I'm not sure it needs to be that complicated. The palantir is a technology that with proper safeguards could be used to help people, but instead it was subverted for evil purposes. That's more or...
I'm not sure it needs to be that complicated. The palantir is a technology that with proper safeguards could be used to help people, but instead it was subverted for evil purposes. That's more or less what Palantir the company is.
I do think the strong man concept is a good way to understand the right, especially the religious right, but tying that into fantasy in general and Tolkein in particular doesn't seem very apt to me.
I also think it's funny to try to link fantasy and the right given how much queer and feminist literature is SF or fantasy.
I agree that it is probably simpler than it seems. I've always thought part of the appeal to conservatives stemmed from the fact that the "golden age" SF and fantasy writers were all white men, so...
I agree that it is probably simpler than it seems.
I've always thought part of the appeal to conservatives stemmed from the fact that the "golden age" SF and fantasy writers were all white men, so there's a bit of MAGA "take us back to the good ol' days" thing going on.
In addition, the GOP and right wing punduntry has more and more incorporated Nazi and racist techniques in to their every day rhetorical playbook. One of the things that Neo-Nazis absolutely love to do is co-opt "normal" things for their own use, then when someone points out that the thing is racist, they can say "No it's not!" and laugh behind their hands about it. Their subversion of the "OK" sign is a perfect example. They can take the idea of SF and fantasy which, as you stated, has become a safe space for cultural outsiders to do their thing, and instead they can just ignore all that and pollute it with their ideology by just associating with it. Overtime, they move the window and get what they wanted, which was to push the others out of the space.
They must love Heinlein. It makes me sad they follow on Tolkien so much, pretty sure the man himself would be horrified. To give them maximum benefit of the doubt, though, LotR is pretty male...
They must love Heinlein.
It makes me sad they follow on Tolkien so much, pretty sure the man himself would be horrified. To give them maximum benefit of the doubt, though, LotR is pretty male forward and not hard to interpret in a racist light. It is, however, very hard to to read a fascist or authoritarian message in it. And it is easy to read a very Earth First agrarian focus in it, it's also fairly anti-capitalist and strongly opposed to exploitation of resources.
I'm not sure what the golden age of SciFi is, but yes, classic works from the 50s to the 90s and maybe beyond is very male oriented and borderline mysognist for much of it. Even Le Guin and L'Engle had primarily male protagonists. See also sword and sorcery flicks, although Conan had a very ass-kicking women, and there's Red Sonja.
The actual Nazis tried to solicit Tolkien to publish his works - if he affirmed he has no Jewish heritage - and while he was regretful that he had no Jewish ancestors, he declined their "offer"...
The actual Nazis tried to solicit Tolkien to publish his works - if he affirmed he has no Jewish heritage - and while he was regretful that he had no Jewish ancestors, he declined their "offer" vigorously.
I think it's unfortunately easy to miss the "message" of the books while paying attention to the good vs evil narrative, especially if you lean hard into the dark vs light and create a racist narrative in your mind. (There's space to criticize Tolkien here but his intent does not seem to have been to create that message)
But I'll challenge L'Engle - both her Kairos and Chronos series featured female protagonists about equally IIRC, with Meg leading two, and kything while Charles Wallace travels in the third book, Sandy and Dennys lead the fourth and Polyhymneia in the fifth.
I'd have to go look through all five of the Chronos ones to be completely sure
They can't have it. What will be taken over next - nodding? Thumbs up? We normies can't let potentially dangerous weirdos to just co-opt gestures that are broadly used and understood.
They can't have it. What will be taken over next - nodding? Thumbs up? We normies can't let potentially dangerous weirdos to just co-opt gestures that are broadly used and understood.
You can still gesture OK, but gesturing exactly like they do will get you confused for a white supremacist/racist troll. It's never really a confusion about the intent given the context. "They...
You can still gesture OK, but gesturing exactly like they do will get you confused for a white supremacist/racist troll. It's never really a confusion about the intent given the context.
"They can't have it" just implies not understanding how a particular hate symbol is used. It's like saying "they can't have" the number 88. They do have it already. Other people still use the number but nothing about that regular use "takes back" the number 88, removes the hateful symbolism, etc. Users with 88 in their username will probably always get more scrutiny.
Similarly if you're flashing the "OK" sign turned WP sign in a photo, typically down at your side or against your leg, especially with all white people, especially as part of certain groups, you're gonna get scrutiny, and that means the "game" where you punch people for making them look suffers. But there's no amount of using OK hand signs that will "take back" the sign.
I mean, something like the number "88" has no particular significance to a normal person, right? So that's a very different case. So, in practise, when you're asking how precisely I would "stop"...
I mean, something like the number "88" has no particular significance to a normal person, right? So that's a very different case. So, in practise, when you're asking how precisely I would "stop" the takeover of innocent actions/words/symbols etc. is to continue using them in their innocent form.
How about something like "queer"? That began to be applied as an insult in (Wikipedia says) the 19th century. Today, that word has been reclaimed. In this case, I think the word got taken over in a way that I'm happy about. I would try and do the same for this kind of symbol (the "ok" one).
So I think we just disagree on "But there's no amount of using OK hand signs that will "take back" the sign." That's fine, I'm happy that people who are ultimately on the same side as I am are fighting hard in their own way to keep on top of and counteract some of this present-day right-wing malice.
88 is a lot of people's birth year, hence why it is/was in their internet handle. Those folks can keep using it, but will still face scrutiny. Queer is also still used as an insult, but the people...
88 is a lot of people's birth year, hence why it is/was in their internet handle. Those folks can keep using it, but will still face scrutiny.
Queer is also still used as an insult, but the people being insulted by it are the ones that reclaimed it and no one could stop it from becoming the insult. I can tell when it's said whether it's an insult or not. Even reclamation doesn't eliminate its abuse.
