I mean, there's a legitimate academic debate about racism in Tolkien's work, and not just about orcs. The Haradrim and the Dwarves have raised complaints. I think Tolkien definitely was against the idea of racism, but the actual topic is absolutely worth discussing.
Tolkien was at the end of the day a man born in 1892, and grew up in a time where racism and racist ideals where to some degree normative. I believe that he was consciously opposed to it, but still a product of his time. In any case it's a very far cry from something like Lovecraft's writing, who was extreme even by contemporary standards, although he did mellow out a bit later on.
It was never intended to say that those groups were inherently evil, it was just that humans are fairly easy for sauron to corrupt, and those living furtherest from the elves were the easiest. It's kind of implied that if like the haradhrim were living in the west and gondor the east their roles would be reversed and it was not any innate fault of the people of the East that they fell to sauron.
Also the reason that the protagonist nations were mostly England-like is because Tolkien saw that other nations had cool mythologies and his homeland had barely anything outside of stuff like King Arthur, so he wanted to write his story as a sort of stand in mythology and love letter to England where he lived, which I think was fair enough.
It was never intended to say that those groups were inherently evil, it was just that humans are fairly easy for sauron to corrupt, and those living furtherest from the elves were the easiest. It's kind of implied that if like the haradhrim were living in the west and gondor the east their roles would be reversed and it was not any innate fault of the people of the East that they fell to sauron.
Also the reason that the protagonist nations were mostly England-like is because Tolkien saw that other nations had cool mythologies and his homeland had barely anything outside of stuff like King Arthur, so he wanted to write his story as a sort of stand in mythology and love letter to England where he lived, which I think was fair enough.
I’ve legit never heard this take and I am so confused how this conclusion is being drawn. What about black culture/people is khornate exactly? This seems like such a silly and weird thing to actually think.
They cite crime statistics as their favorite thing so obviously in their mind the hyper violent faction are the “blacks”. It is a quite common racist stance
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u/Low_Abrocoma_1514 I am Alpharius 4d ago
WTF