Fantasy

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

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:

Originally Posted by davem, post 121

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]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

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?" ) then I find that a bit distasteful.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

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]

Originally Posted by davem

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.

Originally Posted by davem

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.

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.

Originally Posted by On Fairy-Stories

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

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.

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

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.

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

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.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

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.

Originally Posted by davem

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.

Originally Posted by Ibrînidilpathânezel

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.

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

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]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

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]

Originally Posted by 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..

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)

Selections from Sheamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf 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

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

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-...te-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.