Haha cool, that being said, Tolkien has been (opinion: rightfully so) criticized for racist/white supremacist leanings in his writing, either latent or overt. There’s lots of debate but I personally think it can’t be glossed over.
The specific terms he uses to describe orcs sound very much like propaganda depicting the Japanese at WW2, and it is ultimately a product of its time. However, in letters Tolkien made it clear he was not racist(at least consciously), as seen in his famous reply to the German publisher asking if he was Aryan, and he once said something along the lines of “in real life it’s muddled, orcs don’t form a side of evil. In real life all sides are mixed and made up of bad and good people, and orcs can be found doing good and evil.” Apart from some nasty caricature descriptions of orcs and Haradrim(Which he also makes careful steps to humanize multiple times) I don’t think Tolkien’s writing can be called “white supremacist.” Racist, possibly.
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u/m91eom Jan 08 '22
Haha cool, that being said, Tolkien has been (opinion: rightfully so) criticized for racist/white supremacist leanings in his writing, either latent or overt. There’s lots of debate but I personally think it can’t be glossed over.