this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Him being better than some contemporaries isn't great. Still, the stories are good and generally you can take other messages from them that are decent. Like Éowyn fighting with the men despite being told her duty is elsewhere, despite Tolkien being misogynistic. He wouldn't take out of the story the modern interpretation (even though the story that certainly inspired this is about a woman who literally becomes a man after all of this), but he himself said that readers should and will take things from the story that he didn't intend, and that's good.
I don't have any particular issues with Tolkien besides that he wasn't socially creative enough to see beyond what he knew, but that's true for most people. He wrote fun, interesting, creative tales within that that generally have a hopeful uplifting message. However, we should always be critical of any creator of any work. We should strive to solve issues and point out flaws in order to improve our world. It can't change the past, but it can change the future.
Yeah, especially since I went back to look at publication dates and his more serious works were published much later than I had thought. Arguing that Tolkien's racist language was just "a product of his time" is a lot less valid given he was writing Fellowship of the Ring in the 1950's, not the 30's like I'd assumed. It seems like even for his time, Tolkien was pretty stodgy and conservative.
Yeah, but then most people aren't famous for creating entire fantasy worlds, so I'd like to think that it's reasonable to hold authors to a higher standard here. His world-building is incredibly complex and innovative in many ways, while also being built around fairly derogatory and one-dimensional characterizations. And IMO, his writing, while entertaining, isn't profound or even note-worthy in many respects compared to many of his contemporaries (I think I'm preaching to the choir, here, but look at the list of significant modernist writers and try to tell me with a straight face that the list should include Tolkien). Personally, as much as I love LOTR, people that argue that Tolkien is a literary genius and can do no wrong are just cringey.
Well said.