with this presumption.

Nope. There is a very important reason to assume the mutilation of bodies with the cruel weapons of the age was absent- Tolkien created Middle-earth & it only contains what Tolkien included. Tolkien did not include the horrors of dying in battle. People don't die horribly, even when 'pierced by many arrows' or having a full size horse dumped on top of them. The most horrific death in LotR (Denethor's) can be dismissed (comfortably) as being his own fault. Why do we assume the reader will 'assume' that people will die in M-e in the same way as some poor bugger at Agincourt, Towton, Kineton Fight or the Somme? I didn't. My 'assumptions' of how people died in those battles was actually shaped by movies like Olivier's Henry V, or Knights of the Round Table & to an extent also by reading Tolkien . It was only when I began reading up on military history that I began to see what was absent in Tolkien's depictions of battle - & that was exactly the kind of thing I've brought up in this discussion.



Yes, it should be absent. In part because what is happening in Middle-earth is largely NOT what "human beings do to each other," but rather what humans and orcs do to each other.

Except that Hillmen, Eastgerlings & Southrons are also involved. So this is about what humans do to other humans - its just that Tolkien avoids dealing with it.

Orcs are manifestly evil, intended to be strictly unsympathetic. One might argue that what orcs do to humans (or more broadly what any warring humanoids do to one another) might be relevant.

Which is what I have been arguing. By offering us an unsympathetic foe Tolkien is able to have his heroes kill thousands of them with impunity & never suffer the inconvenience of having to ask if what they're doing is right, face the possiblity that they have 'sinned', or, most importantly in this context, show them any respect.

Perhaps one reason that Tolkien refuses to embrace an allegorical reading of his story is exactly your point: any correlation of LotR's conflicts to the wars of the 20th century would be dishonest and dehumanizing.

This is not about allegorising. Its about reality (or 'secondary reality'). Its also about what readers take from the story. Now, one can decide 'Its just a fantasy, pure escapism. It means nothing at all & has no value beyond a few hours entertainment.' But... if one does take that approach then one, surely, must treat the whole book that way - the beauty of the natural world, the self-sacrifice of Frodo, the depiction of the corrupting effect of desire for power & control - none of that, or even the incredible feat of imagination behind it all - all just escapism & without any relevance to the reader beyond escaping the harsh realities of the real world for a bit.

The point is - everything else is there, except the reality of how people die in battle, which is skipped over. They're alive, they're dead, & the corpses (with their neat, tidy & instantly & painlessly mortal wounds) nicely disappear to save the survivors the sordid necessity of shovelling up the body parts & heaving the hundreds of thousands of bits into a mass grave. Then the survivors can get on with composing a nice elegy & replacing the trees with a clear conscience. Middle-earth is the most beautifully, perfectly created secondary world, Tolkien's prose touches perfection in many parts of LotR & his vision, his understanding of the human condition is profound. His meditations on the nature of mortality against immortality provide some of the most thought provoking moments in the whole of literature.

But his battle scenes are all fake. There, & only there, does he descend into an Edwardian, Boy's Own, vision of knights in shining armour, of derring do on the battlefield, of Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori & in Tolkien it is sweet & glorious to die on the field - because death on the field is quick & painless, free from suffering.

[obloquy]

I submit that the problem lies entirely with you.

[davem]

I submit that the problem lies entirely with you.

That's certainly a detailed refutation of all my points. I clearly can't argue with such a cogently argued response........

[LadyBrooke]

Gwathagor, I can’t consider it a happy ending because to me a happy ending would have necessitated the entire Fellowship surviving and being happy. Obviously that’s not what happens. Aragorn gets Arwen, but she never gets to see her family (save perhaps Celeborn and the twins) again; Boromir is dead, his father goes insane and tries to burn his brother to death; Legolas gets the sea longing and has to sail, most likely leaving his father behind; Frodo has to sail leaving his friends and family. Sacrifice isn’t happy to me, it is tragic that sacrifice is ever neccesary.

Oh dear:(, it appears I’m not expressing my self clearly enough, davem, if you still think that I think that you advocate graphic violence. I don’t, and agree with you that Tolkien could have expressed more of the reality of war without having to go into graphic detail. What I think you do believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is that it is Tolkien’s responsibility to show the reality of war in his books because otherwise people might get the wrong view of war. I have to disagree you that it is his responsibility (and I am probably biased as a writer and artist) because I believe that a writer’s utmost responsibility is to write the story that they want.

In the same way I don’t read fairy tales and expect my love life to end up like a fairy tale princess, Narnia and expect my closet to contain a portal to another world, or Shakespeare and expect everybody to start talking in poetic meter, I don’t read LotR and expect a realistic view of war.

Even the most fantastic of books can teach us something - without having to be realistic to our own world. And truthfully, for my own generation, I am glad that there are books like LotR to stand contrary to such things as Grand Theft Auto and the massive shoot out battles that seem to be in every other movie or video game.

[littlemanpoet]

Original question: is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs? It seems to me that the reverse of this question ought to be posed as well:
Is it right or acceptable to demand that Fantasy ought to explore certain ideas - if those ideas harmonize with contemporary values --- such as the horrors, cruelties, and brutality of war?

Good Fantasy convinces, bad Fantasy doesn't. But bad Fantasy isn't a 'threat' to Churches or political regimes, or to anyone's personal beliefs - because bad fantasy doesn't convince: it feels fake. Only good fantasy is a threat - because it does convince - of its 'reality', the possibility that a world like that is possible (if only logically possible).Perhaps it would be more useful to say that good fantasy doesn't descend into polemics and bad fantasy might. Pullman breaks his own spell with polemics. So to my mind, fantasy is not the prolbem people think it is, except to the weakminded who want to be told what to accept and reject without having to think for themselves.

Does good fantasy have to be rooted in reality to work?Fantasy cannot help but be rooted in reality. It's still a sun whether green or yellow or beige. So the question becomes, "How rooted in reality must a fantasy work be to work as believable (legitimate) fantasy?" Do the author's causes follow to believable results?

Of course, it could be (and has been) argued that Tolkien didn't write fantasy at all, but a romance, as he said himself.

Well, Tolkien's depiction of fantasy eschewed an explicit depiction of Evil.It depends on what you mean. The banality of orcs is pretty graphically conveyed. The potency of the witch king and the evil of the Morgul valley come across powerfully. Perhaps what is meant here is the degree of explicitness; which is, of course, the author's prerogative.

But it still leaves us with evil & ugliness of war being presented as, if not 'good' at least glorious...Every author makes choices. Tolkien chose to imply rather than rake through the squalor of it. Why desire the squalor?

Tolkien was not against war. Meriadoc's answer to Frodo in the Scouring of the Shire shows that. A war to defend home and community was not merely legitimate but virtuous; not to defend is to succumb to cowardice.

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.This is a demand for Tolkien to do in regard to war what Edmund Wilson demanded regarding sex. To show the horror, cruelty, and brutality of war, was not Tolkien's point.

In the end, Tolkien really doesn't need an excuse for his choices.

[davem]

What I think you do believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong) is that it is Tolkien’s responsibility to show the reality of war in his books because otherwise people might get the wrong view of war. I have to disagree you that it is his responsibility (and I am probably biased as a writer and artist) because I believe that a writer’s utmost responsibility is to write the story that they want.

Well, I'm just asking whether he should show the reality of war, & not so much whether people might get the 'wrong' view of war, but what kind of view of war they're being given, & why Tolkien chose to present war in that way. If Tolkien chose to depict war in one way rather than another why did he make that choice, & how does that affect the reader's perception of war? Do we gain something by having war & death in battle presented in Tolkien's 'romantic/elegiac' way, & if we do gain something by it what is that, & is what we gain good or bad? Do we lose something, & equally, is what we lose good or bad?

To expand the question I could ask, what was Tolkien's attitude to war, & did the way he presented it in LotR reflect his true feelings about it. Some have suggested that he was as 'graphic' & realistic in his depiction as the times (1940's) allowed in a novel, or as the genre he was writing in (epic romance) allowed. But is that true - is that the only reason for his choice? Does fantasy give carte blanche to an author? We've all seen the regular attacks on LotR that it is 'racist' - let's say it was blatantly racist, would the justification that 'Its fantasy' be acceptable? I'd say not (personal opinion).

I don’t read LotR and expect a realistic view of war. But do you expect an unrealistic view of it?.

[davem]

Every author makes choices. Tolkien chose to imply rather than rake through the squalor of it. Why desire the squalor?

.

Because the squalor is true - just as much as the honour, glory & self-sacrifice - & none of those are merely 'implied'

[Gwathagor]

You can't expect an author to include everything just because it's true. At what point is there enough detail? The author is always going to leave SOMETHING out, regardless of how hard he tries to be totally "realistic." So, what is included is determined by the themes of the story. Tolkien chose to focus on some of the nobler aspects of war and left the nastier stuff up to our imaginations. Both are equally real and legitimate subjects.

[davem]

Tolkien chose to focus on some of the nobler aspects of war and left the nastier stuff up to our imaginations. Both are equally real and legitimate subjects.

But I'm asking why Tolkien made the choice he did, what effect that has on his readers & what if anything would have been different if he had made the other choice - as well as whether his choice was legitimate.

Oh, another point - where are the crippled, maimed & blinded veterans in LotR?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

But I'm asking why Tolkien made the choice he did, what effect that has on his readers & what if anything would have been different if he had made the other choice - as well as whether his choice was legitimate.

Just chiming in - as for the second question: Of course his choice was legitimate. He is the author. His choice is always legitimate. And obviously, he made this choice - he wanted the narration to look in a certain way. G. Orwell wrote his 1984 with the intention to seem dystopian, and so it was. H.P. Lovecraft wrote his Call of Cthulhu in order to be terrifying, he felt no need to include the mundane way the world goes. Both were coming from some realistic background in the first place, but just to underline their main points: the impression they intended to give to the reader. So did Tolkien. He did not want his reader to see massacred hundreds of bodies. It simply did not fit his concept. People who read what he wrote have the right to pick these books just because it fits their taste. Somebody who does not like Orwell or Lovecraft, feeling them too pessimistic or frigtening or generally discomforting, can pick something else. Somebody who would think Tolkien lacks something important, can pick something else. There are enough authors (and not necessarily just belles-lettres) who portray the war far more "realistically".

It is the same as asking if, in a children's tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the author is legitimate not to include the fact that somebody eaten by a wolf won't probably look very good after climbing out of somebody's stomach, not to speak of the poor beast itself.

Fantasy is fantasy mainly just because it is not that tightly bound by reality, and in contrary to other genres of literature, the author is not only allowed to, but one can almost say, expected to make up things on his own. Any book you write is biased by your point of view anyway, even if you tried to be super-realistic: even if you were writing a book about some real historical event, with the perfect historical circumstances and all, you will be putting some of your own personality into it. And as an author, you are expected to! (And speaking of that, even if you were a historian writing a history book, you will do that, however hard you tried to be objective. But that's another thing.)

As for what we gain (a reply to a question davem posted a few posts ago): It always depends on a reader anyway in which way he reacts to the book. Of course this one book he reads is not the only one book in the world, so the views presented by it are not crucial to one's reception of reality. Somebody just wants to relax and not think about the real war-slaughter at all, so he grabs Tolkien instead of something else.

If you ask, does not one get too idealistic/heroic/whatever view of war from the books? Perhaps, or I would rather say, if he already has one, it won't break it for him. But that's all it will do. So, it won't influence his point of view, in my opinion: it will just keep it steady on where it is. (For I don't think a person who knows about the blinded veterans and whatnot would be suddenly convinced, after reading LotR, that they don't exist.)

P.S. I admit I haven't been following the whole discussion... so apologies if I am not quite "up to date" or reacting from some "out-of-topic" perspective... just been reading this and decided to, erm, *looks up at the not exactly short post* chime in...

[obloquy]

That's certainly a detailed refutation of all my points. I clearly can't argue with such a cogently argued response........

What points?

[davem]

Just chiming in - as for the second question: Of course his choice was legitimate. He is the author. His choice is always legitimate.

And if the book was a racist fantasy which presented non-whites as subhuman would that also be legitimate? Is any kind of presentation of any kind of subject legitimate, or are there certain limits, certain requirements - & are those requirements merely temporal/societal?

Fantasy is fantasy mainly just because it is not that tightly bound by reality, and in contrary to other genres of literature, the author is not only allowed to, but one can almost say, expected to make up things on his own.

Ok....let's say that in LotR as it is Tolkien was to introduce a scene in which Gimli struck Sam on the head with his axe, with all his strength, & Sam simply laughed it off & the narrator added the wry comment 'Sam was known in Hobbiton for his thick skull'. No other explanation - no hidden mithril cap or magical protection supplied by Gandalf - would we accept that, or would it break the spell? I'd suggest it would do exactly that, because Tolkien has carefully set out the rules of his world & in that world a Hobbit's skull is not harder than an Orc's. If Gimli's ability to dispatch an Orc with a single blow of his axe is to be accepted then the same kind of blow cannot be allowed to simply disturb a couple of hairs on a Hobbit's head.

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

And yet, from many of the 'opposing' posts there seems to be a belief that that kind of thing did occur - its just 'implied' by Tolkien, implied subtly enough that those who want to ignore it can do so.....yet, if they acknowledge its existence (however obliquely it appears) why do they only feel comfortable if it can be safely ignored? If it happened why do they not want to know about it? Is it not as 'real' as the stars above the northern mists or the golden hair of Galadriel?

What Points? Ok...if you read back through the posts by other people which contain quotes from me in little boxes, which are followed by responses to those quotes, well, those boxed quotes are the points I'm making. Apologies for any confusion.

[Pitchwife]

Before I come to davem's central question, I'd like to address two not-quite-so-central points that came up during the course of this discussion.

1. The matter of Sam and the trees. I think this needs to be considered in its original context. The passage you're referring to (at the beginning of The Grey Havens) deals with Sam being busy repairing the damages done to the Shire by Sharkey and his ruffians - such as tearing down the new Shirriff-houses, restoring Bagshot Row etc. To me it's quite clear that the trees were the worst loss and damage only as far as this kind of (reparable) devastation is concerned, and I don't think we're justified in concluding from this that Sam cared more for felled trees than he did for slain hobbits. True, we're not told about his feelings for the victims of the battle of Bywater, and you might argue that this is a flaw. On the other hand, the hobbits at least had a choice and a chance to defend themselves, while trees (outside of Fangorn and maybe the Old Forest;)) had not.

2.
By offering us an unsympathetic foe Tolkien is able to have his heroes kill thousands of them with impunity & never suffer the inconvenience of having to ask if what they're doing is right, face the possiblity that they have 'sinned', or, most importantly in this context, show them any respect.
Gandalf in The Siege of Gondor to Denethor:
And for me, I pity even his [=Sauron's] slaves.
And Faramir, Gandalf's pupil, in The Window on the West:
I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood.
Also, there is the matter of Éomer dismounting and fighting Uglúk sword to sword at the edge of Fangorn, which has been interpreted on another thread as E. recognizing and honouring valour even in an Orc. Spare hints, but worth considering.
The point, as I see it, is that the heroes of LotR had war forced upon them. The Orcs and other slaves of Sauron's were there, they were attacking the free peoples, and assuming as a given that they were not to be parleyed with (being driven by Sauron's malice), they had to be fought - which doesn't mean that at least some of our heroes (such as Gandalf and those educated by him) didn't regret the necessary killing.

Now to the central question: Should Tolkien have depicted the gruesome side of war more realistically, and how does his failure to do so shape our attitude towards war?
Speaking from personal experience, davem, I have to say that during my first (and second, and third, and probably fourth) reading of LotR, I read the battle scenes very much like you did - sanitized heroicism. Oddly, however, I didn't get the idea from them that war was something good and glorious (actually, I was busy demonstrating for nuclear disarmament and protesting against Pershing-II's at the time). I guess what impressed me most was the fact that it wasn't heroic deeds on the battlefield that won the War of the Ring and saved the world but the sacrifice of a single unarmed hobbit - showing that valour and bravery are not confined to the context of actual warfare.
I think a big part of the problem is inherited from the classic heroic literature that Tolkien was trying to emulate. As far as I remember, we don't see much gore and squalor in the Iliad or the Nibelungenlied, either. The problem, to me, seems to be that T tried to write an epic romance, but in the form of a novel that would appeal to mid or late 20th century readers. Obviously he succeeded to a considerable degree (or we wouldn't be here discussing this), but it may be debatable whether he succeeded completely.
Some modern (=post-Tolkien) fantasy writers have tried to improve on LotR in their depiction of battle-scenes, and I think it's worth the attempt. Robert Jordan, for instance (whatever may be said against him), does a good job at this (as you might expect from a Vietnam veteran), not neglecting the psychological impact of war on his characters, either. (If there are any RJ readers here, I'm thinking of the 'reaction shot' from Perrin's perspective after the battle of Dumai's Wells at the beginning of A Crown of Swords, among many others.) On the other hand, one of my issues with RJ is that while we're getting a fair impression of what his heroes are fighting against, he's not so good at showing us what they are fighting for - no Lothlorien, no White Tower of Ecthelion, no Rivendell, no Tom Bombadil & Goldberry, not even the homely comfort of hobbit life in the Shire.
Which makes me think - maybe Tolkien refused to wallow in the mire of realistic battle-scenes because he felt they would detract from or weaken the impression of the good that was more important to him to describe. On the other hand, the contrast might have made the beauty & glory of Middle-Earth more poignant. But I think it would have been an incredible feat to get both sides right, and maybe we'll just have to accept that our Professor, however much we may admire his achievement, had his limitations as a writer, just like anybody else.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Tolkien may not have gone on at length describing mutilation and the human atrocities of war, but he certainly did not utterly ignore them. To me, one of the most horrific passages of LotR is in "The Siege of Gondor":

Then among the greater casts there fell another hail, less ruinous but more horrible. All about the streets and lanes behind the Gate it tumbled down, small round shot that did not burn. But when men ran to learn what it might be, they cried aloud or wept. For the enemy was flinging into the City all the heads of those who had fallen fighting at Osgiliath, or on the Rammas, or in the fields. They were grim to look on; for though some were crushed and shapeless, and some had been cruelly hewn, yet many had features that could be told, and it seemed that they had died in pain, and all were branded with the foul token of the Lidless Eye. But marred and dishonoured as they were, it often chanced that a man would see again the face of someone that he had known, who had walked proudly once in arms, or tilled the fields, or ridden in upon a holiday from the green vales in the hills.

There are in Tolkien's letters many references to his feelings about war. In #73, written to his son in June of 1944, four days after the Normandy Invasion, Christopher had apparently asked him about his own experiences of writing while serving in the military, and he replied:

As for what to try and write: I don't know. I tried a diary with portraits (some scathing some comic some commendatory) of persons and events seen; but I found it was not my line. So I took to 'escapism': or really transforming experience into another form and symbol with Morgoth and Orcs and the Eldalie (representing beauty and grace of life and artefact) and so on; and it has stood me in good stead in many hard years since and still I draw on the conceptions then hammered out.

So it would seem that rather than write a tale depicting war in realistic, grisly detail, Tolkien preferred to write about the war in a more metaphysical sense, the ongoing War between Good and Evil, in which the battles are more symbolic than representational. In fact in letter 93, written on Christmas Eve of the same year (during which Tolkien was still working on LotR), he told Christopher:

C. Williams who is reading it all says the great thing is that its centre is not strife and war and heroism (though they are understood and depicted) but in freedom, peace, ordinary life and good liking. Yet he agrees that these very things require the existence of a great world outside the Shire -- lest they should grow stale by custom and turn into the humdrum....

Another interesting comment on his attitude toward war in general came in June of the following year in letter 101:

There is a stand-down parade of Civil Defence in the Parks in the afternoon, to which I shall prob. have to drag myself. But I am afraid it all seems rather a mockery to me, for the War is not over (and the one that is, or the part of it, has largely been lost). But it is of course wrong to fall into such a mood, for Wars are always lost, and The War always goes on; and it is no good growing faint!

He does not specify, but I cannot help but think "The War" means the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, which is at the core of much of the mythology he loved. He made another intriguing remark in his next letter (102, August 1945):

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace.'

In January of 1945 (letter 96), he wrote:

The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (and indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolical hour. By which I do not mean that it may not all, in the present situation. . . be necessary and inevitable. But why to gloat! We were supposed to have reached a state of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well, you and I can do nothing about it. And that shd. be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter -- leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What's their next move?

I think that these remarks almost more than any other reflect why Tolkien wrote LotR as he did. Machines are not human in any sense of the word, though they may be used by humans, and the greatest destruction they wreak are not on the bodies of the slain, but in how they wreak despair upon the human heart and soul, leaching it of hope, creating a world in which morals and ethics have no place, because they are not a part of the inhuman Machine. The ruination of entire countries -- such as Mordor -- is destruction painted on an even larger canvas than those of the slain on a battlefield; its scale is mythical, rather than "realistic," and Tolkien was creating a myth. He knew the horrors of war; that he chose to write of its "real" aspects as subtext makes perfect sense given the times through which he had already lived, and the horror he had already witnessed. Sometimes, "reality" can be understood best when it is presented in a different way and in a different light that frees one from the obvious horrors to see the even greater horrors that lie beneath. Moreover, it was his authorial choice to depict the story however he wished, and whether or not a reader approves of his choice is up to the individual. There really is no right or wrong.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

And if the book was a racist fantasy which presented non-whites as subhuman would that also be legitimate? Is any kind of presentation of any kind of subject legitimate, or are there certain limits, certain requirements - & are those requirements merely temporal/societal?
It would be certainly legitimate. And now before you are shocked, let me explain.

The difference is between the legitimity and legality, if we can call it this way. You are legitimate to do something as long as you were given the option and power to do so. And the author was given both. Whatever he chooses to do with it is another thing.

His, and only his choice is, whether he reveres some authority, or is aware of his responsibility; as he holds, at least particularly, a responsibility for the others who are going to read his books. My opinion is of course that he should have in mind mainly the people who are going to read what he wrote. But that is not in relation just to himself and his own ego, but to any other subjects which are around him. An egoistic writer can write anything he wishes, of course later he would face the consequences (even in a simple example, let's say if he writes a racist books and publishes them, he can be jailed. But actually, I would rather put it on the level that he should care about those who read his books - if they are harmed by it - becoming racists - that is something he should not want to do, as that's the worst way, when you can harm somebody else by your writing). If he sat at home and wrote just for himself, nobody else but him would read it, he is not going to harm anybody - except himself. (And that also means something. Although, now we could start about how his cultivating some bad habits will eventually become a strong part of his personality and will therefore influence everybody he is in contact with. But that would be probably already getting too off-topic.) But if he does not care still - it is his choice.

But, back to the original question of yours again: Do you think the need to introduce maimed and blinded veterans is a thing which a writer who is conscious of his readers should put in there? Even though the main purpose of his book is not to make them aware of all the horrors war causes?

Ok....let's say that in LotR as it is Tolkien was to introduce a scene in which Gimli struck Sam on the head with his axe, with all his strength, & Sam simply laughed it off & the narrator added the wry comment 'Sam was known in Hobbiton for his thick skull'. No other explanation - no hidden mithril cap or magical protection supplied by Gandalf - would we accept that, or would it break the spell? I'd suggest it would do exactly that, because Tolkien has carefully set out the rules of his world & in that world a Hobbit's skull is not harder than an Orc's. If Gimli's ability to dispatch an Orc with a single blow of his axe is to be accepted then the same kind of blow cannot be allowed to simply disturb a couple of hairs on a Hobbit's head.
But you say it yourself: Tolkien has set certain rules of his world, and therefore, he won't introduce the scene with Gimli hitting him and Sam merely laughing. So what's the point?

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

And yet, from many of the 'opposing' posts there seems to be a belief that that kind of thing did occur - its just 'implied' by Tolkien, implied subtly enough that those who want to ignore it can do so.....yet, if they acknowledge its existence (however obliquely it appears) why do they only feel comfortable if it can be safely ignored? If it happened why do they not want to know about it? Is it not as 'real' as the stars above the northern mists or the golden hair of Galadriel?

Indeed, you said it. Not for every reader. I am just reminded of my discussion with a certain 'Downer whether there are gays in Middle-Earth. Pretty much the same case, in my opinion (although, of course, this subject is not addressed by Tolkien at all).

Speaking from personal experience, davem, I have to say that during my first (and second, and third, and probably fourth) reading of LotR, I read the battle scenes very much like you did - sanitized heroicism. Oddly, however, I didn't get the idea from them that war was something good and glorious (actually, I was busy demonstrating for nuclear disarmament and protesting against Pershing-II's at the time).

