Is Lord of the Rings Racist? 

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I remember my grandmother saying to me: I don’t care what they tell you in school, Frodo was black.

while the worldbuilding itself is undeniably inspired by england and norse mythology, i always got the impression that the actual storytelling in lotr was heavily influenced by tolkiens experiences as a ww1 soldier. you can see it in the way sauron, the ultimate bad guy in the story, doesnt even show up at any point, the heroes never ever see him just like how ww1 never actually got to see the ultimate bad guy leading the enemy nation. likewise, while the heros do get to see the enemy army up close, they only get to see them as this massive wave of evil soldiers, they cant know them as individuals, they cant make friends with them, they cant think of them as anything other than an massive wave of evil soldiers. only sometimes will they allow themselves to look at a fallen soldier and wonder what the mans name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather stayed there in peace. thank you for making this btw, loved the video!!!

Sam's compassion isn't 'modern', it's timeless.

8:30 This bit about how we would interpret the same words differently as written by Tolkien vs some ancient Anglo-Saxon reminds me of Borges' short story of Don Quijote being rewritten word for word by a modern Frenchman and how that results in an entirely different work

I'm a little disappointed that this video essay doesn't mention the commentary in the books about how the orcs of Mordor loath their lord Sauron, nor of the conflicts between the orcs, which are described in the books.

At least for me I've always found it important to look at the intent of someones work. When you read the passage in a modern context, sure it *can* be read as racist simply due to the skin colour but you have to ask if that is the intent to Tolkien writing it. My first thought that comes to mind are svartalfr from norse mythology, literally called black elves and are almost categorically evil in all appearances yet most people can agree that its probably not born from a racist intent but rather a way for a skald or poet to inject some mystery and otherness in their story. Another important note is the perspective the book is written in which is that of the men of the west. In universe they would lack sufficient knowledge of the haaradrim (or how its spelt sorry) to have more than a almost mythical image of them. I dont think the men of the east are ment as a literal people of pitch black skin etc as we see pther characters with ambiguous skin colour in the west (Aragorn being a prime example), but rather as a skewed retelling similar to the romans describing the brittons as "slow people who live in lakes of mud". Sorry rant over

I would like to point out, not to dismiss your point but to add to it another perspective, that Tolkien also borrowed a lot from Finnish mythology and language (everyone knows the Evlish language borrowed a lot from Finnish, and Gandalf for instance has clear parables to Väinämöinen), but when Tolkien wrote his books, Finns were seen as "oriental", and a common slur for Finnish people was "China Swedes" up until the early 1940s. So although one of the antagonist groups got their influence from asiatic people, there are "asiatic" (as seen at the time) influences on "the good" side as well. I think this gives more credence to the idea that Tolkien wasn't personally racist, though that doesn't mean that his work couldn't be, and his work has been used to push racist ideas (though this in itself doesn't mean that a work is racist, racist are idiots and don't necessarily understand the works they are co-opting).

Way I saw it was that the Haradrim are seen from the perspective of the men of the northern areas. They are deemed evil and dark because they side with Sauron, but this doesn't mean they actually ARE evil. They are, much as you said in the video, seen through the sort of eyes an Anglo-Saxon would have looked through when thinking of Africa, or China. Strange, unknowable, foreign and usually subversive. This, however, does not make this view true, and indeed, to my mind at least, the scene with Sam, where he looks on the body of the dead Harad man, proved as much. In that scene, we are struck by the realization that these are men, human beings just like us, and that they have been brought here, likely coerced in some fashion, or tricked, into servitude. We do not know whether the Haradrim hate their master, whether they rebel against him, and while I think a Haradrim character would have been awesome, we do not get this in the story since, as you stated, it ultimately has nothing to do with the story as a whole. It could just be me, and my reading of the book, but to me, Tolkien proved himself not to be a racist by that beautiful scene. That he even took the time to write it, to make the reader feel for what could have easily been left a faceless evil thrall, to me speaks volumes. I will premise this, though, with the statement that Tolkien's world was different from our own, and he was a product of that world, and thus, even if he had not intended any hateful message, it is possible that he was influenced by the prevailing views of the time. I am not trying to say that Tolkien, as much as I love his works, was a perfect man, indeed no human ever can be, but I honestly do not agree with views of him being racist.

Something of note is that Tolkien himself believed that the Blue Wizards might have helped out in the Eastern Lands and prevented the “dark” people from all falling to Sauron’s influence. In fact without their help there might have been a ton more Easterlings and Southerners the main characters would’ve had to contend with and their win likely wouldn’t have been possible. Anyways this does imply he saw them as real people and redeemable. His entire viewpoint actually was that everyone was redeemable and it’s one of the reasons why he grappled so much with the origins of the Orcs, I don’t think he believed anything in the Legendarium was truly 100% evil or irredeemable. It’s for these reasons I don’t think Tolkien intended for it to be racist to be honest and I think even as you put, it’s quite a bit more complicated than black = bad = racism.

