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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38227 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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The scriptwriters for episode four (apparently it's Stephany Folsom and J. D. Payne & Patrick McKay, yes our boys again) are introducing the reasons the Númenoreans don't like Elves. And - wait for it - it's because "they're going to take our jobs!". No, I swear, this is actually it.

I just watched it and had a different reading. That line about jobs was one part of the speech, but the broader polemic was much more racialized. The Númenoreans are depicted as racially jealous of the Elves, and this jealously has inspired disloyalty to and suspicion the elves. Furthermore it is heavily foreshadowed that disloyalty to the elves is displeasing to the gods (Valar) and is going to lead to the downfall of the Númenoreans.

I don't think you're giving the writers enough credit, they are smarter than you think. The general theme seems to be anti-racist, but anti-racist in a way that is fairly close to Tolkein's interpretation of his work as you described it. That theme is "racial jealously leads to non-cooperation with more gifted races, which leads to the downfall of the ethnocentric empire." That could be read in multiple ways.

Númenór is Hellenized in the show. Its downfall could harken to the downfall of Old Europe, which was destroyed in Tolkein's day because of its suspicion of the "gifted people" as Tolkein called them. It could also be a warning against anti-racism itself, for drumming up struggle against those more gifted in a way that's self-destructive. In any case, the messaging is more esoteric than criticisms of rote populism.

The general theme seems to be anti-racist

No, it's the Hollywood Liberal Woke Oscars notion of anti-racist. EDIT: I will give them this, they had a nicely multi-cultural all skin tones Númenorean crowd chanting a racist epithet. Progress!

Of course the Númenoreans are jealous of the Elves, that's part of the story. But a line about "The Elves are coming to take our trades"? Elf workers who don't age, sleep or tire? That's a dumb line to include, even if it's all a set-up to let Pharazon slide in with his "Númenor for Númenoreans" speech.

If Taemar (that seems to be the guy's name) is going to rile the crowd up over 'coming over here for our jobs', then he's got Halbrand as his A1 example: a Southlander, a Low Man (and did they swipe that out of Stephen King?) who is right now in jail for stealing Taemar's guild badge in an effort to get into a forge so he could do smithcraft. If he wants to rile them up about the Elves, he's got Galadriel and her "everyone jump when I say so" attitude. The Elves coming over to influence the Queen-Regent, acting as though they are the natural lords and masters of Númenor (and Galadriel didn't help when she said that line in the court about how the Númenoreans owe their island to the Elves) and persuading her to import cheap labour from the Men of Middle-earth - yeah, you could do that.

But Elves as cheap labour replacing the honest working men and women of Númenor? That's not anything at all in Tolkien, and it's not anti-racist in the sense you want it to mean, since Galadriel and every other Elf is white (except Arondir, and he's got white guys being racist to him back at home so that's covered). The writers aren't smart, this is just "hur hur see what we did there, this is MAGA country". Even favourable reviews think the dialogue is clunky.

Tolkein's interpretation of his work as you described it. That theme is "racial jealousy leads to non-cooperation with more gifted races, which leads to the downfall of the ethnocentric empire."

No, Tolkien's theme as he explicitly stated it was:

But they 'fell' again – because of a Ban or prohibition, inevitably. They were forbidden to sail west beyond their own land because they were not allowed to be or try to be 'immortal'; and in this myth the Blessed Realm is represented as still having an actual physical existence as a region of the real world, one which they could have reached by ship, being very great mariners. While obedient, people from the Blessed Realm often visited them, and so their knowledge and arts reached almost an Elvish height.

But the proximity of the Blessed Realm, the very length of their life-span given as a reward, and the increasing delight of life, made them begin to hanker after 'immortality'. They did not break the ban but they begrudged it. And forced east they turned from beneficence in their appearances on the coasts of Middle-earth, to pride, desire of power and wealth. So they came into conflict with Sauron, the lieutenant of the Prime Dark Lord, who had fallen back into evil and was claiming both kingship and godship over Men of Middle-earth. It was on the kingship question that Ar-pharazôn the 13th and mightiest King of Númenor challenged him primarily. His armada that took haven at Umbar was so great, and the Númenóreans at their height so terrible and resplendent, that Sauron's servants deserted him.

So Sauron had recourse to guile. He submitted, and was carried off to Númenor as a prisoner-hostage. But he was of course a 'divine' person (in the terms of this mythology; a lesser member of the race of Valar) and thus far too powerful to be controlled in this way. He steadily got Arpharazôn's mind under his own control, and in the event corrupted many of the Númenóreans, destroyed the conception of Eru, now represented as a mere figment of the Valar or Lords of the West (a fictitious sanction to which they appealed if anyone questioned their rulings), and substituted a Satanist religion with a large temple, the worship of the dispossessed eldest of the Valar (the rebellious Dark Lord of the First Age). He finally induces Arpharazôn, frightened by the approach of old age, to make the greatest of all armadas, and go up with war against the Blessed Realm itself, and wrest it and its 'immortality' into his own hands.

The Valar had no real answer to this monstrous rebellion — for the Children of God were not under their ultimate jurisdiction: they were not allowed to destroy them, or coerce them with any 'divine' display of the powers they held over the physical world. They appealed to God; and a catastrophic 'change of plan' occurred. At the moment that Arpharazôn set foot on the forbidden shore, a rift appeared: Númenor foundered and was utterly overwhelmed; the armada was swallowed up; and the Blessed Realm removed for ever from the circles of the physical world. Thereafter one could sail right round the world and never find it.

This is not anything as simple as "racial jealousy" and not having learned to play nicely together, this is an attempt to change by force the very nature of Mankind which they cannot do, since it is impossible, but the pride and arrogance of Númenor is now so great, and the minds of its people so corrupted by Sauron, that they think they can seize the land of the gods and become gods themselves.

Kadô Zigûrun zabathân unakkha

Êruhînim dubdam ugru-dalad

Ar-Pharazônun azaggara Avalôiyada

Bârim an-Adûn yurahtam dâira sâibêth-mâ Êruvô

azrîya du-phursâ akhâsada...

Anadûnê zîrân hikallaba...

Bawîba dulgî...

balîk hazad an-Nimruzîr azûlada

Agannâlô burôda nênud ...

zâira nênud

adûn izindi batân tâidô ayadda: îdô kâtha batîna lôkhî

Êphalak îdôn Yôzâyan

Êphal êphalak îdôn hi-Akallabêth

The writers aren't smart, this is just "hur hur see what we did there, this is MAGA country".

...

He steadily got Arpharazôn's mind under his own control, and in the event corrupted many of the Númenóreans, destroyed the conception of Eru, now represented as a mere figment of the Valar or Lords of the West (a fictitious sanction to which they appealed if anyone questioned their rulings), and substituted a Satanist religion with a large temple, the worship of the dispossessed eldest of the Valar (the rebellious Dark Lord of the First Age). He finally induces Arpharazôn, frightened by the approach of old age, to make the greatest of all armadas, and go up with war against the Blessed Realm itself, and wrest it and its 'immortality' into his own hands.

Does this mean that Sauron will be Steve Bannon?

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