This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.
Quality Contributions to the Main Motte
Contributions for the week of March 30, 2026
Contributions for the week of April 6, 2026
- "I think Terry Pratchett is the atheist version of C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien."
- "But Halo... Halo was magic."
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Notes -
It's a shame I didn't see Amadan's comment while it was fresh. I'm almost tempted to AAQC it again, I think it's that good.
The one thing that we ask of Mottizens is the ability to engage in civil discourse, including on controversial topics. Especially on controversial topics. We make allowances for the fact that this is a rather big ask, especially by wider internet standards, but it's also the whole fucking point of this place. You can say just about anything, as long as you say it politely, and back up inflammatory claims proactively. What counts as inflammatory? Now isn't that a debate for the ages? I'd like to use the "reasonable member of the public" doctrine, but that's got more loopholes than the factory where they make basketball hoops.
This is fine. It really is. To channel Sam Altman (hiss hiss), the Motte is nothing without its users. The users wouldn't be here if us mods didn't do the unpleasant job of occasionally cracking a few skulls. I don't like doing that. I doubt any of us do, and that's in part because we were negatively selected for that tendency. We do it because even the clearest, easiest-going set of rules on the planet won't stand up and defend themselves. Entropy is a bitch.
Does anyone think I like the anti-Indian stereotypes floating around on the web, or that surfaces even here on occasion? Hah. You wish. I console myself with the (true) fact that I am very, very far from the modal Indian, and that the complaints usually lobbed against them aren't applicable to me (assuming we're talking about something with more merit than generic accusations of shitting on streets. And when the criticism does encompass me? Including for characteristics I really can't change? Well, the Indian Subcontinent probably selected for thick skin, for protection against malaria if nothing else.
Very few things written here are truly worth getting heated about, I say, even acknowledging that I've lost my cool in the past (albeit for other reasons, anti-Indian sentiment is rather low on the list of things that reliably rile me up). And well, on the flip side, getting a warning or ban on a niche internet forum is not the end of the world. Go read a book. Touch grass. Feed your kids, or go make kids.
Digression aside: something that more people should know is that if you are genuinely uncertain if a planned post of yours clears the bar, you can just... DM us. The mod mail exists. You can ping the mods and ask, "hey, is this okay to share?" Almost nobody does this. More people should. We should probably put this next to the rules.
Indians suffer from the general population defining all the world’s people into a half dozen groups. European descendants somewhat getting to be one of a half dozen groups Americans are more aware of. You can be French or Italian. Everyone else gets lumped into Asian, Indian, Arab, or Hispanic.
From what I can gather Indians are extremely diverse internally. Hispanics have fairly obvious boundaries internally that are similar to American racial lines. A lot of the Asian groups seem like they have a lot of similarities to me. Indians get lumped all together in the Western mind but have varied backgrounds internally of which you are far more aware.
While that's true, it isn't what I'm gesturing at. Sure, I'd be impressed if the average American could tell apart the difference between a North Indian and a southerner, but even within my nominal ethnicity and geographical origin, I've always stood out. Intentionally or otherwise, I just never felt like a good fit.
(Depending on which specific metric you use, Indians can be 3-4 times as genetically "diverse" as all of Europe combined. Still, the cultural components, from a distance, are probably comparable. There are Indians who are as different from other Indians as a Finn is from a Spaniard, with the primary commonality being shared religion. This forum, of all places, doesn't need reminder that that's not as strong a binding agent as some might think.)
Am I overindexing on specific character traits? I'd hope not, but the way I see it, the kind of people I want to hang around with live in Silicon Valley. Scotland isn't a terrible place (if you ignore the weather), but it never would have been my first choice. Not even the UK as a whole. It is what it is. My life isn't terrible, and there's a plausible case that my future would be better here than back home, even if I can't quite say that with conviction.
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Would you be willing to expand on this a little at some point? I've been grappling with some issues around this personally and some perspective from your side of things might help a lot.
When I was younger, I lived in several places that had notable Indian minorities, and that continued in college due to being in a technical major. Several of my closest friends in those times were first or second generation immigrants. In most cases, they weren't just American, but they felt more American than me. They flew the flag at home, played sports in school, participated in neighborhood cookouts (with mildly weird limits depending on where they came from originally), and did all the things you'd expect from somebody who really liked being in America. One of the best trap shooters I'd ever met hadn't ever fired a gun until he got his citizenship, but he started coming to meets as soon as he could because, in his words, "I'm an American now". Hell, in some ways it was aspirational for somebody like me. I figured that if families from a country as poor as India could manage to live the American dream, maybe a dumb redneck like me could too.
