I mean yeah, it certainly has racist themes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that his works are racist. Some people seem to not agree with that as far as fiction goes, but imo it's whether racism is portrayed as a good thing or not that matters. Racism and superiority is constantly shown to be a bad thing rather, the gift given to the Númenorians clearly being a mistake which leads to their corruption and downfall, and continuing to cause issues in middle-earth as well, keeping those apart who should have stood united against evil. The kin-strife in Gondor for example caused by the current king being percieved as a half-breed (his mother being one of the Northmen), leading to great losses before the cruel usurpers are eventually expelled (fear of mingling thus causing way greater damage to their civilization than the mingling ever would), paving the way for Saurons return as the Gondorians no longer had the strength to keep watch on the borders of Mordor. Sure, there was technically a "superior race", but more often than not it was shown to be a bad thing overall, Aragorn being an exception more than anything else (he had some skill in healing "magic" btw, which is probably the only direct form of magic shown by any humans in the stories).
Pretty off topic though so yeah, I've said my piece, feel free to disagree as I'm sure you will ^^
The issue here is the difference between being good and being superior. If you depict some of your racially superior beings as evil that does not change the fact that you are still maintaining the general hierarchy.
In the first chapter of Fellowship, Bilbo hands out magical toys as birthday presents; were those 'good' toys or 'bad' toys?
Or were they just technological?
For a big, splashy example: Aragorn summons and commands an army of the Dead to save Middle-earth from the forces of evil.
The army of the dead are evil and Aragorn did not create them. They existed because they were cursed traitors/cowards and the result of Aragorn's turning them to the good and redeeming them is that they go away.
Yes, it is simple to the point of reductio ad absurdum. The entire point of Tolkien's world is that magic is in decline - and this ushers in a new age. The elves are in decline, Gondor is in decline, and the Age which is being ushered in is the Age of Men - not the Numenor. As the old fades, the new grows. The weakness of Gondor leads to the growing strength of Rohan, the barbaric horsemen who are racially inferior to the Gondorians... and who are nonetheless as noble, arguably more noble, and just as valuable as the Gondorians.
To give a speculum (mirror) - Bilbo and Frodo, Merry, Pippin, all these key characters are racially inferior in every way. And they are the strongest characters in all the ways that matter.
I repeat, you can reduce a work as vast and nuanced as Tolkien's to simplistic themes, but do so at your own peril.
The actual story does not dwell very much on the higher-men lower-men situation, except vaguely with Aragorn and even then his political rival Denethor is also Numenorean as well. It is very much hidden in the backstory, except in the few cases it is referenced in the story (did Elrond talk about the blood of Numenor being spent in the books or just in the films?)
The passing of ages is not being depicted as an advancement but as a degeneration on what came before.
Lewis had magic-users both good (Aslan, a direct stand-in for God), evil (the White Witch, as well as the Calormen god who is a less-clear parallel for Allah), and neutral (the human Earth magician who created magic rings allowing interplanar travel). I can't recall any instances of magic being used for Good purposes except by Aslan, though, so Lewis was probably echoing the common theme of "all magic that does not come from God is inherently evil" that was even more ubiquitous then than it is now.
Aslan isn't human and doesn't use magic, but more simply *is* magical and inhuman. The White Witch is very much evil and uses magic extensively, not sure if she's human but the good side does not use their own magic in the sense of fireballs and lightning bolts to counter her explicit magical ability to turn people to stone.
And Galadriel, and Elrond, and Saruman (important to emphasize that he was Good for 99.9% of his career, we saw only his downfall), and almost certainly the other Istari as well. Tom Bombadil is most likely of Neutral alignment, although his magical acts that we witness are indeed Good (or at least anti-Evil).
True, but none of those were human.
The Fellowship visits the hilltop seat of Amon Hen, a stone throne built & enchanted by men of Gondor. While sitting in the chair, Frodo is able to see places & events at great distances; Amon Hen is essentially a high-powered magical telescope. On the other side of the river stands another hilltop throne, its twin of Amon Lhaw, which does exactly the same thing, but with sound instead of light. A magical high-powered directional microphone. While these artifacts are admittedly not inherently Good, they are at least defensive: Placed just inside Gondor's border to detect approaching threats. Such magical technology could almost certainly have been deployed in a more offensive/intrusive position, but they chose to keep it in their own backyard.
No, they don't use the seeing stones anymore because to do so is wrong and will lead to them being corrupted by Sauron. As happens with Saruman. So the seeing stones are evil, but in a more subtle way that appears to be neutral and eventually the good side learns this is so and abandons the use of them.
1. The reason for Numenorean superiority is very relevant: They were granted longer lifespans by Illuvatar, and taught various arts by the Elves of Valinor. In other words, their superiority was not innate, it was a gift--a gift which, incidentally, the Numenoreans had done little or nothing to earn.
2. The only thing "biological" about their superiority is their lifespan, and even that's not much of a hard wall. Sure, you could say, "the less-cultured Men couldn't learn magic because it takes like 50 years of practice to be able to cast even a simple spell," but of course the flip side of that is "the Numenoreans didn't learn magic because nobody wanted to waste 50 years of their life, so they all got real jobs instead."
3. The declines of Gondor and Arnor weren't caused by intermarrying with the locals, they were caused by poor structural & military decisions. Earnur Last-King of Gondor rode away to deal with an invasion of Easterlings without leaving an heir at home, and the king of Arnor split his realm into three to divide between his sons--the resulting smaller kingdoms were nationalist & didn't have each others' backs, enabling the Witch-king of Angmar to defeat them one at a time.
1. I said it is irrelevant because the important thing is that their superiority is innate *now* not that it was originally a gift. Their superiority is hereditary and passed down and just like the superiority of white people in racism is also threatened by interbreeding with the lesser kinds of human.
2. There is also the 'ruling' part, they don't lose their authority over the lesser men because they simply did but because they interbred with lesser men and hence degenerated. The remaining pure Numenoreans (like Aragorn and Denethor) are still recognised as the rightful rulers by Gondor.
3. That is probably the true reason, but this is not the given reason in the text; so their bad decisions are plausibly the result of their blood being corrupted by lesser men. Tolkien does not challenge the racist logic he created, he rather sidelines it by making the Numenoreans less than relevant to the present day.
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Topic: Why "Myth and Magic"? (Read 6748 times)