For the first time ever, the Prancing Pony Podcast is proud to release one of our patron-exclusive episodes to our general audience. In this special originally released in October 2018, we take a serious look at a topic that’s not always easy to address. Tolkien’s work has occasionally been labeled as racially insensitive or (in some cases) outright racist. It’s something no Tolkien fan wants to hear, but is there any truth to it? We take a close look at the texts and Tolkien’s letters to attempt to dispel some myths… and confront some real concerns.
For the 2018 revisiting of the topic of race in Tolkien’s legendarium by Dimitra Fimi, see her blog here: “Revisiting Race in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Constructing Cultures and Ideologies in an Imaginary World”.
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Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
When I wrote my master’s thesis about The Lord of the Rings and modernism I got a lot of clap back from the English Department at my college about my choice because of what the perceived racism in Tolkien’s works and I always doubted if any of the professors who slighted me had actually read Tolkien’s work as adults.
While my thesis didn’t go into detail about race and racism, my thesis director (who suggested the topic in the first place) asked that I make some mention of race when discussing the orcs. I landed in the same place you do, which is that orcs do not represent any human race, nor are they supposed to be a racial sterotype. Rather, the words used to describe orcs are the words used in to describe monsters.
Tolkien was cautious in his use of words and descriptions, and he seems to make attempts to avoid problematic descriptions of race, unlike his friend C.S. Lewis, whose description of the Calormene in “The Horse and His Boy” is stereotypical, racist and offensive.
In case you’re curious, the title of my thesis was “Elves in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
I agree that Tolkien was very cautious, and I think he deserves more credit than he gets for being miles ahead of many other European men of his time. I can’t say much about Lewis directly, because I’ve only read the first couple of Narnia books, and so I’ve never “met” the Calormene… but you have got me curious now.
G’day, I massively enjoyed this podcast! Many thanks to you for your work and to your Patrons, who were so generous in allowing you to release it more widely. I’ve written about the topic previously, on theonering.net, although nowhere near as extensively researched as this. Thinking about this topic again and the source material, I thought it’d be helpful to put some other bits and pieces on the table, namely the Kin-strife civil war in Gondor, and the concept of the “blood of the Westernesse”. Both underscore, to my mind, the greater emphasis Tolkien placed on cultural and linguistic heritage over race or ethnicity.
The Kin-strife of III.1432-1448 was a period in Gondor’s history where race, or at least ethno-chauvinism, was indirectly dealt with by Tolkien. Prior to the outbreak of this civil war, a King of Gondor, Valacar had married a princess of the Northmen, Vidumavi, and their son, Eldacar was considered by some in Gondor to be ‘lesser’ because if this descent: “For the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them; and it was a thing unheard of before that the heir of the crown, or any son of the King, should wed one of lesser and alien race” [RotK, Appendix A]. Once Eldacar ascended the throne, this triggered the Kin-strife and led to Castamir the Usurper temporarily seizing power in Gondor.
At no point during the exposition am I in any doubt that Tolkien meant for his audience to side with Castamir or his ‘purist’ rebellion: he is described as cruel, murderous, an instigator of massacres, and a neglectful ruler who is understandably overthrow by the returned and vengeful Eldacar. Tolkien also writes that the ethno-purist fears of the rebels were also unfounded. Despite his mixed heritage, Eldacar “… showed no sign of ageing any more swiftly than his father” and “…lived to his two hundred and thirty-fifth year”, which puts him on a par with his Dúnedain ancestors. Similarly, the way in which Tolkien wrote of a subsequent influx of Northmen into Gondor is revealing:
“After the return of Eldacar the blood of the kingly house and other houses of the Dúnedain became more mingled with that of lesser Men… This mingling did not at first hasten the waning of the Dúnedain, as had been feared; but the waning still proceeded, little by little, as had before. For not doubt it was due above all to Middle-earth itself, and to the slow withdrawing of the gifts of the Númenóreans after the downfall of the Land of the Star.” [ibid.]