I always interpreted the people of Harad as more an analogue to Arab people than black people but I don't think that fundamentally changes much.

IIRC there was a mention of the fact that Easterlings and Haradrim did not exactly *chose* the dark side. They were taken by force by leaders who were corrupted and given power by Sauron. I mean, two of the Mages (the unnamed blue ones) just fucking disappeared after they went to the East, so darkness must be kinda rampant in those places and since we know that ALL humans are good by nature we could assume that shit went south in the South and East. I may or may not be pulling this out of my ass tho because for the love of God I can't remember where I heard that and was it even canon at all

There seem to be a lot of people who end up at one of two extremes: On the one hand, there are those who focus solely on their immediate experience as readers, so much so that they don't really seem to think of fictional characters and events as fictional constructs at all. "The Haradrim could have had civil wars," is a perfectly natural thought to have as you read, but those types of hypotheticals can't form the basis of an interpretation that's meaningful to anyone else but yourself, and so they are quite useless in discussions with others. To those who _only_ read stories like this, and never move on to a more distanced approach, it might not be very easy to see stories as part of the culture they're in. They're self-contained things, and that's it. But a literary work will always be part of a larger context, in several ways; it literally can't _not_ be. On the other hand, there are those who contextualize stories not only to view a particular work in the context of its past or present culture, but also to label it as e.g. "dangerous," "decadent," categorically "problematic," etc. -- perhaps to promote the idea that literary works should be _in service of_ society somehow. This takes many forms, but all have in common a general failure to think of art as art, in favor of some more instrumental approach. I think it's important to be aware of how you tend to read stories and then find a more constructive balance between different ways to approach them. It's crucial to acknowledge that even seemingly contradictory ideas and analyses can all be true or valid at once.

A video with a sponsor that isn't just a random thing with no connection to the video; a video with an actual fitting sponsor?

I was honestly surprised how much more nuanced Tolkiens legendarium is than just "Evil brown people fighting the good people of the west", all people followed Morgoth from the beginning, and the only reason people of the West turned away from him was their proximity to the elves. We can see how righteous numenoreans become corrupted, and Tolkien makes it clear at multiple points in the books that there is nothing inherently evil about easterlings or haradrim. Indeed, there is the famous Tal Elmar tale told from the pov of Edain of Gondor who were a followers of Morgoth and who were subsequently driven out and subjugated by Numenoreans, it sure isn't as black and white as you'd expect from an allegory of Christianity

Tolkien vehemently opposed the Nazi doctrine of Teutonic racial purity, despite drawing from a common well of Teutonic mythology. That didn't stop him reflecting the common-or-garden racism of mid-20th century England that he was infused in.

Your thesis is wrong. Sam’s statement is not modern. It is Christian. And it also is a very common sentiment among combat veterans like Tolkien.

morþor meant 'crime, violence, torment' in Old English, btw.

Just commenting on Sam’s line, what I always took away from the stories were that the big battles etc were based around big myths with a simple lens that represents the old mythology from one point of view. But Sam and Frodo are the non myths that aren’t simple, and eventually forgotten by the myths so they are more real. But 🤷🏻‍♂️

In the Prologue, on the third page of the book, it says, "The Harfoots were browner of skin..... They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous." The majority of hobbits had brown skin.

The line about orcs looking like the "least-lovely mongol-types" doesn't really help either

This was a really interesting analysis. I love looking at the works of past authors and seeing what that work says about them and their time. I don't think Tolkien intended to be racist at any point writing LOTR, but it definitely does reflect how the world around him was at that time, and how attempts at escaping societal norms often come up futile. It will be very interesting to see how the authors of today, writing books with subtle choices that no one would bat an eye to nowadays, will be regarded by people 100 years from now. Perhaps they will live at a time past climate catastrophy and newfound scarcity, where our current careless approach to consumerism will be seen as (for the lack of a more refined term) evil. Love your videos, keep making them

This video makes compelling arguments that fall flat with the conclusion because it assumes that Tolkien has to stay within the rigid structure of old myths, rather than letting him construct something of a hybrid.

7:11 elephants are mentioned in the Old English poems.