Lately, I've been interacting with the Indian diaspora in the US again and it feels completely different. It's mercenary and extractive. They all seem to want to make bank and go home, or terraform the surrounding area into India-but-not-in-India. The families don't try to integrate or assimilate at all. Kids keep their own cliques in school or go to private schools. Community events are almost entirely held within the diaspora.
Do you have any idea what's going on? It's caused a measure of cultural whiplash for me. I can't tell if it's a change in culture in India, or different social classes and subcultures immigrating, or changing views towards America, or what, but fuck me if it's not a noticeable difference.
Not to be a single-note piano, but "the Great Awokening" seems like a plausible culprit for what you've observed. It's just identitarianism forcefully asserting itself. This, basically, and then this (PDF warning). "Assimilation" used to be a goal; then it got dumped into a bucket with "colonialism" leading to the crazed perception that Indians (or whomever) who travel to Europe or the Americas are being "colonized" if they assimilate.
I have met a fair few immigrants who are actually quite insistent that their children assimilate, but in many cases this seems to backfire somewhat. There are definitely people out there who prefer to feel attached to the culture and practices of their ancestors, for various reasons, despite being geographically remote. That I am a rootless cosmopolitan does benefit me in some ways, but there are definitely times when I wish I had been better suited to becoming a key figure in a community of comparatively limited importance beyond its own boundaries.
I'd be hesitant to blame Woke for this, really, though I've already plead general ignorance on trends on the ground (I'm not physically there, and I don't interact with the Indian diaspora on an intentional basis). Sure, identity politics was enthusiastically adopted by a specific clade of diasporans, but there are fewer true believers than you might think. People will do anything to improve their odds on college admissions screens, and this is hardly unique to Indians. In fact, they're in a particularly awkward spot.
I think @Testing is more likely to be right here, though that's a low confidence claim. Then there's reaction-formation: if anti-Indian sentiment is on the rise in the States, the natural thing is to band together. My impression is that the worst of it is mostly restricted to X and other social media cesspools, the average Indian on the ground in the US hasn't really noticed active discrimination. In the UK? We're still very much model minorities, the usual vitriol is reserved mostly for other (sometimes visually indistinguishable) South Asians.
As an Enlightened Centrist™ , I blame both the left and the right for this. In particular, the unsophisticated view that race is what matters rather than culture.
People respond to incentives. In the recent past (1980-2010 maybe?), a lot of racism/harassment/ostracization were predicated on culture and behavior. If you act like a normal American, wave American flags, and try to fit in then people would treat you as a normal American. If you can't speak English, roam around in gangs of your own race, play foreign music, shoplift from stores, etc, you're a dirty foreigner. Therefore, immigrants were incentivized to assimilate, because they could improve their reception and treatment. Being bullied is a negative reinforcement for being unamerican, therefore it incentivizes Americanness. Of course there were also a bunch of genuine racists who hate people because of their skin color and nothing you can do can fix that, but they have always been the minority. Most racists use skin color as a proxy for things they actually care about like crime and culture, so more patriotic minorities can usually avoid their ire by being "one of the good ones."
Woke tore this down. All immigrants are good, all racism is bad. Fewer people outwardly discriminate or criticize immigrants for being foreign. Importantly, this happened mostly on the margins. The more kind and well-intentioned people who legitimately were concerned with people getting along and reducing crime rates and whatnot were the most likely to turn woke or at least stay silent to avoid being cancelled. Meanwhile, the hardcore racists who actually hate skin colors stayed where they were. If you are an immigrant, the naive left will love you no matter what you do, and the naive right will hate you no matter what you do, and there's way fewer people in the center who will actually vary their treatment of you than there used to be. So the incentive to change is way smaller. Negative reinforcement doesn't accomplish anything if it's inflicted randomly instead of in response to specific behaviors.
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If I have to blindly guess, it might be because of visa reasons. If you have citizenship, you know you are going to stay there. You will meet your neighbours, relax a little and take part in community events and lay down roots.
Getting citizenship in USA has gotten harder for Indians. If you are on visa and at any moment you can get randomly kicked out then you will be trying to make bank. There is no point in planning long term if you are not going to stay long term. You would only celebrate the mandatory major festivals which would be Indian festivals from India. I suppose if someone gets incredibly lucky and even gets citizenship, the habits stay. In the working age demographic, most Indians in USA are not citizens.
You need to be an American citizen to be an American after all.
There is also another filter, Indians know how much harder getting citizenship in USA is compared to other places.
Only the people most driven by money would try to enter USA currently. The people who want to live somewhere first world may be deciding to move to Germany or UK.
