Using Tolkien to Score Some Points

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It's shallow as cod-Tolkien and it's shallow as satire. Satire, to work, has to get hold of the meat of the thing satirized, not just play glibly with surface trivia. As the cops say, "aim center-of-mass." Compare Swift's masterful War of the Eggs.

[Boromir88]

*big, cheerful waves to Fordim*

I found it rather funny...in the twisted lore way. Similar to what The Toast wrote on Aragorn:

The Illegitimacy of Aragorn's Claim to the Throne.

I also recently saw The Martian (a fairly enjoyable movie). Without a doubt the best part (at least for me) was...Sean Bean works for NASA and a group are trying to come up with a plan to build a rescue ship to Mars to get the stranded Matt Damon. One NASA employee says they're going to codename it Rivendell, and the rest of the team is clueless about the joke, and it's just really humorous once Sean Bean's character starts explaining it's from Lord of the Rings and if they're going with codename Rivendell then he wants everyone to call him Glorfindel.

But as G55 says it's disappointing if you're the only one who understands the joke. I was watching with others and I was the only one cracking up at that scene and the irony of Sean Bean in it.

[Morthoron]

Hmmm...I suppose we could, in the interest of fair and unbiased parody, satirize all the candidates, whether Republican or Democrat, and match them with appropriate characters:

"Late is the hour in which this President chooses to appear. Obama, I name him. Ill news is an ill guest." - Ted Cruz

"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Presidency freely! In place of the Republicans you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!" - Hillary Clinton

"Why ever did I wake up!" he cried. "I was having such beautiful dreams. I dreamt I was walking in the White House..." - Chris Christie

"I don't hold with wearing ironmongery, whether it wears well or no." - Bernie Sanders

"You did not seriously think that an idiot senator could contend with the will of The Donald, there are none that can." - Donald Trump

"Never fitted me either. George W. was always the politician. They were so alike, he and my father. Proud... stubborn, even. But strong." - Jeb Bush

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

*big, cheerful waves to Fordim*

*Big cheerful wave back*

[Pitchwife]

I think it's fairly obvious that the text doesn't intend to satirize Tolkien but rather to satirize Mr Trump using Tolkien's legendarium as its foil. I also think that the (real) author knows their Tolkien well enough and had to in order to make the satire work.


As to how the text achieves its purpose, I'd like to tackle a few of the questions Bêthberry posed in her original post. How are Smaug and Gandalf used in the text? The speaker (who is not the author, and whom I shall call thus in order to avoid the question whether he represents the real Mr Donald J. Trump accurately) - the speaker, I was saying, discusses Smaug's merits as a businessman and investor comparable to himself and finds him wanting because the dragon, lacking any spark of entrepreneurship, is content to lie on his hoard all day and snack on pony flambé occasionally instead of using it to make more gold and invest in 'classy' architecture. This slightly misses the point of what it means to be a dragon, but not by much, as Smaug and the speaker at least share a common interest in material wealth.


It gets downright absurd when the speaker judges Gandalf by the same standard and pronounces him a total failure. What the speaker fails to grasp is that Gandalf's character and conduct, unlike Smaug's, are determined by motives and principles completely incompatible with those of the speaker himself, so much so that the speaker is incapable of even understanding them. (Much like Saruman, actually - a lot of what the speaker has to say about Gandalf reads as if written with Saruman in mind.)


This is where our own knowledge of Tolkien comes into the story. The text wants us to realise that the speaker completely misconstrues Gandalf's character and motivation, and to draw according conclusions about the speaker's own character, motivation and capability of moral judgment; and we can only do that because we know better - because we understand Gandalf as the Professor meant and wrote him. We know that Gandalf has no interest whatsoever in polls and towers but is guided by love, kindness and obedience towards an Authority higher than his own, and conclude that the speaker is untouched by such things.


Whether this conclusion which the author intends us to draw is valid is not for me to say, as I'm even further removed from American politics here in Europe than Bêthberry and Gal55. But I'd much prefer the next steward of Gondor to be somebody who understands Gandalf.