I'm not sure how precisely you "take back" the specific hand gesture - an upside down OK sign - that people weren't frequently making before it was adopted by the white supremacists.
It's not like "queer" where non-white people (those targeted by its use) are trying to "reclaim" it, because it wasn't something they used in the first place. The only time that specific gesture was used IME was as a "punch people for looking at it game" and since I'm not the right combination of gender and immaturity for that game I'm uninterested in that particular "reclamation". The OK symbol upright in the air is still fine, never stopped being fine.
So how do you re claim this specific hand sign? Or take it away from the white supremacists? That just isn't how it works.
Ha, I hadn't realised it was upside down! Personally, that use of the OK sign wouldn't even register as an OK sign. Having, therefore, no inherent meaning to me, I'm not interested in trying to...
I'm not sure how precisely you "take back" the specific hand gesture - an upside down OK sign - that people weren't frequently making before it was adopted by the white supremacists.
Ha, I hadn't realised it was upside down! Personally, that use of the OK sign wouldn't even register as an OK sign. Having, therefore, no inherent meaning to me, I'm not interested in trying to reclaim it - any more than I am interested in reclaiming 88 or the myriad other numbers that are used to openly/discreetly signal membership/support for certain in/out-group structures.
Anyway, re. specifically your point "That just isn't how it works." - we disagree. I believe that IS how it works. You think that it isn't.
As I said earlier, I think you didn't understand how it was used. And I think this sort of proves that you're not even sure what hand symbol you're talking about. I've described it multiple times...
"They can't have it" just implies not understanding how a particular hate symbol is used
As I said earlier, I think you didn't understand how it was used. And I think this sort of proves that you're not even sure what hand symbol you're talking about. I've described it multiple times so I'm not sure you're even fully reading my posts, but I'd encourage you to look up the thing you're talking about if you have uncertainty.
I could no more take the hand sign from the white supremacists than I could take a hand sign from a Divine 9 sorority or fraternity. Because hand signs are context specific and are already refused outside specific context and because reclamation has to come from those targeted by something. An "in group" signal like a hand sign is not a slur.
Which is why I said this isn't how this works and that it demonstrates a lack of understanding. You can disagree but personally I feel my point was proven on both counts.
NotFae, I don't think this person is trying to prove or disprove anything. They sound well-intentioned, and you seem irritated. You did describe the hand sign as typically upside down and below...
NotFae, I don't think this person is trying to prove or disprove anything. They sound well-intentioned, and you seem irritated. You did describe the hand sign as typically upside down and below the belt, but I don't see multiple descriptions. It's possible that I'm missing something, but it's possible the person you're replying to is also innocently missing something. If you're aggro, it might be good to dial down the aggro. If not, my apologies, but it did come off that way.
Eta: can we not upvote me? Kind of a side conversation.
I'm not aggro, nor even frustrated really, maybe annoyed but like in a "yeah that's basically what I said" sort of way? Perhaps "vexed." I described it in two posts, it was the second that led to...
NotFae, I don't think this person is trying to prove or disprove anything. They sound well-intentioned, and you seem irritated. You did describe the hand sign as typically upside down and below the belt, but I don't see multiple descriptions. It's possible that I'm missing something, but it's possible the person you're replying to is also innocently missing something. If you're aggro, it might be good to dial down the aggro. If not, my apologies, but it did come off that way.
I'm not aggro, nor even frustrated really, maybe annoyed but like in a "yeah that's basically what I said" sort of way? Perhaps "vexed."
I described it in two posts, it was the second that led to the revelation. (Holding the symbol against one's leg necessarily puts it upside down though I know not everyone thinks spatially) But the person I'm engaging with was the one insisting on "not letting them have" that sign in the first place, suggesting they were familiar with it. They can disagree with me about how reclamation works, but I do find my initial statement "proven" in less of a "I'm trying prove it" and more of a "borne out by how this conversation has unfolded" way. If we don't understand the starting point, what are we doing five posts in? I feel my statement was accurate and demonstrated by the conversation, I wasn't actually trying to prove my initial statement.
I also suggested that the person look up the thing they're explicitly talking about if they aren't certain about it, a thing I do myself all the time. I was direct, but not IMO, aggressive or across a line. I tend towards that directness to avoid confusion. My apologies for the "proven" to have ended up in that confusing realm regardless of my attempts. I hope the clarity helps.
I upvoted you (prior to your edit) myself, you're fine. I'm good with my words, and good with our convo, and I'd say the same things directly to the previous poster. I feel fine about all of it.
I upvoted you (prior to your edit) myself, you're fine.
I'm good with my words, and good with our convo, and I'd say the same things directly to the previous poster. I feel fine about all of it.
Ok, it doesn't look like we're finding common ground. I think your insistence that I'm not understanding you and/or not engaging with you in good faith is insulting and not conducive to a...
Ok, it doesn't look like we're finding common ground. I think your insistence that I'm not understanding you and/or not engaging with you in good faith is insulting and not conducive to a respectful exchange of ideas and/or opinions, so I won't be continuing this discussion.
I never accused you of not engaging in good faith, I expressed uncertainty of whether you were fully reading what I was saying since you expressed only understanding the hand symbol we were...
I never accused you of not engaging in good faith, I expressed uncertainty of whether you were fully reading what I was saying since you expressed only understanding the hand symbol we were talking about until multiple posts deep.
I am sorry if that came off as an insult rather than what it is, a frustration that we circled on the discussion. As I said to another poster, I am being direct and intentional, but not angry or aggressive. I do not agree with you, and I don't feel my posts were being understood, for whatever reason.
I wanted to provide that clarity on my perspective, no response is obligated nor expected based on your desire to disengage.
