![]() The names that Tolkien uses for characters and locations attributed to the bad guys are overwhelmingly non-Western European. Here is a thought experiment: if all the bad guys in a story have Mexican names, would you not think that something is amiss? Names can have unforeseen consequences in real life. Many popular fantasy stories talk endlessly about the power of secret names and learning how to utter them to invoke the power within. ![]() Names are very powerful in modern fantasy stories. If you have read the Silmarillion, Valinor is on a continent even west of the Middle Earth and that is where all the Gods live. This ties in well with the cultural differences between the West and the East in the modern world - that of Western Europe and everything East of it. Mordor, Rhun, Khand and Harad are all in the Eastern corners of Middle Earth. ![]() If Middle Earth were Europe, Shire looks like it would be in England.Īll the bad guys live in the East. Shire, where the story starts and where the hobbits live, is depicted like countryside England. In this post I want to share the different ways bias can be seen through this series of books that I love. I believe that Tolkien exhibits an inherent bias towards Western Europe and its culture. It was only years after my initial introduction to the books and movies that I started seeing the problems in the Lord of the Rings franchise. And I still have a soft corner for the Orcs and Sauron. The plot uses a familiar “good vs evil” trope with the good triumphing the end. Tolkien borrowed from numerous European myths and epics and created this fantastic world that kick-started the modern genre of fantasy. When you read it you are convinced that yes, perhaps such a world did exist, or may exist. With the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien has created a magnificent world with multiple races, countries, kings and dark lords - and even its own languages. I grew up in a country that loves its myths but Lord of the Rings was my first introduction to a modern story-telling of a grand epic. I still remember the days of reading it alternatingly with my sister, both of us competing for reading time and being the first to finish it. I first read the Lord of the Rings series when I was a teenager in high school.
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