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Interesting. As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression t

Interesting. As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism: how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree. I realize that it is written in the Norse epic style, and Norse mythology is naturally pretty racist, but it still escapes me why an academic linguistic experiment got such a wide audience. Another motif, about a small guy doing things greater than himself, is nice though.

gwern 16y ago
> As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism: how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree. It's not just LOTR & fantasy; SF has problems of its own. I mean, there's obviously _The Iron Swastika_, which everyone knows was written explicitly as a parody. But Frank Herbert says over and over again in interviews and whatever* that in _Dune_, Paul was a terrible horrible no good thing to happen to the human race and we were not supposed to be rooting for him - but fans do anyway. Paul is supposed to be a deconstruction of the superhero myth, but instead, even the fans swallow it hook line & sinker. It's no surprise that _Dune Messiah_, which really rubs our nose in this, is one of the least popular Dune books. * He says this explicitly in 2 or 3 interviews, and repeats himself in the mini-essays on the backs of the vinyl LPs of him reading excerpts from the Dune books (which I saw today in the SF public library)
- jbm 16y ago
  I just finished reading the original Dune two weeks ago, so allow me to digress for a moment... How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel? The Harkonnens were portrayed as selfish plotters who nearly bankrupted themselves to murder Paul's father. The Space Guild was mysterious and were shown as being utterly dependent on their prescience. The Bene Gesserit were complete manipulators, to the point where they created religions across the galaxy to further their political points. House Corrino was scheming with the Harkonnens. It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters). Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats? Or the Queen/Concubine? Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"?
  - magicalist 16y ago
    No, I'm with you. I think Herbert's point was not that Paul was bad -- we wanted him to succeed -- but how naturally seductive the idea of a messiah or superhero is to us. Characters even explicitly say that a real messiah is about the worst thing a people can get. I think Dune Messiah (which is rather disappointing even outside of how marginalized Paul becomes after focusing so much on him) is more about how the artifice built up around him becomes evil and does just fine without his actual presence.
  - Tycho 16y ago
    i think the original plan for Dune was that it would encompass the events of the first three novels, but there was some scope creep that prevented this. Therefore, the long-term impression/memory of Paul is probably a lot different than it would have been if the original Dune had contained all these events. It's a 'rise and fall' kind of thing and Herbert himself was mostly interested in the 'fall' part, philosophically.
  - gwern 16y ago
    > How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel? If I may, that you think that is an example of the problem. When you read _The Iron Dream_ (I realize now I gave the wrong title, but I can't edit my original comment, grr.), how can you not root for Feric Jaggar (Adolf Hitler)? How can a German not root for Hitler, trying to restore Germany to greatness and hold back the tide of communism? (Let's not forget how the body count of Stalin and Mao run into the dozens of millions, as opposed to 'only' the 6 million or so of the Holocaust. The Nazis were right about one thing - Communism was awfully evil.) > Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"? Maybe we should have! Sometimes no one is right. The Atreides are noble and everything, but their nobility consists pretty much of not murderously mistreating their slaves - I mean, serfs. > Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats? You could make a good case for Idaho, given how central he is to the later books. > It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters). Paul is not cackling evil like the Baron. He is evil, even in _Dune_, like the Nuremberg Trials, an evil that is more passive than active - he knows how hideous the Jihad will be, he has seen all the futures. He knows what he is later told: > "Very good, Stil." Paul glanced at the reels in Korba's hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since -- " Paul's evil is one of cowardice and a refusal to do the right thing. He knows all he has to do is die or vanish into the desert, or even just go into exile on Tupile (paying with the family atomics). But he selfishly tries to stay alive and stay with Chani, and the only path prescience reveals that does that is the one that also unleashes the Jihad and makes him Emperor. (Note how deep his cowardice or selfishness runs; we see it again in _Children of Dune_, where Paul refuses to do the sandworm transformation even to save all humanity because he would lose his own humanity. Some hero!)
jseliger 16y ago
As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism It isn't: if you have to pick a political/social philosophy to define the novel, pick one closer to non-conformist libertarianism. Do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn't impose on others. The "racism" probably comes from description of the black riders, but black describes their clothes; on Weathertop, for example, when Frodo can briefly see the other side because he's wearing the ring, they're described as white. White and black are chiefly used as synonyms for light and dark, as in the day and the night. how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree. Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Saruman, Sauron, Boromir), while those of low birth (all the hobbits) often do quite well. Notice too that Aragorn and the other characters are scrupulous about the limits to their power. I actually wrote a paper on this called "The Paradox of Power and Defining Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings."
- icegreentea 16y ago
  I think he's refering to all the 'lesser men' especially all the men who allied with Sauron. Basically, the book discribes them all as short and with darker skin.
  - chc 16y ago
    Not just the Haradrim (who basically equate to Africans, geographically speaking), although there is a wonderful description of them as "black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues." The Easterlings are also evil. And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty. And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood. And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption. And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity. The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)