Im sure this video wont be any controversial at all. And that the comments will be completely in good faith :)

As Tolkien did call Sam the true hero in some letter, I think that one line is meant to imply that the rest of the portrayal of the Haradrim is wrong. Sam is the purest of all characters, no hint of evil. So Sam thinking that the Haradrim might not be inherently evil is supposed to be seen as correct, while the further portrayal is not. Tolkien spoke out against Apartheid, against racists using his book and against Antisemitism. I would not say he was racist. Especially not as racist as some of his contemporaries (HP Lovecraft comes to mind). He wrote it how the old myths were. But he still had to show that he did not fully agree with that portrayal, so he wrote in that line. And the Blue Wizards in the east helping the Easterlings fight against Sauron is supposed to show that they aren't evil either. (Though that does create uncomfortable missionary parallels, as the wizards were essentially angels, so them converting the Easterlings is a bit icky) Evil can't create, it only corrupts.

Tell me why I read the thumbnail to the tune of Uptown Funk

Short answer: no. Long answer: also, no.

My only problem is that the idea of empathy is treated as modernistic. You can find all sorts of examples throughout history of people voicing sympaties for other peoples, even if it wasn't in the way we do now. Sam's thoughts are completely realistic for the time and culture he grew up in.

2:14 That analysis doesn't work because it's inaccurate and too reductive. Aside from the struggle to be good being more fleshed out in the story than you give it credit here, The Lord of the Rings is not a story of fair, valiant, imposing men proving themselves as heroes but of those living in the shadow of such figures, common folk who happen to be tasked with a mission that asks of them not to be honourful warriors but perseverance. Their most important virtue is to endure and not give up, not to gather mythic armies and slay the evil hordes. We cannot see the perspective of the foreign peoples because the story starts with and is about people who have barely ever heard of such peoples existing. This insight isn't missing either because the story is not about finding brotherhood across nation lines but the divine challenge the protagonists face.

An English man born un 1892 might have a problematic view of people from Africa and Asia. 🤯. I kid, but of course this is how would right about these people, but the fact he included such a line shows that he even knows his views are problematic.

Good video. I find that that tension you discuss between the mythological style and the more modern characters is a lot of what gives the lord of the rings it’s charm. Because while the war of the ring is a mythological one, and many of the characters fit as mythological heroes (particularly Aragorn, but all the non-hobbits really) the central characters it’s all about are very much normal people you could meet in your day to day life. I find this really makes the sort come alive today in a way that mythological epics struggle to.

Is the outro music available anywhere to listen to? It sounds really pleasant, I'd like to add it to my sleep playlist haha

I think you over-interpreted Sam's thought. Nothing would've been worse than Tolkien actually giving a voice to the Haradrim, his imaginary representation of a real life people he knew nothing about. Tolkien writes about what he knows, we see the story through the lives of characters Tolkien himself could relate to because they draw from the same cultural source, something that would've been impossible to do with characters from the far south. Literally the most racist thing he could've done is to project (even if they were positive) preconceptions that he had about those peoples and cultures without knowing them, without having lived with them, without having experienced their everyday lives. What he did through Sam is remind all those who meet such strangers from far away lands, whatever the circumstances, to remember that they are human too, to relate to them in some kind of way, to empathise even if they happen to be your enemies. Edit : Thinking about it even more, I'm wondering if there's actually anything LESS racist than to describe people so different to you in appearance, even terrifyingly so, but to still encourage others to empathise and relate to them.

Excellent video! Really got the gears in my head turning. No fictional work can escape the reality in which it was written. We are forever trapped in our respective present. In terms of racism, I can only imagine what it must be like to come across a caricature and get the hunch that one belongs to the group of people it was based on. I've been rewriting and deleting paragraphs from this comment multiple times, trying to anticipate what the reader will make of it, and I have come to the conclusion that being an author of anything sounds like hell.

It's been a while since I saw a video from this channel :) Hi from Sweden, as I'm completing my Erasmus scholarship

I had no idea where this was leading, but I’m really glad I watched til the end. You did an excellent job on this one. As an aside, I really love your visual language of boxes for quotation, the different coloured text for annotations, and reboxing to building on even more ideas. As somebody who works with the structure of programming languages I’m constantly thinking of quotation, splicing and evaluation, and this pleases me greatly, matching up with a lot to my internal visual models. Also a links nicely to the idea of the frame narrative, which is ofc very relevant to Tolkien’s work (I’m sure this was not an accident). :)

I think it's a good analysis. Tolkien wrote about how there was a lot going on with the peoples of the East and the South, but since he was focusing on Middle Earth, we never hear it. There's also the implication in a lot of his writtings that these are not evil people per se, but they are convinced and lied to by Margoth, Sauron, and most likely the Blue Wizards as well. Which, might as well be his catholicism speaking. "Those people over there? They can be good but the Devil's deceived them". When in comes to Orcs, in a couple of lines it implies that they do have some sort of moral standard. I remember on a letter he wrote to his son during WWII, he basically explains that Orcs are like, absolute evil, because of the self-inflicted writing restrictions, the style of the epic, where the enemy is big, vilified and monolothic. I reckon something similar happened with the other manish races. I feel like he would've maybe explored all that.