Moving to Germany or the UK would be easier for the typical professional Indian looking to emigrate, but my strong impression is that the US remains the first choice. Not just because of the pay, though you're correct that it's a major component. It's just far from trivial to achieve, even for those not bottlenecked or gate-kept by professional licensing like I am.
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I'm not sure what I can add, really. Perhaps it's clearer if I specify that I'm not like most Indians in India, or even most UMC, well-educated Indians. I don't share their politics, their ideologies, or even much of the culture. Back home, the number of people I considered to be on a similar intellectual wavelength could be counted on my fingers. I wouldn't even need both hands.
Abroad? I don't know dawg. I know a surprisingly small number of Indians in the UK, courtesy of living up north, where brown skin can be a mild curiosity. I don't even seek them out when I see them. In the US? How would I meet them by a route that isn't an online exchange?
I look Indian. I don't sound Indian. I don't act particularly Indian, beyond a fondness for biryani. I have little interest in, or engagement with, any popular form of Indian culture or media from home. I'm a Bay Area rat in spirit. I know more about American cultural trends and politics than I know about India, let alone the UK. I'm happy keeping it that way, unless I have a pragmatic reason to do otherwise.
https://www.themotte.org/post/565/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/116844?context=8#context
That's my post popular post on the Motte. Ever. So I can only presume that, if I were lucky enough to be in America, you'd describe me in much the same way as those other Indians you first knew. I envy them. They're living the life I wish I had. I consider myself to be a temporarily estranged American, by misfortune of birth and circumstances outside my control. But if wishing were horses, I'd have given PETA a heart attack and paved the Bering Strait with equine corpses to get there. Right now, I impatiently wait for future opportunities, while feeling barely suppressed rage at how my options were curtailed.
No clue. I don't even have solid speculation to share. I haven't been in the States after 9/11, and it might just be random chance that you just ran into people who happened to be less ideologically motivated and more in it for the money. To be fair, I'm also in it for the money too, American doctors make salaries that make me salivate, even after moving to the UK.
Do you still plan on getting to America one day? And if so where would you intend to settle?
Plan? More like aspire. If the problem with my med school (they've been lazy about specific American accreditation, and the accreditors just as lazy) gets resolved within the next 3-4 years, it's quite likely I'll give the USMLE. If the problem solves itself later (and I'm a senior psychiatrist) then it's theoretically possible for me to seek to transfer my credentials without the USMLE and another bloody residency program.
At the end of the day, I don't have much control over the timeline. I'm also already in training, I have a good enough shot of progressing further in my career elsewhere, and the thought of sitting down and grinding for yet more competitive exams when I might have a wife and kids does not feel great. Even worse, AI is nipping at my heels, so it might become an entirely moot proposition by then.
But if I have the luxury of choice? Then California, baby. Or Texas. Or most of the US, really, probably excluding Alaska. Scotland is cold enough for me.
Obligatory link to comparison of state freedom levels
(Ratings are based on the situation in 2022, but are measured relative to μ and σ for 2000–2022, not just for 2022.)
Interactive global map of average daily maximum temperature on a monthly basis
While I appreciate the effort, they don't call it the Land of the Free for nothing. I'm sure the lowest ranked state would spank the entirety of the UK.
And I suspect that the climate map is slightly misleading in terms of presentation, if you don't carefully compare across seasons, you'll miss the dramatic temperature shifts seen in some parts.
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Can you change my view that Biryani is just crappy fried rice?
Biryani shouldn't really be like fried rice. The texture is different (biryani rice is less likely to stick together than fried rice), and of course the flavors are very different. What they have around me (I'm in Denver) is mostly Hyderabad style biryani, which is spicy and has a delicious fragrance that fried rice never really would have. My general advice on where to find good biryani is to see if there's anywhere that tends to have lots of Indian immigrants eating there. It might not be the best on the planet, but immigrants tend to eat at restaurants that are doing the cuisine correctly in my experience.
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Many cultures have a 'brothy meaty rice' dish that needs a ton of effort to get right. When done right, that dish is the best. When done wrong, it is crappy fried rice.
Eg:
Each dish is labor intensive and needs experience to get right. I've had the privilege of trying some of the best versions of each dish. If your Biryani tastes like crappy fried rice, it is crappy Biryani. Same for Paella and Chicken Rice.
Amen
I got sick of bad Biryani in the US and [made it myself](link na). No humility for this one. Took a ton of effort, and I bet it was the best Biryani in the city that day.
I now understand why restaurant Biryani sucks. Unless you're a dedicated Biryani shop (which only happens in India), you can't justify the effort it takes to make good Biryani. It took me about 2 days, start to finish.
@self_made_human , that's a war crime.
This variation is meaningful.
