[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I should clarify, I was getting onto the Real World talking about 'bloodline' there. The Numenoreans, as Tolkien's creation, had and were free to have (because as Author, it's Tolkien's call on how characterisation was done) personality characteristics inherited by blood; of course in the Real World this is a much less likely thing, if it happens at all.

Oh, but we can talk about it, though, just as we talk about the Drowning of Numenor or the presence of Coffee and umbrellas.

Originally Posted by Lal

Most immigrants to the UK are easily absorbed into the culture - and don't lose much of their own in the process. The media like to highlight differences as it makes for a far more interesting story to paint people as racists when the truth is that the white working classes have for hundreds of years lived next door to waves of new immigrants and get along remarkably well, given the difficulties both groups face.

Well, really, I am a bit limited in my ability to watch/read your media. I mean, I do get the BBC World News and Doctor Who but that's about the limit of my exposure to your media. And the only time I read your tabloids online is when they have a juicy scandal about the Royals beating animals or wishing they were some form of sanitary device. I often think of the English as a bit Elvish, if you know what I mean. It must come from reading the likes of Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers or Monica Ali's Brick Lane. I think we could probably have a good discussion about the elves in terms of the mid-twentieth century English thoughts on the loss of the Empire. Still Tolkienish but I suppose not really about absolute good.

Originally Posted by Lal

Taking the rules set out in the Bible for example - all of them stemmed from the contemporary culture when those texts were written - this is why alongside thoroughly sensible rules that are still relevant like "Thou shalt not steal" we have anomalies about not eating prawns.

I myself often wished that the Levitical injunction against the wearing of mixed fabrics had been more often observed. It would have saved us from the indignity of the polyester leisure suit.

Originally Posted by Morth

As opposed to the more 'advanced' Hobbitish culture in the Shire, the retrograde Stoors (who had left the Angle and had resettled back along the Anduin), were a matriarchal society which seemed to me more gypsyish hunter/gatherers rather than staid farmers (Gollum fondly remembered teaching his grandmother to suck eggses), but they certainly knew right from wrong. Smeagol/Gollum was banished from their society for thievery and suspected murder, not necessarily because of a perceived otherness (although the change that came over him could have been construed as part and parcel of his criminal activity while using the Ring).

I'm not so sure they did know right from wrong--or rather, I wonder what Tolkien was doing in assigning them those two very intriguing attributes. All faiths--all cultures--have ways of enforcing normative behaviours but not all of them practice that form of extreme control, with its (unintended) damaging, detrimental effects. I've often pondered Tolkien's depiction of Smeagol's clan and what might be called the psychological consequences of Smeagol's shunning.