Love running into Malazan fans! My favorite series by far, and wholly written about compassion and understanding. This is very true, but if the idea is to control the narrative, as they say, then...
They'll never take my Malazan books D:
Love running into Malazan fans! My favorite series by far, and wholly written about compassion and understanding.
That's the benefit of books though, it's written down. It won't change because someone wants it to.
This is very true, but if the idea is to control the narrative, as they say, then just pushing yourself in from the outside and claiming things that aren't true is enough to keep people who aren't so entrenched in the fandom to know any better and to start to associate SF/fantasy with the bad people. Again, racists aren't here to try to move anything forward or make anything at all really, they just want to control and own things.
Chapter 7 is rather famous for being a harrowing chapter that never seems to let up or let you off the hook. Even within the big 10, Bonehunters chapter 7 has renown.
Chapter 7 is rather famous for being a harrowing chapter that never seems to let up or let you off the hook.
Even within the big 10, Bonehunters chapter 7 has renown.
Listening to the audiobook, I'm not terribly sure what happens when. That said, the slog beneath the burning city was awfully trying. Perhaps that's the one.
Listening to the audiobook, I'm not terribly sure what happens when. That said, the slog beneath the burning city was awfully trying. Perhaps that's the one.
Bingpot! I heard the siege of Y'Ghatan is well narrated in the audiobook but is a different experience than reading it (not worse, just different). Erikson is well known for providing a lot of...
Bingpot! I heard the siege of Y'Ghatan is well narrated in the audiobook but is a different experience than reading it (not worse, just different).
Erikson is well known for providing a lot of POVs or shorter segments within chapters to give the reader a breather within emotionally heavier segments, but Y'Ghatan breaks from this format by not letting up with minimal POV switches and a very long chapter in one single traumatizing place.
It's the longest chapter in the book and it serves to create and forge the Bonehunters.. and the reader right alongside them.
You hear of the Bridgeburners from the first book, but we're never really privy to their exploits. Mostly in the rearview mirror, we hear just snippets and glimpses. But you will witness the creation and actions of the Bonehunters. Y'Ghatan is that creation.
Very interesting. It's a series that I'm looking forward to reading in print during my second run. The layers in the world, the characters, the themes and dialogue are all rich that the 'replay...
Very interesting. It's a series that I'm looking forward to reading in print during my second run. The layers in the world, the characters, the themes and dialogue are all rich that the 'replay value' is obvious.
There's been an upswing in people reading The Wheel of Time with the show airing, and each time I meet somebody who's fully into it, I ask them if they'd like to enter a universe that's more than just the sum of three characters' braid pulling, teeth gnashing and arm-folding beneath "full breasts" đ”âđ«
Yes, but the pushback is a lot easier with something that is demonstrably untrue. I picked Malazan for a reason and you immediately responded with the core tenet of the books. That cannot be taken...
Yes, but the pushback is a lot easier with something that is demonstrably untrue. I picked Malazan for a reason and you immediately responded with the core tenet of the books. That cannot be taken easily.
I think for those of us that are in the fandom or connected to the material in meaningful ways, it will never really "work" but I think the more dangerous aspect is keeping new people or young...
I think for those of us that are in the fandom or connected to the material in meaningful ways, it will never really "work" but I think the more dangerous aspect is keeping new people or young people or curious people out of it by scaring them off at the start. There will always be people who will fight for what they love and try to counter any incorrect narratives, but it becomes a battle of attrition at some point.
All that said, I honestly don't think they will succeed in "taking over" SF/fantasy. There was the entire Rabid Puppy/Sad Puppy Hugo voting ballot debacle a few years ago, and they failed pretty miserably there. There was also the Chinese influence on the ballots last year (or maybe the year before? Time has no meaning to me anymore) and that was also overcome. For the most part the fandom is full of wonderful people who just want to read cool stories or see themselves in the stories they read (or even get a completely different point of view to their own!) - most of which is antithetical to the fascist/racist agenda.
Quick someone write the article âwhy is the left so fascinated with fantasy literature?â Especially reading the article talk so much about Lord of the Rings - guess what, everyone likes it because...
I also think it's funny to try to link fantasy and the right given how much queer and feminist literature is SF or fantasy.
Quick someone write the article âwhy is the left so fascinated with fantasy literature?â Especially reading the article talk so much about Lord of the Rings - guess what, everyone likes it because itâs good stuff.
I remember when Palantir burst onto the scene in the bay area and everyone was so excited, and then they took their first military contract that was clearly evil. It was an interesting immediate...
I remember when Palantir burst onto the scene in the bay area and everyone was so excited, and then they took their first military contract that was clearly evil. It was an interesting immediate souring of opinions of the company, at least in my circles in the bay.
Here is a recent Atlantic article: Why do so many people think Trump is good The basic premise is that in previous times, people had a role that they were expected to fulfill. They didnât get any...
The basic premise is that in previous times, people had a role that they were expected to fulfill. They didnât get any choice about the role, but could get meaning and satisfaction from it if they did it well. This kind of fixed hierarchy apparently appeals to a conservatives so they donât mind the authoritarianism of Trump.
And fantasy stories usually have very strict hierarchies. Note how the authority in Lord of The Rings mostly comes from birthright. Sure, Frodo could have a heroic role, but only Aragorn could be king.
In general a lot of liberal people could agree that the current world lacks the comfort and meaning you get from a system that tells you what to do. Of course the trick is to let some people have this without taking rights and opportunities from others.
I also recently read a story about how Thomas The Tank Engine is very authoritarian. Sir Topham Hat runs the island with an iron fist and punishes any engine that isnât useful. Also all the engines pine to be useful and for approval. And only one or two of the engines is female. This is all stuff I never noticed when my son watched the show. Probably most fantasy entertainment has regressive themes.