Lucknowi Biryani (Canonical North Indian Biryani) is meant to be aromatic, umami and fragrant. Hyderabadi Biryani (Canonical South Indian Biryani) is meant to be spicy, indulgent and saucier. I made Hyderabadi Biryani, it is my favorite. The other variations involve different types of rice (Kerala), adding potatoes (Bengali), and raisins (Karachi. This is haram).
Unfortunately, Indian restaurants in the west are mostly run by Punjabi & Bangla people. Neither regions are good at Biryani.
We have loads of biryani shops in the Bay Area, fwiw. I don't go to them because as a rule they look absolutely filthy, but we do have them.
Nope. Havent had great biryani in the Bay area. I'm an expert on the matter.
Great udipi food (madhurai idli). Good Pakistani food (zareens). Good experimental Indian (copra). Surprisingly acceptable marathi food (pav bhaji food truck, puranpoli) acceptable indo-chinese (inchins bamboo garden).
There are a few schizo places that are a 8/10 or 2/10 and no in-between. Highly unreliable, but pretty good on a good day. Eg- Aaha in Mission for Telugu/chettinad food. They make the least bad biryani in SF on a good day. Let's just say their sanitation standards are in line with the rest of the mission.
No standout north Indian or mughlai places that I know of.
P.s: while I'm talking about Indian places in the Bay. Fuck Rooh. Bad food and expensive.
I'm talking San Jose specifically, but regardless I'm not suggesting it's any good. Only that we do have dedicated biryani shops.
The lamb biryani at Dish & Dash used to be pretty good but has declined over the years
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That looks like some pretty legit biryani. Could I trouble you to write up a recipe?
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You must have had bad biryani. This is understandable, since the best stuff is only truly available in India.
Even in the UK, I've struggled to find anything as good as what I was used to at home. The best I've found is acceptable, it's biryani-shaped and roughly tastes like biryani. And then the "Indian" restaurant I ordered from yesterday served it with peas.
Fucking peas. I haven't been as flabbergasted since I tried lasagna with peas in it. Why not just piss in my mouth instead? I'd probably enjoy that more, in all honesty.
Of course, there's regional variation. Pakistani biryani is different, so is the Afghan kind. There's like half a dozen other variants from India. The one I'm most fond of can't be found anywhere nearby, for love or money.
I believe @DirtyWaterHotDog mentioned finding actually appetizing biryani in the States, he might be able to guide you better.
.... I think I'm just a heathen, I've been to the few places in the US with legit stuff and still meh
For the sake of my mental health, I'll assume that you've just had really bad luck. If I moved to the States and never managed to find decent biryani? I'd self-deport.
I think I'm just expecting it to taste like fried rice and it doesn't. Might be an expectation thing.
Yeah, it really shouldn't taste like fried rice, in the same sense that fried rice shouldn't taste like risotto.
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Man... who the fuck serves biryani with peas? I'm not even Indian and I know that's a food crime. It reminds me of the SNL black jeopardy skit where they talk about a white woman making potato salad, and say "she probably put something unnecessary in, like raisins". You have my sympathies.
You sir, are a gentleman, a scholar, and possibly a gourmet too.
Yeah. British mushy peas can stay in the dishes where they belong.
At any rate, I love biryani lol. Without peas. We used to have a great biryani place here in town - if you went for lunch you could get biryani, the curry of the day, some boneless chicken appetizer, naan, and gulab jamun, all for only $12 or so. Truly the restaurant of the gods. Unfortunately they went out of business, and I've yet to find anything on their level since. Probably good for my body, but less good for my soul.
I'm not a restaurateur, but I think I can draw the line between these two statements.
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Oh well, I can only imagine the masterful quality of your biryani, while settling for bastardized versions to be found in Anglo lands.
Here is an alt link - na
It looks absolutely delicious, but I must complain about portion sizes. That's the quantity I'd feed a teenage girl, a real man needs twice as much, especially after all that work haha.
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It would be monumentally difficult for anyone to not act particularly Indian in this particular way.
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For what it's worth, as one of our resident Indian dislikers, I like you. You're "one of the good ones" if that matters to you. I disagree with you on plenty of your opinions, but I'd say you seem like a smart guy generally. And you have respect for your host culture in the UK, that says a lot more to me about your character than your intelligence and other capabilities ever would.
In the ending of The Camp of the Saints, I'd like to imagine you'd be like the character Hamadura, a westernized Indian taking a last stand against the destruction of western civilization together with the Frenchies (or in your case, the Brits).
Thank you. Whenever I feel the need to go tut at Count (more often than I wish or like), the usual culprit is that he's sneering at the locals and asking for them to be replaced. I can't even imagine doing something along those lines, my right to reside in a Western country is clearly a privilege, and I refuse to bite the hand that feeds. I don't think the West is perfect, but it has my loyalties not just because it offers me a higher standard of living (in some ways).