And this is one important point I had in mind. Relatedly: It happens to me often that I read books about something, and even though the author writes about something, it does not mean I accept it! That would be a pretty bad way of doing it, wouldn't it?

Of course, it is always dangerous (cf. author's responsibility) when you write something, as many people can easily accept something without their own thinking just when they read about it. However, still, it is not only the author's intention that makes the final picture. And even if the author had the best intentions in mind, no book is foolproof, as it is also subject to the reader's interpretation.

[obloquy]

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

Sure, there are evidently some irrational, thoughtless people who will choose to believe there is some kind of magical prevention of grisliness in Middle-earth. But most of us will have the sense to recognize that Tolkien's characters are flesh-and-blood. Not only do they have sex, defecate, and probably pop zits, they also have their flesh torn and their bones crushed in war--and their arteries severed, and their eyes pierced by arrows, and their limbs removed from their bodies, etc. etc.

If an author writes that a character slaughtered a pig for his guests, it does not make sense for him to explicate the details (the kill, the bleeding, the gutting, the roasting, the piglets left behind) unless he is interested in making a point about the slaughter of livestock. If he does not provide these details, what simpleton would imagine that no such details took place? Similarly, just because you did not understand what happens in medieval warfare when you first read Tolkien does not mean that Tolkien's description was dishonest in any way. Of course people in Middle-earth had their intestines ripped out and died screaming and clawing at the ground. It is implied by the presence of warfare itself.

Again, the problem is your own.

[Rumil]

This debate brings me (oddly) back to the reason I disliked the A-Team (stay with me here, on-topic soon!).

OK the A-Team was all jolly good fun adventure stuff, good guys, bad guys, making AFVs out of tin cans and sticky-backed plastic, but it always rather worried me that nobody got shot. In every other scene thousands of rounds were blatted off between the protagonists, but nobody was killed or even bled a little bit. I even remember a scene where a helicopter crashed into a 300-foot cliff, blew up and smashed into the ground, then the crew got out of the wreck and staggered around slightly dazed but none the worse for their certain-death encounter.

In a series aimed at kids and teenagers in the USA, where guns are commonplace, it seemed frankly dangerous to have a show with lots of gunfights but no dire consequences.

In a way you might say the same of Tolkien's battles but there is not the same sense of immediacy. Youngsters may, in terrible cases, fool about with guns with fatal consequences, but I think few will raise an orcish army and march on their foes' citadel.

Thinking back to old films, war stories etc. from the 40s-50s period, it seems common that battle deaths are treated unrealistically. Cowboys bite the dust with nothing more than 'Ah ya got me', fighter pilots say 'Ginger got the chop old man' and move on. Did JRRT write the way he did because the mores of the times were against gruesome reality or because he wished LoTR to be 'purged of the gross', I don't know, maybe a bit of both?

Certainly he did include more realism in Turin's tale, including plenty of maimed and wounded, battle-madness and cowardice. But this he did not publish.

Tolkien's battles are usually (not, I'll agree, always) written from the Historian's lofty standpoint, featuring more of the wide overview and deeds of commanders than the mud and blood experience of the Poor Bloody Infantry. If we go 'in-book' we find that our authors (the hobbits) are mostly not involved in the fighting in the great battles. Bilbo gets knocked out, Merry probably has his eyes tight shut during the charge of the Rohirrim, then the Witch King showdown takes him out of the battle. Pippin gets squashed into unconsiousness under a troll. The Battle of Bywater is probably written by Frodo who was not involved in the fighting apart from getting the hobbits to spare the surrendering ruffians.

Therefore the battle sections are mostly what was told second-hand to the hobbits by Gandalf, Aragorn etc. I think they would not feel the need to burden the cheery halflings with the true brutality. Who's to say they'd be wrong?

[Pitchwife]

Ibrin, thanks for posting the quote about the severed heads of the slain being used as ammunition during the Siege of Gondor. I had thought of that, but neglected to include it in my post.
Another example that has come to my mind was Gelmir being hacked to pieces by the Orcs before his brother Gwindor's eyes at the beginning of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
Perhaps one of the reasons that warfare is described more grimly in the Silmarillion is that Silm was written in a much more distanced, 'annalistic' style than LotR. Maybe Tolkien just couldn't bear to describe his own experience of war any closer, without that filter of talking about things that happened ages ago?

obloquy, slightly (but not entirely) off-topic - an appalling number of people in our time happily consumes meat without wanting to think about having to kill a living creature and handling a bleeding carcass (not me - I've butchered chickens with my own hands). Live animals are cute, and dead animals are tasty; the transition tends to be blithely ignored. One can always choose not to see what one doesn't want to see (which probably is what most of our politicians who send people to war do). Of course people in Middle-earth had their intestines ripped out, but did we think of that when we first read LotR? If you did, good for you; I didn't.

[obloquy]

obloquy...Of course people in Middle-earth had their intestines ripped out, but did we think of that when we first read LotR? If you did, good for you; I didn't.

But you recognize that those things are a certainty, which is my point. I was not saying that a person naturally imagines those details when reading LotR, only that if one considers it, one recognizes that they absolutely do occur given what we know about Middle-earth.

[Morthoron]

Excellent points, Obloquoy and Rumil, but since davem is in a rather obstinate mood, I don't think it much matters what can be said that hasn't already been reiterated several times in various forms throughout this circumlocutious thread. As I reviewed this discussion, I found myself going over the literal litany of points I made previously in regard to davem's objection/supposition/query about the lack of graphic/realistic violence in Lord of the Rings. It seems none of them suffice; ergo, I will merely repost the Compleat Catalogue of Copious Counterpoints for your edification.

And so, here we have a veritable laundry lists of reasons -- culled patiently from my posts -- as to why Tolkien did not dwell on graphic violence in his most famous novel. For those who wish conciseness, here are bullet points:

1. Tolkien subscribed to a classical representation of war that precludes the gross. He offered a 'dignified' presentation of a a fierce faery epic in the medieval mold (like TH White's Once and Future King, or its precursor Le Mort D'Arthur), which purges the utterly gross from its heroes, and does not dwell on the true mayhem and obscene violence that was medieval war.

2. The time period in which Tolkien was writing precluded such graphic presentations of reality (whether in a fantasy or fictional presentation in books or movies). And it is indisputable that there was heavier censorship and higher moral codes at the time.

3. The hope attendant in Tolkien's religion precluded him from falling prey to the cynicism of many of his literary peers who survived WWI.

4. We really don't see such presentations of graphic violence in fantasy literature until the late 1960's and 1970's (like Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), or in films of a medieval nature even later on, like Braveheart (if you remember Excalibur from the 70's, it rarely even displays any blood on those ultra-shiny metal coifs).

5. I doubt very much that Tolkien's work would find its way into grade school (or primary school) libraries if he dwelt on clumps of brains and clots of hair and sodden buttocks like Sassoon. It is the restrained nature of the presentation that allows it to be enjoyed by eight year-olds and eighty year-olds alike.

6. At least two of the most important battles (to the plot, at least) are the Battle of Five Armies and the Battle before the Black Gates. In both cases, the battles are interrupted before they get heavy (in one, Bilbo is knocked unconscious, and the other Pippin is smothered beneath a troll). The actual battle scenes are described later under much more favorable circumstances. In any case, Hobbits are purported to be the principal authors of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and therefore were not directly involved in as much combat in comparison to other main characters.

7. The plot centers on the noble heroes (even Samwise the Everyman is Jack in the Beanstalk, for all intents and purposes), and the crises and eucatastophe are fairy tale in quality (a quest, a ring, the destruction of an immortal evil, etc.). Tolkien was strident, almost vehement, that LotR was not allegorical to WWI or WWII, and for good reason. It has nothing to do with real world conflicts; rather, it has everything to do with Faery and a rousing tale on the grand scale.

8. LotR was written initially as a sequel to The Hobbit, as required by his publishers. Tolkien, of course, pushed the envelope in his own inimitable manner, and forced through integral elements of his own beloved mythology. The Hobbit was always a children's book, and whereas LotR is less so, it is still within the realm of being read to children without requiring censors and expletive deletions.

9. His prose was considered archaic in style even when it was first published (and almost alien to the bulk of fiction produced in the 40's and 50's). Such attention to classical form leads inevitably to the death speeches (Shakespeare's plays are chock full of them), the lack of viciousness and sanguineness in the noble characters (like Aragorn or Faramir), the inevitable fall of evil characters, and the many tragic heroes in Tolkien's work that follow the Greek example (Turin and Boromir as prime examples). There is nothing 'modern' in Tolkien's writing.

10. And finally, adding graphic realism to Lord of the Rings would not necessarily make it better, make it more interesting, or more endearing. Again, in order to emphasize what should be obvious, it would eliminate any preteen reader from the book's near universal demographic appeal; and thus, the element of wonder and timeless appeal of the books would be sadly diminished.

P.S. Here's another: compare Lord of the Rings to the Silmarillion. The Sil is much darker, violent and Oedipal, but it is still purged of the gross in a classical manner. Nevertheless, The Silmarillion, an early Tolkien work, was not published until 1977 when such a tale (or series of tales) could find a readership that perhaps it could not have reached had it been published prior to Lord of the Rings. In any case, Tolkien's publishers did not show much enthusiasm regarding the project. They wanted The Hobbit II, not Hurin impregnating his sister.

[Rumil]

Or as Shagrat would put it-

Come here, and I'll squeeze your eyes out, like I did to Radbug just now

I'll put red maggot holes in your belly first

Quick as a snake Shagrat slipped aside, twisted round, and drove his knife into his enemy's throat.

'Got you Gorbag!' he cried, 'Not quite dead, eh? Well, I'll finish my job now.' He sprang on to the fallen body, and stamped and trampled it in his fury, stopping now and again to slash it with his knife. Satisfied at last, he threw back his head and let out a horrible gurgling yell of triumph. Then he licked his knife,

Oops - cross posted with Morth's upsum.

[davem]

Morth Very good summation of all your points. Now back to my actual questions ...

Should the reality of battle, specifically how people die, have been depicted in order to give an honest view of war? Does the omission lessen the impact of the work as a whole? Is there a moral obligation on an author of fantasy to tell the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth? If we are dealing with violence specifically is it right to present that in a romantic/elegiac way which may mislead the reader & affect the way they percieve violence in the real world?

1. Tolkien subscribed to a classical representation of war that precludes the gross. He offered a 'dignified' presentation of a a fierce faery epic in the medieval mold (like TH White's Once and Future King, or its precursor Le Mort D'Arthur), which purges the utterly gross from its heroes, and does not dwell on the true mayhem and obscene violence that was medieval war. And is it ok to do that? If an author has experienced the actual reality of war & how men die but deliberately avoids presenting that truth clearly to the reader, wants to present a neat & tidy vision of battle are we not justified in asking why he chooses to present it in the way he did - rather than simply stating that he didn't do it (which seems to be the point you're making here & which I already got)

2. The time period in which Tolkien was writing precluded such graphic presentations of reality (whether in a fantasy or fictional presentation in books or movies). And it is indisputable that there was heavier censorship and higher moral codes at the time.

Nope - the First World War poets you go on to cite later had already been published & I am not suggesting Tolkien be anymore 'graphic' than they were - only as honest.

3. The hope attendant in Tolkien's religion precluded him from falling prey to the cynicism of many of his literary peers who survived WWI.

Why would an honest depiction of death in battle = falling prey to cynicism? I don't get your point

5. I doubt very much that Tolkien's work would find its way into grade school (or primary school) libraries if he dwelt on clumps of brains and clots of hair and sodden buttocks like Sassoon. It is the restrained nature of the presentation that allows it to be enjoyed by eight year-olds and eighty year-olds alike.

Was that Tolkien's motivation, or merely a fortunate consequence of the choice he made? Don't get the relevance of this point. The eighty year olds may get the 'subtly implied' truth of how people die (as they may not need to be told the facts of how a pig is slaughtered) but an eight year old is likely to take from the book that battles are nice, clean & very exciting things to be involved in. Perhaps 8 year olds are not the right audience?

10. Again, in order to emphasize what should be obvious, it would eliminate any preteen reader from the book's near universal demographic appeal; and thus, the element of wonder and timeless appeal of the books would be sadly diminished.

(Seems to sum up a number of your later points. )Leave out the facts about death in battle so as not to upset the children.... but leave in the excitement, the glory, the slaughter of the 'bad guys' & the celebration of victory on the field... but don't mention the pain, the blood, the horror. Sorry, but I find that actually shocking. Let's not upset children by showing them the bad side of battle - just focus on how cool & exciting it is to take a sword to someone. Why is it 'acceptable', even justified, to avoid the reality of war so as not to upset the kiddies?

[Morthoron]

And is it ok to do that?

Yes. Obviously. We wouldn't be here discussing Tolkien on a Tolkien Forum with hundreds of intelligent people all drawn to Tolkien for the way he wrote. If he did not write in his manner, we would be discussing somebody else. Would burnt guts, bursted veins and bloody gore have made the story more relevant? Would it have reached the readership it holds today? The distinguishing feature of Tolkien's work is his synthesis of the classic epic form and classical mythical elements into a new, compelling and endearing fantasy mythos. I wouldn't trade it for several bucketfuls of brains -- even if you threw in a baby's arm holding an apple.

If an author has experienced the actual reality of war & how men die but deliberately avoids presenting that truth clearly to the reader, wants to present a neat & tidy vision of battle are we not justified in asking why he chooses to present it in the way he did - rather than simply stating that he didn't do it (which seems to be the point you're making here & which I already got)

And we already got (interminably so) that Tolkien did not write a depiction of war in the manner you believe should be correct; neither did Kipling, neither did T.H. White, neither did Malory, neither did Shakespeare, neither did Cervantes, neither did Sir Walter Scott, neither did C.S. Lewis, and more currently, an author such as Brian Jacques. From a film depiction standpoint, throw in George Lucas, and nearly every war picture filmed before 1950 or even 1960. Perhaps we should discuss why nearly every author of fantastical literature prior to 1950 did not write in a photo-realistic manner. They are all in this conspiracy together.

Was that Tolkien's motivation, or merely a fortunate consequence of the choice he made? Don't get the relevance of this point. ??

No, you don't get the relevance, hence the reiteration.

The eighty year olds may get the 'subtly implied' truth of how people die (as they may not need to be told the facts of how a pig is slaughtered) but an eight year old is likely to take from the book that battles are nice, clean & very exciting things to be involved in. Perhaps 8 year olds are not the right audience??

Perhaps eight year olds aren't the right audience, but in my case, my daughter loved The Hobbit and wanted to learn more about Middle-earth. We read Lord of the Rings together, and we made it through the rough spots together. But children are amazingly resilient and smart. She didn't need to see the severed head to know that the axe had fallen.

(Seems to sum up a number of your later points. )Leave out the facts about death in battle so as not to upset the children.... but leave in the excitement, the glory, the slaughter of the 'bad guys' & the celebration of victory on the field... but don't mention the pain, the blood, the horror. Sorry, but I find that actually shocking. Let's not upset children by showing them the bad side of battle - just focus on how cool & exciting it is to take a sword to someone. Why is it 'acceptable', even justified, to avoid the reality of war so as not to upset the kiddies?

I see you blithely ignored a) that Tolkien's publishers indeed required a sequel to The Hobbit, a children's book, and that Lord of the Rings, although more serious in its presentation, is not nearly as dark as the Silmarillion, which is more adult themed, b) the fact that Tolkien wrote in a time period that precluded such graphic presentations of reality, particularly a book that was not intended to be read merely by adults, and c) that Tolkien wrote the story as it was presented by Hobbits, who clearly abhorred horror and minimized it as part of their collective psyche (and there is ample evidence that shows several Hobbits behaving in like manner).

Be that as it may, I don't believe I ever came away believing that war was glorious when I first read Lord of the Rings, and I am certain my daughter didn't either (in fact, I asked her). The 'death' of Gandalf in Moria upset and shocked nearly everyone I've ever talked to about the book, as do the deaths of many other characters (I remember being particularly sad that Halbarad died). In fact, I don't think the general feeling one gets about the books is in relationship to war or its graphic presentation at all; rather, it is that no matter how small one is, one can fight oppression and stand up for one's self. It is a very self-affirming book, and one comes away exhilirated and a bit nostalgic.

The backdrop of the story may be war, but we are led for most of the book on a sojourn by two Hobbits into the very heart of darkness, and a triumph of mercy over violence. On the TORn forum someone was discussing how 'cool' it was that the WitchKing in the film knocked Gandalf off Shadowfax, and wouldn't it be 'cool' if they actually fought. I merely explained in reply that Peter Jackson got the scene all wrong, there would be no bursted staff and Gandalf falling, as Tolkien had no intention of the two figthing because Gandalf had fulfilled his mission to rouse the hearts of mortals to fight for themsleves, as he stated in a letter:

"He [Gandalf] alone is left to forbid the entrance of the Lord of the Nazgul to Minas Tirith, when the City had been overthrown and its Gates destroyed -- and yet so powerful is the whole train of human resistance, that he himself has kindled and organized, that in fact no battle between the two occurs: it passes to other mortal hands."

Resistance and mercy. The actual battle scenes are relatively superfluous and short (and in the case of the battle at the Morannon, told second-hand many days afterward), save the elements that matter to the plot, and there we get vignettes -- compartmentalized views of single combat germane to the story itself -- such as with Eowyn and Merry, Pippin stabbing a troll and falling, Boromir's fall, etc. In fact, the war scenes become sketchier and more oblique the further we get away from the direct presence of one of the Hobbit characters, which I think is very telling of the manner in which Tolkien devised the tale. Quite ingenious, actually -- yet there is a great deal of pain, suffering and death in those vignettes.

I don't think Tolkien needs to rise up from his grave and apologize for his presentation, or that he was in any way lying or short-shrifting the reader in the horrors of war. The book, which was separated into a trilogy due to expenses and shortages in WWII, is quite long. Did Tolkien need to show war vets hobbling about on crutches, or the blind begging for alms at the gates of Minas Tirith? I don't know, how many more additional pages of story do you require? I am also annoyed that Tolkien didn't refer at all to the minting of coinage or interstate commerce, or provide a more in-depth view of the vassalage system apparent in Gondor. There is so much more I need to know, dash it all, why did Tolkien die before answering every little, niggling plot question I have!

I am sure there is a goodly percentage of ogling adolescent readers who would have dearly loved to hear about comely elven damsels disrobing and engaging in any number of adulterous sex acts. davem, will your next thread express your indignation about the manner in which Tolkien viewed sexual relations? After all, other than a few wind-blown kisses, there is absolutely no sex in the novel! Tolkien refers to all manner of Hobbit children being born after the War of the Ring, yet not one instance where we are provided actual Hobbitish sex acts! Is it right that evils folk are mentioned multiplying like flies across Middle-earth without the titillating view of Orkish orgasms?

Is it right? Is it morally ethical? I don't know, but I will say that it would have profoundly effected the manner in which the story was presented, and to whom the story was presented to.

[davem]

The problem here is this Aunt Sally you keep setting up, in order to knock down & thus feel you have won the argument. I am not suggesting that Tolkien should have have depicted death in battle in the way you accuse me of. I am stating that Tolkien's depiction of death in battle is not true.

If I may quote LadyBrooke form an earlier post: Oh dear, it appears I’m not expressing my self clearly enough, davem, if you still think that I think that you advocate graphic violence. I don’t, and agree with you that Tolkien could have expressed more of the reality of war without having to go into graphic detail.

Battle has three 'aspects', if you will - there is (as I acknowledged earlier) honour, self-sacrifice, glory, excitement - even joy as displayed by the Rohirrim at Pelennor Fields, & all of this Tolkien gives us. Secondly, there is loss, death, bereavement. Again, Tolkien gives us this in spades. I'd say he is absolutely honest in his depiction of those two aspects of battle. But there is also a third aspect - people get maimed. They lose limbs, they die slowly & in agony. They may freeze to death overnight even if not mortally wounded (as at Kineton Fight during the English Civil War, or at Towton). They may just be left to die because there's no-one to treat them, or because they are not considered to be worth saving. Some die because they run away in terror & get cut down by their own side (Towon again). After the battle there has to be a clear up & burial - or the bodies rot & spread disease. Oh, & in battle people lose it when the adrenalin is flowing & do terrible & unecessary things to the foe.

And that's the aspect Tolkien doesn't deal with at all. Its equally true. The horror, the reduction of human to animal is absent. Is Tolkien's depiction of battle honest is the question, & if not, should it be? Also, of not, what is lost by that lack of honesty? In LotR it simply is seen as a 'brave & glorious thing' to die in battle against Sauron - or in other words Tolkien has written a tale which 'justifies' war by writing about a justifiable war. The uncomfortable questions - about the morality of killing for a cause, about whether 'Jaw-Jaw is better than War War', about whether pacifism is a more, or a less, morally justifiable philosophical position, are all neatly avoided by giving us a war that no 'decent' person could have any objection to fighting.

So, we have a war that the decent 'have' to fight & which is then depicted in a way that avoids any mention of the dirty, animal horror of real war. You cannot question the need to fight it, & you don't need to fret over being maimed, blinded or sent crazy as a result of fighting it, cos the worst that will happen is that you'll suffer a quick, clean death & then a minstrel will compose a verse in your memory which will be sung in the mead hall while maidens weep for you. The best is that you will return a great hero, to the acclamation of your family & friends. Apart fromFrodo, of course - but then he gets to travel with the Elves to the West rather than passing into a lonely, frightened & forgotten old age.

These might not have been the issues Tolkien wished to deal with in his book, they may not be as important as the ones he did choose to deal with, either, but they are real, war related, issues, & I can't see that its somehow unacceptable to ask about them.

[Andsigil]

I am stating that Tolkien's depiction of death in battle is not true.

Again, I ask, "So, what?"

[davem]

Again, I ask, "So, what?"

Its called having a discussion about an aspect of Tolkien's work/thought. That's what we're here for. I state that Tolkien's depiction of war is 'false', & present my reasons for that statement, you then come back & either refute those reasons, or offer support for my position. When we've taken the discussion as far as we can, or reach agreement, or just get bored with it we hope someone will come up with another topic. Some times we adopt a position in a debate which we may not personally agree with 100% ourselves in order to explore the implications of a certain idea & see what comes of it.

What do you want to discuss instead?

Have a look at the Books page & see how many views this topic has garnered so far in comparison to the other discussions.....

[Andsigil]

Its called having a discussion about an aspect of Tolkien's work/thought. That's what we're here for. I state that Tolkien's depiction of war is 'false', & present my reasons for that statement, you then come back & either refute those reasons, or offer support for my position. When we've taken the discussion as far as we can, or reach agreement, or just get bored with it we hope someone will come up with another topic. Some times we adopt a position in a debate which we may not personally agree with 100% ourselves in order to explore the implications of a certain idea & see what comes of it.

What do you want to discuss instead?

Have a look at the Books page & see how many views this topic has garnered so far in comparison to the other discussions.....

Okay, my refutation is that this concern is contrived. Tolkien wrote masterpieces, sold plenty of books, and had an indelible effect on our culture without retroactive input on how war "should" be depicted.

[Morthoron]

The problem here is this Aunt Sally you keep setting up, in order to knock down & thus feel you have won the argument. I am not suggesting that Tolkien should have have depicted death in battle in the way you accuse me of. I am stating that Tolkien's depiction of death in battle is not true.

Hmmm...yes, 'not true'. A corporeal Immortal Evil walking the earth in black array with a magic ring he can't manage to keep hold of is not true. Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits are not true either. There perhaps is the subtle disconnect were are having in this conversation. I always considered The Lord of the Rings to be a fantasy -- marvelously detailed and endearing, but a fantasy nonetheless. I am somehow able to divorce the fantasy from reality; other are not, obviously.

But my last point, Auntie Sal (where that came from, I have no idea), is that the lack of sex, mention of sex, or even allusion to sex is not true in a real sense either. For instance, there are no blatant rapes in Lord of the Rings, and one would think that the vengeful Dunlenders' burning of the Westfold would include some rapine along with the pillaging. The sack of Minas Tirith should have mirrored the bestial sack of Rome by Charles V's troops in 1527. Of course, such rape should be described if one seeks a 'real testament' of war, shouldn't it? War would not be true without massacres of innocents, disembowlments and brutal interrogations, but some good ol' graphic rape scenes should be required as well (the history of war, particularly medieval war and earlier, is chock full of 'em).