They permanently wall in a train in a dark tunnel as punishment for refusing to work. The narrator even points out at the end of the episode that Henry deserved his lesson. No, narrator, no. I...
They permanently wall in a train in a dark tunnel as punishment for refusing to work. The narrator even points out at the end of the episode that Henry deserved his lesson.
Poor Henry had no steam to answer. His fire had gone out. Soot and dirt from the tunnel had spoilt his lovely green paint with red stripes anyway. He wondered if he would ever be allowed to pull trains again. But I think he deserved his punishment, don't you?
No, narrator, no. I don't.
It's filled with the narrator teaching you a lesson only for it to be horrifying 19th century styled exploitative industrial capitalist moralism.
The regressive themes in Thomas are a product of their time, but that doesn't mean it can't evolve with new media. There are plenty of fantasy books nowadays that explore regressive themes without proselytizing those values, rather you see them denounce these values. Plenty of them don't even go there at all.
To the article's point: We can still provide people with meaningful ways to find a purpose, but we can see that it's increasingly difficult to find a purpose. Why bother when you can't buy a house until you're 35, can't find work, can't find a partner, etc.
I don't think the article is too far off in that assessment, it doesn't help when people fan the flames and talk about "family values" back from the day you could buy a house and have a wife with three kids on a single manufacturing job's salary.
I dont know man, this seems like a real stretch. A couple of nerds have expressed interest in the Lord of the Rings, which was a massive epic blockbuster trilogy that was a pillar of pop culture...
I dont know man, this seems like a real stretch.
A couple of nerds have expressed interest in the Lord of the Rings, which was a massive epic blockbuster trilogy that was a pillar of pop culture for years afterward and also one of the most popular book series ever published? Sounds like a red flag for fascism.
In other news, black people like watermelon, and this is significant because thats markedly different from how literally everybody feels about watermelon.
I mean, I bet a bunch of people here like The Lord of the Rings too. Should we be concerned?
I donât think itâs as much a general fantasy thing so much as a LotR thing. LotR is fundamentally a conservative work with conservative themes underlining it (in the neutral sense; conservative as...
I donât think itâs as much a general fantasy thing so much as a LotR thing. LotR is fundamentally a conservative work with conservative themes underlining it (in the neutral sense; conservative as in wanting to preserve or return to the old ways, and rejecting modernity). Make Gondor Great Again.
So itâs no surprise it gets championed by the right.
Sort of? From a Real World perspective perhaps, as the goal was to create an origin myth for the English isles. But the entire story is about change, about the old ways passing and new people...
Sort of? From a Real World perspective perhaps, as the goal was to create an origin myth for the English isles. But the entire story is about change, about the old ways passing and new people inheriting the world. (It's also about trauma and hope and how great the English countryside is but anything that long is going to have multiple themes)
Most of the characters in Lord of the Rings are in the ruling class. Consider the relationship between Sam and Frodo. https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/ ...
Most of the characters in Lord of the Rings are in the ruling class. Consider the relationship between Sam and Frodo.
Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin are all very clearly members of the landed gentry, the landowning class that controls most means of economic production and maintains social dominance over the Shire. This isnât really extrapolation or interpretation, itâs more-or-less text, and I suspect the only reason itâs not spelled out is because Tolkien assumed any reader would understand that intuitively. Bilbo and Frodo are both gentlemen of leisure because the Baggins family is independently wealthy, and that wealth almost has to come from land ownership, because there isnât enough industry or trade to sustain it.
...
The Gamgees are likely tenants of the Baggins, or at least dependent on them for access to agricultural capital. They likely send much of their income up to Bag End in rent, and provide services, as gardeners, batmen, valets, traveling companions, etc. They also provide support, in a social and civic sense, as we see. If Frodo had gone to the Free Fair to run for Mayor, the Gamgees and other tenants would have voted for him, and would have accompanied him in public, to demonstrate his status and prestige. But in return for this, they could expect generous gifts on holidays, loans of money on favorable terms, lax enforcement of rental arrears in time of drought and famine, and legal support in disputes.
That's implying a fair amount of economy when the simpler answer is that nobody was really extracting any wealth from the region so nearly 100% of their labor value stayed in the Shire. Yes Bag...
That's implying a fair amount of economy when the simpler answer is that nobody was really extracting any wealth from the region so nearly 100% of their labor value stayed in the Shire. Yes Bag End was a sizeable estate by hobbit standards, but what was the actual cost of maintaining that land? Greed doesn't seem to be a common personality trait amongst the halflings (it's the only thing that denotes the Sackville-Bagginses as villains) and their lives have been easy for so long that their government has degraded to an almost entirely ceremonial one. That doesn't happen if the lower classes aren't also enjoying soft times.
Most of the characters in Lord of the Rings are in the ruling class.
Yes, by nature of the way feudal societies worked and the circumstances of the story. Whatever your interpretation of hobbit society, that's who found The Ring but their involvement is largely chance (inasmuch as "chance" can be a factor when divine beings are pulling levers). The rest of the Fellowship are emissaries of their governments seeking guidance in Rivendell, a wizard/angel deeply invested in the happenings to this point, and the lost heir Aragorn. The Numenorian right-to-rule was probably important to Tolkien as a backbone to the eventual English monarchy and their history was intrinsically connected to Sauron so that's a 2-for-1 justification.
But that doesn't make it "a conservative work" like the other poster said. It has mythological themes pulled from a few sources Tolkien was well-acquainted with because he was a big nerd who liked culture and language, and colored by his life in England, Catholicism, and experience in the war. (And seriously, him being a linguistics nerd is the entire reason any of it exists. Quenya came before any of the lore. Middle-Earth was created to give a home for his invented languages to live in.)