Racism suggests malice towards other groups. Something which is categorically NOT present in tolkein's work. However, it certainly does revere European culture & mythology. In an attempt to repair what tolkein believed the English people had lost through the years. It is a work of LOVE for his group. NOT an attack on other groups.

The fact rhat Tolkien might be racist and in other ways conservative like that is something that i got the feeling for while reading the Silmarillion. After the first coming of Man upon Beleriand, in the first fight between elves, men and Morgoth (the big bad) it's only the Easterlings among the Men that betray the others and fight on the side of Morgoth (though not all Easterlings do) and the Easterlings are explicitly described as dark/yellow skinned. There's that, and there's also the fact that in the Silmarillion basically all of the characters are either nobility or directly related to nobility. There's no hero that isn't from a regal bloodline, or at the very least the chief of its people.

“When last I looked, J R R Tolkien, not K Klein was the author of The Lord of the Rings.”

I feel like you've glossed over a lot of important things. One thing about the men of the east and south is that although their collectively referred to as Easterlings and Haradrim respectively as if they were singular cultures, they were actually umbrella terms used by the men of the west to describe the numerous peoples of these foreign lands who were not related to the Edain, like how the Romans initially viewed the Celts and Germans or how medieval Europeans collectively called all nomadic steppe tribes (Turks, Mongols, Khazars etc) as Tatars. In addition, you claim that Tolkien painted black people in a negative light when the Haradrim we see invading Gondor are much more arabic based. I don't think we've actually seen black people in Tolkien's works. The Haradrim allying with Sauron was probably much more than just them being evil. They had been subject to conquest and colonization by Gondor and its predecessors. After spending generations under the thumb of the Dunedain, it makes sense why the Haradrim would join Sauron, not because they actually liked him but to finally win their freedom. A really interesting event involving the men of Harad and Rhun were the rebellions instigated by the blue wizards against Sauron in the Second Age. This conflict is only mentioned briefly, but it saw the two blue wizards travel to the East and South respectively where they rallied the Easterlings and Haradrim who refused to serve Sauron against him. Despite only being mentioned in passing, this event was actually quite crucial, as it prevented Sauron from amassing as many forces as he initially hoped and delayed his invasion of the west for a full 90 years, which allowed the elves and their Allies time to prepare for war. Addressing the whole half troll black men with red tongues, it’s stated that the Uruk Hai where the result of forced breeding between orc and man ( best not to think of the disturbing implications of that) and perhaps these half trolls could've been the result of something similar. Edit: ok woah, I really went overboard with this comment and it was really pompous and dickish of me to basically open with "well your not a true fan like me" in the original response. It's just I've seen so many people on the internet trying to slander Tolkien's name just for attention so when I saw your video I had a knee-jerk reaction. At the end of the day, the idea of the Haradrim and Easterlings being evil by nature goes against the philosophy of Tolkien. While I still disagree with your statement, your video has actually made me reflect on how black and white Lotr's depiction of the Men of East and South is when compared to their depiction the rest of the Legendarium.

short hawser... no and if you say otherwise... go study more

Ok fair warning, REALLY long comment coming up! See, I love Tolkien's work dearly, but have often struggled with let's say, our differnt political and ideological views. Now, let's start: -It is downright silly to expect an Englishman born and raised in colonial South Africa , and deeply indoctinated in christianity, to conform to 2024 standards of political correctness and sensibilities -Tolkien often makes a point about "clean bloodlines" eg Aragorn's impeccable pedigree, but, at the same time, in the Gondor civil war I think his sympathies were clearly against the Castamiri who wanted a pure-blooded Numenorian on the throne -There is absolutely no mention of the lineage of men who first turn to Morgoth being black or anything like that -The black Numeroreans who worshipped Sauron were not called black because of any external physical characteristic -The Southrons only turned to Sauron because of the threat of numenorian colonialism, which brings us to the next point... -Tolkien wrote of his dislike of both the Roman and the British empires. By the standards of his day, such an anti-imperialist view was almost extreme! I think he deeply belive in the "civilising mission" of colonialism, that is first and foremost the spread of Christianity and maybe some basic infrastructure. He was deeply suspicious of technological progress, so I don't think he believed Africa missed out out on anything by not having any factories etc. -His descriptions of other nations is more "exotic" or "orientalist" than racist. Of course hte first time you saw a black person you would be shocked, just as much as a black person would be shocked upon encountering white skinned, blue-eyed European for the first time. There is nothing wrong with admitting that we cannot understand everyone and everything -While racism takes many forms as time progresses (divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book), race as we understand it nowadays only appeared as late as the 16th century, as a justification for colonialism. Check out the History of England podcast, ep. 301 "Black Tudors" for some very intresting details