But there is also a third aspect - people get maimed. They lose limbs, they die slowly & in agony. They may freeze to death overnight even if not mortally wounded (as at Kineton Fight during the English Civil War, or at Towton). They may just be left to die because there's no-one to treat them, or because they are not considered to be worth saving. Some die because they run away in terror & get cut down by their own side (Towon again). After the battle there has to be a clear up & burial - or the bodies rot & spread disease. Oh, & in battle people lose it when the adrenalin is flowing & do terrible & unecessary things to the foe.

Again, I demand brutal rape scenes as well. A war is not a real war without callous disregard for the bodies of the enemy's women-folk. And after the rapes, the dragging off of the women and children as slaves to live miserable lives at the hands of their victorious masters. Throw in some cannibalism as well, particularly during siege scenes where the besieged have already eaten the dogs, horses and rats. Dig up the corpses, boys, supper's ready!

I am not being flippant here, just asking the same questions you are. Where exactly do you wish to cut off the depictment of reality in a 'fantasy' book meant for a wide demographic and not just for adults, davem? Must we stop at how an axe pierces a helm, or how a soldier with bloody stumps helps a disemboweled comrade gather up his intestines? Why not bowel movements? Sex scenes? How about child pornography?

How ugly does the story need to get to please you? And would it serve the story any better than its original presentation?

Have a look at the Books page & see how many views this topic has garnered so far in comparison to the other discussions.....

But davem, the amount of views this topic has garnered has nothing to do with the subject matter. No, it is because of our witty repartee and our stellar proficiency in grammar and syntax.

[davem]

Your 'demands' for gratuitous sex/sexual violence in Tolkien's work is, again, a pretty Aunt Sally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally if you don't get the reference) Aunt Sally is a traditional throwing game. The term is often used metaphorically to mean something that is a target for criticism. In particular, referring to the fairground origins, an Aunt Sally would be "set up" deliberately to be subsequently "knocked down", usually by the same person who set the person up. & again misses the whole point I'm making. Tolkien doesn't mention sexual activity at all, let alone rape or child abuse....but if he did mention the latter.....

I would expect him not to present either rape or child abuse in a positive light, as exciting or glorious, or quickly over & forgotten about as if it had never happened. I would expect an acknowledgement of the ugly, brutal & inhuman truth. If he had included those things without acknowledging that ugly, brutal & inhuman truth, I would be on here stating very clearly that his depiction of them was false, untrue & dangerously misleading to his readers.

In all this I am simply asking why, when an activity is depicted it is not depicted honestly, warts & all, & whether it should be. No, A corporeal Immortal Evil walking the earth in black array with a magic ring he can't manage to keep hold of is not true., but, when "A corporeal Immortal Evil walking the earth" is presented I expect it to behave like a "A corporeal Immortal Evil " if I am to take its seriously - if all this 'corporeal Immortal Evil" did was nick a few apples from Sam's garden, or make cupcakes for Elrond's tea with flour that's a couple of days past its Best Before date, I would say (wrongly, perhaps) that such a "corporeal Immortal Evil" wasn't a very truthful or honest depiction of same, & that we ought to expect this villain to actually do something evil - even if this was in a fantasy novel, where the author has absolute freedom to depict "A corporeal Immortal Evil walking the earth" in any way he saw fit. As a reader I have rights too. If an evil being appears in a novel I have a right to expect him to do evil things, not naughty things. In the same way, if a battle involving thousands of people armed with swords, spears, arrows, axes & the like takes place I expect there to be maimed, brutalised, broken souls on the field, alongside severed limbs & the rest - because that's what would have happened.

[obloquy]

Well fought, Morth.

Even your eloquent defense is unnecessary, I think, since davem's problem is entirely invented. He bemoans the dishonesty of depicting battle without its more horrible details, but Tolkien does not actually conceal the reality with some sanitizing miracle of the Valar--i.e. a description of the bloodless withering to dust of those slain as a special provision of Manwe. We know that these myths are written as some fantastical epoch of our own history, so the Men of Middle-earth are us, and supposably will gush blood and fall apart in exactly the same ways men do today--and do in George R.R. Martin novels*. Elves are physiologically identical to Men, and while there is perhaps more reason to expect with elves a magical fading in place of gory slaughter, Tolkien makes no such provision explicit. They, too, bleed red.

So, in answer once again to the question which davem has asked repeatedly, Yes, things (slaughter, sex, elimination, etc.) occur identically in Middle-earth despite that Tolkien omitted their details. When a person takes a wife, certain details of the next couple days are implied; when a person is smashed with a mace or slashed with a sword, other details are similarly implied; when a person so much as exists, still more very basic details are implied. None of these details need to be explicated for us to know that they occur. Further, unless some agenda is served by doing so, one might even expect an author to spare his readers such descriptions. This decision can only be called dishonest if one claims that Tolkien intended his audience to get some idea of the harsh reality of life and war. Instead, it seems apparent that while Tolkien did not deny the baser realities of the world, he chose rather to emphasize the potential for nobility and beauty.

*Had Tolkien chosen the tack of Martin, not only would there be plenty of guts, but surely Aragorn would have been the first character to be beheaded. How much different would LotR have been if gritty realism had been a part of the formula?

[davem]

This decision can only be called dishonest if one claims that Tolkien intended his audience to get some idea of the harsh reality of life and war.

Only if he had not gone to such lengths to play up the 'positives' of battle - the honour, self-sacrifice, glory, excitement. That's the point - that Tolkien is showing the light without pointing up the dark as well, so that the depiction of battle become a caricature of reality. I'm asking why Tolkien decided not to give us a balanced depiction of battle, which included the nasty, brutal, inhuman side alongside the poetic/elegiac, & what the effect of that decision is, & whether that depiction is dishonest (which I think it is)

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Davem, your position would have more force if there were some existing tradition of gore, screams and viscera which Tolkien presumptuously violated. But the contrary is true: eliding over the blood 'n guts was the established literary mode: are you therefore condemning Tolstoy and Hugo and the on and on? It's really inaccurate and unfair to dismiss this convention as "Boys' Own Paper" when it was in fact the dominant mode of Western war fiction up until Tolkien's age.

[LadyBrooke]

Just some quick thoughts about various posts and quotes from Letters. This is not a short post though, just to warn you.

But do you expect an unrealistic view of it?.
Actually when I start to read a book I try to expect nothing, for I too often find that having prior expectations keeps me from enjoying the book itself. To answer the question of realistic or unrealistic view of war, from Tolkien I did (by the time I reached the battles) expect the battles to be around the same as those in Greek epics or French Medieval Romances. Also, it’s not that like Tolkien wrote anything along the lines of people being killed by firey demons and then coming back to life or an entire species that can’t really be killed. Nothing at all that unrealistic in his books.


My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e,.

Of course not every reader will believe that these things existed in M-E, but even if Tolkien states that something happened there are people who will refuse to believe it. This is the danger of publishing a work. Once it is published it is open to interpretation by the reader - this is at once one of the greatest and worst things about publishing something. The amount of stories I’ve heard about authors being told that their work means or says something that they didn’t intend for it to.

So I took to 'escapism': or really transforming experience into another form and symbol with Morgoth and Orcs and the Eldalie (representing beauty and grace of life and artefact) and so on; and it has stood me in good stead in many hard years since and still I draw on the conceptions then hammered out.
- J.R.R. to Christopher, June 1944
Escapism - the seeking of distraction from reality by engaging in entertainment or fantasy: this is the definition from my dictionary. So he was using his writing to escape the reality of war and become emerged in a fantasy world where everybody is noble and righteous.

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace.'
- J.R.R. August 1945
So horrifying one is stunned; utter folly of these lunatic physicists; while their moral and intellectual status is declining: all quotes that say to me that even in his worst nightmares Tolkien could not imagine what modern man is capable of. So obviously the characters in his books can not do anything approaching the utter horror of our current warfare meaning that trying to use his books to educate people about the horrors of modern day warfare is about as useful as using an original car to educate somebody about how to take care of a Porsche.

We were supposed to have reached a state of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted.
- J.R.R. Janurary 1945
Meaning that ‘true’ and ‘noble’ beings such as the forces of good in Tolkien’s books will not gloat or punish a criminal’s family for being related to him. This is despicable to Tolkien (and personally to me as well.)


His, and only his choice is, whether he reveres some authority, or is aware of his responsibility; as he holds, at least particularly, a responsibility for the others who are going to read his books. My opinion is of course that he should have in mind mainly the people who are going to read what he wrote.
But, and this is one of my soapboxes, today many people want to view historical people and authors from a viewpoint that is not even contemperary to the author, but is a modern viewpoint. Perhaps this is just me - who in recent weeks has been exposed to far too many editorials blasting such people as Abraham Lincoln - but I surely don’t expect Tolkien to have kept 21st century readers in mind while writing a book in the aftermath of two World Wars. Nobody coming out of either World War would have needed to have been reminded that war is a bad thing. They knew it, they lived it, and quite frankly they were sick of it. For some of them LotR probably served as the same thing it did for Tolkien according to one of the above quotes - escapism.

Tolkien's battles are usually (not, I'll agree, always) written from the Historian's lofty standpoint, featuring more of the wide overview and deeds of commanders than the mud and blood experience of the Poor Bloody Infantry. If we go 'in-book' we find that our authors (the hobbits) are mostly not involved in the fighting in the great battles. Bilbo gets knocked out, Merry probably has his eyes tight shut during the charge of the Rohirrim, then the Witch King showdown takes him out of the battle. Pippin gets squashed into unconsiousness under a troll. The Battle of Bywater is probably written by Frodo who was not involved in the fighting apart from getting the hobbits to spare the surrendering ruffians.

Therefore the battle sections are mostly what was told second-hand to the hobbits by Gandalf, Aragorn etc. I think they would not feel the need to burden the cheery halflings with the true brutality. Who's to say they'd be wrong?
Plus - and this is what happens in the real world - LotR is technically something like a translation from a copy of a copy of the original. When something has passed through that many hands details get lost, purged, mistranslated, etc. People have a tendency to change things they don’t like.

Perhaps one of the reasons that warfare is described more grimly in the Silmarillion is that Silm was written in a much more distanced, 'annalistic' style than LotR. Maybe Tolkien just couldn't bear to describe his own experience of war any closer, without that filter of talking about things that happened ages ago.
This is what I think too. Along with the fact that Tolkien didn’t actually publish the grim parts himself, it does make you wonder. My great-uncle can’t talk about his own part in Vietnam without coaching it in terms of various books and movies. It was simply too tramautic for him - much as WWI must have been for Tolkien, losing the good friends he did.

So, basically what is my entire point that I’ve been trying to express in every post I’ve made on this thread?

War is traumatic.

I know of many veterans who have turned their trauma into activism - good for them, that they can stand up for what they believe in.

I also know many veterans who for them it is too traumatic. They repress their memories of the bad things that happened. They refuse to speak about it. If they do it is only to close family members. They use escapism - whether that escapism takes the form of alcohol, drugs, the arts, extreme sports, whatever.

And I believe that Tolkien belongs firmly in the second group. His form of escapism is writing, he purged all of the bad memories from his public thoughts (in this case TH and LotR), and only spoke of the reality in his private thoughts (in this case the writings of his that were only published after his death).

It has nothing to do with misleading the public, and everything to do with his own personal reaction to a tramatic event in his own life. I don’t know if any of you have ever truly been traumatized. I do know that in the aftermath of 9/11, I developed an anxiety disorder that has lasting affects. Sometimes it’s not a matter of if somebody should have done something, but a matter of they could have done it.

[Morthoron]

Your 'demands' for gratuitous sex/sexual violence in Tolkien's work is, again, a pretty Aunt Sally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally if you don't get the reference)

Well, if you're referring to an 'Aunt Sally' (a term I shall never use again), I suppose I can refer to a 'straw man argument' in the case of your last reply.

I was referring to serial and large-scale rape attendant in war. It was and is a regular occurence in war right down to the WWII war crime trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo, and presently in several African countries. It was considered a 'spoil of victory' in Rome, among the Vikings, throughout the Middle-ages, and up until the 19th century in Europe. Even the vaguest codification of rape as a crime in the 'rules of war' in international law did not appear until the 18th century.

& again misses the whole point I'm making. Tolkien doesn't mention sexual activity at all, let alone rape or child abuse....but if he did mention the latter.....

If an evil being appears in a novel I have a right to expect him to do evil things, not naughty things. In the same way, if a battle involving thousands of people armed with swords, spears, arrows, axes & the like takes place I expect there to be maimed, brutalised, broken souls on the field, alongside severed limbs & the rest - because that's what would have happened.

And rape in war was a natural occurrence in Dark Age and Medieval War. Tolkien didn't mention it? So what, it was part of war, plain and simple. Rape was an is, historically, an inherent evil in war. Just because you want to divorce one aspect of 'true war' for what you feel is 'appropriate' for 'true war' does not change facts, and it is actually quite absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it, so to speak. You are railing against one aspect of war that Tolkien obviously missed, and I am merely offering another relevant piece of the 'true war' you so covet.

And there is the vaguest intimation of something untoward and unsavory in regards to 'Half-orcs' and 'Goblin-men' isn't there? One doesn't get the feeling that woman submitted willingly to the sexual whims of brute Orcs; therefore, rape seemingly is implied and should be brought forward with pronounced clarity, in keeping with your need for 'real war'.

Davem, your position would have more force if there were some existing tradition of gore, screams and viscera which Tolkien presumptuously violated. But the contrary is true: eliding over the blood 'n guts was the established literary mode: are you therefore condemning Tolstoy and Hugo and the on and on? It's really inaccurate and unfair to dismiss this convention as "Boys' Own Paper" when it was in fact the dominant mode of Western war fiction up until Tolkien's age.

Precisely. A point I've made several times, in addition to the fact that Lord of the Rings is not meant strictly for adult consumption.

[davem]

And rape in war was a natural occurrence in Dark Age and Medieval War. Tolkien didn't mention it? So what, it was part of war, plain and simple. Rape was an is, historically, an inherent evil in war. Just because you want to divorce one aspect of 'true war' for what you feel is 'appropriate' for 'true war' does not change facts, and it is actually quite absurd. You can't have your cake and eat it, so to speak. You are railing against one aspect of war that Tolkien obviously missed, and I am merely offering another relevant piece of the 'true war' you so covet..

No, again you're missing the point. Rape is not mentioned in LotR (though there is an instance of attempted rape in CoH). Therefore rape is not applicable to the discussion, which is about the way Tolkien depicts the things that are mentioned. Firearms were part of medival warfare, but not of warfare in M-e, & therefore your point re rape is about as relevant to the discussion as if you were to argue that culverins were employed on the Pelennor but not mentioned in the text. There is no use of rape in the War of the Ring. The point I made earlier is the only relevant one as regards rape - if Tolkien had included rape in the story I would require him to present it in realistic terms, not in a poetic/elegiac way, not 'romanticised' & the victim given a quick, clean death & then to just disappear from the story.

So, to reiterate, we're discussing how Tolkien deals with what he does put into his story (ie, the way he depicts battle, & specifically the way people kill each other & how they die on the field), we aren't discussing why things that aren't part of the story haven't been included. People are being killed in battle & I'm questioning how that is depicted - because it is depicted, but not in a realistic way. There is no mention of rape taking place - it isn't depicted in any way at all so its not possible to discuss how Tolkien deals with rape as a weapon of war, because he doesn't deal with it at all.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

But, and this is one of my soapboxes, today many people want to view historical people and authors from a viewpoint that is not even contemperary to the author, but is a modern viewpoint. Perhaps this is just me - who in recent weeks has been exposed to far too many editorials blasting such people as Abraham Lincoln - but I surely don’t expect Tolkien to have kept 21st century readers in mind while writing a book in the aftermath of two World Wars. Nobody coming out of either World War would have needed to have been reminded that war is a bad thing. They knew it, they lived it, and quite frankly they were sick of it. For some of them LotR probably served as the same thing it did for Tolkien according to one of the above quotes - escapism.

Yes, all too true! That's exactly what I think as well. Though, with writing what I said above, I had in mind just the author himself - his point of view, the audience he estimates, or which he can estimate to read him. Of course he cannot know what the clima in the society will be like some hundred years later. That's a part of why I said no book is foolproof. But, my point was directed exactly to the author's choices, given his position according to his knowledge. But otherwise, I definitely agree with what you said.

[LadyBrooke]

And indeed when writing that I didn't have you in particular in mind. I was actually reading another thread at the same time I was going through this thread and writing my response and poeple on that thread seemed to be expecting Tolkien to have guessed what his readership would be like now, when I believe that he expected his books to have a quite limited readership.

Besides like I said it's a soapbox of mine - just like Celeborn.;) You really don't want to get me started on him.

[Bêthberry]

*whispers* Celebrian *coughs*

LadyBrooke, thanks for quoting that letter from Tolkien about transforming his experience/ seeking a distraction. This was something I had suggested some posts back, that Tolkien's fascination with war epics was related to his own wartime experience in WWI and was not necessarily a deliberate lie.

[LadyBrooke]

Coughhalforcscough

Thank you Bêthberry, but the credit for the quotes must go to Ibrin who was the one who looked them up in the first place and not me. I simply recopied them from her post and added my thoughts to them. For some reason though her name didn't show up even though I quoted them from her post.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Something that has struck me about The Lord of the Rings and, indeed, most of the Legendarium, has been the fact that, as you say, davem, violence is not depicted in grotesque or detailed terms. There are glimpses here and there, but nothing to the extent of the heroic deeds and so on. What strikes me as the possible reason is that Tolkien simply did not want to do this. When reading his essay On Fairy Stories as well as the forward to The Lord of the Rings (I vaguely remember something from the letters, but it's been so long since I read them-) that Tolkien was writing what he wanted.

That, in itself, is a dream, I have to say. So often I have been told by tutors on my Creative Writing course that you have to include a, b and c in a healthy balance whether you like it or not. There is merit in this, granted. Issues should be dealt with, things addressed and considered. It does not make them easy or pleasant to write about.

With The Hobbit being chiefly a children's book, Tolkien can be very much forgiven for the lack of violence. Indeed, with The Lord of the Rings being a sequel it almost, but not quite, could be expected that violence and graphic horror would not have the same presence. However, because The Lord of the Rings is directed at and appeals to an older audience, Tolkien had the liberty to do so. But he does not. Or, perhaps, will not.

With The Silmarillion, Children of Hurin and so on, we have much broader strokes of the stories; details are left out because the vastness of the tail, you might say, thrusts it aside. Had the detail been the same in The Silmarillion as it was in The Lord of the Rings, could it be contained within the bounds of a paperback? Probably not; it would probably collapse in on itself and create a black hole.

Tolkien seems to relish and toughly enjoy telling us about the heroic deeds as well as the tragic tales. There we find some of his best writing. We enjoy it. We relish it. We are here discussing it. After all, what was Tolkien's duty other than to tell the story? Indeed, even that was not a duty, as such, but a need within him.

Besides all this, to my mind, Middle Earth was, for so long, a place beset with evil and horror. The seemingly endless war with Melkor and the battles with Sauron must have plagued their minds. Therefore, any act of heroism, I should think, would be savored and remembered. It would not surprise me if the same was true of heroic tales of our own world were born from the same mindset. Places racked with war seeking any way to think of better things. Who knows?

[Morthoron]

No, again you're missing the point.

It is not that I miss any point, but thanks for the constant reminders; rather, I refuse to discuss the subject in the manner you demand, as is my preorogative. Others in the discussion seem to follow their own way as well, however limited and irrelevant you deem their replies.

Rape is not mentioned in LotR (though there is an instance of attempted rape in CoH). Therefore rape is not applicable to the discussion, which is about the way Tolkien depicts the things that are mentioned. Firearms were part of medival warfare, but not of warfare in M-e, & therefore your point re rape is about as relevant to the discussion as if you were to argue that culverins were employed on the Pelennor but not mentioned in the text. There is no use of rape in the War of the Ring. The point I made earlier is the only relevant one as regards rape - if Tolkien had included rape in the story I would require him to present it in realistic terms, not in a poetic/elegiac way, not 'romanticised' & the victim given a quick, clean death & then to just disappear from the story.

I'm sorry, but rape (or the lack of it) is certainly relevant. Just as there is a lack of culverins, and even more primary ballistic weapons like the handheld crossbow are not mentioned, it indicates that Tolkien's world is indeed a fantasy and not based on objective measurements against a real world time period or means of combat. To rely on such measures is doomed to futility (much like this conversation), as Tolkien's world is anachronistic and cannot be shown to adhere to any one epoch reliably or with any specificity.

There is a near complete reliance on chain mail in Middle-earth (save for a brief mention of Imrahil's pauldrons), and the use of mail has been in constant use in Arda for several thousand years with no real technological advance into plate. This in no way is historically factual, nor does it make much sense when comparing real-world precedents. There isn't even an advance from bronze to iron to steel in any consistent manner. On the other hand, we have clocks and other oddities like tea, tobacco, potatoes, umbrellas, etc., readily available in homes in the Shire (these were emended in part by Tolkien, but the anachronistic flavor remains).

So Tolkien eschewed rape as a weapon of war even though it was a primary tactic of fear, even a right of the victors, in European wars, just as he neglected the mention of culverins, which were at the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, or crossbows which were available in Europe at a far earlier date. This makes his depiction of war follow a more classical or legendary mode of storytelling not necessarily reliant on factual data which he would clearly possess, as steeped in history and philology as he was; therefore, this need of yours to castigate Tolkien for being unfactual in his depiction of war is unfounded, as his emphasis was never to present a carbon-copy historical document based on medieval warfare.

So, to reiterate, we're discussing how Tolkien deals with what he does put into his story (ie, the way he depicts battle, & specifically the way people kill each other & how they die on the field), we aren't discussing why things that aren't part of the story haven't been included. People are being killed in battle & I'm questioning how that is depicted - because it is depicted, but not in a realistic way. There is no mention of rape taking place - it isn't depicted in any way at all so its not possible to discuss how Tolkien deals with rape as a weapon of war, because he doesn't deal with it at all.

We are not discussing anything. I think most of the discussion has devolved into you and the rest of us. I've already given several compelling reasons why battle is not depicted in the manner you deem appropriate based on publisher demands, the time period in which it was written, the proposed audience of the book, Tolkien's eccentric reliance on archaic/classical modes of expression, and conversely, a scrupulous avoidance of modernism evident in other writers of the first half of the 20th century.

I know, I know, I miss the point. Whatever.

[Pitchwife]

Morthoron -
We are not discussing anything. I think most of the discussion has devolved into you and the rest of us.
Not quite. I think davem does have a point, and I've been wondering for quite a while which kind of answer would satisfy him. Lots of reasons have been given (by you and others) why Tolkien didn't describe battle more honestly/realistically, but davem's question, as I understand it, is:
"Never mind the reasons why he didn't do this, do we (21st century readers) think he should have?"
To which there would be two kinds of possible answers:
1. Yes, I think he should have done it, because...
2. No, I'm fine with the job he did, because...
Unfortunately, I'm too tired right now to dig into this any more than I've already tried to (I should have been in bed an hour ago). But I've got a feeling that this thread will be going on for another couple of days (unless you two get tired of playing ping-pong;))...

[Morthoron]

Lots of reasons have been given (by you and others) why Tolkien didn't describe battle more honestly/realistically, but davem's question, as I understand it, is:
"Never mind the reasons why he didn't do this, do we (21st century readers) think he should have?"
To which there would be two kinds of possible answers:
1. Yes, I think he should have done it, because...
2. No, I'm fine with the job he did, because...

The question is irrelevant. It neither applies to Tolkien's temperment, beliefs, mode of writing, or the time period in which he wrote, nor does it matter a hill of beans what we think he should have done.

[Bêthberry]

Morthoron -

Not quite. I think davem does have a point, and I've been wondering for quite a while which kind of answer would satisfy him. Lots of reasons have been given (by you and others) why Tolkien didn't describe battle more honestly/realistically, but davem's question, as I understand it, is:
"Never mind the reasons why he didn't do this, do we (21st century readers) think he should have?"
To which there would be two kinds of possible answers:
1. Yes, I think he should have done it, because...
2. No, I'm fine with the job he did, because...
Unfortunately, I'm too tired right now to dig into this any more than I've already tried to (I should have been in bed an hour ago). But I've got a feeling that this thread will be going on for another couple of days (unless you two get tired of playing ping-pong;))...

davem's points often twist and turn depending on how long he wants to maintain the controversy and how much fun he is having baiting people. However, in post #121 he phrases the issue this way:


If we are dealing with violence specifically is it right to present that in a romantic/elegiac way which may mislead the reader & affect the way they percieve violence in the real world?