There is a romanticization of idyllic life but Tolkien was opposed to the sort of strict hierarchical structure one would expect from a conservative perspective. He had a lot to say about his stance on "rulers" and mostly seemed to think that people should leave each other alone.
There's more than one kind of conservative vision. The Shire isn't much like the American South or the Victorian era in Britain. It's an idealized version of the English countryside from before...
There's more than one kind of conservative vision. The Shire isn't much like the American South or the Victorian era in Britain. It's an idealized version of the English countryside from before that. It's built on free agricultural labor - idealized, since the land is apparently very productive, but still, a pre-industrial farm is going to need far more labor than modern agriculture with its labor-saving machinery. There are long-standing, respectful, unequal relationships and rents, not bureaucracy or taxes or slavery. The superiors are benevolent and treated with respect (like how Sam treats Frodo, which doesn't sit all that well with modern sensibilities about equality).
This is coded as "good" and it sounds nice, but it's still a nostalgic, conservative vision!
Fantasy is often this way, set in a vaguely medieval time period with a lot about kings and queens and "chosen ones" and swords and military rule. This is what happens by default when you tell stories based on myths and legends. Nowadays authors do find creative ways to put a different twist on it.
And of course, Tolkien had no truck with fascism. It wasn't that kind of conservative-authoritarian vision either. It might be hard to see nowadays, but a conservative worldview can still be clear about good and evil, and it isn't incompatible with a suspicion of state power.
Perhaps it's not Lord of the Rings itself which is conservative, but rather the tropes that it inspired, resulting in a kind of "Seinfeld is unfunny" effect. It could be that ideas which were...
Perhaps it's not Lord of the Rings itself which is conservative, but rather the tropes that it inspired, resulting in a kind of "Seinfeld is unfunny" effect. It could be that ideas which were unique or novel to LotR became tropes that, when divorced from the original context, become conservative. Then people rediscover the original work after a few decades and interpret it differently.
Monty Python was there first, in the Holy Grail, no less, and not even an honorable mention!
Oh, "King", eh, very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers! by hangin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress...
Monty Python was there first, in the Holy Grail, no less, and not even an honorable mention!
While I love Monty Python, I am unsure of what you mean by "was there first". Surely you don't think that Monty Python and the Holy Grail came out before the LotR books were published.
While I love Monty Python, I am unsure of what you mean by "was there first". Surely you don't think that Monty Python and the Holy Grail came out before the LotR books were published.
This piece is about the ways in which many conventional Fantasy narratives align with conservative politics, at least moreso than they do with progressive politics. The author writes: This theme...
This piece is about the ways in which many conventional Fantasy narratives align with conservative politics, at least moreso than they do with progressive politics. The author writes:
Fantasy represents less a return to a premodern idyll, then, than a fulfilment of the freedom the Enlightenment promised but social complexity took away. This is harder for the left to buy into, for social structure is what the left is all about.
This theme is markedly similar to the one in the sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur, very much the symbol of a traditional (i.e. conservative) authority, encounters "Dennis", who is a member of "an anarcho-syndicalist commune". The humor in the imagined encounter comes from the absurdity of dropping a caricature of the modern left into the middle of an otherwise conventional fantasy narrative.
"Dennis" has no desire to join or follow King Arthur and ridicules him for believing that his "Supreme Authority" is derived from "some farcical aquatic ceremony". Clearly, the left isn't going to be draping themselves in allusions to the legend of King Arthur.
What I find notable is that Monty Python treats the same subject matter that the author of the essay does in the same way, yet they are not mentioned. Either because they didn't think about it, don't know about it, or because Monty Python has become culturally irrelevant, even among a crowd that would be otherwise receptive to their satire.
I'm not sure it needs to be that complicated. The palantir is a technology that with proper safeguards could be used to help people, but instead it was subverted for evil purposes. That's more or less what Palantir the company is.
I do think the strong man concept is a good way to understand the right, especially the religious right, but tying that into fantasy in general and Tolkein in particular doesn't seem very apt to me.
I also think it's funny to try to link fantasy and the right given how much queer and feminist literature is SF or fantasy.
I agree that it is probably simpler than it seems.
I've always thought part of the appeal to conservatives stemmed from the fact that the "golden age" SF and fantasy writers were all white men, so there's a bit of MAGA "take us back to the good ol' days" thing going on.
In addition, the GOP and right wing punduntry has more and more incorporated Nazi and racist techniques in to their every day rhetorical playbook. One of the things that Neo-Nazis absolutely love to do is co-opt "normal" things for their own use, then when someone points out that the thing is racist, they can say "No it's not!" and laugh behind their hands about it. Their subversion of the "OK" sign is a perfect example. They can take the idea of SF and fantasy which, as you stated, has become a safe space for cultural outsiders to do their thing, and instead they can just ignore all that and pollute it with their ideology by just associating with it. Overtime, they move the window and get what they wanted, which was to push the others out of the space.
They must love Heinlein.
It makes me sad they follow on Tolkien so much, pretty sure the man himself would be horrified. To give them maximum benefit of the doubt, though, LotR is pretty male forward and not hard to interpret in a racist light. It is, however, very hard to to read a fascist or authoritarian message in it. And it is easy to read a very Earth First agrarian focus in it, it's also fairly anti-capitalist and strongly opposed to exploitation of resources.
I'm not sure what the golden age of SciFi is, but yes, classic works from the 50s to the 90s and maybe beyond is very male oriented and borderline mysognist for much of it. Even Le Guin and L'Engle had primarily male protagonists. See also sword and sorcery flicks, although Conan had a very ass-kicking women, and there's Red Sonja.
The actual Nazis tried to solicit Tolkien to publish his works - if he affirmed he has no Jewish heritage - and while he was regretful that he had no Jewish ancestors, he declined their "offer" vigorously.