gwern 16y ago

> As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism: how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree. It's not just LOTR & fantasy; SF has problems of its own. I mean, there's obviously _The Iron Swastika_, which everyone knows was written explicitly as a parody. But Frank Herbert says over and over again in interviews and whatever* that in _Dune_, Paul was a terrible horrible no good thing to happen to the human race and we were not supposed to be rooting for him - but fans do anyway. Paul is supposed to be a deconstruction of the superhero myth, but instead, even the fans swallow it hook line & sinker. It's no surprise that _Dune Messiah_, which really rubs our nose in this, is one of the least popular Dune books. * He says this explicitly in 2 or 3 interviews, and repeats himself in the mini-essays on the backs of the vinyl LPs of him reading excerpts from the Dune books (which I saw today in the SF public library)

jbm 16y ago
I just finished reading the original Dune two weeks ago, so allow me to digress for a moment... How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel? The Harkonnens were portrayed as selfish plotters who nearly bankrupted themselves to murder Paul's father. The Space Guild was mysterious and were shown as being utterly dependent on their prescience. The Bene Gesserit were complete manipulators, to the point where they created religions across the galaxy to further their political points. House Corrino was scheming with the Harkonnens. It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters). Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats? Or the Queen/Concubine? Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"?
- magicalist 16y ago
  No, I'm with you. I think Herbert's point was not that Paul was bad -- we wanted him to succeed -- but how naturally seductive the idea of a messiah or superhero is to us. Characters even explicitly say that a real messiah is about the worst thing a people can get. I think Dune Messiah (which is rather disappointing even outside of how marginalized Paul becomes after focusing so much on him) is more about how the artifice built up around him becomes evil and does just fine without his actual presence.
- Tycho 16y ago
  i think the original plan for Dune was that it would encompass the events of the first three novels, but there was some scope creep that prevented this. Therefore, the long-term impression/memory of Paul is probably a lot different than it would have been if the original Dune had contained all these events. It's a 'rise and fall' kind of thing and Herbert himself was mostly interested in the 'fall' part, philosophically.
- gwern 16y ago
  > How is it possible that someone could have rooted for any character /other/ than Paul in the original Dune novel? If I may, that you think that is an example of the problem. When you read _The Iron Dream_ (I realize now I gave the wrong title, but I can't edit my original comment, grr.), how can you not root for Feric Jaggar (Adolf Hitler)? How can a German not root for Hitler, trying to restore Germany to greatness and hold back the tide of communism? (Let's not forget how the body count of Stalin and Mao run into the dozens of millions, as opposed to 'only' the 6 million or so of the Holocaust. The Nazis were right about one thing - Communism was awfully evil.) > Or were we "supposed to" wash our hands of the book and leave saying "They were all scum"? Maybe we should have! Sometimes no one is right. The Atreides are noble and everything, but their nobility consists pretty much of not murderously mistreating their slaves - I mean, serfs. > Was someone seriously supposed to root for Duncan Idaho or the Mentats? You could make a good case for Idaho, given how central he is to the later books. > It's nice that Paul was depicted as being flawed in Dune Messiah, but his being an evil character does not follow from the original Dune, unless you take extreme care to see certain changes in his character (such as the aside about him being worried about spice equipment and ornithopters). Paul is not cackling evil like the Baron. He is evil, even in _Dune_, like the Nuremberg Trials, an evil that is more passive than active - he knows how hideous the Jihad will be, he has seen all the futures. He knows what he is later told: > "Very good, Stil." Paul glanced at the reels in Korba's hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since -- " Paul's evil is one of cowardice and a refusal to do the right thing. He knows all he has to do is die or vanish into the desert, or even just go into exile on Tupile (paying with the family atomics). But he selfishly tries to stay alive and stay with Chani, and the only path prescience reveals that does that is the one that also unleashes the Jihad and makes him Emperor. (Note how deep his cowardice or selfishness runs; we see it again in _Children of Dune_, where Paul refuses to do the sandworm transformation even to save all humanity because he would lose his own humanity. Some hero!)

jseliger 16y ago

As an alien to English culture, I always wondered why LOTR is so popular amongst all sorts of non-conformists and bohemians. I had an impression that the essence of the book is racism and classism It isn't: if you have to pick a political/social philosophy to define the novel, pick one closer to non-conformist libertarianism. Do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn't impose on others. The "racism" probably comes from description of the black riders, but black describes their clothes; on Weathertop, for example, when Frodo can briefly see the other side because he's wearing the ring, they're described as white. White and black are chiefly used as synonyms for light and dark, as in the day and the night. how good a person is, is pretty much determined by his birthplace and pedigree. Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Saruman, Sauron, Boromir), while those of low birth (all the hobbits) often do quite well. Notice too that Aragorn and the other characters are scrupulous about the limits to their power. I actually wrote a paper on this called "The Paradox of Power and Defining Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings."

icegreentea 16y ago
I think he's refering to all the 'lesser men' especially all the men who allied with Sauron. Basically, the book discribes them all as short and with darker skin.
- chc 16y ago
  Not just the Haradrim (who basically equate to Africans, geographically speaking), although there is a wonderful description of them as "black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues." The Easterlings are also evil. And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty. And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood. And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption. And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity. The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)