TLDR: Tolkien was not writing a mythology for England, he began doing so, but ultimately disregarded the idea, and Middle-earth reflects that, being home to a wide variety of peoples with different skin tones, as can be demonstrated with Tolkien’s own writings.
Edit: First off, thank you to everyone who read, upvoted, commented, and awarded this post - it means a lot! Secondly, I wanted to clarify what the point of this post was. It was not to say that all people described as ‘swarthy’ by Tolkien are meant to be imagined as dark-skinned. As several people have stated, ‘swarthy’ can refer to white people with dark hair and dark eyes, but it can also refer to people with dark skin, such as Tolkien’s usage with the Haradrim. Rather, the point of this post was that you could easily interpret the use of the word as meaning dark-skinned, or you could interpret it as meaning the example above, or any other way you choose. Any interpretation is valid and …
I’ll quote a section of a letter by Tolkien (Letter 256) related to it: > “I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men, it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless — while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage.”
What I’m after is basically something where an evil defeated by people in the past for some reason ends up being revered and religiously worshipped by the descendants of that same people. If you know anything that …
I’m partial to Klingon, just because.
We’ve all seen a video of some dude on YouTube explaining why the sword fight in a certain movie scene is either A) Very good, and true to real life or B) Shite, and deserves to be set on fire in a bin. I doubt there’s many sword experts on this sub (unless you’re all way cooler than I thought you were), so what are some interests or pastimes in your life that you often see poorly represented?
For me, it’s always extremely obvious when a writer doesn’t know anything about cars and the culture surrounding them. Seeing a character describe their car and the specs like they’re saying a wikipedia entry out loud is painful. Or even worse, is when they insert a load of jargon and slang in a really unnatural and stilted manner. It would be like watching a surfing scene where the surfers keep saying things like ‘totally tubular, man’ or ‘cowabunga’.
Another one is hacking and tech stuff in general (I’ve never personally said …
So with a lot of fantasy character types, it makes since why they would have a pretty specific body type, fighters, rangers, paladins, etc etc are gonna need to be pretty fit to pull of their stuff, but if you’re telling me I can become powerful with just studying, I can guarantee you that I would be doing so with a bag of white cheddar Cheetos and an overpriced Starbucks drink at my side. We get plenty of whispy wizards, but where are all the chubby ones?
The story was set in the fourth age and was going to be about how Men have become too antsy with peace. They began worshiping Sauron, Morgoth and Saruman cult style and children would play “orc”. It’s pretty wild to see where Tolkien’s mind was at during this point in his life and how that story would likely work well today, but he ditched it saying it was too dark. I’d love to see the story realized personally.
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Edit: goodness, that’s one way to wake up. Thanks for the conversation and the community karma on this one everyone, glad you learned something new or were reminded about this niche bit of trivia. There’s almost 600 comments at this point so won’t reply to all, but through the day I’ll reply to a few of you!
I’ve been a long-term frequent cannabis user. Long-term as in decades, frequent as in daily and over the last 8 months or so nearly constantly when not at work or needing to drive anywhere.
For various reasons I decided to try having a break (which may turn into totally giving up) 8 days ago. It’s been rough. Very rough. BUT for the first time in years I suddenly found that I could read again, which I’ve struggled with since I was a teenager. Being stoned all the time made it very hard for me to focus on books enough to read at a reasonable pace, and even when I did manage to read I found I couldn’t retain much. No surprise, short-term memory is well-documented as being heavily impaired by cannabis.
I managed to finish the book I’d had sitting on my eReader for over a year (The Farthest Shore, book 3 in Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea series) in 2 days. Then I decided to try (and I’m sure many regulars of this sub will bored to tears of hearing …
I think it’s really weird and unhelpful people can review books that don’t even have ARCs (advanced copies). It skews the metrics and readers are more likely to pick up the book thinking it’s great, when most positive reviews are from super fans etc :-/ Anyone else think it’s weird?
I’m not a big fan of GR in general, but haven’t seen a better website (suggestions welcome :-) )
And don’t bring up books that doesn’t fulfill the criteria because you like it.
It’s a long running joke and woe to the mods of r/Fantasy that some people will reccomend Sanderson/Wheel of Time/Malazan regadless of questions asked- something funny with LBGTQ+? World with no patriarchy? Time Travel? S/WOT/M! You can swear that every book sub and group has a bunch that always surfaces in this kinds of threads, no matter how specific the question was.
But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if people reccomending it are that clueless or actively malicious. I read a post of a person who recovered from trauma and wanted something funny and optymistic- and was reccomended “House of Spirits” by Isabel Allende. You know, that- otherwise great - book that was written as a discussion about history of Chile, full of violence and trauma of all flavours.I know- one enamored with book wants to share it with everyone in the world, but not everything is great every …
Just finished the collection. Every single story is a banger.