I think it's unfortunately easy to miss the "message" of the books while paying attention to the good vs evil narrative, especially if you lean hard into the dark vs light and create a racist narrative in your mind. (There's space to criticize Tolkien here but his intent does not seem to have been to create that message)
But I'll challenge L'Engle - both her Kairos and Chronos series featured female protagonists about equally IIRC, with Meg leading two, and kything while Charles Wallace travels in the third book, Sandy and Dennys lead the fourth and Polyhymneia in the fifth.
I'd have to go look through all five of the Chronos ones to be completely sure
Ugh, TIL.
This timeline is the worst.
They can't have it. What will be taken over next - nodding? Thumbs up? We normies can't let potentially dangerous weirdos to just co-opt gestures that are broadly used and understood.
You can still gesture OK, but gesturing exactly like they do will get you confused for a white supremacist/racist troll. It's never really a confusion about the intent given the context.
"They can't have it" just implies not understanding how a particular hate symbol is used. It's like saying "they can't have" the number 88. They do have it already. Other people still use the number but nothing about that regular use "takes back" the number 88, removes the hateful symbolism, etc. Users with 88 in their username will probably always get more scrutiny.
Similarly if you're flashing the "OK" sign turned WP sign in a photo, typically down at your side or against your leg, especially with all white people, especially as part of certain groups, you're gonna get scrutiny, and that means the "game" where you punch people for making them look suffers. But there's no amount of using OK hand signs that will "take back" the sign.
How precisely would you "stop" them?
I mean, something like the number "88" has no particular significance to a normal person, right? So that's a very different case. So, in practise, when you're asking how precisely I would "stop" the takeover of innocent actions/words/symbols etc. is to continue using them in their innocent form.
How about something like "queer"? That began to be applied as an insult in (Wikipedia says) the 19th century. Today, that word has been reclaimed. In this case, I think the word got taken over in a way that I'm happy about. I would try and do the same for this kind of symbol (the "ok" one).
So I think we just disagree on "But there's no amount of using OK hand signs that will "take back" the sign." That's fine, I'm happy that people who are ultimately on the same side as I am are fighting hard in their own way to keep on top of and counteract some of this present-day right-wing malice.
88 is a lot of people's birth year, hence why it is/was in their internet handle. Those folks can keep using it, but will still face scrutiny.
Queer is also still used as an insult, but the people being insulted by it are the ones that reclaimed it and no one could stop it from becoming the insult. I can tell when it's said whether it's an insult or not. Even reclamation doesn't eliminate its abuse.
I'm not sure how precisely you "take back" the specific hand gesture - an upside down OK sign - that people weren't frequently making before it was adopted by the white supremacists.
It's not like "queer" where non-white people (those targeted by its use) are trying to "reclaim" it, because it wasn't something they used in the first place. The only time that specific gesture was used IME was as a "punch people for looking at it game" and since I'm not the right combination of gender and immaturity for that game I'm uninterested in that particular "reclamation". The OK symbol upright in the air is still fine, never stopped being fine.
So how do you
reclaim this specific hand sign? Or take it away from the white supremacists? That just isn't how it works.Ha, I hadn't realised it was upside down! Personally, that use of the OK sign wouldn't even register as an OK sign. Having, therefore, no inherent meaning to me, I'm not interested in trying to reclaim it - any more than I am interested in reclaiming 88 or the myriad other numbers that are used to openly/discreetly signal membership/support for certain in/out-group structures.
Anyway, re. specifically your point "That just isn't how it works." - we disagree. I believe that IS how it works. You think that it isn't.
As I said earlier, I think you didn't understand how it was used. And I think this sort of proves that you're not even sure what hand symbol you're talking about. I've described it multiple times so I'm not sure you're even fully reading my posts, but I'd encourage you to look up the thing you're talking about if you have uncertainty.
I could no more take the hand sign from the white supremacists than I could take a hand sign from a Divine 9 sorority or fraternity. Because hand signs are context specific and are already refused outside specific context and because reclamation has to come from those targeted by something. An "in group" signal like a hand sign is not a slur.
Which is why I said this isn't how this works and that it demonstrates a lack of understanding. You can disagree but personally I feel my point was proven on both counts.
NotFae, I don't think this person is trying to prove or disprove anything. They sound well-intentioned, and you seem irritated. You did describe the hand sign as typically upside down and below the belt, but I don't see multiple descriptions. It's possible that I'm missing something, but it's possible the person you're replying to is also innocently missing something. If you're aggro, it might be good to dial down the aggro. If not, my apologies, but it did come off that way.
Eta: can we not upvote me? Kind of a side conversation.
I'm not aggro, nor even frustrated really, maybe annoyed but like in a "yeah that's basically what I said" sort of way? Perhaps "vexed."
I described it in two posts, it was the second that led to the revelation. (Holding the symbol against one's leg necessarily puts it upside down though I know not everyone thinks spatially) But the person I'm engaging with was the one insisting on "not letting them have" that sign in the first place, suggesting they were familiar with it. They can disagree with me about how reclamation works, but I do find my initial statement "proven" in less of a "I'm trying prove it" and more of a "borne out by how this conversation has unfolded" way. If we don't understand the starting point, what are we doing five posts in? I feel my statement was accurate and demonstrated by the conversation, I wasn't actually trying to prove my initial statement.
I also suggested that the person look up the thing they're explicitly talking about if they aren't certain about it, a thing I do myself all the time. I was direct, but not IMO, aggressive or across a line. I tend towards that directness to avoid confusion. My apologies for the "proven" to have ended up in that confusing realm regardless of my attempts. I hope the clarity helps.
No worries. You're never ill-meaning, which is the only reason I brought it up.
Don't give me too much credit. But I try.
I upvoted you (prior to your edit) myself, you're fine.