I find this passage especially illuminating as to how Tolkien portrayed the decline of the Dúnedain. It was not, as feared by the likes of ethno-chauvinists like Castamir, linked to intermarriage or so-called ‘mingling of blood’ but rather a long-range consequence of the earlier Rebellion against the Ban of the Valar, which had led to the Akallabêth.
For good measure, I’ll throw in a Gandalf quote (who doesn’t love those?), also from RotK (“Minas Tirith”):
“He [Denethor] is not as other men of this time, Pippin, and whatever his descent from father to son, by some chance the blood of Westernesse runs nearly true in him; as it does in his other son, Faramir, and yet did not in Boromir whom he loved best.”
Again, we have a reference to transmission of wisdom and nobility not strictly related to genealogical descent. ‘Blood’ here, seems more a reference to ‘culture’ and transmission of culture.
And finally, if only because it’s not the easiest text to deal with, I’ll bring in Tolkien’s fragmentary 1968 short story ‘Tal-elmar’, as published in the Peoples of Middle-earth. This story gives a ‘Men of Darkness’ perspective of the Númenóreans in their prime, as well as of the ‘Fell Folk’, who appear to be an Edainic people of some type. There are plenty of other sources that state that the Númenóreans weren’t always particularly nice to the Men living back in Middle-earth, acting as cruel overlords, slavers and tribute-takers.
However, the main point of bringing this text in here, is that before abandoning this story, Tolkien appears to have been playing around with the idea of what I previously referred to as transmission of culture and nobility – linked to genealogical descent but not wholly governed by it. The eponymous hero of the story, Tal-elmar, has both Men of Darkness and Fell Folk (Edainic) ancestry – the back story to this is interesting in and of itself, as it unflatteringly portrays Tal-elmar’s white-skinned Edainic grandmother (ie. theoretically one of the ‘good guys’) as a harsh critic of the Men of Darkness, who she refers to “base and unlovely” and “swart”. When Tal-elmar as an adult meets a group of Númenóreans, he is at first unable to communicate with them. Tolkien then writes that Tal-elmar, in his dreams, had a ‘memory’ of speaking and hearing ‘Eldarin’ (presumably Sindarin), and his encounter with the Númenóreans then triggers a ‘recollection’ and how to speak this language.
This story is a tantalising one, in that it’s one of the very few “from the other point of view” pieces that Tolkien write. Aside from showing that the Númenóreans and their distant Edainic kin could, and did, hold what we might regard as racist views about the Men of Darkness; the episode of Tal-elmar meeting the Númenóreans, as fragmentary as it is, underscores a theme in Tolkien’s world-creation that language, not so-called ethnic purity or otherwise, was key to describing, and ascribing values to, the peoples of Middle-earth.
Thanks again for the great podcast. Cheers, Anthony (and Aussie based in London!).
Hi Anthony – Thank you so much for your additions here! It’s been a while since I read the Tal-Elmar chapter, but I’ll need to do so again because it does seem to have some relevance to this discussion. And the other passages you’ve pulled about the racial mingling among the Dúnedain are really important for showing Tolkien’s opinion about racialist theories. Thank you so much for sharing them here. I’ve got some reading to do to get caught up!
Thank you for discussing this topic. I’m so happy this is more widely discussed. The time is now.
Tolkien was concerned with racial purity, maybe in the same way that HP Lovecraft was.
And yes, both of these writers are among my all-time favourites, I discovered them at a young age and that made a huge impact on me. They both have troublesome ideas and imagery. It isn’t surprising that they were from around the same era when misguided ideas on race still flourished and considered scientifically accurate. Guh.
I highly recommend this article:
https://faustusnotes.com/2009/06/06/tolkiens-racial-theories/
Diverse Tolkien on Tumblr is another interesting source. She discusses colourism, colonialism and diversity in Tolkien’s work.
https://diversetolkien.tumblr.com/
Then finally Ask Middle-earth’s ”Racism And Middle-earth”. This one brought on the feels while I read it, very powerful stuff.
https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/100504849120/now-presenting-in-its-full-complete-and
The dwarves are discussed in Of Dwarves and Anti-Semitism.