Unfortunately, the phone call was always coming from inside the house.
I regret to inform you that Count is, in that respect, just trying to be more English than the English. While there's a lot wrong with rural Scotland, you're also quite lucky to have avoided the English-class-system-hits-diaspora collision directly.
I think you have a point. English snobbery is something I've only looked at second-hand, and I hope it stays that way.
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The women's chess thing strikes me exactly the same way as do hackneyed explanations for minority underperformance. Differences between groups of people have been a priori excluded, so here are some half-ass social explanations that don't really pass the smell test.
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Aww I wish I'd seen this when it was originally posted. I'm an atheist. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. The only books I've ever managed to read twice. Your thought that he has such anger at the world feels so totally alien to me. It wasn't anger it was hope. And it wasn't an empty hope. The world of terry pratchett does in fact get better!
Ankh-morpork is a rotten, polluted, cesspit of a city. Its main defense against invaders is to allow them in and corrupt them so completely that they stop being invaders. The river can be walked on, when its not on fire. The magic university suffers accidents constantly that leave the surrounding areas of the city steeped in weird magical effects. But over the course of many novels it gets noticeably better to live in the city. Crime becomes more restricted to the darkest and worst places of the city. Races of all kind can go there and leave their old world prejudices behind. Material wealth is skyrocketing. New mail systems like the telegraph (clacks) are sweeping the city, trains are being developed to shorten the travel distances, and culture is booming enough for new music styles to be born.
The aggressive conquering religion of the Omnians is softened from something like Islam to something more like modern christianity.
Death learns to care about life in the form of his apprentice.
A wizard and his travelling luggage get to visit Australia and other interesting cities.
A war for a silly island is averted.
etc etc.
The stories of discworld are undeniably hopeful. Its in some of his other stories where he shares authorship that I realized hoe much the hope of his stories shines through. If you've ever read "The Long Earth" series, co-authored with sci-fi author Stephen Baxter you'll see what I mean. Terry Pratchett had failing health and eventually died before the full series completion. The story gets darker and more depressing as each book passes. What starts as kind of a hopeful series about new lands and places to explore, ends with self-sacrifice to thwart a species that appears to be a paperclip maximizer type threat. I thought this was maybe Stephen Baxter just being depressed about losing his co-author. But I read one of his other books, and no that is just how Baxter is.
I want to piggyback on your reply and disagree with @Amadan's take:
I think there's still an important difference. A Christian can read Lewis and interpret the book as a direct moral lesson, a form of guidance. An atheist steeped in Christianity will read the same book, understand that it's intended to provide moral guidance to Christians, but it won't affect him in the same way. The message for him is not "here's how you might turn away from God and here's how redemption and forgiveness might follow", it's "here's what Christians think turning away from God would look like". Which is useful knowledge if you have to deal with Christians, but not directly applicable to the reader himself.
Pratchett's message is different. "How do you survive in a world where amoral beings more powerful than you do things for shits and giggles? How do you do the right thing when doing the selfish thing is easier? What even is the right thing?" are questions for which a Christian has easy answers, but an atheist doesn't.
Just like an atheist might fight Lewis interesting and useful, so can a Christian find Pratchett useful. But it's a different impact. "Oh, so that's how they justify doing the right thing! Good thing you can just follow the word of the Lord IRL."
I think it depends on how much you believe people are able to empathize with a mindset different from their own.
An atheist steeped in Christianity because he has an intellectual understanding of it but never believed probably will, as you say, only read it as a description of how Christians think. But an atheist who used to be Christian, especially an atheist who used to be devoutly Christian, will actually remember how it was to think that way. While obviously he's not going to read Lewis as a "direct moral lesson" since he no longer considers turning away from God to be something that requires redemption and forgiveness, he still knows what it is like to feel that way.
I think the same is probably true of atheists who become converts. Your Christian who used to be an atheist knows how an atheist deals with the unfairness of the world and what an atheist thinks about the Problem of Evil and what an atheist thinks is the reason to do good and not evil. And so will probably understand and even feel the satisfaction of Pratchett's lessons even if he thinks Pratchett got it wrong by excluding God.
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Do you think regular normie movie goers know that Narnia and LotR are related to Christianity? I'm curious, because to me this was not obvious at all. It's just fun adventure stories in the cinema.
Narnia, even the heavily secularised film version, is obvious enough that I don't think you could miss it. Even before seeing the film itself, Narnia is famous as a Christian series of children's books, and C. S. Lewis is extremely widely beloved by everyone from Catholics to evangelicals, despite being neither. The first Narnia film was trying to imitate the Jackson LotR and go for mainstream appeal, but by the sequels my impression was that they had realised they were making films for a niche, mostly-Christian audience.