I'm good with my words, and good with our convo, and I'd say the same things directly to the previous poster. I feel fine about all of it.
Ok, it doesn't look like we're finding common ground. I think your insistence that I'm not understanding you and/or not engaging with you in good faith is insulting and not conducive to a respectful exchange of ideas and/or opinions, so I won't be continuing this discussion.
I never accused you of not engaging in good faith, I expressed uncertainty of whether you were fully reading what I was saying since you expressed only understanding the hand symbol we were talking about until multiple posts deep.
I am sorry if that came off as an insult rather than what it is, a frustration that we circled on the discussion. As I said to another poster, I am being direct and intentional, but not angry or aggressive. I do not agree with you, and I don't feel my posts were being understood, for whatever reason.
I wanted to provide that clarity on my perspective, no response is obligated nor expected based on your desire to disengage.
They'll never take my Malazan books D:
That's the benefit of books though, it's written down. It won't change because someone wants it to.
Love running into Malazan fans! My favorite series by far, and wholly written about compassion and understanding.
This is very true, but if the idea is to control the narrative, as they say, then just pushing yourself in from the outside and claiming things that aren't true is enough to keep people who aren't so entrenched in the fandom to know any better and to start to associate SF/fantasy with the bad people. Again, racists aren't here to try to move anything forward or make anything at all really, they just want to control and own things.
Consider us three! In three quarters through the Bonehunters and it's close to being my favorite thus far. Solid comedy value
Barring that one chapter. Stare
Eeesh - maybe I'm not there yet.
...but there's always that one chapter in each of his books.
Chapter 7 is rather famous for being a harrowing chapter that never seems to let up or let you off the hook.
Even within the big 10, Bonehunters chapter 7 has renown.
Listening to the audiobook, I'm not terribly sure what happens when. That said, the slog beneath the burning city was awfully trying. Perhaps that's the one.
Bingpot! I heard the siege of Y'Ghatan is well narrated in the audiobook but is a different experience than reading it (not worse, just different).
Erikson is well known for providing a lot of POVs or shorter segments within chapters to give the reader a breather within emotionally heavier segments, but Y'Ghatan breaks from this format by not letting up with minimal POV switches and a very long chapter in one single traumatizing place.
It's the longest chapter in the book and it serves to create and forge the Bonehunters.. and the reader right alongside them.
You hear of the Bridgeburners from the first book, but we're never really privy to their exploits. Mostly in the rearview mirror, we hear just snippets and glimpses. But you will witness the creation and actions of the Bonehunters. Y'Ghatan is that creation.
Very interesting. It's a series that I'm looking forward to reading in print during my second run. The layers in the world, the characters, the themes and dialogue are all rich that the 'replay value' is obvious.
There's been an upswing in people reading The Wheel of Time with the show airing, and each time I meet somebody who's fully into it, I ask them if they'd like to enter a universe that's more than just the sum of three characters' braid pulling, teeth gnashing and arm-folding beneath "full breasts" đ”âđ«
Yes, but the pushback is a lot easier with something that is demonstrably untrue. I picked Malazan for a reason and you immediately responded with the core tenet of the books. That cannot be taken easily.
I think for those of us that are in the fandom or connected to the material in meaningful ways, it will never really "work" but I think the more dangerous aspect is keeping new people or young people or curious people out of it by scaring them off at the start. There will always be people who will fight for what they love and try to counter any incorrect narratives, but it becomes a battle of attrition at some point.
All that said, I honestly don't think they will succeed in "taking over" SF/fantasy. There was the entire Rabid Puppy/Sad Puppy Hugo voting ballot debacle a few years ago, and they failed pretty miserably there. There was also the Chinese influence on the ballots last year (or maybe the year before? Time has no meaning to me anymore) and that was also overcome. For the most part the fandom is full of wonderful people who just want to read cool stories or see themselves in the stories they read (or even get a completely different point of view to their own!) - most of which is antithetical to the fascist/racist agenda.
Quick someone write the article âwhy is the left so fascinated with fantasy literature?â Especially reading the article talk so much about Lord of the Rings - guess what, everyone likes it because itâs good stuff.
Someone on X already did this and linked to a picture of Das Kapital đ
I remember when Palantir burst onto the scene in the bay area and everyone was so excited, and then they took their first military contract that was clearly evil. It was an interesting immediate souring of opinions of the company, at least in my circles in the bay.
Here is a recent Atlantic article: Why do so many people think Trump is good
The basic premise is that in previous times, people had a role that they were expected to fulfill. They didnât get any choice about the role, but could get meaning and satisfaction from it if they did it well. This kind of fixed hierarchy apparently appeals to a conservatives so they donât mind the authoritarianism of Trump.
And fantasy stories usually have very strict hierarchies. Note how the authority in Lord of The Rings mostly comes from birthright. Sure, Frodo could have a heroic role, but only Aragorn could be king.
In general a lot of liberal people could agree that the current world lacks the comfort and meaning you get from a system that tells you what to do. Of course the trick is to let some people have this without taking rights and opportunities from others.
I also recently read a story about how Thomas The Tank Engine is very authoritarian. Sir Topham Hat runs the island with an iron fist and punishes any engine that isnât useful. Also all the engines pine to be useful and for approval. And only one or two of the engines is female. This is all stuff I never noticed when my son watched the show. Probably most fantasy entertainment has regressive themes.
They permanently wall in a train in a dark tunnel as punishment for refusing to work. The narrator even points out at the end of the episode that Henry deserved his lesson.
No, narrator, no. I don't.
It's filled with the narrator teaching you a lesson only for it to be horrifying 19th century styled exploitative industrial capitalist moralism.
The regressive themes in Thomas are a product of their time, but that doesn't mean it can't evolve with new media. There are plenty of fantasy books nowadays that explore regressive themes without proselytizing those values, rather you see them denounce these values. Plenty of them don't even go there at all.
