Can o' worms...

[Morwen]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Good stuff. I had a very long, insightful conversation with Fea months back about if there were elitist and rascist undertones in the Lord of the Rings. We sort of discovered when you first read the books, if you were young and early teens it goes completely unnoticed. You read the story, as it was meant to be read, to be enjoyed. The battles, the mastery and flow of language, the heroes. Then as we get older, read it again (and again ) , it seems like we lose that first-time reading experience. We are possibly reading for meaning.

Just speaking for myself and what I said in the convo. When you look too much into it, the Numenoreans being the "pure" race, teaching and instructing the inferior and darker races. The darker-skinned Men who joined Sauron, the Black Riders...etc. You can look at it and make it out to be about race, but it's really not about black and white at all. It's for me, light and unlight. Ungoliant's darkness was described as unlight.

In the end, it's over-complicating the story, by searching for meaning, instead of enjoyment. What is Tolkien trying to say here? What does he mean by the fair-skinned Elves, with the "Light of Aman" in their faces and the dark Moriquendi?

Many, most threads on the Downs concern themselves with questions of what is meant by this phrase, how to interpret the use of certain words or how to reconcile x passage with y excerpt.

We analyse, we interpret, we argue for and against any number of topics. I doubt this takes away from anyone's enjoyment of the text. I therefore don't see why, if the question of race is raised, all of a sudden it is a matter of "over complicating" the story. I can understand not agreeing with a point of view and saying why you disagree but where is the "over complication"? It seems to me a matter for interpretation just like anything else.