LotR hides it a bit better, especially the films, which tend to strip out Tolkien's ethics in favour of generic fantasy action. It was, of course, Tolkien's intent to be less direct, but in this case the films take out most of the moral worldview, and I'm skeptical much made it through to audiences.
I disagree that the films take out most of the moral worldview. I will grant that it is less obvious than it is in the books, but one of the reasons I think both the books and Jackson's adaptation was so successful was that they successfully capture the essence (or "vibe") of Tolkien's very traditional Catholic worldview and why it might appeal to someone without being "preachy" or in your face about it. Gandalf's conversations with Pippin, Théoden's speech at Helm's Deep, Aragorn at the Black Gates, and the entire character of Samwise Gamgee, are all faithfully represented and carry what I understood to be Tolkien's thesis well.
By rights we shouldn't even be here, but we are... Is a good speech in it's own right but hits even harder in context of having been written by a veteran of the Somme who was looking down the barrel of WWII.
Sean Astin definitely does a good job, though I'll disagree with some of your other examples and characters. In general I think Jackson's films tend to emphasise martial achievement too much, while mis-casting or mis-portraying characters like Aragorn, Gimli, or even Denethor.
For the most part I just don't like the Jackson films, and I feel somewhat vindicated in the Hobbit trilogy, which show the same flaws, only now it seems that the scales have fallen from the audience's eyes and they can see them.
In general I think there's a solid case that the Jackson films are, for the most part, competent Tolkien-inspired action films, but I do not think Tolkien himself would approve, or that they capture much of what he wanted to say. I think they are probably the most overrated films of the 21st century thus far, and there is a lot of competition for that title.
I agree that the absence of both Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire makes Tolkien's commentary on the nature of good and evil much less explicit than it is in the books, and but I have to disagree with the allegations of miscasting or that they didnt capture the core themes of Tolkien's work.
My issue with the Hobbit trilogy is that it is abundantly clear that the studio wanted more LotR movies but the Hobbit is a very different work from Lord of the Rings in both tone and content.
Much of the WTF-ness of the Hobbit trilogy is explained by Del Toro noping out less than a year before the shooting started with the result that Jackson didn't have the preproduction or script finalized by the start date and the problems only got worse for the second and third installments with Jackson essentially having to go "Fuck this, let's just shoot something and hope we can edit it to something coherent".
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There are some castings I really like - Sean Astin's Sam, Christopher Lee's Saruman, and John Rhys-Davies' Gimli all stand out as inspired castings. (I think the films do Gimli dirty, but Rhys-Davies is not the reason why. Fantastic choice.) Sean Bean as Boromir is a good choice as well. Ian McKellen is quite serviceable as Gandalf, and I like Karl Urban's Eomer. Cate Blanchett is a fantastic choice for Galadriel, as is Ian Holm for Bilbo.
Holm brings the role that hapless charm that he also brought to roles like Arthur Dent.Never mind I am a dummy.There are a couple that I also reluctantly acknowledge as good but not to my tastes. Andy Serkis as Gollum is not how I pictured Gollum, or would have played him, but I acknowledge that Serkis knows what he is going for and does it extremely capably. I think that's just a reasonable difference of taste on my part. Miranda Otto's Eowyn is one that I can't quite make up my mind on - it's not how I would have portrayed Eowyn, I think, but I can see what they were going for.
At the same time, there are plenty that I think are bad. Elijah Wood as Frodo and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn are just obviously not up to the role - Wood plays Frodo as a beatific victim and largely nothing else, while Mortensen is completely unable to evoke the majesty or nobility that Aragorn needs to. Orlando Bloom never manages to rise beyond the level of a handsome blank. David Wenham's Faramir and John Noble's Denethor are disappointing as well, which is a shame because I know Wenham has given good performances elsewhere (I liked him in Molokai). Hugo Weaving and Liv Tyler are just bad - the films in general just cannot do elves. Blanchett is probably the only elf role in the films that I have praise for, and even that is dragged down a bit by the temptation scene.
In general, I think the films lean too much into being heroic war films, in the face of Tolkien's reflections on the horror and futility of such things, and the theological substrate of the story is pretty much entirely lacking. I don't mind omitting the Scouring or Tom Bombadil, actually, and some choices like that are necessary, but Jackson generally favours bombast over silence, and inserts fake drama whenever he's getting bored. In the book, Faramir's temptation by the Ring takes only a few seconds; Jackson adds a whole sequence. In the book, Frodo and Sam's travel through Cirith Ungol is unnervingly silent; Jackson adds a whole bit where Sam abandons Frodo.