Here he is putting the question in terms of the effect on readers' reactions to events in their historical world, the Primary World. This is a classic complaint against literature.

It is also, in reverse, the complaint made about computer games, that the violence in them leads to gamers' violence in real life.

Presumably davem wants us to consider if the omission might make readers more eager for war, not understanding how horrible it is.

Who is responsible for how readers use literature--or gamers, games--the users or the creators?

Of course, we don't know if literature/games/LotR would have a misleading effect, if it would incite readers to acts of war or make it easier to think that a just war is possible in our time.

We could, for instance, look at how Karen Armstrong discusses the effect on her of reading about the specific acts of horrendous cruelty and barbarity which the Western crusaders inflicted on both Muslims and Jews, in Europe and in the "Holy Land", and on women and children, not just combatants. And we could then examine her analysis of the consequences for cultural relations that continues down to this time. And we could think about how this knowledge influences our reading of today's world--and, even, our reading of Tolkien's just war.

But those historical accounts are indeed that, historical records--a witness--left by the participants, and not works of the imagination. They certainly aren't fantasy.

Thanks, LadyBrooke, for clarifying that it was not you who provided that intriguing quote from Tolkien's letters. My thanks to the very talented Ibrin for that contribution.

[davem]

Presumably davem wants us to consider if the omission might make readers more eager for war, not understanding how horrible it is.



And, of course, why Tolkien presented war in the way he did. Tolkien knew the truth about war, about how people really die (or don't die, just remain functioning with broken bodies & shattered minds). Yet he doesn't present us with that reality. He (& knowing the truth from first hand experience) chooses to write about it in such a way that that reality is absent.

Is that not intriguing? What would a psychologist make of a victim's account of a traumatic event which deliberately onitted the most horrific dimension.

Oh, its because Tolkien was writing an heroic romance. Or its because he was writing in the forties, when authors didn't go in for all that brutal realism. Or, its because he didn't want to upset any kiddies that might pick up the book. Or its....er... its because when the book was published there was a paper shortage & he had to be selective in what he included.....

Why is the truth, the harsh, unpleasant reality of war totally absent from the book, when the glory, excitement, joy, the self sacrifice & the rest of the 'positives' are played up. And do we as readers get a false impression of war from it? If its because Tolkien couldn't bring himself to speak of something so close to him, that I can accept, but still ask the question - what do we lose by that ommission. If, on the other hand its because he didn't want to frighten the children, or shock the ladies ("Would you want your wives, or your servants to read this book?" :eek: ) then I find that a bit distasteful.

I refuse to discuss the subject in the manner you demand, as is my preorogative. Others in the discussion seem to follow their own way as well, however limited and irrelevant you deem their replies.

Yes, yes, yes. But....the reason for that is, I started the discussion & set the terms. You don't have to participate, & if you want to discuss a different topic, or the same kind of topic in a different way, you are free to start your own thread. (BTW, when I pointed up the number of views this topic has so far recieved, it was to make the point that people are clearly enjoying the debate, the cut & thrust, the dynamic interaction, the long words, the twisting of arguments & the knocking down of Aunt Sallys involved. Or they may just be bored & have nothing better to do.Who knows?

What would you like to discuss instead?)

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

You're welcome, Bethberry (and LadyBrooke). :)

The subject of whether or not "entertainment" -- fiction, games, movies, etc. -- leads to indifference toward violence will probably be debated forever. But comparatively speaking, it is a very recent issue, if for no other reason than movies, video games, and role-playing games didn't exist until recent times (at least in historic terms). It's entirely possible that some people do become jaded toward violence because of their "unrealistic" exposure to it in such media -- especially in things where you can see the violence "happen," but in such a way that the witness is detached from any sense that the event is, or could be, "real." It has also been suggested (quite some time ago; I wrote a paper on it while I was in high school about 40 years ago) that seeing footage of real violence on the evening news causes the same kind of detachment, and after an initial horrified reaction, eventually inures some viewers to the real horror of it -- because it feels unreal, like the commercials and sitcoms and cartoons one sees on the same screen.

I can well imagine that it's possible that some people are similarly affected by reading about graphic violence; after a time, the descriptions cease to have the same effect they had the first time they were read. Because of my ongoing therapy for PTSD, I have read many books on the subject and related issues; I can't recall which author said it (it may have been John Bradford or Jon Kabat Zinn), but it is nonetheless true: "The witness of abuse is the victim of abuse." One can be as sorely harmed, psychologically, by seeing another person abused as the person who is being beaten or bullied, especially if this is something they see repeatedly, or the trauma is extreme. If this is so, then I would say that the use of graphic violence or other traumatic events in fiction writing is something best used very judiciously. One person might think that an author has a moral obligation to show the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, harsh and unvarnished and in all possible detail; another might believe that the author has a moral obligation to show as much as is necessary to provoke thought without traumatizing the reader, by making them a witness to verbal violence. I know that it's possible to do so through words alone. I've seen people react both emotionally and physically to brief passages in books; I've even written some things that readers told me prompted similar responses. They also told me that they were quite glad I showed restraint; a little bit went a long way, and too much would have made them feel as if they were being unnecessarily bludgeoned with it when I had already made my point.

So should Tolkien have written "the truth" about the horror of war in LotR? My feeling is that he did, in the way that was true to his story and true to himself. I did not come away from my first reading of LotR at age 11, thinking that war was glorious, or that it was something that just happened without causing lasting harm. I felt that it was something terrible, something that any sane person would want to avoid, and that even when it became necessary as defense, there were still many, many people who were hurt and suffered and died, both among the soldiers and the civilians. Graphic detail would not have enhanced this reaction; it quite likely would have made me put down the book long before the end, and I would have lost a great deal by not finishing. Fictional depiction of unpleasant truths can be educational -- but only up to a point, I believe. Beyond that threshold, it can undercut, distort, or even obliterate the message, because the audience stops listening, or listens out of fear.

[Morthoron]

Clearly, yourself & Morthoron are bored with this subject (in fact you both seem to be so similar in your outlook I could almost believe the two of your were married :) ), so I've been trying to come up with a way to help. I'm thinking of a new thread topic & I'd like to get your feedback - its about whether Orcs resort to juvenile insults because they're too stupid to sustain an intelligent debate, or whether its just because they think (& perhaps this goes to the heart of their tragedy as a corrupted, pathetic, species) it makes them look clever. Do you think there's any mileage in it?

I have not, as of yet, resorted to personal insult on this thread. I have, however, come to the conclusion, as Bethberry intimated earlier, that you have utterly no interest in a discussion and are merely prolonging a debate that has lost whatever merit it had long ago, for your own sordid reasons. It certainly seems Beth is right.

Oh, its because Tolkien was writing an heroic romance. Or its because he was writing in the forties, when authors didn't go in for all that brutal realism. Or, its because he didn't want to upset any kiddies that might pick up the book. Or its....er... its because when the book was published there was a paper shortage & he had to be selective in what he included.....

Yep, all relevant and compelling reasons. In fact, just one of those points is all that is necessary; however, the accumulated circumstancial evidence gives a preponderance of the truth in the matter. Therefore, I won't be continuing this absurdity beyond this: to infer that what a writer published over 50 years ago is wrong based on the skewed ideals/sensibilities of a modern reader is irrelevant. Hindsight is only good when one is not viewing things through one's posterior.

P.S. Good luck on your 'Orkish juvenile insult' thread, davem. I can't think of anyone better qualified to lead such a discussion.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Calm down, you lot. :p

I was going to mention this in my previous post but couldn't find the exact quote. Fortunately, good master Legate had it as his signature. That's probably where I saw it, actually. :D

For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it.

I think this is the point I was making earlier, if you think it valid. I have come across people in the past who thought the Lord of the Rings was too violent (books, not films, I did ask). My reaction indeed was 'I don't think it is'. Perhaps not compared to some stuff out there. I'm reading G.R.R Martin's A Game of thrones at the moment; this is a tad more graphic. But I get the impression from interviews and so on that that is what he wanted to do.

Tolkien, on the other hand, shies away from the graphic violence, as we have discussed. In the quote above I think we have a possible answer as to why this may be. One of the reasons I have loved Middle Earth is the fact that Tolkien delights in the brightness and good in his world. There are plenty of writers out there discussing the more gory details of war. I think Tolkien was writing, as he says, much for his own pleasure. A man who finds little pleasure in blood and guts, won't be in a hurry to pen it.

That's not to say there aren't the tragic and less desirable parts of the Legendarium. But plot is dependent on these things. The battle of Pelenor field would not have hit me so hard and remained in my memory if not for the passing of Théoden.

The tragic parts, such as the Scouring of the Shire and others, serve a much deeper purpose than simply balancing out good and evil. They effect the reader in a more emotional way than the blood and spilled entrails ever could. It is these events that hit hardest, that stay in the mind. Tolkien, I think, wanted his story to have these effects. The same things he had felt when reading myths and legends.

[davem]

From an account by Army surgeon Richard Wiseman at the Siege of Taunton in 1645, during the English Civil War. Horrible & graphic, but please read to the end..

One of Colonel Arundel's men, in storming the works, was shot in the face by case shot. He fell down and, in the retreat, was carried off among the dead; and laid in an empty house by the way till the next day; when, in the morning early, the colonel marching by that house heard a knocking within against the door.

Some of the officers, desiring to know what it was, looked in & saw this man standing by the door without eye, face, nose or mouth. The colonel sent to me....to dress the man. I went, but was somewhat troubled where to begin. The door consisted of two hatches: the uppeermost was open& the man stood leaning upon the other part of the door, which was shut. His face, with its eyes, nose. mouth & foremost part of the jaw with the chin, was shot away & the remaining parts of them driven in. One part of the jaw hung down by his throat & the other part pushed into it. I saw the brain working out underneath the lacerated scalp on both sides between his ears & brows.....

I could not see any advantage he could have by my dressing, but I helped him to clear his throat, ehere was remaining the root of his tongue. He seemed to approve of my endeavours & implored my help by the signs he made with his hands.

I asked him if he would drink. making a sign by the holding up of a finger. He presently did the like & immediately after held up both his hands, expressing his thirst. A soldier fetched some milk & brought a little wooden dish to pour some of it down his throat; but part of it running on both sides, he reached out his hands to take the dish. They gave it him full of milk. He held the root of his tongue down with one hand & with the other poured it down his throat (carrying his head backwards) & so got down more than a quart. After that I bound his wounds up

Yes, its horrible & graphic, but its also heartbreaking & brings home the true horror & pain of war in a way that nothing in Tolkien does.

Does that make my point any clearer?

[LadyBrooke]

*Looks at thread* Meep! I suggest that everybody takes a few deep breaths, back away for a moment, and try to calm down before people learn the reality of war from this thread. This is not a life or death situation, nobody is going to die because we can’t agree, and we do not want to become known as ‘the group of Tolkien fans that tried to bludgeon each other over the internet.’ As one of the youngest on the thread I think I can safely say that it is possible to keep one’s head cool, and not descend to the level of orcs. Note the description for the Books forum In-depth discussions of Middle-earth for the learned and the curious. Everyone is welcome.
Learned implies a certain degree of maturity, and those who are curious have to be careful to not overstep the bounds of civility

Now on to my thoughts.

Something that has struck me about The Lord of the Rings and, indeed, most of the Legendarium, has been the fact that, as you say, davem, violence is not depicted in grotesque or detailed terms. There are glimpses here and there, but nothing to the extent of the heroic deeds and so on. What strikes me as the possible reason is that Tolkien simply did not want to do this. When reading his essay On Fairy Stories as well as the forward to The Lord of the Rings (I vaguely remember something from the letters, but it's been so long since I read them-) that Tolkien was writing what he wanted.
Tolkien wrote he wanted, just like most other writers in this day and age who are not constrained to writing what a rich patron wanted them to write. Jane Austen wrote what she wanted, so did George MacDonald, C.S.Lewis, and many other writers still do today. After all, the best books to do seem to come from people who had the freedom to write what they wanted - not what the person dangling the money bag wanted

With The Silmarillion, Children of Hurin and so on, we have much broader strokes of the stories; details are left out because the vastness of the tail, you might say, thrusts it aside. Had the detail been the same in The Silmarillion as it was in The Lord of the Rings, could it be contained within the bounds of a paperback? Probably not; it would probably collapse in on itself and create a black hole.
If The Silmarillion had as much detail as LotR does, it would need it’s own zipcode, and would most likely have been broken up into a series of 50 books. Which I wouldn’t have minded.;)

Tolkien seems to relish and toughly enjoy telling us about the heroic deeds as well as the tragic tales. There we find some of his best writing. We enjoy it. We relish it. We are here discussing it. After all, what was Tolkien's duty other than to tell the story? Indeed, even that was not a duty, as such, but a need within him.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. As a writer myself, this is one of the things I’ve been trying to express in my posts. For some writers, we don’t think about duty or anything like that. It is a need to tell a story that drives us to stay up to 3am to finish just one more line or derive complex genealogies for characters that are mentioned once.

Besides all this, to my mind, Middle Earth was, for so long, a place beset with evil and horror. The seemingly endless war with Melkor and the battles with Sauron must have plagued their minds. Therefore, any act of heroism, I should think, would be savored and remembered. It would not surprise me if the same was true of heroic tales of our own world were born from the same mindset. Places racked with war seeking any way to think of better things. Who knows?
The idea of seeking any way to think of better things is one I am frequently seeing in my own area recently. I don’t know if anybody outside of Kentucky and Indiana has even noticed our recent problem, but in a 6 month period we have had two severe power outages lasting for over a week in some places due to hurricane winds and snow. And people have sought escape from thoughts of snow. In fact the week of the snow all of the radio stations were playing such songs as Sunshine and Summertime by Faith Hill.

Who is responsible for how readers use literature--or gamers, games--the users or the creators?
I feel extremely uncomfortable that this is even necessary to ask. Is nobody going to be held responsible for their own actions, these days? Even if you read a book titled 1,000,000 Ways to Destroy Earth, if you blow up the Earth it was your own decision. Not the book’s writer, not video games’ designer , not your dog’s. Yours.:mad:
Is that not intriguing? What would a psychologist make of a victim's account of a traumatic event which deliberately onitted the most horrific dimension.
While I am not a trained psychologist, I am (A.) Currently taking psychology for school credit and (B.) Somebody who has had an anxiety disorder, and has chosen to study all sorts of mental disorders and traumas. Therefore I feel I am in somewhat of a position to comment on this.

It is very intriguing, which is why I chose to start a thread on the psychological affects in the books and on Tolkien. A psychologist would likely make something along the lines of what I have already mentioned in this thread, and backed up with one of Tolkien’s own quotes from a letter. That is that Tolkien used his writings as a form of escapism, which is a frequent mode of coping with disaster - separating oneself from the actual event.

Fictional depiction of unpleasant truths can be educational -- but only up to a point, I believe. Beyond that threshold, it can undercut, distort, or even obliterate the message, because the audience stops listening, or listens out of fear.
Something like this happened in one of my history classes once. We had to watch this very realistic movie on the Holocaust. Brilliant movie and absolutely true to what happened. And yet myself and many of my classmates would be unable to tell you anything about what happened or even what it was called. Why? Because by the time we had seen a little of the movie, many of us were so desperate to just get these images out of our head, that we had all stopped watching. I myself just grabbed my arm and dug my nails in to have something else to focus on. It was too traumatizing, too realistic - we couldn’t deal with it. This was 15 and 16 year olds by the way. Sometimes it can be more damaging to show the complete truth, than it is to describe the basics and let the rest go. I sincerely believe we would have gotten more if they had just described the camps and the number of people - not just Jews - that died there.

That's not to say there aren't the tragic and less desirable parts of the Legendarium. But plot is dependent on these things. The battle of Pelenor field would not have hit me so hard and remained in my memory if not for the passing of Théoden.

The tragic parts, such as the Scouring of the Shire and others, serve a much deeper purpose than simply balancing out good and evil. They effect the reader in a more emotional way than the blood and spilled entrails ever could. It is these events that hit hardest, that stay in the mind. Tolkien, I think, wanted his story to have these effects. The same things he had felt when reading myths and legends.
Touching briefly on Theoden’s death, I don’t think it would have affected me as hard if Tolkien had described what the actual death would have been like. It would have taken something away from Theoden’s speech and forgiveness of Merry for disobeying orders because the entire time I would have been like “He’s talking this much with a horse lying on top of him - WHAT?????”, but without that speech Theoden would have been less of a hero to me. If that makes sense.

Sometimes things have to be traded for other things. In this case I think the realistic part of war was put lower on the list of priorities to give Tolkien a chance to create characters that stand for hope to so many around the world.

That excerpt gave nothing to me except to make me feel a sense of hopelessness. What’s the point of living if there is no hope?

[davem]

That excerpt gave nothing to me except to make me feel a sense of hopelessness. What’s the point of living if there is no hope?

Don't know if you're referring there to the excerpt I gave in my last post, but if you are then I'd have to argue with you. It depicts the reality of war, & to omit it from a tale of war is actually to turn a blind eye to what men like that unnamed soldier suffered & pretend he didn't suffer at all. It would have been nicer all round if the original shot had killed him quickly & cleanly, but it didn't.

[Bêthberry]

From an account by Army surgeon Richard Wiseman at the Siege of Taunton in 1645, during the English Civil War. Horrible & graphic, but please read to the end..


I quote only your source, davem, because it is its genre which is significant: an historical account, an eye witness. Would such extensive details be given in literary epics of war from the time--the Civil War? Did Cromwell's bloody assaults in Ireland make it into the poetry books? They certainly aren't collected in the usual anthologies of the time. ;)

Compare these literary battle epics with Tolkien and consider how different or similar is his use of graphic detail to what they enlist:

The Battle of Maldon (Modern translation) (http://www.airflow.net/maldon/thepoem.html)

Selections from Sheamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf (http://www.beowulftranslations.net/hean.shtml) This link is particularly interesting as it is devoted to translations of the ancient poem from 1805/1826 to the present. I haven't read them all as I think Heaney's translation gives a good general sense of the epic style.

The point you are harping on, in a different context, would be well worth thinking about, the difference between historical war accounts and literary genres, or the difference between twentieth century attitudes towards war and those of earlier centuries. However, your bloody insistence that Tolkien's personal experience of war must necessarily trump his literary experience of war is a travesty of imaginative creativity as well as of psychology. We might well ask why Tolkien did not indulge in the modern style as the other war poets did (Sassoon etc), but that only shows again how his work is not "modern." Tolkien hated modern literature for its language style and loved old literature, for its language's sake. We can read his own acknowledgement that he sought a release from the personal imperative in the old epics.

But you haven't simply asked about the difference. You have couched it in a demand that Tolkien's work follow a different drummer, one whose beat you have measured. I suppose you think that's what makes this thread interesting, but like the straw man in The Wizard of Oz, it lacks real fibre--a spark or tinder ends it all.

But since you enjoy smoking so much--or at least defend it so often, here's some to enjoy :smokin:

[LadyBrooke]

Yes, that is indeed the excerpt I am referring to. Yes, it depicts the reality of war, but I feel that instead of people learning the reality of war from literature they should learn it in real life. I can sit a kid a kid down, and read him the excerpt and half of them will think that it is ‘cool’. Guts and blood and brains splattered everywhere are ‘cool’ to many of my of peers because they see it on t.v. and movies - that doesn’t mean that they consider it reality. In fact, as long a book or movie or t.v. show is labeled fiction, it won’t matter how realistic the subject is portrayed, because it is in the same category as Twilight, Shakespeare, Nancy Drew and Jane Austin - all fiction. It can be ignored because it is not real.

People will not learn unless they see real people who have been hurt in real wars and have suffered real consequences. It is unfair to demand that Tolkien and other authors dealing in fictional worlds should have to carry a burden that isn’t demanded of our real world leaders and workers. Why not demand that our lawmakers, our teachers, and our newspaper writers teach the same? Our lawmakers can speak of heroic sacrifice without having to detail the grim reality of death many people suffer in war - and not just our soldiers' deaths but the civilians on the ground and that is acceptable. Nobody speaking of the nuclear bombings spoke of the reality of suffering for many years. It is a struggle to get benefits for soldiers unless one got national news coverage - just ask my great-uncle, who only got his benefits for his Vietnam injuries this past October.

People need to face issues in the real world, and stop blaming our literature, video games, movies, and television for what is in fact a failure to acknowledge reality in the real world. I am currently in High School and just finished taking World History last year. And never once was the real horror of war talked about. We managed to do a whole chapter on WWI without once talking about death beyond the obligatory so-and-so million people died in this war. The rest was on the political issues behind and during the war. That is why so many people can’t understand the reality of war - because unless you or a close friend or family member is fighting in it or lives in the country where it is taking place war isn’t real.

[davem]

But you haven't simply asked about the difference. You have couched it in a demand that Tolkien's work follow a different drummer, one whose beat you have measured. I suppose you think that's what makes this thread interesting, but like the straw man in The Wizard of Oz, it lacks real fibre--a spark or tinder ends it all. :

No - I'm following the argument I linked to way back in the article by Poul Anderson & asking whether when a modern writer knows the historical reality, the facts of how people die in battle, how far a horse can actually gallop without collapsing, how long a man can swing a heavy sword without needing a rest he should take that into account in his fiction. In short how much of the primary world has to be brought in to a secondary world if the reader it to accept that secondary world.

Its also, interestingly, an issue Tolkien himself addressed in The Homecoming of Brythnoth, in the characters of Tida & Totta the old man who has seen the horrors of war at first hand & will not put up with the young poet's romantic approach to battle. For the poet, even as they trek through the corpses to find the body of their lord, death in battle is a glorious thing. For the old man that's a silly, juvenile attitude, & the poet needs to wake up & smell the excrement & hear the screams of the dying - because that's what war is really all about.

I don't know whether the writers of Maldon or Beowulf had experienced battle, but I do know, (as Tolkien himslelf did - read his 'Ofermod') that Tolkien had no time for Brythnoth's 'chivalry'. I do know that Tolkien had experienced war at first hand, & thus if he refuses to acknowledge what really happened that is his freely made choice. Not talking about war because of the horrors one has seen is one thing. Writing about war in a way that presents it sans all the horror that traumatised one is an odd response - to me.

Finally, if Tolkien can, in Sam, choose to honour the humble batman who was always there to help his officer, why would he not also choose to honour the poor bllody infantryman (probably conscripted after a deal of social pressure http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-medals/white-feather.htm) who left the field like the soldier Richard Wisman records? A writer makes choices for a reason. One, surely, can ask what that reason was.

I'm not asking about "the difference between historical war accounts and literary genres," - but you can if you want. And going back to your question about whether Cromwell's bloody assaults in Ireland should have made it into the poetry books (or historical novels, which is the point here) I would say that, if a modern novelist, who knew what really happened there, was to write a historical novel about that event without mentioning the real horrors that took place, then that writer would be failing in his or her responsibility to their reader.

[Morthoron]

Trees. One would think a man like Tolkien, a professed lover of trees, would describe them more realistically. But no! His trees walk about and grumble and eat people! It's preposterous! I think Tolkien was barking up the wrong tree on this one, and gives the reader a stilted view in his depictions that in no way mirror real life. Some readers may get an altogether wrong impression about trees, and the way Tolkien glorifies trees going to war. They may cringe whenever they pass a malevolent maple or bellicose beech, eventually contracting dendrophobia, and flee in terror from a sullen spruce, irrationally fearing that it will engorge the family dog.

In an age when environmentalism and ecology are crucial subjects and the effects of global warming are more pronounced every day, it is evident we need more trees; unfortunately, frightened people, having been been fooled by the nefarious machinations of Tolkien, will eschew the planting of trees and may suggest at their local city council meetings that trees be banned altogether due to their insidious encroachment on eaves, awnings and underground water pipes and sewage lines, as well as the negative effects barbarous trees may have on impressionable youths. It only takes one bad apple tree to spoil the whole bunch.

Was Tolkien aware of the damage he wrought? Wouldn't it have been far more responsible to portray trees as noncombatative and less curmudgeonly? Arborism may not been Tolkien's branch of study, but he knew enough about trees from personal experience to know better. I am shocked and appalled!

[Bêthberry]

. In short how much of the primary world has to be brought in to a secondary world if the reader it to accept that secondary world.

This short takes us back to the readers as having the final say on what successfully constitutes an achieved secondary world. ;)

Based on the legions of Tolkien fans, the answer seems to be that Tolkien's readers accept the secondary world he has created. And not only do they accept that secondary world, they go to some effort to attempt to enter it themselves, to imaginatively recreating it, whether it is the costume dinners at Tolkien events or simply painting their homes in a Middle-earth style or designing sub-divisions to ressemble Middle-earth, or searching for replicas of the weapons.

