Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power + The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Trilogies

There's dozens of books like that.

 

Being published in Russia I would imagine that copywrite might be less of an issue although simply making the work a commentary on LOTR might well get around this issue as well.

Really though unlike a lot of fantasy I don't think you could describe Tolkien as overly militaristic or indeed even overtly religious with LOTR so the criticism seems rather unwarranted to me. He was obviously well ahead of the curve when it came to environmentalism as well.

 

Seeing as one of the book portrays the environmentalism espoused by Tolkien's good guys as merely a facet of imperialistic doctrine I'mma go out on a limb and guess the author would consider your latter point moot.

And again the goal is not merely to critique Tolkien but to make a broader argument about how we think about allegedly "just" wars. I think it's not hard to look at The Lord of the Rings, where one side is almost completely unambiguously good and the other is almost completely unambiguously evil coupled with vague connotations that race is a determining factor there, and decide that's an easy narrative to flip to make such a point.

 

Is it tired up to "doctrine"? the Hobbits for example don't seem to be tied to any doctrine yet the story involving them clearly takes on an environmentalist dimention.

The idea that LOTR is a fantasy about "purely good" and "purely evil" forces as well for me is a clear misrepresentation. In reality almost all of the focus of the story is on the nominally "good" characters basically putting them though a series of moral tests that they most certainly do not always overcome(Boromir, Saruman, Denethor, etc). The one "evil" character who does get a good deal of focus is Gollum and he's portrayed in an often very sympathetic light.

 

Rescored a second scene from Fellowship, the scene where Frodo slips away from Boromir and sees Sauron's eye atop Amon Hen:



Seems like they decided that the 'Ring' scenes would be more atmospheric with just the sound effects, and cut the music from these scenes.

 

Also posted some unreleased alternate tracks from Felllwoship. These 3 tracks play in the extended edition credits, and are not present on the standard soundtrack, the complete recordings, or the rarities archive:

 

No, this argument is literally part of the reason Eskov wrote The Last Ringbearer: the reduction of moral positioning to prominent characters is nonsensical and writing off entire armies as "evil but out of focus" is deeply troubling. You're quick to defend Tolkien but in doing so you're playing into the very same issues the parody is trying to bring to light.

You're also treating environmentalism as an unambiguous net positive while ignoring the case argument that at the international level it's often applied in an outright colonialist fashion. To say nothing of critiques of Tolkien's alleged environmentalism as something closer to token nature fetishism.

 

Didn't realize Rings was released already. 7% on RT. OUCH!

 

Your of course dealing with a near universal device in fiction when it comes to not giving individualism to large groups of people that does have the potential to misrepresent for political ends yet I don't really see this as being the case with LOTR.

Tolkien does mention that Sauron's human allies are not "purely evil" and indeed that Sauron himself wasn't originally but fell to the same threat that the ring poses to many of the nominally "good" characters within LOTR who could potentially replace him should they claim it. Really though I would argue that the relative lack of focus the antagonists get in LOTR is with the specific aim of highlighting the moral tests of the good characters rather than falling back to the cheaper plot device of having characters under constant threat or featuring "characterful" villains with half baked sob stories. The same could be said for having the politics presented in a rather simple fashion, admittedly its not the best way to judge something but reading the wiki page for the Last Ringbearer it seems much more complex but such complexity although perhaps more realistic can again often be a distraction(no idea if it is here) from tests of morality.

I don't really see Tolkien as a blueprint for some kind of Gaia nature fetishism either considering that in his world "nature" is very often shown to be in opposition to the protagonists(the huorns, the blizzard on Caradhras, etc.).

I wouldn't of course hold Tolkien up as some supreme example of moral depth in fiction and in many aspects he does come across as quite socially antiquated although not IMHO ill natured(his view of "working class" characters for example is rather simplistic but almost always casts them in a good light). That said casting him as someone who pushed forward simple "good vs evil" style of fantasy for me is clearly incorrect and indeed whilst obviously Christian he largely avoids introducing any kind of religion into LOTR. You could say of course that the shear popularity of LOTR does make it an obvious target if you want to present the idea of historical distortion for political ends in a fantasy setting.

As far as Michael Moorcock view of Tolkien goes personally I wouldn't say that LOTR is espeically "reassuring" to me its always read very much as an old mans book on mortality with a strong focus on inevitable decline(which I think also makes it a poor case of "fantasy propaganda" given that rather than showing the elves as dogmatic overlords it actually shows there decline). I'm guessing this is a significant reason why it tends to remain a favourite for many people as they age.

