The LotR is a lie

[Darth Tang]

The truth needs to be told: the underlying message of the Halflings in Tolkien is that they are evil. Face it: there was no Ring; this was just a ruse by Bilbo to take out Sauron by means of a Halfling sacrifice at Mount Doom before Sauron could move against the growing darkness that was the Shire.

Examine the facts: the Fellowship of the Ring was stacked with Hobbits, four openly in the group and a fifth trailing covertly. Oh, sure, the historical account (written by a Hobbit) gives a series of implausible events that explains how four ended in the group, but the fact is that they were a group when they emerged in Human lands.

Further, as individual members of the Fellowship become suspicious, Frodo acts. A hobbit ‘accidently’ alerts the Goblins, and Gandalf is taken out, and a double substituted under unlikely circumstances much later.

As the evidence mounts, he splits the party. Taking only his ‘gardener’ who is surprisingly adept at fighting (even Shelob fared poorly against him) he slips away to complete the mission free of witnesses (and later linking up with the fifth covert Halfling). The other two Hobbits murder Boramir while he is away from the others and make it look like Orcs, helped by mercenary Orcs in their pay (later Frodo will slander Boramir in the only written account of the operation). They lead the rest of the Fellowship off on a wild-goose chase, and the Orcs are killed by the Riders of Rohan (few of whom survive the coming battles); the story that there was a falling-out amongst the Orcs is substantiated only by interviews by the two Hobbits.

Later, at Minas T, Hobbits are assigned to Gandalf and the heir to the Rohan throne to insure that there are no awkward questions asked. And both were nearby when the rulers of Rohan and Gondor die.

Up on Mount Doom, the fact is that three go up, and two come down. The business of the ring was simply a sham to conceal the dark sacrifice and evil magics performed.

Returning, they find that the brave-but-dim Aragorn had failed to get the last army of Men slaughtered at the Black Gate, and Frodo is forced to dispatch two of his henchmen back to the homeland to halt the mobilization of Hobbit-folk and the conversion to a war economy. The sudden industrial and military activity in the Shire in explained away (by Frodo) as interference by Men.

Sauron is undone, and while the opportunity to put Rohan and Gondor under the Halfling heel did not manifest itself, the operation is a success. Wealthy from loot and black-ops payments from a grateful Halfling nation, Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam casually slip away to reside in a third world state which has no extradition.

[InfernalTeddy]

Brilliant!

[hong]

Good, but not nearly as good as the critique of Star Wars as an allegory for coming to terms with homosexuality.

[(un)reason]

My name is Finieous fingers and I endorse this idea, service, or product. Halflings can be evil little buggers.

[JamesCat]

You've been beaten to the punch by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/04/22fellowship.html

Chomsky: The film opens with Galadriel speaking. "The world has changed," she tells us, "I can feel it in the water." She's actually stealing a line from the non-human Treebeard. He says this to Merry and Pippin in The Two Towers, the novel. Already we can see who is going to be privileged by this narrative and who is not.

Zinn: Of course. "The world has changed." I would argue that the main thing one learns when one watches this film is that the world hasn't changed. Not at all.

Chomsky: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

Zinn: I think that's correct. Tolkien makes no attempt to hide the fact that rings are wielded by every other ethnic enclave in Middle Earth. The Dwarves have seven rings, the Elves have three. The race of Man has nine rings, for God's sake. There are at least 19 rings floating around out there in Middle Earth, and yet Sauron's ring is supposedly so terrible that no one can be allowed to wield it. Why?

Chomsky: Notice too that the "war" being waged here is, evidently, in the land of Mordor itself — at the very base of Mount Doom. These terrible armies of Sauron, these dreadful demonized Orcs, have not proved very successful at conquering the neighboring realms — if that is even what Sauron was seeking to do. It seems fairly far-fetched.

Zinn: And observe the map device here — how the map is itself completely Gondor-centric. Rohan and Gondor are treated as though they are the literal center of Middle Earth. Obviously this is because they have men living there. What of places such as Anfalas and Forlindon or Near Harad? One never really hears anything about places like that. And this so-called map casually reveals other places — the Lost Realm, the Northern Waste (lost to whom? wasted how? I ask) — but tells us nothing about them. It is as though the people who live in these places are despicable, and unworthy of mention. Who is producing this tale? What is their agenda? What are their interests and how are those interests being served by this portrayal? Questions we need to ask repeatedly.

[Matthias Wasser]

David Brin argued (not jokingly) that Sauron was the good guy in Lord of the Rings, and I can't say I disagree with him.

[J.T.]

I always said they were evil...well I thought it to myself.

Never trust someone with hairy feet especially women......


Atcually I laughed my socks off at that.

J.T.

[Ithaeur]

Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser

David Brin argued (not jokingly) that Sauron was the good guy in Lord of the Rings, and I can't say I disagree with him.

As much as I like Brin's SF (for the most part), his comments on Tolkien and Star Wars alike are some of the most painfully earnest, tone-deaf and point-missing stuff I've seen.

[TJBailey]

Originally Posted by Wakboth

As much as I like Brin's SF (for the most part), his comments on Tolkien and Star Wars alike are some of the most painfully earnest, tone-deaf and point-missing stuff I've seen.

He's also a smug patronising git.

I made the mistake of conferring with him over email about one of his articles on yhe Matrix. I thought it was interesting and a bit of an eye opener. He then proceeded to tell me to read a real book and stop wasting my time with rubbish.

I may have got a few licks in before I gave up and blocked his email account.

As to Darth Tang's post.

Kudos. A brilliant way on how to look at LoTR.

regards

Trevor

[mgg]

Yeah, and check out how the replacement 'Gandalf' took down the only guy preventing an unnecessary war between Saruman and Rohan.