There are many readers who don't take to Tolkien's Middle-earth and possibly they are the ones who object to his depiction of war, although they'd have to read far into LotR to become disenchanted with his battles. From my experience, these readers don't cotton much to the genre of fantasy itself.



I do know that Tolkien had experienced war at first hand, & thus if he refuses to acknowledge what really happened that is his freely made choice.

But he did acknowledge it, just not where you want it. That's what his Homecoming of Brythnoth is about, as you have ably stated.


(or historical novels, which is the point here)

Ah but perhaps the difficulty lies with this definition of LotR's genre. While clearly there is a strong impetus to presenting it as if it were history, it lies uneasily in this category. LotR is not a novel within the tradition of realistic novel. Many characters do not have the kind of development seen in, say, E. M. Forrester's novels or Viriginia Woolf's novels (whose work for that matter isn't historical novel either). They fall within the style and type of Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind. Their style of speech changes; Legolas and Gimli lose their distinctively different speech patterns later in LotR and come both to speak in heroic measure. In fact, the style of language in LotR changes, an inconsistency often brought out by those who want LotR to be within this novelistic tradition. And as Morthoron has so humorously pointed out--forum hardware's not letting me rep you, Morth-- Tokien's trees aren't biologically accurate either. Nor are his flying taxis, the eagles, nor his talking foxes. The significance and presence granted to verse in LotR also differentiates it from historical novels. In fact, some might even argue that LoR is not a novel at all. It is . . . fantasy. I sort of think that's what Morthoron's getting at too. ;)

Yet, as I say, legions of fans accept his secondary world as if it were real. Why, I could even quote our illustrious Legate to that, from another thread.

gotta run. ta ta.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

save for a brief mention of Imrahil's pauldrons

Er, that would be vambraces, and plate forearm-guards go back at least as far as the Greeks.

Still, the point is quite well taken. For whatever reason Tolkien chose to freeze military technology at about the time of Hastings. Probably because he was concerned with *decline*- the weapons of the Elder Days were, by authorial fiat, better than those of the decadent Third Age. Of course, that's pretty much exactly the way his beloved Old English viewed things: Roman ruins were 'eald enta gweorc,' ancient works of giants.

[alatar]

Despite the fact that this thread has changed tracks, changed trains, gone back to the stations a few times, resisted various attempts of hijacking and demolition, it remains an interesting read. :)

But let's skip warfare for a moment, as that's too removed from many people's lives. Or at least let's look at the ravages of another war, a war we all fight and lose, the war against time. Throw into the mix disease, and you have yourself a pretty picture of the primary world we call life.

Visit a care facility where people - real people - are biding their last few days of life. See how many, once noble, are reduced to the kind of care of that of an infant. Look in their eyes and see that divine spark missing - the body is there, but the mind, the spirit, has already left. Smell the underlying scent of disease and decay and death and offal, and hear the moanings of the lost and suffering, and beeps and hummings of the life-sustaining machines that continue on long after the person has been declared dead.

If a loved one is in such a place, would this be how we would want to remember him/her? Or do we remember that warm but not yet hazy day on the ball field, with the early sun casting shadowed trees long across the field, when we helped the 'Old Man' get ready for his softball game by playing some catch?

So can we blame Tolkien for not wanting to write a perfectly accurate description of life? Don't we all want to leave this world and all of its ugliness behind for a while? Not only did Tolkien created characters without feet of clay, but also kept their semi-angelic feet out of the muck as well.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Er, that would be vambraces, and plate forearm-guards go back at least as far as the Greeks.

Still, the point is quite well taken. For whatever reason Tolkien chose to freeze military technology at about the time of Hastings. Probably because he was concerned with *decline*- the weapons of the Elder Days were, by authorial fiat, better than those of the decadent Third Age. Of course, that's pretty much exactly the way his beloved Old English viewed things: Roman ruins were 'eald enta gweorc,' ancient works of giants.

Or perhaps he does not see the advent of automatic or more advanced weapons / armor and such as being 'progress'. ;)

I do know that Tolkien had experienced war at first hand, & thus if he refuses to acknowledge what really happened that is his freely made choice.

I agree that this is indeed strange. As I mentioned, you have to keep in mind that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were written for Tolkien's "own satisfaction" more than anything. While nowadays writers are encouraged to face up to realities and deal with horrors, I'm not sure Tolkien was, or if he was, it was probably by people that annoyed him. :p And you know what academics can be like with people that annoy them.

I'm speculating, of course.

We can say what Tolkien should have done until the end of days. A different writer may have focussed on the gore, but Tolkien did not. My feeling is that the horrors of war were well known to his audience, the first two World Wars still a raw memory.

Yes, its horrible & graphic, but its also heartbreaking & brings home the true horror & pain of war in a way that nothing in Tolkien does.

Here, I fear, we must agree to disagree. Without the knowledge of characters the section loses much of its effect. The loss in itself of a favored or enjoyed character is often enough, for me anyway. The details can add something, but a lack of them does not take anything away. For example, had Tolkien gone to great lengths to talk about the blood pouring from Boromir's arrow wounds or how it had pierced his lungs and so forth, I do not think it would make the scene any more powerful than it is. Not to me, anyway. But then, perhaps I am a little squeamish.

More than torn skin and bleeding faces, what brings the horror of war home, from my own view, was the souring of the Shire. Indeed, the Hobbits comment on how "it really brings it home to you because it is home".

Not that there isn't something to be said for graphic detail having a power. But I think it is of a different sort. I actually admire Tolkien for taking a different look at the realities and affects of war; destroyed homes and lives, things never being the same again. These are the long lasting, even generation-spanning effects.

Or something like that.

[Gwathagor]

Perhaps graphic violence would have been considered out of place in the fantasy genre as it existed at the time? That is as legitimate a reason as any.

[davem]

But he did acknowledge it, just not where you want it. That's what his Homecoming of Bryhtnoth is about, as you have ably stated.


I'd see HoB differently, & this is why I brought it up. Tida, the old man, specifically attacks Totta's (the young poet) romantic/heroic take on warfare. Tida mocks Totta's idealism, telling him that if he is unfortunate enough to find himself in a battle he will realise that its not like the poems & songs he makes so much of. This conversation takes place while the two search for their fallen lord's body, picking their way through the corpses at night, while the 'masterless men' rob the dead. This is Tolkien himself speaking through the old warrior of the harsh reality of war, stating in no uncertain terms that he is wrong to view war as the playground of heroes. That the battlefield is a place where people get cut down, die painfully, & their corpses are left to scavengers.

Can we see this as in anyway Tolkien's response to certain aspects of his own work? I think so - in the same way as CoH can be seen almost as the inverted image of LotR. Its too simplistic to claim that Tolkien was seeking in his fiction to escape his own experiences - which is why (at the risk of repeating myself!) I have kept on rejecting that overly simplistic explanation. He gave us a novel, in LotR, in which warfare is reduced to heroic fantasy, but he knows very well (& tells us very clearly in HoB/CoH) that its not like that. In some of his works he is Totta, in others, he is Tida. Therefore, because he doesn't adopt a single approach to warfare in all his works its valid to ask why in LotR he glamourises war.

Here, I fear, we must agree to disagree. Without the knowledge of characters the section loses much of its effect. Well, the point is Wiseman & the wounded soldier were real people. We may not know even the soldier's name, but what we do know is that he was once a baby in his mother's arms, that he ran around & played with other children, that he grew up to manhood, joined the army & ended as we saw. The horror of his fate, so graphically (but not gratuitously) described brings home the true horror of his fate. He was a man like us, & his fate could be ours, or our children's.

[Bêthberry]

So can we blame Tolkien for not wanting to write a perfectly accurate description of life? Don't we all want to leave this world and all of its ugliness behind for a while? Not only did Tolkien created characters without feet of clay, but also kept their semi-angelic feet out of the muck as well.

Recently upon perusing an ealier history of travels, which included some events of warfare and war like acrimony, and many other things as well which don't pertain to LotR, I came upon a passage which upon reflection seemed to suit this comment, so I offer it in the kindness that alatar may feel he need not double post, not withstanding the latter comments by several other Downers , although for what specific reason I cannot specifically ascertain, whether as Ornament to our Discussion or as Truth.


Thus, gentle reader, I have given thee a faithful history of my travels for sixteen years and above seven months: wherein I have not been so studious of ornament as of truth. I could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact, in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee.

It is easy for us who travel into remote countries, which are seldom visited by Englishmen or other Europeans, to form descriptions of wonderful animals both at sea and land. Whereas a traveller's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.

I could heartily wish a law was enacted, that every traveller, before he were permitted to publish his voyages, should be obliged to make oath before the Lord High Chancellor, that all he intended to print was absolutely true to the best of his knowledge; for then the world would no longer be deceived, as it usually is, while some writers, to make their works pass the better upon the public, impose the grossest falsities on the unwary reader. I have perused several books of travels with great delight in my younger days; but having since gone over most parts of the globe, and been able to contradict many fabulous accounts from my own observation, it has given me a great disgust against this part of reading, and some indignation to see the credulity of mankind so impudently abused. Therefore, since my acquaintance were pleased to think my poor endeavours might not be unacceptable to my country, I imposed on myself, as a maxim never to be swerved from, that I would strictly adhere to truth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it, while I retain in my mind the lectures and example of my noble master and the other illustrious Houyhnhnms of whom I had so long the honour to be an humble hearer.

- Nec si miserum Fortuna Sinonem Finxit, vanum etiam, mendacemque improba finget.

I know very well, how little reputation is to be got by writings which require neither genius nor learning, nor indeed any other talent, except a good memory, or an exact journal. I know likewise, that writers of travels, like dictionary-makers, are sunk into oblivion by the weight and bulk of those who come last, and therefore lie uppermost. And it is highly probable, that such travellers, who shall hereafter visit the countries described in this work of mine, may, by detecting my errors (if there be any), and adding many new discoveries of their own, justle me out of vogue, and stand in my place, making the world forget that ever I was an author. This indeed would be too great a mortification, if I wrote for fame: but as my sole intention was the public good, I cannot be altogether disappointed. For who can read of the virtues I have mentioned in the glorious Houyhnhnms, without being ashamed of his own vices, when he considers himself as the reasoning, governing animal of his country? I shall say nothing of those remote nations where Yahoos preside; among which the least corrupted are the Brobdingnagians; whose wise maxims in morality and government it would be our happiness to observe. But I forbear descanting further, and rather leave the judicious reader to his own remarks and application.

I am not a little pleased that this work of mine can possibly meet with no censurers: for what objections can be made against a writer, who relates only plain facts, that happened in such distant countries, where we have not the least interest, with respect either to trade or negotiations? I have carefully avoided every fault with which common writers of travels are often too justly charged. Besides, I meddle not the least with any party, but write without passion, prejudice, or ill-will against any man, or number of men, whatsoever. I write for the noblest end, to inform and instruct mankind; over whom I may, without breach of modesty, pretend to some superiority, from the advantages I received by conversing so long among the most accomplished Houyhnhnms. I write without any view to profit or praise. I never suffer a word to pass that may look like reflection, or possibly give the least offence, even to those who are most ready to take it. So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless; against whom the tribes of Answerers, Considerers, Observers, Reflectors, Detectors, Remarkers, will never be able to find matter for exercising their talents.

[alatar]

Recently upon perusing an ealier history of travels, which included some events of warfare and war like acrimony, and many other things as well which don't pertain to LotR, I came upon a passage which upon reflection seemed to suit this comment, so I offer it in the kindness that alatar may feel he need not double post, not withstanding the latter comments by several other Downers , although for what specific reason I cannot specifically ascertain, whether as Ornament to our Discussion or as Truth.
I have this fantasy that one day I will once understand what Bêthberry is writing about...;)

[davem]

http://www.suvudu.com/2009/02/the-real-fantastic-stuff-an-essay-by-richard-k-morgan.html

“I tell you, it’s no game serving down in the city”

- Gorbag - forgotten orc captain from Minas Morgul

I’m not much of a Tolkien fan - not since I was about twelve or fourteen anyway (which, it strikes me, is about the right age to read and enjoy his stuff). But it would be a foolish writer in the fantasy field who failed to acknowledge the man’s overwhelming significance in the canon. And it would be a poor and superficial reader of Tolkien who failed to acknowledge that in amongst all the overwrought prose, the nauseous paeans to class-bound rural England, and the endless bloody elven singing that infests The Lord of the Rings, you can sometimes discern the traces of a bleak underlying human landscape which is completely at odds with the epic fantasy narrative for which the book is better known.

That little twist of urban angst quoted above is one such trace. It comes at the end of The Two Towers and is part of an on-going set of dialogues between two orc captains at the tower of Cirith Ungol. And for a while - until Tolkien remembers these are Bad Guys and sends the wearyingly Good and Wholesome Sam up against them - we get a fascinating insight into life for the rank and file in Mordor. The orcs are disenchanted, poorly informed and constantly stressed by the uncertainties that lack of information brings. They suspect that the war might be going badly for their side, and that their commanders, far from being infallible, seem to be making some serious errors of judgment. They worry that if their side loses, they can expect scant mercy from their victorious enemies. They mutter their misgivings sotto voce because they know that there are informers in the ranks and a culture of enforcement through terror bearing down from above. They also seem possessed of a rough good humour and some significant loyalty to the soldiers they command. And they’re not enjoying the war any more than Frodo or Samwise; they want it to be over just as much as anybody else.

For me, this is some of the finest, most engaging work in The Lord of the Rings. It feels - perhaps a strange attribute for a fantasy novel - real. Suddenly, I'm interested in these orcs. Gorbag is transformed by that one laconic line about the city, from slavering brutish evil-doer to world-weary (almost noir-ish) hard-bitten survivor. The simplistic archetypes of Evil are stripped away and what lies beneath is - for better or brutal worse - all too human. This is the real meat of the narrative, this is the telling detail (as Bradbury's character Faber from Fahrenheit 451 would have it), no Good, no Evil, just the messy human realities of a Great War as seen from ground level. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that what you're probably looking at here are the fossil remnants of Tolkien's first-hand experiences in his own Great War, as he passed through the hellish trenches and the slaughter of the Somme in 1916.

The great shame is, of course, that Tolkien was not able (or inclined) to mine this vein of experience for what it was really worth - in fact he seemed to be in full, panic-stricken flight from it. I suppose it's partially understandable - the generation who fought in the First World War got to watch every archetypal idea they had about Good and Evil collapse in reeking bloody ruin around them. It takes a lot of strength to endure something like that and survive, and then to re-draw your understanding of things to fit the uncomfortable reality you've seen. Far easier to retreat into simplistic nostalgia for the faded or forgotten values you used to believe in. So by the time we get back to Cirith Ungol in The Return of the King, Gorbag and his comrades have been conveniently shorn of their more interesting human character attributes and we're back to the cackling slavering evil out of Mordor from a children's bedtime story. Our glimpse of something more humanly interesting is gone, replaced once more by the ponderous epic tones of Towering Archetypal Evil pitted against Irritatingly Radiant Good (oh - and guess who wins).

Now, I just know that most of the responses this will get will be attacks on the writer for attacking Tolkien, but I think, as with the last article I linked to, that he makes some valid points (the ones I've highlighted)

the traces of a bleak underlying human landscape &

It takes a lot of strength to endure something like that and survive, and then to re-draw your understanding of things to fit the uncomfortable reality you've seen. Far easier to retreat into simplistic nostalgia for the faded or forgotten values you used to believe in

Tolkien, in Shagrat & Gorbag, shows not the banality of evil, so much as the humanity of it. S & G are the poor bloody infantry in a way that no-one on the 'good' side is. We almost glimpse the true horror of war, but never quite do. Its clear that there is this 'split' in Tolkien - the veteran who knows the horror & banality of real war is in constant conflict with the romantic dreamer who wants to escape back into an ideal past, when men fought honourably in just wars. The S & G scene is shocking in its realism - in fact, I suspect that the writer is correct - Tolkien here actually touched on the reality of war - & on realising that he ran from it like a shot.

[Pitchwife]

I know I'm not responding to davem's last post quite as seriously as it deserves (and I mean this quite seriously), but as soon as I read about Shagrat and Gorbag representing the poor bloody infantry this popped up in my mind:

Marching Song of the Mordor Orcs
(tune: The Old Barbed Wire; cf Chumbawamba, English Rebel Songs)

If you want to find the Dark Lord, I know where he is
I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Dark Lord, I know where he is
He's sitting in safety on top of his bloody tower

If you want to find the Nazgûl, I know where he is
I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Nazgûl, I know where he is
He's riding aloft on his wingéd beast

If you want to find the Uruk, I know where he is
I know where he is, I know where he is
If you want to find the Uruk, I know where he is
He's scattered in pieces all over the Pelennor

I saw him, I saw him
Scattered in pieces all over the Pelennor

(Note: Originally I meant to write this from the perspective of a Gondorian or Rohirric private, but it doesn't work for the good guys - which tells us something about good and evil, doesn't it?)

[davem]

(Note: Originally I meant to write this from the perspective of a Gondorian or Rohirric private, but it doesn't work for the good guys - which tells us something about good and evil, doesn't it?)

It does - just as if we change the quote I gave earlier slightly

The Gondorians/Rohirrim are disenchanted, poorly informed and constantly stressed by the uncertainties that lack of information brings. They suspect that the war might be going badly for their side, and that their commanders, far from being infallible, seem to be making some serious errors of judgment. They worry that if their side loses, they can expect scant mercy from their victorious enemies. They mutter their misgivings sotto voce because they know that there are informers in the ranks and a culture of enforcement through terror bearing down from above.

we find ourselves in totally different territory. Yet, can we honestly imagine that none of the PBI in Gondor or Rohan felt that way? Tolkien stepped out onto dangerous ground with this scene - those Orcs suddenly become human - if they are stupid & vicious as well we are forced to ask ourselves whether we could expect anything else, given that they are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future.

But is he attempting to elicit sympathy for sentient beings in a hellish situation, or contempt?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

- if they are stupid & vicious as well we are forced to ask ourselves whether we could expect anything else, given that they are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future.

Oh, dear. "It's not the lad's fault, Milud, he had a bad childhood."

[davem]

Oh, dear. "It's not the lad's fault, Milud, he had a bad childhood."


Tolkien clearly struggled over the nature & motivation of Orcs, whether they were 'robots' or sentient creatures. If they were sentient one can analyse their behaviour, attitudes, whether they lived empty, hopeless lives, & if so to what extent they had any option in that.

The point of this particular discussion is why Tolkien (uniquely, I think) chose to, for a brief moment, give us a glimpse into the essential 'humanity' of Orcs. We get to see more deeply into the psyche of these two creatures than we do into most of the other characters in the whole book. In a real sense these are 'modern' people who have snuck into Tolkien's epic romance.

"Sh, Gorbag!" Shagrat's voice was lowered, so that even with his strangely sharpened hearing Sam could only just catch what was said. "They may, but they've got eyes and ears everywhere; some among my lot, as like as not. But there's no doubt about it, they're troubled about something. The Nazgul down below are, by your account; and Lugburz is too. Something nearly slipped." 'Nearly, you say!" said Gorbag. 'All right," said Shagrat, 'but we'll talk of that later. Wait till we get to the Under-way. There's a place there where we can talk a bit, while the lads go on." ........ 'No, I don't know," said Gorbag's voice. "The messages go through quicker than anything could fly, as a rule. But I don't enquire how it's done. Safest not to. Grr! Those Nazgul give me the creeps. And they skin the body off you as soon as look at you, and leave you all cold in the dark on the other side. But He likes 'em; they're His favourites nowadays, so it's no use grumbling. I tell you, it's no game serving down in the city." 'You should try being up here with Shelob for company," said Shagrat. "I'd like to try somewhere where there's none of 'em. But the war's on now, and when that's over things may be easier."

"It's going well, they say." "They would," grunted Gorbag. "We'll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d'you say?--if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses." 'Ah!" said Shagrat. 'Like old times." 'Yes," said Gorbag. "But don't count on it. I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay," his voice sank almost to a whisper, 'ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. Something nearly slipped, you say. I say, something has slipped. And we've got to look out. Always the poor Uruks to put slips right, and small thanks. But don't forget: the enemies don't love us any more than they love Him, and if they get topsides on Him, we're done too.

Those are real, true, grumbling soldiers - & they don't 'belong' in Middle-earth. They complicate things - they aren't the simplistically 'nasty' bad guys of the rest of the legendarium. For a moment they break free of their cliched existence & become three dimensional beings with hopes & fears & dreams. Again, its that "bleak underlying human landscape" which peeps through the fairy story, which for all his efforts Tolkien cannot keep out of his creation.

What's interesting, though, is that these 'glimpses' are always associated with the 'bad' side. The good side wanders in Faery, beneath the stars to the accompaniment of Elven hymns to Elbereth.

[Pitchwife]

Yet, can we honestly imagine that none of the PBI in Gondor or Rohan felt that way?

Probably not. Generally, the commanders of the 'good side' seem to have been respected, admired, in some cases (like Beregond/Faramir) even loved by their soldiers; but we have one little scene where a soldier of Rohan expresses his doubt, or even distrust, of one of the Big Bosses (without fear of being informed on and punished!) - LotR Book III, Helm's Deep:

'What does that mean?' said one of the guard to Háma.
'That Gandalf Greyhame has need of haste,' answered Háma. 'Ever he goes and comes unlooked-for.'
'Wormtongue, were he here, would not find it hard to explain,' said the other.
'True enough,' said Háma; 'but for myself, I will wait until I see Gandalf again.'
'Maybe you will wait long,' said the other.

We may also wonder whether anybody bothered to tell the common soldiers who took part in the last attack on the Morannon that they were merely bait in a trap, with little hope of survival - and if so, or if they guessed the truth by themselves, how did they feel about it? Unfortunately, we're not told, but it would have been interesting.

Now to the Orcs.
if they are stupid & vicious as well we are forced to ask ourselves whether we could expect anything else, given that they are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future.
True; and this is still the most efficient method of reducing human beings to moral Orc-level. On the other hand (to take up WCH's point), if we suppose that the Orcs were sentient beings and not robots, does that not also mean that they were in some degree morally responsible for what they made of the starting conditions they were raised in, even if these conditions were admittedly bleak? How far did their corruption by Morgoth and Sauron actually go?
The sparse glimpses of the other side's perspective Tolkien offers us (not only in the Gorbag/Shagrat scenes, but also in the dialogues of Uglúk and Grishnákh in the Uruk-hai chapter) are very interesting in this respect. Among other things, they show us that the Orcs did believe in such values as honour and solidarity, just like the 'good guys' - but they also show us their utter inability to act according to these values, even in their dealings among themselves; rather they treated each other just as badly as they were treated by their superiors.
But how did they acquire any idea of such values in the first place? And if their inability to act on them is a measure of their corruption, does that mean they're not to blame? I don't think the Professor himself ever made up his mind about that.

But is he attempting to elicit sympathy for sentient beings in a hellish situation, or contempt?
A strange mixture of disgust and pity, I'd say - disgust at the result of the corruption they had undergone, and pity (as in Gandalf's 'I pity even his slaves') for the sentient beings who were thus corrupted.

[Bêthberry]

I have this fantasy that one day I will once understand what Bêthberry is writing about...;)

That's rather like the once and future king, isn't it? I shall take to calling you Arthur now. Or would that be Arthatar? :D


Those are real, true, grumbling soldiers - & they don't 'belong' in Middle-earth. They complicate things - they aren't the simplistically 'nasty' bad guys of the rest of the legendarium. For a moment they break free of their cliched existence & become three dimensional beings with hopes & fears & dreams. Again, its that "bleak underlying human landscape" which peeps through the fairy story, which for all his efforts Tolkien cannot keep out of his creation.

On the other hand, it is interesting to speculate why Tolkien would give such a modern voice to the orcs. What would it mean for readers, even veterans, to identify themselves with the orcs?

Recall Tolkien's thoughts in the Foreword to the Second Edition where he argues that the legendary war in his tale ressembles neither the progress nor the conclusion of the historical war. His hypothetical reading suggests that something like the atom bomb is akin to the Great Ring he envisions Saruman would make. It's a very pessimistic vision of his fellow allies.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

We do have a rather significant example of Tolkien's "heroes" feeling clear pity for the "enemy." In "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit":

Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering banks, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword.

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. 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.

