I don't know, you're the one who decided to play devil's advocate! I'll summarize basic comments I've made previously: I don't think Tolkien is racist, I CAN see why people call racism/sexism, but I DON'T agree that it's entirely fair. I maintain (and will, even if we argue this for a year) that if the author doesn't intend racism, and even tries to point out that people can be corrupted no matter their color, he does deserve some benefit of the doubt. There are bad people in the books that are white, including some of the most powerful. Is it fair to assume that he believes alllll people of color are bad, just because we only see those who have come to war? Possibly, if Sam had never made his statement re: the Southron.


You may have me there. I'm not that geeky.


And I said I can see how they can think that, and I agree that there isn't much I can do to fix it. I simply don't think it's intended as racism/sexism, and I don't think it's fair to hate him/his books on that basis. That's it.


Sooo... he can't couch it in mythology and religious "history?" I don't understand why it has to be "real world" anything when he was writing from myths and fairy tales. I admit that it gets harder when he talks about dwarves/jews, but why do we believe him there and NOT where he says that orcs are based on demons/devils (something beautiful and good, corrupted by evil into something else)? Isn't that, in fact, where the word came from?


I doubt Tom is reading this.


Yet again, I can see the point in your last sentence. I can't argue against that. I don't agree, again, because I'm looking at it from the angle that he's a historian using medieval concepts to frame a race for a novel. My main objection is that nobody seems to want to look into WHY he said the dwarves remind him of Jews. They seem to simply assume it's re: money. This is part of what I read on wiki:

The representation of Dwarves as evil changed dramatically with The Hobbit. Here the Dwarves became occasionally comedic and bumbling, but largely seen as honourable, serious-minded, but still portraying some negative characteristics such as being gold-hungry, overly proud and occasionally officious. According to the 2007 book The History of the Hobbit, Tolkien was now influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history.[5] The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their homeland (the Lonely Mountain, their ancestral home, is the goal the exiled Dwarves seek to reclaim), and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews,[5][6] whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible.[5] Medieval views of Jews also saw them as having a propensity for making well-crafted and beautiful things,[5] a trait shared with Norse dwarves.[4] For The Hobbit almost all dwarf-names are taken from the Dvergatal or "Catalogue of the Dwarves", found in the Poetic Edda.[ 7 ][ 8 ] However, more than just supplying names, the "Catalogue of the Dwarves" appears to have inspired Tolkien to supply meaning and context to the list of names—that they travelled together, and this in turn became the quest told of in The Hobbit.[9] The Dwarves' written language is represented on maps and in illustrations by Anglo-Saxon Runes. The Dwarven calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar in beginning in late autumn.[5] The dwarves taking Bilbo out of his complacent existence has been seen as an eloquent metaphor for the "impoverishment of Western society without Jews."[6]

When writing The Lord of the Rings Tolkien continued many of the themes he had set up in The Hobbit. When giving Dwarves their own language (Khuzdûl) Tolkien decided to create an analogue of a Semitic language influenced by Hebrew phonology. Like medieval Jewish groups, the Dwarves use their own language only amongst themselves, and adopted the languages of those they live amongst for the most part, for example taking public names from the cultures they lived within, whilst keeping their "true-names" and true language a secret.[10] Along with a few words in Khuzdûl, Tolkien also developed runes of his own invention (the Cirth), said to have been invented by Elves and later adopted by the Dwarves. Tolkien further underlines the diaspora of the Dwarves with the lost stronghold of the Mines of Moria. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien uses the main dwarf character Gimli to finally reconcile the conflict between Elves and Dwarves through showing great courtesy to Galadriel and forming a deep friendship with Legolas. The Gimli-Legolas relationship has been seen as Tolkien's reply toward "Gentile anti-Semitism and Jewish exclusiveness".[6]
Tolkien also elaborated on Jewish influence on his Dwarves in a letter: "I do think of the 'Dwarves' like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue..."[11]


From wiki:

In letters 29 & 30, it appears that a German translation of The Hobbit was being negotiated in 1938. The German firm enquired whether Tolkien was of Arisch (Aryan) origin. Tolkien was infuriated by this, and wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose.[1] The first one is not present - in it Tolkien is assumed to have refused to give any declaration whatsoever of his racial origins. The second, surviving, draft included:
Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.
—Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, #30 (Emphasis in original)


I rarely think you're being silly, but I really do not agree with you here, or below. I don't think there is much point in continuing.


Yeahhh, and she changes the whole function of the fellowship by allowing Frodo to see what he had started to suspect. What good is Elrond's advice and aid if it isn't going to work? I just disagree that she is in a traditional or lame-ish female role. Period.