Is LOTR an anti-communist book?

Communism, industrialization, atheism

Tolkien clearly stated that his works are not allegories

>>8462452
He formulated Middle Earth before 1917, right?

Moscow = Barad-Dur
Chernobyl = Mount Doom
Siberia = Gorgoroth
Berlin Wall = Morannon

>>8462462
So did Ishmael

>>8462452

more than that, the rapid spread of any ideology or state of being that subdues the human spirit. This works for Naziism, Communism, Industrialism, Imperialism, Atheism, ...

>>8462477
Correct

>>8462452
Was Exodus a metaphor for gamergate? Did Noah have SJWs in mind when he wrote about Egyptians?

Definitely not. Tolkien was thinking about the zulus when he wrote about the Uruk Hai. Minas Tirith is clearly based on Constantinople, the battle of Pellenor is a what if the Hungarian cavalry showed up and saved the day kind of thing. "The return of the king" is a common myth in Greece, of the emperor returning and driving out the invader. It also jives with the whole Gondor being a faded and falling empire, and not comparing with the original Numenor (so Gondor = Byzantium). Numenor is also quite obviously Atlantean. But the Sil has men of Middle Earth being transported to Numenor and then coming back, and the Aeniad has the Trojans becoming the Romans who in later history would go on to resettle in an area not too far from the original Troy.

There's also an Ethiopian province named Gondar, pic related.

Helm's Deep is like a combination of Battle of Thermopylae and Battle of Vienna

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>>8462525

forgot pic damnit

>>8462471
The Berlin Wall wasn't s thing until way after LOTR retard

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>>8462533

dubs don't lie

>>8462539

He included Chernobyl, but your big issue was with the Berlin Wall?

>>8462546
Chernobyl is a hoax perpetrated by the Jews

>>8462462
Exactly

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The Lord of the Rings is full of influences and empty of intentional allegory.

>“I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more ‘life’ a story has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.)”

Tolkien

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Mordor = Ottoman Empire
Orcs = Turks

even Orcish/black speech was inspired from Turko-Mongol languages

>>8462577
This is a favorite line of SJW's

>>8462462
>Tolkien clearly stated that his works are not allegories

Okay. Tolkien had to have A) been telling the truth and B) have known what he was talking about for this to be effective on the conversation

It may have not been an intentional allegory, if we are to believe him, but it still could have been an unintentional allegory. There's also the possibility that Tolkien has no idea what allegory is

For a man who spent the better part of his life studying myth and attempting to build his own, he would have had to have known that myth is better when not tied down to a particular time. So, of course he would say it has nothing to do with allegory

That's why it's best not to ask the artist about their art

>>8462582

I don't get it.

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You're all taking it a tad too literally.
Tolkien disliked the modern, soulless, industrialised world he saw emerging around him and wished to preserve the countrysides.
Hence why he portrays Mordor as bad and the shire, Gondor and Rohan as good.
Also his dislike of the moral attitude of subservience to the state and militarism, and his love of freedom and simple pleasures like food, drink and friends. Again personified by the good and bad factions in LOTR.

Other parallels can be drawn but they're not of too much significance.

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This poem sums up Tolkein's attitude toward the world

>>8462586'

>unintentional allegory

How would that be distinguishable from a coincidence? If it isn't, then how is it worth discussing?

I'm not certain, but I think Tolkien said in some interviews that his books had some real life allegories, but that most of it was just made up.

I think he just made it up frankly, because the "battle between good and evil" trope is so common to people in the Western world anyway, that it might seem more allegorical than it really is.

>>8462586
It's likely he made those references subconsciously

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If anything Tolkien was a Primitivist Marxist than otherwise a capitalist. At least a populist of some kind that was opposed to Capitalism. He hated the way Capital treated the land he lived in with soot, factories, and post-war, post-industrial revolution grime and ash.

So the idea his work is primarily about shitting on a vague conception of "Marxism" is ridiculous, he said so himself.

>>8462525
Most of this is conjunction, his work is definitely not intentionally based on history. He went to great pains for it not to be, so to see parts wildly thrown together is a bit over the top, still there are similarities that jump out. But even Numenor is not just obvious Atlantis. Sure it's and island and it gets vulcanoed, but it's ideology is different. It's closer to Garden of Eden, but even here not near enough. Devillike character is it's doom, but God is removed, and only the proximity to promised land is enough to elevated the minds of occupants. Not to mention that the theme of Eden is again present in Elven exodus. Again, staying close to promised land is beneficial. Even among the ones that leave, those that tallied the longest are the best among them. Same for the humans, those that get pulled to the west are the ideal. Those that aren't are corrupted.

>>8462462
this is the level of analysis on your /lit/. the author is death kido

>>8462649
The author may be dead, but the question wasn't about the intent of the novel or its relevancy to past history, it's about the author's very intent to emulate history. Because it's more direct of a question about authorial motivation, it is wrong. Tolkien had repeatedly said throughout his life "Fuck off this shit doesn't mean anything politically except here and there how I hate industrialization". That's basically it. Even as analysis the post you replied to is better.

>>8462626
This is almost as good as the Lovecraft was a communist meme by joshi.

>>8462871

It's more apt than to say he was anticommunist, which is patently false. And in that day and age disavowing anticommunism was the same as being communist. He knew exactly what he was doing.

>>8462477
Basically any form of authoritarianism.

>>8463130
According to esteemed Tolkienist Michael Moorcock he was a "Crypto-Fascist".

>>8463155
Moorcock should kill himself.

>>8463161
I think you need to check your cis white privilege Anon.

>>8462871
Except I'm right.He believed that people should be free from the binds that industry put them in on their land. Be it state or company. He fucking loathed the industrial revolution, the first world war, all he saw was hopeless corruption of what he loved as a child. The only contemporary politically motivated portions of the Tolkien myth would be the psychological effects of being in the first world war and a deep loathing of modernization.

This puts him ideologically at odds with any kind of big business at the time. He may have not been a Marxist in the traditionalist sense but his work and what can be taken from his ideology was that he was certainly not a gung-ho capitalist. I would even argue the sense of dread and melancholy about the future Tolkien's work has is the idea that capital can be used for great evil with ideological purpose, or state as well.

These feelings along with European, particularly English myth, are what Tolkein's body of work stems from. There's a sense of escapism to it, reflecting on a time that wasn't "all this". There's a sense in his work that the future lost something, and that loss was primarily the fault of industrialization. So, English Capital.

Your comparison would be more apt directed at the idea Tolkien respected large scale industry and capitalist hustle and bustle. That would be the stretch.

>>8463226
For a second, I thought you were Joshi until I realized you are just another windbag on 4chan. Not the guy to whom you were responding, B-T-W. :^)