I think a part you might have missed is the argument that if its a visual illustration of Good vs. Evil then having Gondor be centered around a white tree and mordor being the shadow land makes sense. It keeps things simple and easily recognizable, a trait not often found in some of his writings. Having a dark skinned folk from the south and them going along with Sauron makes sense when you think of it as a visual summary. It's similar to good characters using Light Magic and bad ones using Black magic. Doesn't mean he thought that of all humans but it does go along with what the story has been saying up to this point.

If we do not criticize the past, we never learn from it

Thoughful video, but I have to disagree with both the conclusion and the arguments. At no point does one need to bring race into the picture for a complete reading of LoTR. Sauron and Saruman recruiting foreign armies/mercenaries does not make those people, ontologically evil. In constrast to Sauron and Saruman who *are* ontologically evil, and not racially othered. And by the exact same Sam-quote you brought up, it is unambiguous to me that Tolkien intends to frame these foreigners as not ontologically evil or even different, which to me is essential to racism. Racism to me is the believe that different groups of people are different in their essence, that their souls so to say are different. As far as I know this is the only scene where one of these people is considered individually, and in that scene, they are humanized and empathised with. If LoTR were racist, it would bother to racially other these foreigners. It would depict how they're supposedly bad, smelly, inferior, aggressive, weak, uncivillised etc, but it doesn't do that. These people aren't antagonized because of what or who they are but soley because they're serving under Sauron. The assertion that "modern" necessitates a racialized perspective is also one that I find questionable. Regardless of if Sams quote precludes LoTR from being pre-modern, why should a modern work necessarily divide the different peoples in a story into separate races? Why must it necessarily be viewed through that lense? I feel like that that is more indicative of the readers world-view than that of the work or its author.

I also love the books and am not looking to cancel anything. Saying that, there is another layer of complication to this analysis, especially given the idea of a pure study of mythology separating it/him from modern concerns. Tolkien was an establishment Oxford don writing at the height of the Empire, a time when academic study of classics, history and archeology was pushing to create a narrative and selective mythology of white empire. it doesn't doesn't have to be shown with nefarious or mustache twirling intent, as in works such as The Lair of the White Worm's early chapters, or with overt pseudo-scientific racism of the era, but it's the context. Also, talking of being a soldier during Empire, the Battle of Helm's Deep is so evocative of The Battle of Rourke's Drift that a friend of mine, who angrily rebuffed any of my observations on this topic, gasped "rourke's drift" out loud when we watched the battle in the Jackson films. Our modern reference being the film "Zulu". And that's when I realized that a lot of the context, culture, worldview and reference in LotR go unnoticed to younger fans because time has simply moved on, and less and less of those references now feature in other culture.

I think to remember another passage, where Sam just entered to Mordor to try to save Frodo in the Return of the King. An explanation is given to the Blackgate, which is not as much used to impede the entrance of enemies to Mordor, as it is for avoiding "slaves of Sauron" to escape its domains

So how would you break down the Silmarillion and the battle of Dagor dagrath and the easternlings that allied with the elven kingdoms and one king betrayed the alliance for Morgoth and one choose the alliance?

Would be really cool to see a video from you on tones in swedish, I want to know how unique it is. You know, tomten vs tomten, stegen vs stegen.

I think a welcome addition to this video would have been to mention Kirill Eskov's novel *The Last Ringbearer*, which turns the story of *The Lord of the Rings* on its head by retelling it from the perspective of the orcs.

May I ask why your accent is sometimes rhotic and sometimes not? Or maybe it's word specific? Pretty sure it isn't linking R. I never noticed this before with your other videos but a minute into this one I already can't ignore it. With other channels I'd just ignore this but since this is a channel about language I think asking you and other viewers about this is fitting. Love your videos and keep up the good work! :)

I have a question: why would he depict the easterlings as the one who is invading them, couldn't he just left them as some people from a distant land, even tho no easter nation ever invaded England if you don't count the French, tho most likely it was other way around with the English participating in the crusades, and colonization and all.

Great video, and so glad you mentioned Le Guin! She's an incredible writer, I hope you return to this topic and explore some of her work, especially Earthsea (which has, as you know, interesting views of race itself).