This is not a reaction of contempt. And I have often felt that in it are echoes of Tolkien's own experiences in WWI, what he felt when he experienced the reality of war for the first time. Even when the person is in strange clothing, has different colored skin, and bears the label of "enemy," he is still another living being (or on this case, was a living being), and might well have the very same thoughts and feelings about being a part of this war as an ally. If you prick an enemy, even an orc, they still bleed, and suffer, and die. It is to both Sam's and Tolkien's credit that he is able to look upon a fallen foe and not only feel pity for him, but also also a kind of kinship.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Please do keep in mind that Shagrat and Gorbag are NOT 'real, true, grumbling soldiers:' they aren't talking about going home and opening a pub, their wish is to go loot, murder and rape on their own rather than for somebody else.

Tolkien's problem with the Orcs operates on a theological level, not a practical one. Frankly I get rather annoyed at the school of criticism, so dominant today, which demands (a) 'realism' and (b) moral ambiguity. The abstractive process Tolkien called 'Recovery" can with perfect validity take the form of distilling good and evil one from the other.

I put 'realism' in quotes because the supposed 'realism' of academe often bears little resemblance to the actual world. It produces notions like the following: " if they are stupid & vicious as well we are forced to ask ourselves whether we could expect anything else, given that they are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future.." Well, here I'm on my home ground, criminal law. Yes, we can very well "expect anything else." I assure you, the majority of young men from the ghetto "are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future," and yet they do NOT become thugs. Actual empiricism, real-world evidence, here as so often elsewhere is the death of the flat universalisms so indicative of a priori thinking.

[davem]

Yes, we can very well "expect anything else." I assure you, the majority of young men from the ghetto "are brought up without education, ambition, or hope for the future," and yet they do NOT become thugs. Actual empiricism, real-world evidence, here as so often elsewhere is the death of the flat universalisms so indicative of a priori thinking.

So where are the 'majority' of Orcs who do not become thugs then? Given the number of Orcs available to Sauron in the book if the thuggish Orcs constitute merely a 'minority' then the corpses of the majority of good, decent, compassionate & forward thinking Orcs, the ones with ambition, the ones who want to get themselves out of Mordor & make something of their lives, must be ten deep across the whole of Mordor - unless the other Orcs have come up with their own equivalent of Soylent Green....

Sorry, the Orcs must be corrupted, ground down & twisted into the sub human monsters we see in the book....except, some of them do dream & hope - & it matters not at all for the purpose of this argument that they dream about loot, murder & rape - what matters is that they dream about 'freedom' from Sauron, breaking free from the restriction, the fear, the hopelessness which is all they have known. And for my argument here what matters is that that very desire, those very fears, make them out of place in Tolkien's fairystory world. Every other being, from every other race, obeys the rules of the world they inhabit. None of them, Men, Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, as we encounter them would fit into the Primary World - they are all true to their fairy story origins, but these Orcs are not. They have strayed out of some 'realistic' novel & have no place in Faerie. Luckily, they are dispatched quickly & so can be forgotten.

As Bb asks, why did Tolkien give such a 'modern' voice to the Orcs? Indeed, why did he make them such modern people? With such a modern attitude?

Perhaps because Mordor is the ultimate 'modern' state & so produces 'modern' rebels. Yet, & here perhaps is the most interesting issue raised (to my mind, of course), there is no desire on Tolkien's part to have these rebels 'saved', for that first, tentative reaching for freedom from the crushing weight of Sauron's heel, to have a chance to develop into something beyond looting, rape & murder. They are 'evil' so they are damned.

And that's another interesting thing about Tolkien's world & the philosophy which underlies it - many 'sinners' are offered the chance of forgiveness & redemption, but how many of them actually take it? And why not - think of them - Gollum, Denethor, Wormtongue, Saruman? Not a one of them repents. What is Tolkien actually saying there - that offering forgiveness & the chance for repentance is good for the one who makes the offer & shows his 'enlightened' state, but is ultimately pointless, because once a bad guy always a bad guy?

And that brings us to the incident with the fallen Haradrim

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. 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.

That tells us absolutely nothing about the dead man - it merely shows us Sam's sensitive nature - the man himself could well be a 'thug' who only wanted to do a bit of looting, rape & murder, & maybe deserved to cop it....

[Pitchwife]

That tells us absolutely nothing about the dead man - it merely shows us Sam's sensitive nature - the man himself could well be a 'thug' who only wanted to do a bit of looting, rape & murder, & maybe deserved to cop it....
Don't you think Tolkien meant us, the readers, to ask ourselves the same questions Sam was asking himself? He doesn't give us the answer, but he invites us to give the dead Harad soldier the benefit of doubt.
However, I think we have to distinguish here. The Orcs were morally and spiritually corrupted to a much larger degree than any of Sauron's human soldiers - which is why the scene quoted by Ibrin is not quite to the point in the context of the latest posts (even though it's very much to the point in the context of this thread in general, if there still is such a thing;)); and which is also the reason why we don't see much of good, decent, compassionate & forward thinking Orcs. Although they may show human traits in some situations, Orcs are not human and I don't think we can judge them in quite the same way as we would a human.
Nevertheless, it's an interesting question what Orcs free of Sauron's tyranny (i.e. Fourth Age Orcs, such as survived Sauron's downfall) would do with their lives, if they were left alone for a couple of centuries. Not that I'm too optimistic...

A few other thoughts:
many 'sinners' are offered the chance of forgiveness & redemption, but how many of them actually take it? And why not - think of them - Gollum, Denethor, Wormtongue, Saruman? Not a one of them repents. What is Tolkien actually saying there - that offering forgiveness & the chance for repentance is good for the one who makes the offer & shows his 'enlightened' state, but is ultimately pointless, because once a bad guy always a bad guy?
Gollum is a very interesting example, as he comes very close to actual repentance - and it's not entirely his fault that he doesn't quite achieve it. If Sam had shown him a little more pity and offered some encouragement instead of accusing him of sneaking, who knows? once a bad guy always a bad guy definitely over-simplifies the matter.

What's interesting, though, is that these 'glimpses' are always associated with the 'bad' side.
That's interesting indeed. I think Tolkien viewed the grim, 'realistic' side of war - mutilation, moral degradation etc., you name it - as wholly evil and therefore, in so far as he chose to represent it at all in his writing, assigned it to the 'bad' side; the 'good' side, on the other hand, is meant to be a positive counterpart to evil, therefore they get all the heroism, noble sacrifice etc. I think the Prof knew very well (at the times of his writing LotR, at least - that is, after he had 20 years time to digest his WWI experience) that in every real, Primary World war both aspects are distributed evenly between both sides; but he wasn't writing a realistic novel.

On the other hand (I find myself using this phrase quite often in this thread) -
And for my argument here what matters is that that very desire, those very fears, make them out of place in Tolkien's fairystory world.
What exactly is 'Tolkien's fairystory world'? Isn't it everything he presents to us between the two covers of LotR - including Gorbag and Shagrat?
They have strayed out of some 'realistic' novel & have no place in Faerie.
But the fascinating thing about LotR is that it takes place at the point of intersection of realism and Faerie - which offers lots of opportunities of critisizing it for inconsistency, but also makes it so interesting in the first place. You may wish for more of one and less of the other, but both are there.

Anyway, davem, thanks for your obstinacy in forcing me to exercise my little grey cells. This thread is still fun:).

[davem]

(even though it's very much to the point in the context of this thread in general, if there still is such a thing;));

No time at the moment, but to clarify the point of the thread (which is why its jumping around so much) Are there any areas which should be out of bounds in Fantasy - things which a fantasy author shouldn't touch (like Pullman's presentation of 'God' as a senile old fake) & are there any obligations on an author of fantasy (eg to honestly depict battle in all its horror)?

Now have to rush..

[Bêthberry]

And that's another interesting thing about Tolkien's world & the philosophy which underlies it - many 'sinners' are offered the chance of forgiveness & redemption, but how many of them actually take it? And why not - think of them - Gollum, Denethor, Wormtongue, Saruman? Not a one of them repents. What is Tolkien actually saying there - that offering forgiveness & the chance for repentance is good for the one who makes the offer & shows his 'enlightened' state, but is ultimately pointless, because once a bad guy always a bad guy?

According to Tolkien's faith, offering forgiveness is always good and never pointless, because it enhances the wellbeing of the person doing the offering (assuming it was offerred with a compassionate frame of mind and not with ulterior motives). It isn't a matter of showing off one's enlightened state or scoring rep points or pwning!, but of actively promoting good, even if it is refused. To call it pointless if refused is to apply the value system of materialism to the act--one might even say, if I am reading Tolkien correctly, Mordor's materialism.

[alatar]

Orcs need hugs too! ;)

So where are the 'majority' of Orcs who do not become thugs then? Given the number of Orcs available to Sauron in the book if the thuggish Orcs constitute merely a 'minority' then the corpses of the majority of good, decent, compassionate & forward thinking Orcs, the ones with ambition, the ones who want to get themselves out of Mordor & make something of their lives, must be ten deep across the whole of Mordor - unless the other Orcs have come up with their own equivalent of Soylent Green....
I'm sure that their population follows the usual bell curve distribution, where most are something, and a few are different at both ends. Where Shagrat and Gorbag fall, I'm not sure. I'm guessing that the orc pacifist-poets remain hidden within the population, as, due to their society, this would been seen as a weakness - acting human - and allow others to take from them with the consensus of the crowd.

Sorry, the Orcs must be corrupted, ground down & twisted into the sub human monsters we see in the book....except, some of them do dream & hope - & it matters not at all for the purpose of this argument that they dream about loot, murder & rape - what matters is that they dream about 'freedom' from Sauron, breaking free from the restriction, the fear, the hopelessness which is all they have known.
But I'd say that they just want to be 'top dog;' not interesting in changing things in a so-called enlightened way, but just dream that one day they would be calling the shots and get all of the loot.

And for my argument here what matters is that that very desire, those very fears, make them out of place in Tolkien's fairystory world. Every other being, from every other race, obeys the rules of the world they inhabit. None of them, Men, Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, as we encounter them would fit into the Primary World - they are all true to their fairy story origins, but these Orcs are not. They have strayed out of some 'realistic' novel & have no place in Faerie. Luckily, they are dispatched quickly & so can be forgotten.
Boromir, Sam, Frodo et al didn't have dreams or desires, or want to buck the system? :eek:

As Bb asks, why did Tolkien give such a 'modern' voice to the Orcs? Indeed, why did he make them such modern people? With such a modern attitude?
It was cool to read that the orcs weren't video-game horde villains, but actually were realistic animals with biological needs as vital as any organism.

Perhaps because Mordor is the ultimate 'modern' state & so produces 'modern' rebels. Yet, & here perhaps is the most interesting issue raised (to my mind, of course), there is no desire on Tolkien's part to have these rebels 'saved', for that first, tentative reaching for freedom from the crushing weight of Sauron's heel, to have a chance to develop into something beyond looting, rape & murder. They are 'evil' so they are damned.
I don't think that there was time to 'evolve' them into something more benign. We read of times in the history of Middle Earth when orcs *weren't* multiplying (were they all accountants?), and so maybe we have examples of Pax Orcana when the majority of living orcs were more reasonable (though genetically susceptible to the call of an evil leader).

And that's another interesting thing about Tolkien's world & the philosophy which underlies it - many 'sinners' are offered the chance of forgiveness & redemption, but how many of them actually take it? And why not - think of them - Gollum, Denethor, Wormtongue, Saruman? Not a one of them repents. What is Tolkien actually saying there - that offering forgiveness & the chance for repentance is good for the one who makes the offer & shows his 'enlightened' state, but is ultimately pointless, because once a bad guy always a bad guy?
I think that he was trying to keep the characters both interesting and not so muddy. We could have had Saruman the Repentant, but then he could have fallen away later in the story yet again, and so on...makes one think that killing him on a spiky wheel simplifies the story greatly.

The LotR story takes place in a year. Show me someone who turns around completely in such a time, especially if they've had years (even thousands) in which to become such a person. For example, few addicts simply put down their junk and walk away and not feel any side effects or cravings or backslide or whatever, especially if they've been using for a long time. Theoden didn't shake off his issues quickly, and he even had Gandalf's help. Anyway...

That tells us absolutely nothing about the dead man - it merely shows us Sam's sensitive nature - the man himself could well be a 'thug' who only wanted to do a bit of looting, rape & murder, & maybe deserved to cop it....
Agreed, though it does point out that people can remain people even during conflict.

[Pitchwife]

An afterthought:
there is no desire on Tolkien's part to have these rebels 'saved'

But did they ever actually rebel, or did they just talk and fantasize about it (the way a smoker may talk about quitting, because it would be reasonable/healthy/whatever, but without the will to actually try) ? The way I understand Tolkien's views, you have to make an effort if you want to be saved; dreaming is not enough. Again, it's the difference between paying lip-service to values and acting accordingly, see above.

[littlemanpoet]

Ah the taste of human blood
it is like the sweet smell of dung
like listening to keening mothers
weeping for their sons oh the delight
like swallowing a great gob of manflesh
like knives on the tongue
and another's gold in the hand
ah the taste ah the taste

:cool:

[davem]

An afterthought:


But did they ever actually rebel, or did they just talk and fantasize about it (the way a smoker may talk about quitting, because it would be reasonable/healthy/whatever, but without the will to actually try) ?.

But isn't it interesting that no 'bad guy' ever chooses to repent? Why does Tolkien not include a 'villain' who turns? And wouldn't it have been interesting if he had? It would have reinforced the message of hope, of the 'unexpected turn of events'. But it seems that once one has chosen evil one loses all real desire for the good. Certainly there is hope for the good guys even at the greatest extremity, at the Sammath Naur, but those who have chosen evil, like Gollum, Saruman, Denethor, Wormtongue, & the rest will not turn. What does this tell us about moral choices in Tolkien's world?

It may well be true that offering forgiveness & the chance of repentance to those who have chosen evil "enhances the wellbeing of the person doing the offering (assuming it was offerred with a compassionate frame of mind and not with ulterior motives)" but how long is it going to be before the good guys realise that its ultimately a futile exercise because the bad guys won't take up the opportunity?

Yet, one could argue that the knowledge that the bad guy won't repent actually makes offering the chance of repentance & forgiveness easier - if you know the monster won;t repent you know you won't have to deal with them, have them living among 'decent folk'. And wouldn't that have been the hardest thing - living with a reformed Gollum or Saruman after everything they'd done? Far harder than simply offering the chance of repentance in the first place. Much easier to offer a homeless ex-convict a room in your house if you know they'll reject it, but would you make the offer if you thought they might take you up on it?

Tolken 'deals' with evil by having it conveniently choose damnation, thereby avoiding any need for all that messy 'Truth & Reconciliation' stuff.

[alatar]

But isn't it interesting that no 'bad guy' ever chooses to repent?
What of the Dunlendings, as a group, in the aftermath of Helm's Deep?

Why does Tolkien not include a 'villain' who turns? And wouldn't it have been interesting if he had? It would have reinforced the message of hope, of the 'unexpected turn of events'. But it seems that once one has chosen evil one loses all real desire for the good. Certainly there is hope for the good guys even at the greatest extremity, at the Sammath Naur, but those who have chosen evil, like Gollum, Saruman, Denethor, Wormtongue, & the rest will not turn. What does this tell us about moral choices in Tolkien's world?
I think that Gollum was an 'almost-was.' He was slowly, from the kindness of Frodo, turning back from his evil, and if the events of Ithilien had gone differently, he may have gotten over the threshold. That said, his journey took him, Frodo and Sam closer with each footstep *to* the physical source of evil in the world, and so Gollum may have not been able to break free. If, somehow, the three had been able to go West instead of East...

It may well be true that offering forgiveness & the chance of repentance to those who have chosen evil "enhances the wellbeing of the person doing the offering (assuming it was offerred with a compassionate frame of mind and not with ulterior motives)" but how long is it going to be before the good guys realise that its ultimately a futile exercise because the bad guys won't take up the opportunity?
I don't think that a thinking man allows others to dictate his course. The noble and/or heroic (me guesses) do what they do despite the consequences or however slim the chances. And that's why we read about them instead of those that give in or give up much sooner.

Yet, one could argue that the knowledge that the bad guy won't repent actually makes offering the chance of repentance & forgiveness easier - if you know the monster won;t repent you know you won't have to deal with them, have them living among 'decent folk'. And wouldn't that have been the hardest thing - living with a reformed Gollum or Saruman after everything they'd done? Far harder than simply offering the chance of repentance in the first place. Much easier to offer a homeless ex-convict a room in your house if you know they'll reject it, but would you make the offer if you thought they might take you up on it?
Much agreed, and it would have been interesting to see how that played out. What if Worm had walked away from Saruman? But then what interest to the story would he have been? He was Saruman's lackey sidekick, and with Theoden dead, what use he? Far better, I guess, for the story to have him turn on his master.

Tolken 'deals' with evil by having it conveniently choose damnation, thereby avoiding any need for all that messy 'Truth & Reconciliation' stuff.
Again, we are seeing a snapshot of these creatures' lives. Maybe the Balrog just wanted to be left alone, but no! Those pesky Dwarves wouldn't let him be. ;)

[tumhalad2]

It might be interesting here to invoke Tom Shippey's essay, called Orcs, Wraiths, and Wrights-The Nature of Evil in Tolkien's Middle-earth

Though I dont have it with me, it deals with the very issue of the Shagrat and Gorbag episode. Shippey argues that indeed, the orcs are posessed of a moral compass, they are posessed of hopes, dreams and such, but only in a momentary sense

It's been a while since I've read it, but his essay argues that Tolkien is being quite deliberate in his characterisation here. Shippey argues that the episode is designed to elicit an empathetic response, at least initially. Indeed this is the central point-once this response has occured, the orcs subsequently effect the destruction of each other, revealing their base, fundementally animalistic natures-despite their 'humanity'

As I say I dont have the essay with me so I'm going off my (admittadly bad) memory.Shippey makes the point that the episode, rather than a mispaced modern insertion into an otherwise "morally simplistic" fable is designed to expose evil's absurd side-its fake, ultimately baseless morality.

Im not sure I have explained this very well; I dont have much time at the moment, but that is the gist of it

[davem]

Indeed this is the central point-once this response has occured, the orcs subsequently effect the destruction of each other, revealing their base, fundementally animalistic natures-despite their 'humanity'

Hmm...so its alright to slaughter them with impunity, then, because, although they seem to have emotions, hopes, fears - to be, in effect, just like us - they are in reality 'just animals'..... ?

Its not an analysis I accept - take the incident with Ghan buri Ghan & the Rohirrim, where he reveals that the Horse Lords routinely hunt the Woses like animals for sport. The Rohirrim are doing exactly what Shippey is saying Tolkien is doing - claiming that although the Woses may seem like people, they actually aren't - its an illusion, one which 'smart' people would not fall for?

What's interesting in this context is that we readers are so willing to accept Shippey's interpretation - & I can't help but feel that that's because it excuses our heroes' treatment of the enemy. If we were confronted with a 'human' enemy we would not feel as comfortable in our reading of the book. Hence, my own feeling that Tolkien actually did begin to present us with the 'human' side of the enemy, realised the devstating implications for his story of such a move, & drew back.

[tumhalad2]

Here's some analysis of Shippey's essay:

http://www.hatrack.com/svu/tolkien_lewis/al's%20Tolkienpaper.html

and the particularly relevant piece:

Shippey also makes an interesting point when he analyzes the discussion between Shagrat and Gorbag when they find Frodo at Cirith Ungol he says, “What the episode with Shagrat and Gorbag reveals is that orcs are moral beings, with an underlying morality much the same as ours.” However, if that is true, it seems that an underlying morality has no effect at all on actual behavior. How, then is an essentially correct theory of good and evil corrupted? If one starts from a sound moral basis, how can things go so disastrously wrong? It should require no demonstration to show that this is one of the vital questions raised with particular force during the twentieth century, in which the most civilized people have often committed the worst atrocities. Tolkien deserves credit for noting the problem, and refusing to turn his back on it, as so many of his canonical literary contemporaries did. Shippey also mentions that Tolkien “Insists in several places that evil has no great power. It ‘mocks’ and does not make.’”

AND:

FROM: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.tolkien/browse_thread/thread/7c25095043dda99c/f4f0450057f4f77b?lnk=raot

They are cruel, they are greedy and they are selfish.


They also take delight in the degradation and humiliation of others,
and they derive pleasure from hurting and torturing others.


> But we also see that they are capable of an inner social structure,


But so are ants and other animals, so that fact alone doesn't really
make much of a difference, I'd say. The important thing must be the
nature of that social structure, and in the matter of the Orcs, their
social structure seems to be strictly a hierarchical pecking order
with the strongest in the top, cruelly dominating the rest.


> and as Tolkien insists that they breed like all other beings on
> Middle Earth, there must also be mothers, youngsters, etc.

[tumhalad2]

I have found the essay and I can here present some of the relevant informations:
[I]
Orcs, Wraiths, Wrights: Tolkien's Images of Evil[/I

"...Shagrat sees nothing wrong with Gorbat's use of "elvish" and Gorbat has no quarrel with Shagrat's sense of humour.

The subtle irony makes a point that is repeated again and again in the orcish conversation we hear, and which in its wider implications is important for Tolkien to stress again and again...Briefly what the episode of Shagrat and Gorbag reveals is that orcs are moral beings, with an underlying reality much the same as ours. But if that is true, it seems that an underlying morality has no effect of actual behaviour. If one starts from a sound moral basis, how can things go disastrously wrong? It should require no demonstration that this is one of the vital questions raised with particular force during the twentieth century, in which the worst atrocities have often been committed by the most civilized people...Orcs in fact place a high theoretical value on mutual trust and loyalty. "Rebel" is another one of their pejorative words...Snaga says to Shagrat "I've fought for the Tower against those stinking Morgul-rats", which shows a kind of limited loyalty. Another favourite word among the orcs is "lads", a word that implies male bondage and good fellowship...It should be pointed out that Gorbag and Shagrat soon fall out, and their ideal of being "trusty" is ironic because Shagrat says "I don't trust all my lads, and none of yours, nor you neither, when you're mad for fun"...nevertheless Mauhar and his lads do turn up and make an attempted rescue. The orcs furthermore, -to say the best one can of them-understand the concept of parley...Saruman's orcs show great pride in their boast, many times repeated "We are the fighting Uruk-hai".

Although all orcs appear to be man eaters, they do not appear to be cannibalistic, but reserve that catagorisation for orcs who eat other orcs...

It would be tedious to point out all the ways in which these claims are systematically disproved or ironized...But the point remains, the orcs recognize the idea of goodness, appreciate humour, value loyalty, trust, group cohesion, and the ideal of a higher cause than themselves, and condemn failings from these ideas in others. So, if they know what is right, how does it happen that they persist in wrong? The question becomes more persistant in that the orcish behaviour is also perfectly clearly human behaviour...

After all, if all evil creatures in the beginning were good...what justice is there in condemning them irrivocably to perdition? Could there not be some way of saving them? Tolkien never took up the challenge of finding some way of educating or "rehabilitating" the orcs, though he was aware of it [Shippey points to Morgoth's Ring] and though he did spend considerable time on the possibility of rehabilitating Gollum...Orcish behaviour, whether in orcs or in humans, has its root not in an inverted morality, which sees bad as good and vise versa, but as a kind of self centredness that sees indeed what is good-like standing by one's comerads and being loyal to one's mates-but is unable to set one's behavior on the right place in this accepted scale...

To summarise: There is in Tolkien's presentation of orcs a quite deliberate realism. Orcish behavior is human behavior, and their inability to judge their actions by their own moral criteria is a problem all too sadly familiar."


That's about as much as I could find that's relevant....interesting take on things

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Shippey I do recall points up the hypocritical contrast between "just left him lying- typical Elvish trick", wityh the fate of old Ufthak, whom his 'lads' did just that to. What Shippey is on about is that the Orcs are evil precisely because they *do* at some level know better- but never act on that better impulse. If they had no moral sense to disregard they would be mere animals, and blameless.

I really dislike the notion that this 'rebellious streak' is some sort of impulse to freedom. It reminds me uncomfortably of those who regard Milton's Satan as some sort of proto-democratic Hero. And, after all, Melkor *is* Lucifer, taking the same role in the cosmological drama, the Prime Rebel: which Tolkien defines as the root of all evil.

I would suggest that to Tolkien the essence of evil is *selfishness.* He goes so far as to claim Sauron in the First Age was less evil than his master because he at least served something other than himself, even if only from self-interested motives. Shagrat and Gorbag and Orcs generally are constantly fighting one another because selfishness is deeply ingrained in them. And, again, these two lovelies aren't 'rebelling' in any sense of repentance; they just want to plunder for their own benefit rather than the 'big bosses.' Nor, of course, is their 'friendship' any more than skin deep, as we see in the next chapter of the Frodo-narrative.