To the article's point: We can still provide people with meaningful ways to find a purpose, but we can see that it's increasingly difficult to find a purpose. Why bother when you can't buy a house until you're 35, can't find work, can't find a partner, etc.
I don't think the article is too far off in that assessment, it doesn't help when people fan the flames and talk about "family values" back from the day you could buy a house and have a wife with three kids on a single manufacturing job's salary.
Archive link
I dont know man, this seems like a real stretch.
A couple of nerds have expressed interest in the Lord of the Rings, which was a massive epic blockbuster trilogy that was a pillar of pop culture for years afterward and also one of the most popular book series ever published? Sounds like a red flag for fascism.
In other news, black people like watermelon, and this is significant because thats markedly different from how literally everybody feels about watermelon.
I mean, I bet a bunch of people here like The Lord of the Rings too. Should we be concerned?
I donât think itâs as much a general fantasy thing so much as a LotR thing. LotR is fundamentally a conservative work with conservative themes underlining it (in the neutral sense; conservative as in wanting to preserve or return to the old ways, and rejecting modernity). Make Gondor Great Again.
So itâs no surprise it gets championed by the right.
Sort of? From a Real World perspective perhaps, as the goal was to create an origin myth for the English isles. But the entire story is about change, about the old ways passing and new people inheriting the world. (It's also about trauma and hope and how great the English countryside is but anything that long is going to have multiple themes)
Most of the characters in Lord of the Rings are in the ruling class. Consider the relationship between Sam and Frodo.
https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/
...
That's implying a fair amount of economy when the simpler answer is that nobody was really extracting any wealth from the region so nearly 100% of their labor value stayed in the Shire. Yes Bag End was a sizeable estate by hobbit standards, but what was the actual cost of maintaining that land? Greed doesn't seem to be a common personality trait amongst the halflings (it's the only thing that denotes the Sackville-Bagginses as villains) and their lives have been easy for so long that their government has degraded to an almost entirely ceremonial one. That doesn't happen if the lower classes aren't also enjoying soft times.
Yes, by nature of the way feudal societies worked and the circumstances of the story. Whatever your interpretation of hobbit society, that's who found The Ring but their involvement is largely chance (inasmuch as "chance" can be a factor when divine beings are pulling levers). The rest of the Fellowship are emissaries of their governments seeking guidance in Rivendell, a wizard/angel deeply invested in the happenings to this point, and the lost heir Aragorn. The Numenorian right-to-rule was probably important to Tolkien as a backbone to the eventual English monarchy and their history was intrinsically connected to Sauron so that's a 2-for-1 justification.
But that doesn't make it "a conservative work" like the other poster said. It has mythological themes pulled from a few sources Tolkien was well-acquainted with because he was a big nerd who liked culture and language, and colored by his life in England, Catholicism, and experience in the war. (And seriously, him being a linguistics nerd is the entire reason any of it exists. Quenya came before any of the lore. Middle-Earth was created to give a home for his invented languages to live in.)
There is a romanticization of idyllic life but Tolkien was opposed to the sort of strict hierarchical structure one would expect from a conservative perspective. He had a lot to say about his stance on "rulers" and mostly seemed to think that people should leave each other alone.
There's more than one kind of conservative vision. The Shire isn't much like the American South or the Victorian era in Britain. It's an idealized version of the English countryside from before that. It's built on free agricultural labor - idealized, since the land is apparently very productive, but still, a pre-industrial farm is going to need far more labor than modern agriculture with its labor-saving machinery. There are long-standing, respectful, unequal relationships and rents, not bureaucracy or taxes or slavery. The superiors are benevolent and treated with respect (like how Sam treats Frodo, which doesn't sit all that well with modern sensibilities about equality).
This is coded as "good" and it sounds nice, but it's still a nostalgic, conservative vision!
Fantasy is often this way, set in a vaguely medieval time period with a lot about kings and queens and "chosen ones" and swords and military rule. This is what happens by default when you tell stories based on myths and legends. Nowadays authors do find creative ways to put a different twist on it.
And of course, Tolkien had no truck with fascism. It wasn't that kind of conservative-authoritarian vision either. It might be hard to see nowadays, but a conservative worldview can still be clear about good and evil, and it isn't incompatible with a suspicion of state power.
Perhaps it's not Lord of the Rings itself which is conservative, but rather the tropes that it inspired, resulting in a kind of "Seinfeld is unfunny" effect. It could be that ideas which were unique or novel to LotR became tropes that, when divorced from the original context, become conservative. Then people rediscover the original work after a few decades and interpret it differently.
Monty Python was there first, in the Holy Grail, no less, and not even an honorable mention!
While I love Monty Python, I am unsure of what you mean by "was there first". Surely you don't think that Monty Python and the Holy Grail came out before the LotR books were published.
This piece is about the ways in which many conventional Fantasy narratives align with conservative politics, at least moreso than they do with progressive politics. The author writes:
This theme is markedly similar to the one in the sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur, very much the symbol of a traditional (i.e. conservative) authority, encounters "Dennis", who is a member of "an anarcho-syndicalist commune". The humor in the imagined encounter comes from the absurdity of dropping a caricature of the modern left into the middle of an otherwise conventional fantasy narrative.
"Dennis" has no desire to join or follow King Arthur and ridicules him for believing that his "Supreme Authority" is derived from "some farcical aquatic ceremony". Clearly, the left isn't going to be draping themselves in allusions to the legend of King Arthur.
What I find notable is that Monty Python treats the same subject matter that the author of the essay does in the same way, yet they are not mentioned. Either because they didn't think about it, don't know about it, or because Monty Python has become culturally irrelevant, even among a crowd that would be otherwise receptive to their satire.