I think so many people think that if tolkien had some racist ideas/influences (for crying out loud hes a brit born in 19th century) you cant like the books. Im maybe what some people might refer to as a radical leftist, even a radical feminist. But I find that most people who think like me absolutely adore LOTR even though they might see problematic sides of it

Title: "Lord of the Rings is racist." Content: "Ok fine it's a bit more complicated than that. But at least you clicked on the video!"

1:43 ok you're just setting yourself up at this point

The passages about how the Numenoreans weakened their bloodlines by mingling with lesser Men always bothered me. It reminds me of similar arguments against interracial marriage.

Nice Video, There is also the other possibility, that Tolkien either didn't want to make the story morally grey or that it was outside his skillset. This one line with Sam is great, but he isn't able or doesn't want to give us this depth. And this depth is almost everywhere lacking in the book. Wormtongue get's the chance to redeem himself in the end, but Tolkien doesn't allow it, he kills Saruman and is killed afterwards. Just like Saruman himself. They're evil and it seems, there is no way back from that.

I resent this. Criticism of Tolkien as a racist while still demonstrating vast awareness on how he wasn’t and where he stood in his beliefs, is exactly the kind of idiocracy that pervades our day. Which also just gives other fake fans permission to criticize Tolkiens fans of being racist and nazis as well.

I'm so tired of you clickbating shills

Tolkein actually wrote an essay on the word you mention, called Sigelwara Land, in the 1930s. in it he speculates that Sigelwara Land could have originally referred to the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Muspelheim and thus the Sigelwara themselves would originally be a kind of soot-black demons, but that this original pagan understanding was obscured by Christianization and by the time the Exodus was composed in Old English, the word was understood and used more literally. he reconstructs the word as sigel ("sun") and *hearwa ("soot", "coal, "hearth", "roast") and so it could be understood as having a meaning similar to sun-burnt, and with this more literal understanding the term shifted to mean Ethiopia. however there's no widely accepted reconstruction of the second element (and unlike sigel it's unattested), and other scholars suggest other meanings such as "worshipper". regardless, the soot-black demons with flaming eyes likely influenced the Balrogs, while the word *hearwa itself likely influenced the name Harad.

A lot of my family were miners, before my time but my Grandparents would tell stories. Anyway I always thought of the Orcs and Goblins as miners, skin black from coal, everything else (mouth, teeth, eyes) thrown into contrast. When I saw the representation of demons in Indian and other eastern religions as black skinned, that seemed to match Tolkien.

Fascinating video. Also, I might need to read Symphony of Sojourn, it's really piqued my interest.

The thing about what Sam said....is not a self realization from the easternlings themselves is from a protagonist or a friend of a protagonist that tries to see the good in evil patronising the evil moral.

Two minor considerations please. One is that I wonder if when those with literary training approach certain books, do they apply a bit too much of the present upon those texts. This feels like that kind of content. Not what is in text, but what can we extrapolate from the text for our claims. A second minor oddity I find. Tolkien never wrote run on sentences. Now as a literary tool, the compound sentence may be a product of the past that we don't use much these days, but nonetheless as a philologist this man well understands sentence composition, which I think we don't always appreciate from just a language comprehension. Perhaps just me.

Don't you think the Haradrim were simply based on the Muslim opponents of the Crusaders? CS Lewis did much the same with his 'baddies' in The Last Battle.

Also many modern readers see the relationship between Frodo and Sam as romantic, but that wasn't Tolkien's intend as far as I know

welcome back kay klein

So good. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently (for some reason), so this video comes at the perfect time to articulate how I feel about it

I don't know. Like, I don't have any in-depth knowledge of Tolkien and his works, but to me it always seemed like he ultimately just had average conservative views for his time. Especially the idea of the valiant west, Christendom, defending itself against the hordes of the east, the Mongols, the Turks, the Muslims, that's just a way that a lot of people used to and still do look at the world. The unknown evil Other being characterized as vaguely Asian or African (or gay for that matter), that was until recently just standard practice. Of course this does not stand in conflict with your interpretation, but I think we should be careful not to try to extract beloved historical people from their societal context just so we do not have to feel uncomfortable for liking their stuff. Maybe Tolkien made a conscious choice to write an authentic pre-race theory medieval Anglo-Saxon saga, or he just wrote a medieval Anglo-Saxon saga as he wanted, focusing on getting the things right that cared about, and otherwise unconsciously replicating the culture that he just was a part of.

one of the more interesting "racism in tolkien's writing" videos.