Meanwhile he also cuts many of the book's quiet moments, such as Aragorn looking out to see the dawn at Helm's Deep, or Sam reflecting on the stars. I feel like Jackson hates quiet, whether it's a chilling or terrifying quiet, as in Cirith Ungol, a tense anticipatory quiet, as at Helm's Deep, or even a consoling, reassuring quiet, as at other times.
Anyway, re-doing LotR as just a war story is arguably viable, but there I think the films are undermined by, well, their war being total nonsense? They are full of logistically impossible movements (the elves at Helm's Deep! why?), or maneuvers that range from the physically impossible and suicidal (the relief charge at Helm's Deep) to the physically-possible-but-stupid (the Rohirrim at the Pelennor). I would be able to just enjoy the fighting more, I think, if the fighting were done well. I can suspend disbelief and ignore dodgy fight or battle choreography if the story and character writing are solid, but here they're not, and also Jackson spends so much time on the battles. Helm's Deep is a relatively short section of The Two Towers as a book, but it's half the film, and the Pelennor is inflated as well. If you're going to blow up the battles and spend so much more time on them, at least do them well?
Liv Tyler / Arwen simply shouldn't have been featured in the films beyond perhaps one short scene in Rivendell and another at the end. Expanding that role was a prominent example of how the film series was completely needlessly hollywoodized.
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I do think that the lack of the Scouring of the Shire is a major weakness in the Peter Jackson adaptations. Yeah it takes time, but it's an essential part of the story. Without that, we never get to see the heroes come home, changed by their adventures in the wider world, finding that their home is a bit smaller than they remembered it being. I definitely think that it should've been in the extended edition of ROTK even if it got cut from the theatrical version.
The biggest weakness, though, was his willingness to flat out ignore Tolkien's story themes in an attempt to drum up cheap drama (as you mentioned). I remember once watching the commentary on The Two Towers, and someone (I think Fran Walsh) said that they had the whole Faramir detour because Tolkien's account of the character undercut the story they were trying to emphasize of how potent the Ring is, and how much of a threat it is. Which, to me, sounds like they missed Tolkien's point entirely. Yes, the Ring is powerful, and yes, it's a threat. But it can be resisted, and there are virtues in the world which are stronger than the temptation that the Ring offers. This is seen most clearly with the Frodo/Sam changes in ROTK: in the book, the Ring tempts Frodo but the deep friendship he and Sam share is enough to overpower the Ring's influence. But in the movie, Jackson had to have a dramatic moment, so he guts one of the major themes of the book in order to gin up conflict. It really rubs me the wrong way.
I have long been of the opinion that, whatever their virtues as movies (and to be fair, I think they are excellent in their own right as movies), the Peter Jackson LOTR movies are pretty flawed adaptations of the source material. It's a real shame, because we are unlikely to ever see better than that, as people consider them definitive. C'est la vie.
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Sorry, was there an other adaptation of the HHGTTG I missed, or did you get Ian Holm confused with Martin Freeman who played Bilbo in the Hobbit movies and Arthur Dent in the recentish hitchhiker movie?
The other role I mainly remember Ian Holm for has him a lot less hapless charm; Ash in Alien.
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Narnia was so blatantly obvious that I got it as a kid. LotR is a more nuanced story, I agree, you have to dig into the lore first to see the references. Maybe it's different if you're raised Anglican.
Well, Tolkien was Catholic, not Anglican...
In general he resisted too obvious readings. He once admitted to a reader (Letter #320), "I think it is true that I owe much of this character [Galadriel] to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary", while clarifying that Galadriel is a penitent rather than direct analogue. Here's a bit more of Tolkien on the subject.
Letter #142:
Letter #213:
That said there are definitely elements of LotR that can be read along other lines. Though it was Tolkien's intent to not depict any positive 'religion' in the text, because he thinks that a metaphor cannot include the very thing that it is a metaphor for within itself and still function, a Protestant or atheist might note that, when it does appear, organised religion in Tolkien's works is always evil. He removed most references from LotR, but in The Tale of Adanel the first demand Morgoth makes of humanity is that they build a temple to worship him:
In the Akallabeth, Sauron also establishes a temple where sacrifices will be offered, which is contrasted with the simple, austere purity of earlier Numenorean worship:
Perhaps two instances are not enough to make a pattern, but one cannot help but notice that in Tolkien's world, the good guys never make temples or churches, and never have priests or monastics or any kinds of religious official. Nor do they even make prayer very often; perhaps the closest example in LotR is Faramir and his rangers taking a moment of silence to face west, towards lost Numenor, before a meal. In general it seems that heroic characters, though very much of aware of their dependence on providence and implicitly trusting in God, do not build mediating institutions. On the contrary, building a temple or establishing a religious hierarchy is an activity seen only among the villains. It is a form of idolatry, born of fear and showing a lack of genuine faith, and which only enslaves them.