This collection had so many fresh takes on familiar SF concepts. And of course beautifully written. I think my favorite is The truth of fact, the truth of feeling. At first I thought it was just a rehash of that Black Mirror episode with the same premise, but it turned out very different. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a nuanced, technology-positive story like that. Would love some recommendations for similarly themed stories if anyone can think of any.
I see a lot of advice for the same books again and again, with a lot of superlatives.
And some of them I’ve found to be good books. But I’ve also had grounds to criticise them, and don’t find them pinnacles of literature.
I frequently see people down-voted for speaking against the gospel.
This is that thread, have at it. And write why you think what you do.
I finished “Revelation Space” and “Redemption Ark”.
I’m about half way through “Chasm City”.
I have regretfully accepted that every character is the same smug, sarcastic jackass.
Every conversation between every characters is a snide sneering pissing contest.
The main characters are all smug and sarcastic.
The shopkeepers are all smug and sarcastic.
The street thugs are all smug and sarcastic.
If there was a kitten, it would be smug and sarcastic.
The vending machines seem likeable enough.
Reynolds gets credit for world-building.
And damn, I respect him for respecting the speed of light. I wish more authors did that.
Unfortunately, it’s just not enough.
Obvious MAJOR SPOILERS for the book, so I assume if you’re here either you know or dont care. :)
So, this just happened and I needed to talk about it so here goes…
I’m talking about the epiphany. When Avrana Kerns (or what remains of her but that’s another story) finally realizes these are not monkeys she’s communicating with but spiders.
The whole book is entirely fascinating and could be disseceted for hours on so many subjects but I must admit this has been the plot point I’ve been most eager to finally see come to light.
Oh, how I’ve longed for the moment when finally things could click or she’d have to brutally come to terms with the truth.
I wondered how the story would go if she spurned them, hated them for not being her monkeys and despise them but I fully knew and it was obvious she would eventually embrace them as “her children” and become the spider-godess… damn, how that must sound. But trust me …
Earlier this week I finished ‘Fallen Dragon’ by Peter F. Hamilton. I slept two nights about it and my thoughts are still going back to the book, which usually is a good sign.
‘Fallen Dragon’ is a space opera by the master of the genre, Peter F. Hamilton. The book was released in 2001, so it recently had its twentieth anniversary. The fantastic audio book narrated by John Lee is from 2016. The author needs no introduction here as he is known for ultra long series like the ‘Night’s Dawn’ trilogy or the Commonwealth universe that begins with the ‘Pandora’s Star’/ ‘Judas Unchained’ duology. If you liked those or are curious about them ‘Fallen Dragon’ is a great way to get a feel for the author as it captures the essence of his writing and is single volume, no sequels.
‘Fallen Dragon’ is set in the 25th century. Humanity has colonized many solar systems while Earth remains the center. At the mercy of an oligarchy of evil corporations with their own high tech armies and FTL space ships the …
I finished my first reread of Cyteen yesterday and it confirmed my opinion from my initial read - Cyteen is one of the towering achievement of the science fiction genre and it deserves to be better known. Its ideas were original when it was published and remain so today. It is an extremely ambitious work which succeed at all goals it sets for itself. It feels way less dated than almost all works written around the same time.
A brief synopsis for those of you who haven’t read it: Cyteen takes place in Cherryh’s Alliance-Union setting. It takes place in Union, one of two major factions among the human settlers which colonised the nearest stars. It’s about a project to recreate the personality of a dead genius scientist and political leader through cloning and raising the clone in a way as close as possible to the way the original scientist was raised. It explores in depth many sociological and psychological questions in a way rarely seen in fiction. As Jo Walton put in …
I said what I said.
This is a story that could be taken in many directions, whether it’s a movie or a series. Jean Reno could be in it periodically as the Léon that lives on in her memories and guides her actions (with a little CGI work to make him look like he did in the original movie), so she is both efficiently lethal and untraceable through awareness and habits. They could cut in scenes from the original movie as memories.
As a series, it could have her pursuing different contracted targets (with her taking particular interest in dirty cops in her off time) while trying to maintain a work / life balance with an intimate partner that has bought into a campaign of disinformation on how she makes a living, with precipitous use of Occam’s Broom when they see evidence of her true nature (subtle nod to Dexter). Mix that with a hacker that works with her anonymously as technical support, gaining access to places she otherwise would not be able to and getting into security systems …
I was rewatching it for the millionth time earlier today and I gotta say every time I see this movie. I enjoy it more and more.
The fifth element isn’t some philosophical art piece, it’s not overly complex moralistic drama, it’s not even a good action movie with badass stunts and cool villains, and it’s much more serious than your average comedy. After watching it so many times. I’ve come to enjoy it that it’s fully intended to be a campy light-hearted fun experience that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition because it’s not constantly tugging at your moralistic center or posing a ton of philosophical dilemmas to the viewer.
the movie starts out extremely campy and has all your tired cliches that we have all seen in millions of movies over the years and it knows it… it deliberately points to the fact that Korbin Dallas is just a gunman “meat popsicle” whose only value to the plot is to shoot things and drop one-liner …