23. Hella Problematic in So Many Ways.
02/08/21 • 56 min
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: Orcs. While not the only ‘bad guys’ in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s wider mythology by a long shot, they’re generally the most common, appearing in everything from the earliest versions of the Book of Lost Tales to the final years of his reconsiderations and potential revisions. But ultimately the Orcs themselves may also be the most mysterious, their exact origins and place in Tolkien’s wider cosmology unclear, their own culpability potentially up for question in the face of manipulation and lies at the hands of Morgoth, Sauron and their lieutenants, even as they cut literal swathes through green growing grasses and commit horrific acts of violence among other species as much as themselves. What actually does life itself mean in Middle-earth when Tolkien himself couldn’t square away who or what the Orcs were exactly? How does Tolkien’s own unsureness of the Orcs’ origins reflect upon demonizations of the ‘other’ in wider human history, especially given the unsettling implications that Orc genocide can be a solution? How best to address the unavoidably racist elements in the descriptions of the Orcs that Tolkien himself admits to within the scope of his wider themes, and how can they be envisioned in art and film? In what ways did Tolkien’s military experiences shape how the Orcs are often portrayed, and how does that signal ways in which he felt that being an Orc might be less intrinsic and more something created by circumstances? And why do Orcs sound a little like Cockneys, sort of?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. We love the little hat.
The Amazon synopsis! And it tells us...almost nothing that we didn’t already know!
Tolkien Gateway’s Orcs entry gives you the basics...but the basics themselves can and do shift.
Our episode on death, in contrast to this wider meditation here on life.
Morgoth’s Ring does have a lot of Tolkien’s later thoughts on Orcs and more. Relatedly, hröa and fëa are important topics here.
You can guess what we think about QAnon. We hope for the best for the misled.
The scene with the dead Haradrim soldier is justly famed, in whatever version.
Aphantasia, as Oriana mentions having.
Tolkien’s letter #210 from the published collection is his response to the proposed Morton Zimmerman script.
Porcs! They’re apparently coming back?
The concept of the Yellow Peril is one of the most pernicious things in human history—and that’s saying something. Fu Manchu is just one small outgrowth.
Totalitarianism in Middle-earth is a rich vein of study—and Tolkien clearly hated it in our world.
Tolkien’s Father Christmas goblins—presumably not like Orcs, but you never know.
You might be familiar with the 1984 film Gremlins. (Ned still remembers the ads.)
Oriana’s conlang piece in Vox (updated from when we last referred to it!). David J. Peterson was who Oriana was referring to.
Pompeii’s graffiti! Ah the glory that was Rome et al.
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: Orcs. While not the only ‘bad guys’ in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s wider mythology by a long shot, they’re generally the most common, appearing in everything from the earliest versions of the Book of Lost Tales to the final years of his reconsiderations and potential revisions. But ultimately the Orcs themselves may also be the most mysterious, their exact origins and place in Tolkien’s wider cosmology unclear, their own culpability potentially up for question in the face of manipulation and lies at the hands of Morgoth, Sauron and their lieutenants, even as they cut literal swathes through green growing grasses and commit horrific acts of violence among other species as much as themselves. What actually does life itself mean in Middle-earth when Tolkien himself couldn’t square away who or what the Orcs were exactly? How does Tolkien’s own unsureness of the Orcs’ origins reflect upon demonizations of the ‘other’ in wider human history, especially given the unsettling implications that Orc genocide can be a solution? How best to address the unavoidably racist elements in the descriptions of the Orcs that Tolkien himself admits to within the scope of his wider themes, and how can they be envisioned in art and film? In what ways did Tolkien’s military experiences shape how the Orcs are often portrayed, and how does that signal ways in which he felt that being an Orc might be less intrinsic and more something created by circumstances? And why do Orcs sound a little like Cockneys, sort of?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. We love the little hat.
The Amazon synopsis! And it tells us...almost nothing that we didn’t already know!
Tolkien Gateway’s Orcs entry gives you the basics...but the basics themselves can and do shift.
Our episode on death, in contrast to this wider meditation here on life.
Morgoth’s Ring does have a lot of Tolkien’s later thoughts on Orcs and more. Relatedly, hröa and fëa are important topics here.
You can guess what we think about QAnon. We hope for the best for the misled.
The scene with the dead Haradrim soldier is justly famed, in whatever version.
Aphantasia, as Oriana mentions having.
Tolkien’s letter #210 from the published collection is his response to the proposed Morton Zimmerman script.
Porcs! They’re apparently coming back?
The concept of the Yellow Peril is one of the most pernicious things in human history—and that’s saying something. Fu Manchu is just one small outgrowth.
Totalitarianism in Middle-earth is a rich vein of study—and Tolkien clearly hated it in our world.
Tolkien’s Father Christmas goblins—presumably not like Orcs, but you never know.
You might be familiar with the 1984 film Gremlins. (Ned still remembers the ads.)