 

I don't think there is a problem with good vs evil. LotR's problem is that its characterization was too vague, especially the villains. Sauron was more like a symbol than a character in the trilogy and Saruman had way too few appearances.

 

Well it took you a while but you finally figured it out, yes.

That is in fact an aspect of Moorcock's argument about its reassuring character. The notion that "things used to be better" is fundamentally a conservative form of comfort, albeit a seemingly paradoxical "negative" one.

 

Make Middle-earth Great Again

 

It's already great!

 

You probably got this, but that post was inspired by the one above it.

 

I still like some of the movieverse's characters better, like Arwen, Saruman and Legolas.

 

Uploaded 3 more rescores using tracks from the rarities archive.

First is The Spoiling of Isengard from Out of Bree:


Next is the intro to The Fighting Uruk-Hai:


Finally we have the original Gondor Theme variant of The Great River:


What do people think?

 

Lol, that's what I get for skimming

 

I think it was fine the way it was. The way Tolkien handles his villains is certainly different than what's usually seen, but it worked well. Sauron was really menacing because we saw so little of him, and the implication was that he was so incredibly evil that seeing or talking to him would overpower you. Heck, even after Saruman talked to him through the Palantir, he was extremely drained. Peter Jackson had a scene where Aragorn fought Sauron directly, but scrapped it because he felt it actually ruined everything. And we saw Saruman enough IMO.

 

The Aragorn fighting Sauron scene was actually repurposed into his fight with the Olog-hai at the Morannon.

 

And then you have Morgoth who multiplies that mystery fear factor to the power of ten.

 

I think the Sauron in Silmarillion was much better, we actually see him doing all those plots and seduce people to his bidding. Even if he was going to be just the symbol, we need someone to play the actual villain role, which is why Saruman got a lot to do in the movies rather than just showing up in the end of the battle..

 

I don't think I agree... with the Silmarillion, Sauron is still more mysterious than Melkor/Morgoth. The entire first part of the book is basically a character study of him and his motivations and his descent to Dark Lord.

 

I am just going to jump in here without reading any of the pages that has gone before.

I recently read The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time. Compared to later fantasy works, it is strange how little we get into the heads of the Ring bearer's companions and I was surprised how friendly and un-arrogant the elves where. Most later works I have read have had the elves/similar as arrogant and/or rather unfriendly, even if they show basic courtesy (and sometime they don't even show that). Also the Ringwraiths felt rather low power compared to many later fantasy works elite agents/underlings of the Evil One.

Also:

 

Elrond is not purely elf, he has human bloodline.

The movie did make him a bit like the later elves though.

 

This really is not the argument you've been presenting so could you can keep your condescending attitude to yourself..

Whilst the story presents a sense of the sadness of decline I do not think its fundamentally conservative. Whilst the past history is presented as wonderous its also presented as a history of moral failings(even moreso in the Silmarillion), Sauron's own fall, the Elven smiths unquestioning trust of him for there own ends, the Nazgul taking the nine rings for power and immortality, Isildur taking the one ring for himself rather than destroying it, the idea of civil war and misrule by Numemorian kings and currently Sarumans fall as an ancient power looking not to convince and educate but command others. The ring is presented as a moral threat that the "ancient and powerful" cannot overcome and instead it falls to modern much more down to earth characters to confront it. The decline of the "magical" elements of the world is presented as a price that must be paid for dealing with its negative legacy with the alternative being a moral fall via seeking to claim supreme power though the ring.

On a smaller scale as well the shire is not presented as some perfect pre industrial society before Saruman's influence either but has the negative aspects of its conservatism highlighted(class issues, closed mindnesses, etc) early in the story that ultimately lead to the Scouring. Again I wouldn't hold up Tolkien as some supreme moral arbiter and he does come across as a bit dated in certain respects but I believe a lot of the criticism he faces tends to come from people who don't give him his due and look to cast LOTR in a much more simplistic fashion.

As has been said though I think that besides Saruman this lack of characterisation actually makes them much more threatening. I would argue as well that characterisation can also get in the way of highlighting the source of there "evil", as it is I think this is made very clear(a desire for power) and obviously feeds into the tests the "good" characters face.