[Durelin]

It's a fantasy world, and I mean, you could easily say Orcs, as they are sometimes known as a "race" rather than a creature (though in LOTRO they cleverly refer to them only as "creatures" or "monsters"), are discriminated against. And then there is the race issue of the Southrons and Easterlings serving Sauron....

But...it's a fantasy world. And it's not an allegory for hating people of a Southeast Asian origin or something.

As for specifically the same-sex marriage issue - relationships, specifically marriages, were not that important in The Lord of the Rings - far from as important as the movies made them seem. So, you have Aragorn and Arwen, and Eowyn with her brief Aragorn love and then Eowyn with Faramir...and, the most innocent of all because they're Hobbits for the Lord's sake: Sam and Rosie. But about the only "commentary" there is a teensy bit with the relationship of Elves and Humans (which is largely an issue of mortality and immortality), and "yay, they got married and made pretty babies!"

Avoiding the issue of same-sex marriages is the best thing for Turbine to do. The story and the ideals of the world that Tolkien really dwelt on do not support or stand against that issue, regardless of Tolkien's own personal beliefs.

Plus...just because the characters can't be of the same gender doesn't mean the players can't be.

As a little side note - Actually, I think Turbine has done as good a job as it can staying relatively true to Middle-earth, and certainly (from what I know and have seen) have not gone the route of making major changes for the sake of money. I am far (far?) from a purist, though, so perhaps my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt?

Very interesting article, davem!!

Edit:

I guess what I was trying to get at, but didn't quite get to in my talking about "relationships" in LotR (I'm talking about only LotR because Turbine only has the rights to LotR and The Hobbit) is that it is much much more about friendship, and general camaraderie than romantic love. Obviously - you just look at Sam and Frodo. It's about platonic love or Lewis' philia.

Taking the fact that there are only heterosexual romantic couples on LotR and then concluding that the book is "against" and "condemns" same-sex 'marriage' is like taking Till We Have Faces and saying it supports homosexual and specifically lesbian romantic relationships. But obviously, saying that about Lewis' book is missing the point so entirely. It's the same with LotR.

Regardless of the author's beliefs, a work can and does have its own platform, particularly because any person can twist a work's meaning to whatever they'd like and miss the point completely, even if the way they twist it happens to likely match up with the author's own personal beliefs.

Oh, another issue - a video game isn't going to differentiate between "marriage" and "civil union." One of the biggest problems with the "same sex marriage" issue in America, at least, is that the legal union and the religious union is both called "marriage." "Civil union" attempts to differentiate, but if the press and politicians can't even remember that, then a video game certainly isn't going to even touch on that (and shouldn't be expected to).

Anyway...just random thoughts.....