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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38205 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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Right now, you all are probably sick to the back teeth of the discussion about Amazon's "Rings of Power", but I have to talk about this or I'll explode.

I haven't seen episode four yet, it's upcoming over here but it has aired in the US. I looked up some reviews (to see what is safe to skip if I watch this, because there's a lot of filler and not much plot in the episodes as yet) and I couldn't believe what the first one said, so I looked for a second one and yep, it's true.

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.

Yes, ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who aren't too sure, a direct immigration reference. So I suppose I should take it that Pharazon is Donald Trump surfing to power on a wave of Númenorean populism which is racist and fascists, and Tar-Míriel is Hillary Clinton who is the true Queen from whom he usurps her power.

This episode, by the bye, is called "The Great Wave" because of the nightmare Tar-Míriel has about the great wave coming in to destroy Númenor, and by now it can't come fast enough for me. Excuse me while I run around screaming as though my hair is on fire, because I feel like it.

These - look, I don't want to be insulting about Mormons, but good Lord is it very, very hard to resist dropping one of the "m"s there - blond denizens of the Mountain West have not got one scrap of imagination above the banal. They cannot grapple with the deeper themes of death and immortality that Tolkien wrote into his work. Everything has to be something snatched from American political slogans. The Númenoreans don't envy and hate the Elves for the immortality they cannot have for themselves, it's because dey took er jerbs.

Let's go back to the source, shall we? From a very long and detailed letter of 1951:

The Downfall is partly the result of an inner weakness in Men – consequent, if you will, upon the first Fall (unrecorded in these tales), repented but not finally healed. Reward on earth is more dangerous for men than punishment! The Fall is achieved by the cunning of Sauron in exploiting this weakness. Its central theme is (inevitably, I think, in a story of Men) a Ban, or Prohibition.

The Númenóreans dwell within far sight of the easternmost 'immortal' land, Eressea; and as the only men to speak an Elvish tongue (learned in the days of their Alliance) they are in constant communication with their ancient friends and allies, either in the bliss of Eressea, or in the kingdom of Gilgalad on the shores of Middle-earth. They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves – but they remained mortal, even though rewarded by a triple, or more than a triple, span of years. Their reward is their undoing – or the means of their temptation. Their long life aids their achievements in art and wisdom, but breeds a possessive attitude to these things, and desire awakes for more time for their enjoyment. Foreseeing this in part, the gods laid a Ban on the Númenóreans from the beginning: they must never sail to Eressëa, nor westward out of sight of their own land. In all other directions they could go as they would. They must not set foot on 'immortal' lands, and so become enamoured of an immortality (within the world), which was against their law, the special doom or gift of Ilúvatar (God), and which their nature could not in fact endure.

There are three phases in their fall from grace. First acquiescence, obedience that is free and willing, though without complete understanding. Then for long they obey unwillingly, murmuring more and more openly. Finally they rebel – and a rift appears between the King's men and rebels, and the small minority of persecuted Faithful.

...In the second stage, the days of Pride and Glory and grudging of the Ban, they begin to seek wealth rather than bliss. The desire to escape death produced a cult of the dead, and they lavished wealth and art on tombs and memorials. They now made settlements on the west-shores, but these became rather strongholds and 'factories' of lords seeking wealth, and the Númenóreans became tax-gatherers carrying off over the sea ever more and more goods in their great ships. The Númenóreans began the forging of arms and engines.

From a letter of 1956:

The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.

I don't know if swearing is allowed in our new realm of liberty and justice for all, but how the fuck do you, self-proclaimed huge Tolkien fans, read the above and come away with "Got it, the rebellion in Númenor was all about demagogues stoking fear of immigrant labour taking native jobs"????

I love the idea of thousandyear old elves doing menial manual labor for low wages for the purpose of...sending the wages back to Valinor??

It makes absolutely no effin' sense at all. This rabble-rouser (who the show sets up is probably in cahoots with Pharazon to push a populist agenda and oust the Queen, and honestly that's about the most subtle and developed the show gets in how it does it - just shows Pharazon and Rabble-rouser exchanging Significant Glances after Pharazon takes the opportunity to come in and calm things down with a 'reassuring' speech about "Númenor belongs only to Men and we'll keep it that way", then calls for drinks all round and servants with trays of drinks come out and hand around glasses of wine to everyone, so clearly this was all set up in advance) was one of the blacksmiths' guild who got into a punch-up with Halbrand (currently languishing in jail) because Halbrand wanted to starting smithing something, was told he couldn't get into a forge without the guild badge, and stole the badge from Rabble-rouser, hence the punch-up.

So it would make more sense for Rabble-rouser to try and stir up the people of Armenelos about "bringing in Men from Middle-earth to replace us skilled workers" and recount the story of how Halbrand tried to set up as a smith and stole the guild badge, but no. The showrunners (and since they co-wrote the script, if not the greater part of it, I am laying the blame squarely on Payne and McKay) remembered the bit about the King's Men falling out with the Elves, but couldn't work out how to simply transcribe what Tolkien wrote. So they take something out of 2016 presidential election (and maybe, with all the Democrat speechifying still obsessing over Trump, what is current) and give us "Pharazon is setting himself up as head of a populist movement which is racist fascist anti-immigrant just like Donald Trump and MAGA".

Somebody in a comment on Youtube said they expected Pharazon to wear a red hat next, and that is what made me notice that in Pharazon's speech about "Númenor for Númenoreans", he is wearing a red cloak around his blue robes. Subtle!

It is So. Goddamn. Stupid. I'm not quite at the point of clawing at my face, but it's a near thing. As you say - why the hell are Elves going to come in and do this kind of "dey took er jerbs" work? If they want, they can trade with Númenor for high-quality products. If the Elves want, they can push on and colonise all of Middle-earth, because the Men still remaining there are in no position to resist them. There is no reason for them to try and migrate to Númenor to take over as cheap labour.

It's like the only thing the showrunners can understand is "King's Men = populist movement, populist movement = MAGA". I don't know if it's Hollywood Liberal brain rot or what, but it is NOT TOLKIEN.

The Númenoreans were long-lived, prosperous, and as time went by, they wanted to live longer and longer to enjoy their fortunate lives. They saw that Elves were immortal, and gradually they envied them, and fell out of friendship with them, and turned in on themselves and starting tyrannising the lesser Men of Middle-earth, setting up a mini-empire there. Their greatest point of power and achievement was also the point of greatest decadence, and they were seduced and betrayed by Sauron due to their pride, envy, and arrogance.

They did not try to invade Valinor because they were afraid of hordes of tireless, unsleeping Elves who could work day and night manufacturing products to undercut Númenorean wages.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is replacing mithril with cheap chrome plate that peels off in no time, the way they are replacing the themes Tolkien set out with their own themes. Bezos got taken for a ride with this production and while I don't regret him getting bilked out of a fortune, I do bitterly regret what they are doing to the work.

They managed to confuse Tolkien's Elves with Santa's Elves.

So not alone will they take the Númenorean jobs, they will then go on to do the most evil of all evil actions....

UNIONISE!!!!! 🤣

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