I have always view Sam's moment with the death haradrim a rare point of comparison with a person who has never seen conflict between humans, and soldiers that are used to violence. For Sam, that's a death human being in front of him, for the Ithilien rangers, it's just another moment in a conflict that has being going on for ages at that point

Thanks for addressing this, and lots to unpack What of Elves/Dwarves/Men? (The rarity of counterexamples may say something too...) (Admittedly, Orcs vs Elves adds a crumb of complexity) Sexism is another potential topic.

Can you make tutorial on how to make a language please

I thought the "oliphants" were lifted straight from Kipling.

Very good video about an interesting subject. The racism card has been used and abused in media and pop culture way too much for some years now. And although I agree with the video's conclusion, I m not sure it aims at the right direction. I m not a Tolkien expert, I m just a fan of Tolkien's books (and Jackson's amazing trilogy of course). But from what I ve read, his perceived "racism" wasn't mainly against black or brown people, but against the "easterners". The classic division in Tolkien's work that you touched on in the video, the good-evil and light-dark duality, geograpihcally and culturally isn't translated in West vs South or North vs South, but in West vs East. That is a very important distinction for many reasons. Yes, Haradrim specifically are a broad representation of Africans or Middle Eastern people compared to the good westerners, but I would argue that Orcs who are the main "evil race" in Tolkien's universe are much more of a representation of east Slavs or Mongols of the real world. The great threat from the East, a concept deep embeded in the western mind, psyche and folklore: the barbarian eastern hordes, the emperor warlords and tyrants that want to invade, conquer and subjugate the good peaceful and civilised West (Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, the Ottomans etc). Those that have nothing in common with us (they speak different tongues, they worship different gods, they are the nomadic people of the steppes, they re not farmers like the Shire and Gondor, or woodland dwellers like the Elves etc). It's no coincidence of course that the orc languages and the Black Speech (the languages of evil) don't derive from african lagnuages but from eastern languages like the Hurrian language (mesopotamian). And of course in contrast the "good" languages like the Westron (English) is part of the germanic language family and the Elven languages (Sindarin, Quenya etc) derive from celtic languages like Welsh, or from Finnish (although ironically Finnish is closer to the mongolian language family than to the germanic). Also many people tend to view Orcs as black, but they re not. The Uruk-hai are depicted as black. Orcs are mostly shown as pale grey skinned, a colour that is neither white nor black, but in fact is closer to white. It's almost like they are a sick and twisted version of white, which fits perfectly with their origin story: they were elves and men who where taken by the dark powers and tortured, altered etc to make an "evil" race loyal to the dark lord, be it Morgoth or later Sauron.

The Shire is likely a reference to an English county, but specifically Tolkien’s Old English knowledge likely informed the name. “scir” is the Old English word for plot of land, pronounced “sher”. Credit to thorn in my old English class lmao

Great video, and made some points that I had never considered before, yet I disagree that the Sam line takes away from the "mythology" reading, since the premise of the books themselves is that they are a sort of autobiography with input from other characters. Those characters whose POV we see somewhat but can't have had input into the writing are ones that Frodo or others spent time with and so could reliably in their own heads construct a representation of events during that period of time. None of the fellowship or allies talk to the Harad and thus other than the one moment where the Best Boy thinks about them, there is no reason to include detail about their culture or lives, which the hobbits could not have known. That doesn't excuse things in The Silmarillion, but I guess you just play the straight mythology card for that one. Anyway, how cool would it have been if we'd got stories of conflict and strife within the other races of men that showed us how they ended up allied with the evil side.

Something that adds another layer of complexity on to this it the idea of a "mythology of England." A country having a strong mythological narrative can often serve as a foundation for nationalism - this is not to say that making a mythology about a country is necessarily inherently nationalist, just that if you want to increase nationalism, establishing a mythology is helpful for bringing the people of a country together, telling them that their country is special or uniquely good or superior or whatever. I think it's pretty clear that Tolkien was not constructing his mythology for this purpose. For one, you mentioned his anti-racism. For another, if you wanted to spark nationalist sentiment, a pro-war message would probably be very helpful in achieving that, which his books don't have. Having said that, I do think it's still worth looking at some historical context related to the kind of stuff Tolkien was writing about. In the 1870s - before Tolkien's time, but not by so much that it would have been out of the cultural consciousness - Wagner made his Ring cycle (that's not the actual translation of the German name, that's just how it's commonly referred to). Wagner was of course a brilliant composer, though also a noted antisemite. Like Tolkien, he had a general interest in Germanic mythology, especially (but not exclusively) Norse mythology. For an example more contemporary to Tolkien, the Nazis also used Norse mythology, along with the idea of the Aryan (though the two aren't related - the actual irl Aryans lived in the middle east and India) to establish a national identity for the Germans to rally behind. This was after Tolkien published The Hobbit and before he published LotR. To re-emphasize, I'm not saying that Tolkien's work falls in to the same category as the two examples I gave (which I realize were both specifically in the country of Germany - fear not, I know that Germanic doesn't mean German lol). I'm just saying that that's the landscape of Germanic folk tales around the time, so there are bound to be some similarities, and some of them will be a little uncomfortable. Whether or not his allegation that he read the Völsunga Saga in Old Norse as a kid are true, it's clear that he was fascinated by Germanic mythology from a young age, so it's likely (if not certain) that he chose to write about Germanic myths because they're Really Freaking Cool(tm) and had been obsessed with them for along time, not because of any sort of ulterior motive related to the usage of said myths at the time. Ultimately this really doesn't change your conclusion at all, it's just some interesting stuff that I was reminded of while watching this video, and I feel like it sort of fits along with the vibe, even if it's not exactly the same vibe. Vibe-tangential, I guess?