[Lalwendë]

The way this thread has gone, it really begins at post 16. ;)

But getting right back to davem's original question, and linking with all the stuff inbetween, it is very interesting just what fantasy writers choose to include and exclude. davem has spotted that Tolkien chose not to write about the true picture of war, but there are more things Tolkien chose not to include, and it interests me why he did that.

The main thing I notice as absent is a true picture of monarchy. The stories of the British monarchs alone are enough to keep you going in juicy tales for a whole lifetime, and it seems we never had a King like Aragorn. Obviously Tolkien's main stories are from narrow time frames of Middle-earth's history so that limits the opportunities, but I often think this is something noticeably absent - the full picture of a real monarch. And all the politics surrounding that.

The closest he comes is with Theoden, trapped in his madness, corrupted by the counsels of Grima. But I'd love to have seen more of this, really seen Grima at work. It almost seems too easy for Gandalf to bring him to his senses.

A similar thing happens with the story of Numenor. There's so much that could have been fleshed out there.

[Bêthberry]

but there are more things Tolkien chose not to include, and it interests me why he did that.



Or, in short, how much should a writer - how much can a writer - get away with?


While I like lal's approach here--intrigued by omissions rather than assigning error or blame or falsehood--both her question and this earlier question from post 16 make a certain assumption about the nature of the imagination.

And that is, that "reality" or historical "fact" exists prior to any creative act, which must become some sort of deviation from that originary existence or a confirmation of it.

However, if we start with the idea that our perception of the world and experience originates in our mind--is our mind's response to our experiences-- then we do not have to deal with this idea of a Creative Fall but instead simply examine the world that is brought forth.

Tolkien, much earlier than most of us, came face to face with contemplating the tentativeness of life and the certainty of his own death. In response, he seems to have devoted his creative life to exploring the quality of goodness and the preciousness of life. In his personal life, he obviously passed a certain amount of time in pursuing the pleasures of companionship (and drink) and the devotion of family (in many unsentimental ways) without compromising his worldly responsibilties. Unless of course one thinks that his Legendarium, in garnering academic ridicule, did compromise those responsibilities.

[Lalwendë]

Tolkien, much earlier than most of us, came face to face with contemplating the tentativeness of life and the certainty of his own death. In response, he seems to have devoted his creative life to exploring the quality of goodness and the preciousness of life.

Can he really do that thoroughly without showing us the true effects of war/violence though? We don't actually meet those little Hobbits from the Shire who lost their lives in the Battle of Bywater, and nor do we know how they lost their lives. They're just a faceless statistic written up on a memorial.

I know I'm going back to what davem has been arguing, but I do think that we aren't able to fully comprehend their sacrifice unless we either know a little of them or the way they died.

[davem]

This quote from crime novelist David Peace is maybe worth considering. He says: "Crime is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and crime fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises crime and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

Substitute 'war' for 'crime' here & we have a nice encapsulation of the argument:

"War is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and war fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises war and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

[alatar]

"X is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and X fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises X and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."
Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...:rolleyes: ;)

Even Steven King, known to be just a little on the verbose side, can't capture *everything*, to everyone's satisfaction and adequate to everyone's experience. There are, perhaps, hundreds upon hundreds of allusions in LotR to things British that I as a 'Merican have no appreciation for (like how best to refer to all things British). Should Tolkien have wasted extra pages to explain why anyone would care to smoke a pipe, drink tea when not ill or not iced, stay at an inn or eat at a pub (an interesting experience when I was there), or -gasp- farm?

P.S. Note to davem and Lalwendë: Had a dream the other night - must have been reading the Downs before falling off to sleep. Anyway, in a dream that was just a collection of odd thoughts, remember meeting your children, and saying hi, though that makes no sense at all. ;)

[davem]

Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...:rolleyes: ;)

Even Steven King, known to be just a little on the verbose side, can't capture *everything*, to everyone's satisfaction and adequate to everyone's experience.

Its still a question of whether one depicts 'X' honestly, not whether one depicts it in graphic detail....

There are, perhaps, hundreds upon hundreds of allusions in LotR to things British that I as a 'Merican have no appreciation for (like how best to refer to all things British).

Allusions to things English, surely......:p

[alatar]

Its still a question of whether one depicts 'X' honestly, not whether one depicts it in graphic detail....
Much agreed. Rose Cotton had babies, and thankfully we're spared the details of little Elanor the Fair's entrance into the world. Or should we read about that as well?

Allusions to things English, surely......:p
I wasn't talking about our common language...but of that country Tolkien lived in (never knew that it was called Englishland ). ;)

[davem]

I wasn't talking about our common language...but of that country Tolkien lived in (never knew that it was called Englishland ). ;)

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn -

England
From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996 | Author: | © The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright information

England OE. Engla land (orig.) country of the Angles (see ANGLE), (later) of the Germanic inhabitants of Great Britain; hence OFris. Angelond, OS. (Du.) Engeland, (O)HG., Icel., etc. England.
So English OE. englisċ pert. to the group of Germanic peoples known coll. as Angelcynn, lit. ‘race of Angles’; also adj. and sb., of their language. Hence Englishman OE. Englisċmon. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-England.html )

[Bêthberry]

Can he really do that thoroughly without showing us the true effects of war/violence though? We don't actually meet those little Hobbits from the Shire who lost their lives in the Battle of Bywater, and nor do we know how they lost their lives. They're just a faceless statistic written up on a memorial.



Interesting perspective on remembrance there. You might pause to consider the responses to the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and then the responses to the statue built to satisfy those who demand realism in art.

[alatar]

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn
I'm very sorry; retention of such geographical knowledge will surely get me escorted to the border...and I'm not really that fond of the weather in Argentina. ;)

alatar is off to have that last post removed from memory

[davem]

I'm very sorry; retention of such geographical knowledge will surely get me escorted to the border...and I'm not really that fond of the weather in Argentina. ;)


Don't worry - I'm now expecting a midnight knock on the door from Ms Harperson's thought police for my injudicious mention of 'England' ... (for the benefit of non-Englsh Downers I won't explain that one :p

[Lalwendë]

Interesting perspective on remembrance there. You might pause to consider the responses to the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and then the responses to the statue built to satisfy those who demand realism in art.

Ah, but then there are also Banksy's photo-realistic 'additions' to brutalist concrete buildings, aren't there? ;)

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn

I always thought "Engla land" was a term penned by Keith Allen for the New Order/England World Cup Squad song World In Motion :p

Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...

But nappy changing isn't a big 'theme' of the text is it? If you are trying to 'teach' your audience about something then it helps to emphasise that lesson, I find, with good examples. So if Tolkien was trying to teach us about how War is a bad and brutal thing, then shouldn't he show us it is brutal, either by describing the brutality or by showing how war tends to kill those we have got to know and care for. He doesn't do either of those (not many 'good' characters do die, after all) - I don't mind which he chose, but it would have helped.

So then that begs a question - was he trying to teach us any kind of lesson at all?

[alatar]

So then that begs a question - was he trying to teach us any kind of lesson at all?
Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

[Lalwendë]

Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

But if war wasn't that ugly, then this sets up all kinds of moral cans of worms. Doesn't it?

[alatar]

But if war wasn't that ugly, then this sets up all kinds of moral cans of worms. Doesn't it?
Are we back to talking about romance? Surely at least one of my daughters will end up dating or even marrying a troll, who, unlike Beren or Aragorn, will treat her poorly, if hopefully nothing worse. :eek: :(

Maybe the books should be printed with disclaimers such as:
This is a fiction/fantasy book, and the characters and events herein do not accurately represent reality as most know it - your experiences may vary.

[Lalwendë]

Hmmm, just that if we have a book (or any other kind of Art or entertainment) which shows war as 'not that bad, really', then hasn't it crossed a boundary? Even in video games where you can hack, slash and do what you like with glee, there isn't any sense that doing this stuff is in any way alright. It always hurts somebody.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I like that disclaimer, alatar. When it comes to depictions of "realism," I don't need graphic details of word or image to understand the reality. When I hear that a bomb struck a building full of people, for instance, I don't need to be told the details of what happened to the building and their bodies to know the kind of carnage that ensued, and feel horrified by it. Perhaps other people do. In fantasy, I might need to be told what the effects of a magic "blast" may be, since magic can operate under whatever laws the author wants, and have the results the author desires. But Tolkien's battles were not written as magical battles, and thus I can reasonably presume that their brutality and the results would be much the same as similarly fought battles in the real world.

As to the kind of story Tolkien was attempting to tell, in letter 183, he says:

In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about 'freedom', though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour.

As this letter is a response to W. H. Auden's review of RotK, it is long and has many things to say; in particular, Tolkien writes at some length about good and evil, motivations, and such. But he ends the letter with an interesting observation:

So I feel that the fiddle-faddle in reviews, and correspondence about them, as to whether my 'good people' were kind and merciful and gave quarter (in fact they do), or not, is quite beside the point. Some critics seem determined to represent me as a simple-minded adolescent, inspired with, say, a With-the-flag-to-Pretoria spirit, and willfully distort what is said in my tale. I have not that spirit, and it does not appear in the story. The figure of Denethor alone is enough to show this; but I have not made any of the peoples on the 'right' side, Hobbits, Rohirrim, Men of Dale or Gondor, any better than men have been, or are, or can be. Mine is not an 'imaginary' world, but an imaginary historical moment on 'Middle-earth' -- which is our habitation.

[davem]

Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

And Tolkien's opinion:

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion. For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it. So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll. If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen. OFS

For Tolkien fantasy is not an 'anything goes' genre. It has its basis in, is founded on, primary world reality. It does not reject scientific fact - where it departs from them it does so for logical reasons -

"If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion."

Tolkienian fantasy has its basis in cold hard facts - it is not an anything goes genre. If it was he would not have spent so much of his life creating Middle-earth. Hence, when such 'cold, hard facts' are omitted they are omitted for a reason. A world 'where war isn't ugly' is a world which is not based on the 'cold hard facts' that Tolkien insists on. In fact, such a world is exactly the kind of 'morbid delusion' that he condemns.

Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise.

To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.OFS


I like that disclaimer, alatar. When it comes to depictions of "realism," I don't need graphic details of word or image to understand the reality. When I hear that a bomb struck a building full of people, for instance, I don't need to be told the details of what happened to the building and their bodies to know the kind of carnage that ensued, and feel horrified by it. Perhaps other people do.

But what if a writer included such an event in his story, but implied that the people died quickly & peacefully, & left behind neat, unmutilated corpses?

One can certainly write about an invented world where Pixies ride around on purple unicorns & the sun shines all day long & no-one is ever unhappy. And that would be 'fantasy' as well. But it wouldn't be Tolkienian fantasy. When one chooses to write about war, about battlefields, about men killing each other, then doesn't one have (if one is writing Tolkienian fantasy, with its roots in cold hard facts & 'the perception of scientific verity' & where if the sun is green its green-ness must be given a justification) an obligation to ground that killing & dying in cold hard facts as well?

[Lalwendë]

I like that disclaimer, alatar. When it comes to depictions of "realism," I don't need graphic details of word or image to understand the reality. When I hear that a bomb struck a building full of people, for instance, I don't need to be told the details of what happened to the building and their bodies to know the kind of carnage that ensued, and feel horrified by it. Perhaps other people do. In fantasy, I might need to be told what the effects of a magic "blast" may be, since magic can operate under whatever laws the author wants, and have the results the author desires. But Tolkien's battles were not written as magical battles, and thus I can reasonably presume that their brutality and the results would be much the same as similarly fought battles in the real world.


Hmmm, but if you hear about a bombing, for example, without any of the stories involved in it, then the atrocity is just about statistics. We can say with genuine horror "100 people were killed". But if we know a little about those people, it becomes more touching.

Taking the holocaust as an example, it's one thing to know that 6 million were murdered, but it's quite another to read Anne Frank's diary or to watch Schindler's List. The former is just a fact, the latter are stories.

Tolkien knew the human need for stories, and he did not flinch when it came to texts like the Children of Hurin, nor did he flinch in every instance in Lord of the Rings, but sometimes he does flinch. He didn't have to tell us the gory detail if he didn't want to, the stories behind some of the hundreds killed are another way of achieving empathy.

[alatar]

For Tolkien fantasy is not an 'anything goes' genre. It has its basis in, is founded on, primary world reality. It does not reject scientific fact - where it departs from them it does so for logical reasons
Understood.

Tolkienian fantasy has its basis in cold hard facts - it is not an anything goes genre. If it was he would not have spent so much of his life creating Middle-earth. Hence, when such 'cold, hard facts' are omitted they are omitted for a reason. A world 'where war isn't ugly' is a world which is not based on the 'cold hard facts' that Tolkien insists on. In fact, such a world is exactly the kind of 'morbid delusion' that he condemns.
Show me once (I'm probably setting myself up for a big dose of stupid :rolleyes:) where any character, especially an elf, voids itself of what cannot be digested, metabolized or is the product of symbiotic bacteria in the gut, if you know what I'm saying. Sure is a lot of eatin' and drinkin' in Tolkien's world, yet his light never shines on the subsequent requisite activity. Think that we all know that it's there, but somehow don't mind that it was left to our imagining.

How long a walk was it from Rivendell to the Bridge in the Mines of Moria? Was the Balrog brought down by magic or halitosis? Sure, Gollum is said to have stank, but me I'd rather be upwind of the Nine Walkers after such a long trip as well.

But you're going to tell me that, along with the dying moaning soldier lying om the Pelennor in blood, offal and other words whose meanings I'm not quite sure of, you thought about other biological realities of any or many of the main characters?

Now I get what y'all are saying, seeing that maybe, just maybe, Tolkien was glorifying war because he wasn't gorifying it. But maybe that's you. Me, the scene where Sam sees the dead man in Ithilien speaks loudly.

And just how much better was Jackson's depiction? Would anyone be more or less 'rah-rah' after watching the movies (which depict a few suffering souls) or reading the books?

[davem]

And just how much better was Jackson's depiction? Would anyone be more or less 'rah-rah' after watching the movies (which depict a few suffering souls) or reading the books?

Remember what I posted earlier -

"War is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and war fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises war and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

I'd say Tolkien too often falls to the former side of the line, Jackson too often to the latter.

[Bêthberry]

We Downers are all very adept at picking and choosing quotations from The Professor--or any author, for that matter-- to shore up our side of the discussion, but often a quotation cannot of itself provide a preemptive strike or hard and fast evidence of a position unless the entire context of the essay is considered and applied with the quotation. We are like Protestants who delight in chapter and verse while being woefully unable to provide a thematic framework which puts the quotation in context.

Tolkien wrote OFS to ofset a trend which disturbed him--the trend to relegating fairy tales to the children's nursery. He wrote to restore fantasy to full fledged position in the adult literature of a nation and culture. To that end, he sought to prove that fairy stories partake of certain qualities which adult literature of his time had. One of the most important qualities was credibility: is this world, story credible? This accounts for Tolkien's careful explication that fantasy not insult reason or scientific verity--note his use of the word verity rather than veracity. Yet fantasy is not, for Tolkien, beholding to the world of historical fiction: a recognition of fact, not a slavery to it, he writes. (I think it was Ibrin who first made this point and kudos to her for this.) The world in fantasy must be credible and natural, but also--and this is the difficult part for a writer to achieve--strange, unusual, utterly something other at the same time. It is the realm of Fairie, in which fairies have their being, as Tolkien puts it.


The definition of a fairy story--what it is, what it should be--does not then depend upon any definition or historical account [my italics] of elf or fairy but upon the nature of Fairie, the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country.

Those of us who are charitable might add here that Fairie does not depend upon any historical account of war either. (And in this analysis Tolkien is typically English in understating his contribution when he refers to his "imperfect vision of it". )

And later in the essay Tolkien differentiates his idea of sub-creation from representation or symbolic interpretation of the beauties and terrors of the world. Literary belief in Fantasy, for Tolkien, has to do with Art, with the magical qualities of story telling, where unlikeness to the Primary World and freedom from the domination of observed 'fact' engage strangeness and wonder in the Expression.

Another way of expressing this is Tolkien's idea about how fantasy distances us from our own time, which would also make it not susceptible to authenticating it by events of our time.


For one thing, they are now old, and antiguity has an appeal in itself--distance and a great abyss of time. . . . They open a door on Another Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside of Time itself, maybe.

In fact, ;) Tolkien argues that things in Fairey which do not conform to the primacy world are not grounds for criticism:


That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that is indeed possible) is a virtue, not a vice.

For Tolkien, Fantasy plays strange tricks with the world, and that includes not just elves and hobbits and balrogs, but war as well as trees which grow in darkness without light.

So, in short, there be my pickin's of quotations. (Everything I have bolded save for Downers' names are Tolkien's words from OFS unless otherwise noted.) ;)

[alatar]

But what if a writer included such an event in his story, but implied that the people died quickly & peacefully, & left behind neat, unmutilated corpses?
Consider that in Tolkien's world, unlike our own, Men (i.e. humans), like other creatures in his world, started off in a state much above where we find ourselves today. Think about it - the Edain lived much longer than we could ever hope (at this present time), could fight with and alongside magical creatures, and some, if they stayed true, at the end of their days could lay down their lives in peace, giving back the gift.

We in this world have trodden a different course, where we now live longer than ever before, live and maybe one day even fight alongside seemingly magical technologies, and can, if legally available, lay down our lives peaceable at the end of our days. It was not always so.

So if in Tolkien world we have devolved from the heroes of old, and if the ability to lay down one's life was previously available, how do we know that the soldiery in, say, the Third Age, when fatally injured on the battle, just 'turned off,' after uttering some pro-Gondorian salute?

"May the King return!"

These soldiers may have not enough of the pure blood to die when at home, but in extremis, like after being hacked half to death by some orcs with less-than-sharp implements, would find the ability within (or maybe Eru would grant the ability at that moment, or maybe they would hear Ulmo telling them how to do it in all of the perspiration around).

It is we, less noble and possible intermingled with orcs - genetically or psychologically - that in later years have cried out and moaned upon the battlefield.

[davem]

So if in Tolkien world we have devolved from the heroes of old, and if the ability to lay down one's life was previously available, how do we know that the soldiery in, say, the Third Age, when fatally injured on the battle, just 'turned off,' after uttering some pro-Gondorian salute?

"May the King return!"

.

Because Tolkien never mentions anything of the sort. One might as well offer up the explanation that Earedel hovered invisibly over the battlefields & teleported the corpses off the field. Or that lots of carnivorous butterflies alighted on the bodies & ate them.

What you're doing, it seems to me, is inventing an 'explanation' for which there's no textual support in order to avoid the difficulties in the story. The simplest explanation is that Tolkien decided not to deal with the actual, unpleasant realities of warfare (& other things) because he didn't want such things in his story. The question is whether he was justified in doing that?

And further, if Tolkien is justified in doing that, because he is 'subcreating' a secondary world, how can one condemn, say, Philip Pullman for presenting us with a God who is a senile old fake, or any writer creating a secondary world in which black people are sub-human, rape is fun for all concerned, or mass murder of jews is a moral act?

OK - I've taken extreme examples there, but that's what it comes down to - does the fantasy genre permit any degree of 'invention' on a writer's part? I'm fairly sure that many who would defend Tolkien's right to omit the 'unpleasant' realities of death in battle in Middle-earth, would condemn Pullman's depiction of God - not simply as 'offensive' but also as untrue....

Because, we either say that fantasy as a genre allows total freedom to a writer to depict any kind of world they wish & we, as readers, must not question that right, or we accept that we do have a right to question the choices a writer of fantasy makes, the omissions & inclusions.

[Bêthberry]

And further, if Tolkien is justified in doing that, because he is 'subcreating' a secondary world, how can one condemn, say, Philip Pullman for presenting us with a God who is a senile old fake, or any writer creating a secondary world in which black people are sub-human, rape is fun for all concerned, or mass murder of jews is a moral act?

OK - I've taken extreme examples there, but that's what it comes down to - does the fantasy genre permit any degree of 'invention' on a writer's part? I'm fairly sure that many who would defend Tolkien's right to omit the 'unpleasant' realities of death in battle in Middle-earth, would condemn Pullman's depiction of God - not simply as 'offensive' but also as untrue....

Your extreme examples would very likely not be allowed--that is, would be taken to court if published--in the realistic fiction you trumpet so much, at least in the countries which have laws against hate literature while also eschewing censorship, so those restrictions would also pertain to fantasy.


Because, we either say that fantasy as a genre allows total freedom to a writer to depict any kind of world they wish & we, as readers, must not question that right, or we accept that we do have a right to question the choices a writer of fantasy makes, the omissions & inclusions.

This is a false dichotomy. This is not an 'either/or' situation, as there are more than just these two choices.

For instance, readers have the right to question, explore, and examine the choices a writer makes, but the significant issue is the grounds which determine the questionings, exploring or examining, because those grounds make the questioning more or less credible.

davem's answer to the observation about Tolkien's war descriptions (which has not itself gone unchallenged) is to argue that only historical veracity is the true and acceptable measure. This ignores Tolkien's other criteria, of arresting strangeness, as well as overlooking Tolkien's insistence that LotR was not a veiled representation of WWII.

As I said, this ain't an either/or situation.

[davem]

Your extreme examples would very likely not be allowed--that is, would be taken to court if published--in the realistic fiction you trumpet so much, at least in the countries which have laws against hate literature while also eschewing censorship, so those restrictions would also pertain to fantasy.

Exactly. And we're all fine with that. It would be illegal (though not everyone would consider all those examples to be 'immoral' - many athiests find Pullman's depiction of God & the Church perfectly fine, many believers not. Many white supremacists would find 'sub human' black people perfectly acceptable, if not simply 'true' according to their lights).

Thus, a line does exist as to what's acceptable & what isn't - 'Fantasy' as a genre does not = anything goes. We expect certain standards to be maintained, certain boundaries to be upheld. But are they simply 'negative' boundaries - 'Within these set bounds you may do as you please", or are there more 'positive' requirements? Has political correctness entered the secondary world? We know from what we know of Tolkien, the old school Catholic who attended Mass everyday, that homosexuality & adultery would (if they had appeared in his world) have been 'sinful' & that no 'good' person would have done either. Yet, if homosexual acts had been presented by Tolkien as 'Orcish' or immoral, would we have accepted that as being within those 'bounds' I mentioned earlier, or not? Probably at the time it was published they would have been, but nowadays not. So, Tolkien's presentation of war, specifically of death in battle, is not 'true'. Battles involving men dying on the end of sharpened metal implements of various ingenious designs were not as Tolkien depicted them. And Tolkien knew they weren't. More importantly, we nowadays, know they weren't. Yet, though we (or most of us) would not accept a depiction of homosexuality as sinful & as solely the province of 'bad' people, we do accept a sanitised & completely misleading depiction of warfare.

For instance, readers have the right to question, explore, and examine the choices a writer makes, but the significant issue is the grounds which determine the questionings, exploring or examining, because those grounds make the questioning more or less credible.

And who determines those 'grounds'? Who decides what questions can be asked & which questions (or perhaps questioners) are verboten? I cannot help feeling that that issue, too, is to be decided (as with what is acceptable in fantasy fiction) on subjective grounds. Either a question is valid (whatever the grounds it is asked on) - ie is 'logical', or it is invalid - therefore illogical & thus impossible to answer.

This ignores Tolkien's other criteria, of arresting strangeness, as well as overlooking Tolkien's insistence that LotR was not a veiled representation of WWII.

I don't see how an honest depiction of war excludes 'arresting sttrangeness' - it may even enhance it - the etherial beauty, the arresting strangeness, of Lorien would only be magnified by contrating it to the true horror of death on the Pelennor. And I don't see where WWII comes into it. Hacking someone with a broadsword will produce certain physiological effects which, being universal, & determined by the essential nature of the human body, are timeless, & not limited to events in WWII. In fact, I would say that the very use of implements such as swords & spears, as opposed to machine guns & hand grenades is sufficient in itself to seperate the War of the Ring from WWII.

[alatar]

Because Tolkien never mentions anything of the sort. One might as well offer up the explanation that Earedel hovered invisibly over the battlefields & teleported the corpses off the field. Or that lots of carnivorous butterflies alighted on the bodies & ate them.
Please... :rolleyes::D

What you're doing, it seems to me, is inventing an 'explanation' for which there's no textual support in order to avoid the difficulties in the story.
It's very possible that I just like having a good discussion with you.