(Never heard about the nose thing you discussed in the podcast.)
First time listener, first time caller.
Was looking for something to listen to while at work (long time fan of Dr. Corey Olsen’s podcasts, for instance), and whammo, episode 114. I really enjoyed this. Very insightful, and careful discussion. I learned a ton.
Always been baffled by those applying their own ideas about racism to Tolkien’s world. For many, it’s just lazy thinking; for others, they’re looking for a trope to bludgeon others with their own superiority. Nonetheless, a worthwhile discussion to have for the thoughtful!
Tolkien’s idea of people distinctives being rooted in language was eye-poppingly brilliant. I need to mull that over for a while. Can you suggest resources to read?
A challenge I have in general is with the notion that the “shocking” words of a 17 year old boy should be applied to help understand how someone thinks decades later. I know this is popular in American political discourse and it’s a distressing sign of the decay of the moral fabric.
I was a youth pastor for several years. For a thousand different reasons, 17 year olds say shocking things they don’t believe all the time… Often they don’t know what they believe and are trying things out so they know what to reject, but mostly because they’re 17 and they’re trying to be shocking and adults pretend to be shocked but really aren’t. (“I’m shocked, shocked that there’s gambling in here!”).
The notion someone might take the “shocking” words of a 17 year old and say, “Aha! White supremacist!” assumes a “fixed mindset”; even a predetermined, pre-programmed extreme Calvinist “you can’t change or grow” mentality; which is ludicrous. I for one don’t hold the same views as a 44 year old that I held has a 34 year old… let alone as a 17 year old! You handled the debate tactics of 17 year old Tolkien in context and very well. It was news to me, and I can imagine it was amusing. In my youth pastor days, if my teens had done something like that, I’d have laughed, and then said, “Um, don’t say that again.” My issue is the underlying assumption that you feel like you have to respond to… which of course you have to!
Spot on regarding the orcs being monsters/physical manifestations of demons, and hybrids as also being monstrous.
I guess I’ve never been troubled with the descriptions of some of Sauron’s allies. It wasn’t their fault this godlike creature took over their nations and turned them into instruments of his will. He was doing the same with Denethor and given a few more hours, (seriously, hours!) he’d have succeeded.
If it weren’t for the divine intervention orchestrated long before that ultimately led to the Ring’s destruction, Gondor would have been destroyed (probably genocide), and Rohan enslaved. Race had nothing to do with it, except Sauron’s hatred for the descendants of Numenor.
Regarding the Woses being portrayed as child like savages, it seems to me we’re led by Tolkien to believe that they’re actually more advanced than the Rohirrim believed. It’s gentle, but it’s there. Nothing savage about them. Just different. Not inferior… in fact superior to the Rohirrim who like to hunt them. Reminded me of the Season 1 episode of Stargate SG-1, when the US soldiers went to a planet and met some primitives who refused to fight the technologically advanced bad guys. The American soldiers rather imperialistically decided to fight for them anyway… much later learning that egad… these primitives were light years ahead not just of the Americans… but also the bad guys!
Same goes to the Woses, who saw that day was coming long before cock actually crowed.
Looks are deceiving. No racism here. For Tolkien, diversity is beautiful.
I suggest that in the United States, we are far less enlightened than the culture formed by Tolkien’s fertile adult mind, and maybe even the culture he grew up in.
Today, political and cultural value is granted based on membership of oppressed races (and I literally don’t know what that means), genetic history, and myths rooted in ever-changing feelings. It’s post-modernity run amuck: I much prefer Tolkien’s pre-modernity culture values of honoring and serving one another not based on identity groups but based on mutual respect, rooted in the myth that is true.
So I’d encourage us to not kid ourselves with our sanctimonious “we’re so enlightened when it comes to race.”
Anyway, great job, and looking forward to diving into the other episodes.
Hi Doug – Well, you certainly jumped right into the deep end of our podcast with this one! Usually we keep it a bit lighter with our regular chapter discussions, but I think our analysis is still good. I hope you’ll enjoy catching up.