Not gonna lie they had me at the middle, then they threw the same ball as I was about to curve back at them haha!

daaaaman, those twists and turns. I was soo ready to disagree haha

Genuine question. Would this also make ASOIF racist? In essos there are also miths of strange peoples, where would be the difference between the two cases? What could be argued for ASOIAF that couldn't for TLOR?

1. lord of the rings is not racist 2. compound sentences are not run off sentences

Nope Moving on

Ok you've had time to watch the video now you can comment

Best sponsor ad read ever ... i'm impressed

Fascinating video loved it

I agree on one of your opinions "It's only as racist as you read it." And I think that says something about you.

I get your point, but personally I don't see any good basis for a racist accusation. The archaic description of the southerners is just realistic world building to me, helping set the period to our real-world counterpart, And Sam's thoughts on the dead soldier strikes me as a reaction any reasonably kind person would have, and even as a kid I always got the implication form this moment that plenty of the Southerners would have had the same kind of thought as Sam.

1:43 CLIPPED

I feel the need to point out that the Haradrim most likely draw more of their inspiration from southwest Asia than they do from Africa. While the use of war elephants is known from North Africa's history, their use in war persisted much longer in India. Combine that with the strong emphasis on cavalry the Haradrim field in the siege of Minis Tirith and Near Harad looks more to be a mix of southwest Asian and North African cultures. This would track with not only the historical events Tolkien alludes to at times but also his war time experiences. Gondor is sometimes compared to the Eastern Roman Empire which similarly lost eastern territories until their borders were pushed back almost to their capitol city. And the Ottoman Empire was one of the participants of WW1.

...lol, what? I'm so sorry but I might have missed the point being made in this video. Thoughtful introspection is not a modern phenomenon. Nor is giving an antagonist group features/descriptions distinctly different from the heros an archaic technique. Tolkien giving Sam an awareness of the fallen enemy soldier's experience or perspective doesn't make LotR particularly more modern or less folklore-like. And it really works against the notion of LotR being racist; if Tolkien intended any prejudice towards other ethnic groups, Sam's sentiment seems quite contradictory to that ideal. So maybe racism was *not* what Tolkien was getting at. Or at least, that's how I choose to interpret it from a black, female, 21st-centurian perspective. 🤷🏾‍♀️

In ex Ussr everybody loves Lotr, but we often think he meant ussr to be mordor. Not sure if there some truth to it

i think a good way to look at it is in that it’s racist because the world that created it is racist, in the same way that even trans people can hold transphobic thoughts because the world that they live in is transphobic. it doesn’t degrade the work itself, but its an interesting part of the metatextual discussion of the work

The use of modern writing styles and techniques doesn't obligate one to work within a modern philosophical framework anymore than writing on a typewriter does, nor does the use of a typewriter or modern writing techniques make it appropriate to evaluate a work in a modernist framework. These are distinct categories that can be employed independently of each other.

Your accent seems a little different in this video, more northern English somehow?

From the thumbnail I thought the quote meant "black men enjoy half-trolls," akin to "gentlemen prefer blondes," and I was like man, that's a pretty wild stereotype Also, counterpoint: The hobbits as a whole were direct analogs of 19th century brits, and had many objectively anachronistic elements in a world that was supposed to be (hitherto) prehistoric Europe, like pocketwatches and folding umbrellas. Sam (or rather, Frodo, who wrote the text amd assumed what Sam was thinking) is a modern reader-analog dropped into this otherwise ancient and mythological sequence of events, so he naturally thinks the things we would in that situation; But Aragorn would never think those things, for example, not because he is not goodhearted but because he is of his time.

You keep saying 'black people' when most Haradrim are not black. Only Far Harad has the black people (who are quite unflatteringly described).