Anyway, to put you in the dock for a moment:
Do you affirm or deny that there is textual support that someone of Númenórean descent could stop living at a self-determined moment, though we may not know the mechanism?
Do you affirm or deny that there is textual support for the existence of Númenórean 'blood' in the soldier population of Gondor at the end of the Third Age, regardless of the amount?
Do you affirm or deny that there is textual support that makes my supposition completely impossible (i.e. a direct and clear statement to the fact that men with Númenórean blood could not chose the moment of their deaths)?

However much my paranoia makes me believe in carnivorous butterflies, there is no textual support, as you indicate, for the same. I would believe that there are insects in Middle Earth, as we see examples of the midges and neekerbreekers and having poor Grima name 'Worm.' Surely some type of bug - so close to Mordor - would attack the wounds and flesh of the dying on the battlefield. But butterflies? I'd believe locusts or spiders or ants or beetles, as they 'eat' things whereas butterflies are nectar drinkers (or whatever the technical term is).

The simplest explanation is that Tolkien decided not to deal with the actual, unpleasant realities of warfare (& other things) because he didn't want such things in his story. The question is whether he was justified in doing that?
Okay, so I think that this is a more fair and understandable question. What justice do you seek from his writings? Again, if we are including 'what really happens,' we don't have to stop at the battlefield. Is this an issue with fantasy, or with writing a whole? How would the story change if we have to 'real up' every scene? Where did Bilbo store his butter? How did he keep Bag End so dry...dry enough to store books? Etc.

And further, if Tolkien is justified in doing that, because he is 'subcreating' a secondary world, how can one condemn, say, Philip Pullman for presenting us with a God who is a senile old fake, or any writer creating a secondary world in which black people are sub-human, rape is fun for all concerned, or mass murder of jews is a moral act?
I'm sure that it's all in the head of the reader. If the writer can create something plausible that a reader can then accept; well, there you would have it.

If you ever get the chance, speaking of bugs, read, "Hellstrom's Hive" by Frank Herbert. Tell me that by the end you're not rooting for the insect humans over our current society. Why? Because the writer set up a scenario that me as the reader could accept as plausible. Now, when I put the book down, I'm not looking forward to becoming a bug-like species, but when in the book, I can see it.

OK - I've taken extreme examples there, but that's what it comes down to - does the fantasy genre permit any degree of 'invention' on a writer's part? I'm fairly sure that many who would defend Tolkien's right to omit the 'unpleasant' realities of death in battle in Middle-earth, would condemn Pullman's depiction of God - not simply as 'offensive' but also as untrue....
Readers' experiences with materials may vary.

Because, we either say that fantasy as a genre allows total freedom to a writer to depict any kind of world they wish & we, as readers, must not question that right, or we accept that we do have a right to question the choices a writer of fantasy makes, the omissions & inclusions.
Writers can do whatever they like (within the law, of course), and readers can decide whether the work is good or not.

Seems to me that many must agree that Tolkien's battlefield depictions work.

[davem]

Do you affirm or deny that there is textual support that makes my supposition completely impossible (i.e. a direct and clear statement to the fact that men with Númenórean blood could not chose the moment of their deaths)?

Denethor had Numenorean blood but he still had to resort to immolation. I suspect that in the height of battle the necessary peace of mind would be absent - particularly if one was missing limbs/intestines. Howsumever...what of those who didn't have Numenorean blood (like Hobbits & Rohirrim?)


However much my paranoia makes me believe in carnivorous butterflies, there is no textual support, as you indicate, for the same. I would believe that there are insects in Middle Earth, as we see examples of the midges and neekerbreekers and having poor Grima name 'Worm.'

I won't deny the possibility - merely note that there would have to be a lot of them present. (BTW 'Worm' in Grima's nickname surely references a Wyrm or Dragon in the sense of false speaking)


How would the story change if we have to 'real up' every scene? Where did Bilbo store his butter? How did he keep Bag End so dry...dry enough to store books? Etc.

I think its entirely plausible to build such a hole - given decent damp-proofing etc

Seems to me that many must agree that Tolkien's battlefield depictions work.

Actually, from many of the threads & individual posts I've come across on the Downs its fairly clear that many readers have no real knowledge of medieval warfare or the effect of medieval weaponry on the human body, let alone the truth about what happened on the battlefield (how about the fact that bodies of prominent persons would often be boiled in great cauldrons to get rid of the flesh so that the bones could then be transported back to their local church for inhumation?)

[alatar]

Denethor had Numenorean blood but he still had to resort to immolation.
Not sure that that's a good example. Methinks that Denethor wanted not only to die but to keep his lifeless body out of the hands of the orcs.

I suspect that in the height of battle the necessary peace of mind would be absent - particularly if one was missing limbs/intestines. Howsumever...what of those who didn't have Numenorean blood (like Hobbits & Rohirrim?)
Agreed. Just stating 'possible' and not 'probable.'

No hobbits were hurt beyond a hurt arm and a good bruising (those in the Shire had no death scenes and so obviously died instantaneously). And we all know that the Rohirrim, mounted as they were, would have most likely broken their necks as they fell from their horses - again, no pain and suffering. ;) Theoden was crushed by Snowmane, and he never cried out.

(BTW 'Worm' in Grima's nickname surely references a Wyrm or Dragon in the sense of false speaking)
Considered that as a possibility, but that would assume I knew what you'd stated. Had I not, I would have happily thought for all time that he was named thus due to his slimy character. Does the word 'worm' as it applies to Dragon-kind appear in LotR?

I think its entirely plausible to build such a hole - given decent damp-proofing etc
What I'm getting it is I assume that when you read the scene where Gandalf and Bilbo (or Frodo) are dialoguing in Bag End, thoughts of waterproofing the structure were far from your mind. When reading about the various battles in LotR, I intellectually know that people are dying in very ugly ways, and that the battlefield is strewn with those whom pity is the only thing you can give to them, as they are beyond aid. That said, in no scene was this my focus as I continued to read onward to see what was to happen next.

Sure, Tolkien could have made a point that dying thus was ugly, but I don't think that that was a major consideration in what he was trying to accomplish. If I were selling you a car/auto/<insert your local word here>, I would not spend much time extolling the virtues of the PCV valve. Yes, it's in there and is important, but I think that you may be more interesting in other details, such as the engine, the colour, the horsepower, the features and if it has room for children.

Actually, from many of the threads & individual posts I've come across on the Downs its fairly clear that many readers have no real knowledge of medieval warfare or the effect of medieval weaponry on the human body, let alone the truth about what happened on the battlefield (how about the fact that bodies of prominent persons would often be boiled in great cauldrons to get rid of the flesh so that the bones could then be transported back to their local church for inhumation?)
Interesting. I too think it fairly clear that many readers (you and me excluded, though I'm not too sure about you...or me :D) haven't any idea how the internet works, how a computer is made, the basics of science, history before they were aware among many other things, and yet they find enjoyment in both Tolkien's words as well as those here on the Downs.

If I wanted reality, I would switch on the news...or maybe not. :D

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Really, Dave, are you saying that we should trash Casablanca as a bogus or illegitimate movie because it doesn't show Maj Strasser's convulsive death agonies after Reynaud gut-shoots him? That is a slow, painful and messy way to die, and Cukor wimped out.

[davem]

Considered that as a possibility, but that would assume I knew what you'd stated. Had I not, I would have happily thought for all time that he was named thus due to his slimy character. Does the word 'worm' as it applies to Dragon-kind appear in LotR?

There's a single reference (as far as I remember) to Scatha the Worm - Merry's horn comes from his hoard.

Really, Dave, are you saying that we should trash Casablanca as a bogus or illegitimate movie because it doesn't show Maj Strasser's convulsive death agonies after Reynaud gut-shoots him? That is a slow, painful and messy way to die, and Cukor wimped out.

I'd say it should have been made apparent how he died. But that's what I'm asking others about - whether there is an obligation on a writer to depict honestly what he knows to be true, or whether. particularly in Fantasy, the writer has special exemption from 'facts'. Shouldn't violent death be shocking, rather than sanitised to the point of meaninglessness? In a story about Death shouldn't the truth about death be brought to the fore?

[Bêthberry]

It's very possible that I just like having a good discussion with you.



Yes, it's rather like watching a spin doctor work on a politician's errs and mistakes. :D


I would believe that there are insects in Middle Earth, as we see examples of the midges and neekerbreekers and having poor Grima name 'Worm.' Surely some type of bug - so close to Mordor - would attack the wounds and flesh of the dying on the battlefield.

Where there's spiders, there must be webs, ergo, critters of all sorts to catch and feed upon.



Thus, a line does exist as to what's acceptable & what isn't - 'Fantasy' as a genre does not = anything goes. We expect certain standards to be maintained, certain boundaries to be upheld.

The justification or explanation of the limitations to published work of any genre is whether this work promulgates or incites hatred towards a person or an identifiable group of people, not whether it falls within or without the moral tenets of a particular ideology or faith. Perhaps you might wish to work on an argument whether this includes Pullman's god or not, since you seem to enjoy bringing up Pullman so often in this discussion.


And who determines those 'grounds'? Who decides what questions can be asked & which questions (or perhaps questioners) are verboten?

*sighs* It's either the author's Fairy Godmother or those angels and demons that sit, one on each side, of readers' shoulders.


I don't see how an honest depiction of war excludes 'arresting sttrangeness'

Leaving aside that word "honest", the use of which has been refuted many times earlier on this thread to at least my satisfaction, I thought you have been arguing lo! these many posts that Tolkien's depiction of war is strange. Have you changed your mind now or is this just more of your spin doctoring? :D

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Does the word 'worm' as it applies to Dragon-kind appear in LotR?

There's a single reference (as far as I remember) to Scatha the Worm - Merry's horn comes from his hoard.

Also in the Hobbit (on the map, the Great Worms of the Withered Heath; and BB's reference to Smaug as an "old Worm.") And of course Farmer Giles is full of 'worms'.

[davem]

The justification or explanation of the limitations to published work of any genre is whether this work promulgates or incites hatred towards a person or an identifiable group of people, not whether it falls within or without the moral tenets of a particular ideology or faith. And that would apply if the 'person' was Hitler, or Torquemada, or the 'identifiable group of people' included Nazis, White Supremacists, suicide bombers...? Or are certain 'identifiable groups of people' excluded?

Leaving aside that word "honest", the use of which has been refuted many times earlier on this thread to at least my satisfaction,

I'd say it has merely been rejected...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The justification or explanation of the limitations to published work of any genre is whether this work promulgates or incites hatred towards a person or an identifiable group of people

No. No no no no no no no. No, no, NO. I will go to the mat opposing the false, pernicious and tyrannical false dichotomy between free speech and 'hate speech,' the tool of despots. No power, prince, potentate or Certified Victim Group gets a veto over any expression or opinion whatsoever. Not now, not ever.

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” - Noam Chomsky

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." — C. S. Lewis

And JRRT: "I am not a "socialist" in any sense - being averse to "planning" (as must be plain) most of all because the "planners", when they acquire power, become so bad ."
-- and the most awful crime of the planners is the determination of which thoughts and opinions must be 'planned' out of existence.

[davem]

In the wider fantasy context - this is interesting - Disney's new moviehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1162718/Disney-feature-black-princess--critics-complain-falls-love-WHITE-prince.html

One disappointed fan wrote (sic): 'I think it's sad that he is white because its saying that black love isn't good enough and that black men could never be princes.

‘Disney had the perfect chance to make its first black prince, but instead it decided to go the controversial route.'

Another complained (sic): ‘I am very disappointed and I wished Disney had made the prince black,(and the ironic thing is the prince in the movie is white but the evil voodoo villain is voiced by a black actor and is black).’

Since announcing their plans for the first black princess in 2006 the production of Hollywood studio's 49th animated film has been dogged by racial controversy.

Originally called The Frog Princess, its heroine was to be a chambermaid called Maddy working for a spoilt white debutante in 1920s New Orleans.

But the storyline sparked a backlash from critics who claimed it reinforced prejudice and demeaned black people.

The princess’s original name was perceived by some to be a stereotypical ‘slave name’ and she was also a maid working for a wealthy white boss, which was criticised as being racially insensitive.

Even the New Orleans setting for the film was questioned as it had overtones of voodoo and slavery.

Disney has insisted its choice of a black princess was part of a policy to give characters as much diversity as possible.

Now, one could put forward all kinds of objections to these comments - starting with the 'bleedin' obvious' one that there were no black princesses in 1920's New Orleans (or black princes for that matter) but there were a surfeit of black maids - so in terms of historical accuracy the original script was 'truer' - & if a maid, then working for a wealthy white boss is hardly pushing at the bounds of reality.

One could go further & point out that there were (& still are) white princes, so that the fact that the prince in the story is white is again still within the bounds of likelihood. Further, just as there were & are white princes in this world there are black villains. So, nothing in the original script or the finished movie are 'untrue' as such.. One could even point up the fact that this 'black' princess is actually (if one sets aside skin colour) a 'European' princess - her dress, her lifestyle, even the house she lives in, are European in origin. Yet there are no objections being raised to the fact that 'European' culture is being presented as superior to 'African'.

Thus, it seems that in order for this movie to tick all the right boxes both the princess & the prince must be black - despite the fact that that would have been impossible in the New Orleans of the 1920's - & the villain should have been a white magician (or a white black magician - if you see what I mean). Or, in short, for the movie to be acceptable it must bear no resemblance to the facts as known.

But its fantasy, so any relation to reality at all is not a requirement. Mind you - it does have a talking frog (albeit one that is an enchanted white prince) so we mustn't push the demand for realism too far. Howevah...The objections to the movie are actually demanding a recognition & acknowledgement of 'facts' - that to present a young black woman as a servant to a rich white boss is more demeaning even than presenting her as a European princess, & that black men in a democracy have as much right to be princes as white men. And that white men can be black magicians.

Hence & thus, there is a demand that certain truths be present & fully acknowledged in this fantasy, but an equal demand that other truths be ignored. And that, I would say, is the core of this discussion.

[Bêthberry]

And that would apply if the 'person' was Hitler, or Torquemada, or the 'identifiable group of people' included Nazis, White Supremacists, suicide bombers...? Or are certain 'identifiable groups of people' excluded?

Since you are so eager to learn about Canadian law, which was what I was referencing, here's a link that explains it: when hate is a crime (http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/online_hate/when_is_hate_a_crime.cfm) It's a contentious law--as William Cloud Hicklin's post makes clear, so I'll also post this link: Parliamentary Information and Research on Hate Propaganda (http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/856-e.htm)

However, the existence of the law serves the function in this discussion of proving that not just fantasy but all writing is subject to legal limits to what is allowed.



I'd say it has merely been rejected...

You say to-mah-to and I say to-may-to. ;)


But its fantasy, so any relation to reality at all is not a requirement

This statement ignores the quotations from Tolkien's OFS that set up two requirements for fantasy, credibility and arresting strangeness, which is the core of the discussion.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Canadian law, which was what I was referencing, here's a link that explains it: when hate is a crime It's a contentious law...

That's putting it mildly, when it comes to the infamous "Human Rights" Commissions and the ghastly Section 13.

Just because some nation, even our close friend and neighbor, enacts a law more appropriate to Stalin's USSR, that doesn't make the conception legitimate.

[alatar]

But its fantasy, so any relation to reality at all is not a requirement.

Hence & thus, there is a demand that certain truths be present & fully acknowledged in this fantasy, but an equal demand that other truths be ignored. And that, I would say, is the core of this discussion.
I don't think that 'truth' is the issue. The word I think to be more useful is 'plausibility.'

Some people are intellectually lazy; many not. Regardless, most do not take their conception of a thing or the world out every often, if ever, to see it really really works. We don't have time for that kind of in-depth analysis; sometimes we don't want to see where the analysis may lead. We pattern match, take shortcuts, use stereotypes, etc, all to get to the 'important' data or issue. Compromises are made fairly often.

Again, this isn't because people are stupid or lazy. I think that our brains are wired to screen all of the massive amounts of data that we are constantly receiving for relevance. Is it important? Do I need to look at something more closely? Or is there something else higher on the list? If so...

Sure; whatever...

We read about these toe-to-toe battles in Middle Earth, and if we thought about it, as davem may have pointed out maybe once or twice, it's a real visceral ugly abattoir-kind of event. But we're more interested in Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and the like and so when Faramir's wounded are retreating back to the Gate, are we thinking about the guy with the compound fracture limping along as his life pours from his wound? Or do we gloss over that possibility to see what happens next?

Sure; whatever...

Anyway, a writer can write whatever he or she or it (hate to be specisist), and if the work works, is plausible, we can overlook where reality is cruelly tread upon because the work has crossed the plausibility threshold, and so issues with the same drop down on the priority list; superseded, mayhap, by questions such as: is this a good story, regardless of the genetic background of the protagonist? Is it sating the need I have to escape the world of reality for a moment before I drift off into sleep each night?

Sure; whatever...

[Inziladun]

I'm getting into this discussion late- after very many valid points have already been made.
If it's still being considered whether Tolkien was right in sanitizing the battle scenes, I should say "yes".
I, for one, am well aware of the realities of medieval combat- how could a sword fight realistically end, but with one combatant being either killed, or wounded so grievously as to be taken prisoner or maimed permanently? Losing digits and limbs during the fight was quite common, and a lust for carnage and blood colored the behaviour of many of the warriors- far from the commonly held view of the noble champions of chivalry who lived for the defense of Lady and Crown.
Tolkien does give us a small taste of this:

Then the Captain of Morgoth sent out riders with tokens of parley, and they rode up before the outworks of the Barad Eithel. With them they brought Gelmir son of Guilin, that lord of Nargothrond whom they had captured in the Bragollach; and they had blinded him. Then the heralds of Angband showed him forth, crying: 'We have many more such at home, but you must make haste if you would find them; for we shall deal with them all when we return even so' And they hewed off Gelmir's hands and feet, and his head last, within sight of the Elves, and left him. The Silmarillion Of the Fifth Battle

And along similar lines:

....the enemy was flinging into the City all the heads of those who had fallen fighting at Osgiliath, or on the Rammas, or in the fields. They were grim to look on; for though some were crushed and shapleless, and some had been cruelly hewn, yet many had features that could be told, and it seemed that they had died in pain; and all were branded with the foul token of the Lidless Eye. ROTK The Siege of Gondor

That's fairly graphic in itself, and I think that was enough to get across to the reader that war is not a clean, glamorous business. More detail would have been pointless-description for its own sake which did nothing to enrich the story, and would lead one away from the more important elements.

[littlemanpoet]

Its not, I think, that Tolkien glorifies war so much as 'sanitises' the rough end of it. One example that springs instantly to mind is the death of Boromir. The fact that he dies pierced by arrows means that when Faramir sees the Elven boat bearing him pass by he looks as if he is sleeping peacefully & thus even in death he retains dignity. He does not die on the recieving end of an Orc poleaxe which takes off half his face so that Faramir sees him looking like he died an agonising death, choking on his own blood & broken teeth . We don't encounter any of our heroes with ugly, badly healed facial wounds.
I've thought of this often and always intended to respond to this post, since I read the myth of Cuchulainn. (sp?) The seminal mythic story in regard to this Celtic hero is that he goes into a berserker rage and single handedly kills a whole army, leaving bodies six deep on the battle field. The story is told in a way that revels in the gory details. Compare this to tales from the Nordic mythos. There is violence, but there is not revelry; rather, tragedy. The details serve to heighten the emotional intensity of the story rather than excite one to revel in the amazing (and happy - for the hero) effects of a berserker rage on the hero.

In other words, it seems to me that what is being called "realism" here is not actually more real than a so-called "sanitised" description. Tolkien writes in an essentially Nordic mode, if you will, because that's the kind of story he is writing. It is not Celtic in the sense of reveling in gore.

[Galadriel]

So, is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs? HDM, apparently, has been removed from the libraries of some schools because of its 'message'.

I should not think so. After all, George R.R. Martin (why is his name so darn LONG?) has pretty much come up with a fantasy that has more blood, gore, dishonesty, sex, rape, etc. than any other till date (correct me if I am wrong). I believe moral ideas can (and to a certain extent, should) be challenged to the extent that people can stretch their minds a little, but not so much as to actually encourage people to start killing each other ;)

And the question is, because Fantasy is the purest use of the human imagination, is it right to set limits on it, & refuse readers/movie-goers access to certain secondary worlds, or should there be no limits on what can be imagined? Isn't that the purpose of Fantasy?

Fantasy may be the 'purest' use of human imagination, but that is not to say it is completely pure. We base fantasy on reality, mainly because it would take up too much time and effort to make up a billion new rules for the story. Whether it is 'right' to set limits on it is debatable, but it certainly would be very hard to not put limits on it! Also, some people might find the prospect of reading books about talking jam-tarts a little disconcerting.

[Nerwen]

So, is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs? HDM, apparently, has been removed from the libraries of some schools because of its 'message'.
I should not think so. After all, George R.R. Martin (why is his name so darn LONG?) has pretty much come up with a fantasy that has more blood, gore, dishonesty, sex, rape, etc. than any other till date (correct me if I am wrong). I believe moral ideas can (and to a certain extent, should) be challenged to the extent that people can stretch their minds a little, but not so much as to actually encourage people to start killing each other


And the question is, because Fantasy is the purest use of the human imagination, is it right to set limits on it, & refuse readers/movie-goers access to certain secondary worlds, or should there be no limits on what can be imagined? Isn't that the purpose of Fantasy?
Fantasy may be the 'purest' use of human imagination, but that is not to say it is completely pure. We base fantasy on reality, mainly because it would take up too much time and effort to make up a billion new rules for the story. Whether it is 'right' to set limits on it is debatable, but it certainly would be very hard to not put limits on it! Also, some people might find the prospect of reading books about talking jam-tarts a little disconcerting.

You know, I am quite confused here. It seems to me that the one making "demands" and setting "limits" on fantasy has been– davem himself. Wasn't his main argument in fact that writers should feel obliged to depict certain topics only in a particular "approved" way? Did he suddenly switch sides, or what?:confused:

–I will say this on the subject of fictional violence in general: I don't think any camp gets to take the moral high ground. "All graphic, all the time" is hardly some kind of default "righteous" position. Someone can argue that buckets of gore in a story will teach the audience just how bad violence is...sure... but then someone else can come along and argue that all it will do is harden them and perhaps give them a taste for it– or is pandering to a taste already there. Not saying I necessarily agree with this point of view, either, but I think it's about as valid as the other. (Which is to say, I'm not sure that either is all that valid.)

Me? Oh, I don't know, I think mostly people just like what they like– and sometimes feel the need to construct elaborate moral and theoretical frameworks to justify it.:rolleyes:

[littlemanpoet]

People will read what they want to read, will think what they want to think, and will do what they want to do with it.

Although the latter is the domain that society obviously has real concern about since what is done affects others, said society may decide that it has a vested interest in prevention of those things it deems worth stopping, and may take measures to discourage thinking about such things.

Obviously, if someone never is exposed to sado-masochism, rape, murder, you name it, his chances of thinking about it are greatly reduced, and thus his chances of acting on it are as well. Each society has to decide for itself where to draw the line. And you can bet that in a free society, someone is going to "raise cain" no matter where the line is drawn.

[Nerwen]

Look, lmp, I really don't know how influenced people are by what they see or read– I don't think it's just a "monkey see, monkey do" thing. I'm just pointing out that the case for the moral superiority of depicting violence as graphically as possible isn't exactly water-tight either.

After all, when even spambots (http://www.forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=17570) are using an argument, you might want to rethink...:D

[blantyr]

People will read what they want to read, will think what they want to think, and will do what they want to do with it.

Although the latter is the domain that society obviously has real concern about since what is done affects others, said society may decide that it has a vested interest in prevention of those things it deems worth stopping, and may take measures to discourage thinking about such things.

Obviously, if someone never is exposed to sado-masochism, rape, murder, you name it, his chances of thinking about it are greatly reduced, and thus his chances of acting on it are as well. Each society has to decide for itself where to draw the line. And you can bet that in a free society, someone is going to "raise cain" no matter where the line is drawn.

I'd also note that both artists and audience have their own visions and world views on how various realities work or ought to work. Tolkien knew what he was doing. He walked his own line between the beauty of fairie and the ugliness of war. How does one measure the distance between Lorien and the Dead Marshes? I'm not going to second guess that line. This isn't to say that other writers and other audiences don't have other themes.

[littlemanpoet]

Look, lmp, I really don't know how influenced people are by what they see or read– I don't think it's just a "monkey see, monkey do" thing. I'm just pointing out that the case for the moral superiority of depicting violence as graphically as possible isn't exactly water-tight either.
Actually, I agree. :)

Well said, Blantyr