Thank you for the feedback on this episode. Your observations from your years working with teenagers are pretty telling! I agree that teenage Tolkien’s “shocking” words are no proof of racist attitudes later in life (or even as a teen), and Dimitra Fimi — whose work we referenced a few times in the episode — has pointed out that we should be mindful of the fact that attitudes about race changed a lot during the twentieth century. Beliefs and attitudes about race in 1910 were vastly different from what they were in 1950, for society as a whole… and certainly for the individuals living in it.
Dr. Fimi’s book _Tolkien, Race and Cultural History_ is a great place to start for an overview of many of the relevant ideas here, including the idea of language as opposed to race being the primary distinguisher of peoples. However, if you want to go straight to the source, Tolkien’s comments on it can be found in his essay “English and Welsh”, which is included in the volume _The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays._
Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy catching up with the podcast.
Thank you for a well-considered and wide-ranging discussion.
I just wanted to draw your attention to the traditional meaning in British English of the term “squint-eyed”, which is not a pejorative description. To quote the second meaning provided by the online Cambridge Dictionary: “UK If a person or an eye squints, the eye looks in a different direction to the other eye, because of a weakness of the eye muscles: Lili’s left eye squinted slightly when she was tired.”
When I was growing up in the UK in the 1970s and early 1980s, children with a squint would also sometimes be referred to as having a ‘lazy’ eye, which had to be corrected with special prescription spectacles. My godmother was squint-eyed all her life, because she was never given glasses during her childhood that would have strengthened and trained her lazy eye.
Thank you for that clarification, Helen! We will revisit this in an episode very soon, because the language in question is coming up in our chapter discussion. We appreciate that insight.
I see comments online by Tolkien fans who are absolutely raging with fear that a future cinematic adaptation might have *shock* black people cast in speaking roles. For me I really wouldn’t care if that happened. Sure, LOTR takes inspiration from European mythologies, but people who project their own racial ideologies onto it, miss the point that it’s fantasy and it is the themes that are important here, not the skin colour of the people. Would people care so much if Frodo had the “wrong” eye colour? or Legolas had red hair?
Author Marlon James (whose new fantasy book is getting major buzz) made a similar comment in the annual Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford just a couple of weeks ago. I found it pretty eye-opening. I recommend it if you haven’t watched it yet. https://youtu.be/jV2bysurBds
First thank you for another excellent discussion.
I wanted to comment on the concept of the east wind being an Ill wind. This is not original to Tolkien. In Sherlock Holmes “The Final Bow you have the following quote “There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.” You will also find references to the east wind in Dickens Bleak House as well as many references in the Bible to an East Wind associated with destruction. And there is the English nursery rhyme:
When the wind is in the east,
‘Tis neither good for man nor beast;
When the wind is in the north,
The skilful fisher goes not forth;
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the bait in the fishes’ mouth;
When the wind is in the west,
Then ’tis at the very best.
Even the Iroquios view the East or “Moose Wind” as a harbinger of cold time.
The widespread association of the East Wind with bad times is probably due to the fact that in most of Europe and North America, the prevailing wind direction is Westerly, and an East Wind would generally only occur in connection with a change in the weather and storms in particular. In England east winds brought weather from the cold Baltic (as opposed to from the Southwest over waters warmed by the Gulf Stream while for the rest of Europe, easterlys brougt in weather from Siberia Hence the association of the East Wind with change and hard times.
Finally, during WWI, English soldiers might have had an additional reason to fear an east wind as a chemical attack would be more likely when the wind blew from the east towards the Allied trenches and away from the German lines.
That’s fascinating. As always, some context about Tolkien’s inspirations reveals more to the story than our immediate biases might assume. Thanks!
[…] up on our previous examination of race in Tolkien’s work in Episode 114, today we welcome listeners of different racial and ethnic backgrounds to join us and share their […]
Just listened to this podcast and I was surprised you did not comment on the etymology of the word fair. You seemed to interpret it as white in the podcast when it should actually be beautiful.
from the Old English fægere “beautifully,” from fæger “beautiful”
The use of that word does not preclude the elves form having various skin tones.