Adanel again:
It's easy for a Protestant, especially an evangelical or someone descended from the Radical Reformation, to read this and say, "Aha! Idolatry! Rome!" For that matter one might be tempted to link it to the Temple in Jerusalem, perhaps echoing Jesus' criticisms of the Temple hierarchy. (Or one might take it in a more anti-semitic direction, but I see no need to encourage people like that.)
An author may end up sending messages he never intended, and this is one where I think there is a tension between Tolkien's writing and some of his own life and convictions.
I wonder sometimes about how this applies to Tolkien's very many atheist fans, to the extent of defacements like Palantir and Anduril. I suppose it's not fair to tar atheist fans of Tolkien with those abominations. Those are examples of a culture that simultaneously adores Tolkien's work, at least on the superficial level, while despising his ethics. But an atheist - perhaps indeed like Pratchett - might appreciate Tolkien's work and his ethics even while believing him to be, however understandably, in error about the existence of God or the truth of Catholicism.
The interpretation that seems obvious to me is that Tolkien wrote his fantasy as though it were the ancient history of our world, and being a Christian, he wrote it to be spiritually compatible with the Christian understanding of the spiritual history of our world. The Numenoreans don't build temples because in the early chronology of the Bible, God very explicitly doesn't want a temple, and they don't have churches or hierarchical religion because there's no Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) basis for it at that point in the chronology. Sure, you can make something up, but then if you're actually describing it to the reader, you're implicitly saying "this form of worship/church/Temple/institution that I made up out of whole cloth is totally theologically valid." Tolkien can't roll his own temple or church because he doesn't perceive himself to have the authority to describe such an institution and say, by authorial fiat, that this is a proper form of worship that God finds pleasing; doing that sort of thing is generally perceived to be deeply unchristian by Christians. None of this applies to paganism; it's fine to describe all sorts of fantastical methods of being wrong about God, because from a Christian perspective there's an infinity of false theologies but only one true one.
Here, he's directly copying biblical descriptions of religious practice in era that ends with Abraham and the Patriarchs, which is roughly where these stories would presumably happen. Simple altars in a high place are an apparently-acceptable method of communion with God prior to the Abrahamic Covenant, so it's what he uses as well. The obvious corollaries for the temples of Morgoth and Sauron are Dagon and Baal.
Yes, and that's consistent where, though I see the anti-semitic or at least anti-Judaic reading of an evil deity who demands people make a 'House of the Lord', acknowledge him sole god of the world, and worship only him, I think in context Tolkien is plainly criticising idolatry in a manner consistent with biblical convictions. Morgoth, and later Sauron, set themselves up as false gods, appropriating and perverting the imagery associated with the true god.
I don't think Tolkien's refusal to depict any religion, even primitive religion, was wholly because of his setting being framed as prehistoric Earth. He says directly, in Letter #131, that he thinks that containing 'the Christian religion' is 'fatal' to a fairy-story. This was the reason for his dislike of Arthurian legend.
That said I do also think he has a paradox in his First Age writings that he never quite resolved, which is that, quite apart from being Christian or even Catholic works, Tolkien was also heavily inspired by what he called 'Northern' myth. Turin is a Germanic hero, and his story occurs in the atmosphere of Germanic or Anglo-Saxon (or to a lesser extent Scandinavian) mythology. That means, for instance, things like Fate or Doom as powerful forces in the text. These are, for lack of a better term, 'religious' concepts. Tolkien's chronology does not allow for Christian or Jewish characters - the closest he comes is a sort of ethical monotheism. However, it would allow for pagans, but he does not allow himself to have pagan protagonists, even when the whole story he's writing is derivative of a fatalistic pagan spirituality.
To an extent Lewis has a similar issue, except that Lewis is more of a classicist and his great pagan loves are Greek. Even so Lewis allows himself to speak about Christianity and our world's religions more explicitly, so he does a bit more explicit work in trying to find points of harmony.
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Some good ones here. Thanks for compiling these, as always.
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Yay, another QC. Not exactly a QC, in my opinion, but I'll take it.
For some reason I always find them kind of indicting. Like, I knew it was gonna get put up as an example, so probably I had some kind of responsibility to try harder.
But there's a balance. A three-quarters-assed post which actually gets posted is better than a whole-assed post that never does.
Ultimately one never knows what will have value to others and one of the cool things about our system here is that we let the readers decide what mattered to them, plus a sensible layer of admin oversight.
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