Oriana’s conlang piece in Vox (updated from when we last referred to it!). David J. Peterson was who Oriana was referring to.
Pompeii’s graffiti! Ah the glory that was Rome et al.
Previous Episode
22. Not Just Because I Like Cooking and Eating!
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Ned’s choice of topic: Smith of Wootton Major. A short non-Middle-Earth novella published in 1967 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, Smith is a kind of a fairy tale literally about Faery, a realm which only certain people can visit. Smith, indeed a blacksmith from a sort-of medieval English town called Wootton Major, is one of those people, having received a magical silver star in his youth as part of a major ceremony based around the town’s Great Hall and its function as a place for fabulous feasts. But while Smith alternates his adult life between work, home and hearth and the visits to Faery he is able now to do, eventually there comes a time when he needs to face the necessary decision to surrender the star for a newer generation. Inspired by his unfinished preface about George MacDonald’s “The Golden Key,” Smith was the last work Tolkien published in his lifetime, a quietly entrancing story about artistry, time and the power of imagination. What do the many then-unpublished papers and background material about the story which emerged in later years say both about Smith itself and Tolkien’s work as a whole? What does the function of religion—or rather, how it is not directly portrayed in the story at all—have in both the story and in Tolkien’s argument for how it should be interpreted? What are the potential touchstones for his portrayal of the realm of Faery and the Elves who live there, who are in many ways very different from his Middle-earth Elves? And what makes the Master Cook Nokes such a satisfying antagonist—but not, as the story itself is at pains to note, an irredeemable villain?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle, a lovely invocation of a key moment in the story.
Try a medieval goose recipe as you choose!
One of the many reports on the newly announced cast members for the Amazon production. TheOneRing.Net did a bunch of individual profiles but you’ll have to dig through a bit for those.
The Independent’s report on the apparent wrapping up of season 1.
Smith of Wootton Major! Again, if you want the fullest version of the story and its background, look for Verlyn Flieger’s edition.
More on George MacDonald, as well as the text of “The Golden Key.”
Our Farmer Giles of Ham episode.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is well worth your time. And once again, we’re all major LeGuin fans here.
The Spielberg film in question is Always.
Protestant work ethics, Catholic guilt complexes, they’re things!
We’ve mentioned the Kalevala before but just to link again.
Blackfriars in Oxford.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At the Earth’s Core is of course dated nonsense. But it’s there.
Tolkien and Lewis, we all know the story. But if you don’t.
Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.
Next Episode
24. Radagast is Scrappy-Doo!
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Jared’s choice of topic: the Istari. Also known as the Five Wizards, the cohort of Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, and the two mysterious Blue Wizards, these beings are superficially some of the most easily understandable characters in Tolkien’s mythology: old men who know magic and can cast spells, very much in a long standing mythological and folktale tradition. But while Gandalf may have made his debut in The Hobbit as just such a character, over time, as with so many other elements in his work, Tolkien deepened his background and that of his wizardly brethren in ways that still weren’t fully developed by his passing, ultimately leaving as many questions as answers. What’s suggestive about the two alternate possibilities of the fates of the Istari in Middle-earth—that they mostly failed, or that they mostly succeeded? What elements of Catholic theology are touched on in the conception of the Istari as incarnated spirits from Valinor in Middle-earth? How did Tolkien address what this was meant to represent in terms of what the Valar and Maiar had learned over time? Is it possible that Tolkien contrasted the methods of lore and knowledge Gandalf and Saruman favored in a way that had a personal relevance to his own work and life experience? And just how wonderfully human—if that’s the best comparison—is Gandalf in particular in his deeply down-to-earth ways throughout the major works?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. Who knows what, in the end, the Blue Wizards were up to elsewhere in Middle-earth?
Yup, it’s been a year. Stay well everyone.
No Amazon series news but you can read Oriana’s argument about what it should include.
Tolkien Gateway’s summary entry on the wizards of Middle-earth.
There’s plenty of discussion of how the Istari are essentially angels on Middle-earth - this article addresses it from a specifically Catholic perspective, and that’s just one of many.
Letter 156 from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien features a discussion in more detail on what Gandalf was, specifically.
“Of Aulë and Yavanna” is a whole chapter of The Silmarillion for a reason.
To say there’s a lot of writing on ‘classic’ wizards in world literature and mythology is an understatement. Here’s one example.
And indeed, modern wizards in other media: Harry Potter! The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! The Sword in the Stone! Star Wars! Dragonslayer! (That does count.)
Gandalf’s letter to Frodo is such a fun-yet-important element.
Linked it before but Lindsay Ellis really did call it.
The figure on the edge of Fangorn remains a subject of debate...
Have a laugh with our Silver Call Duology episode!
Support By-The-Bywater: A Tolkien Podcast on Patreon along with all the other fine Megaphonic shows. (And thank you if you do!)
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