# Was Tolkien a Racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 25, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607 "2012-01-25T16:43:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/41 "2012-01-25T19:47:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **njtt** ’s use of the word “nigger” there was in the context of describing an attitude which might be held by a racist. I don’t see how that reflects at all on him personally. Well, I do. But I’m from the South & have been around too many real racists in my day… ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/42 "2012-01-25T19:52:16Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Saruman? > Saruman the _White_? Well, he _was_ always sticking it to Radagast the Brown. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/43 "2012-01-25T20:04:02Z")
**njtt** , I think you are taking an overly autobiographical view of his writings. Just because an author constructs a world in a certain way does not necessarily shed much light on their beliefs. Authors take inspiration from various sources, and make extensive use of tropes to communicate with their audience. They also plain make stuff up. To invert this, do you think you can divine my beliefs from the books and films I enjoy? I find the idea of monarchy absurd, but that doesn’t tarnish my enjoyment of RotK in any way. > [@njtt](#): > > I forgot to mention, incidentally, that the Rohirrim, the almost-as-good-as-Numenoreans amongst men (and who superiority is inherent, rather than partly due to having gained the favor of the gods, as the Numenoreans did), are fair haired, tall and (I think) blue eyed. What are you implying here? From his wiki article: > [@](#): > > In a letter to his British publisher Stanley Unwin, he condemned Nazi “race-doctrine” as “wholly pernicious and unscientific”. > [@njtt](#): > > It is no stretch at all. Nearly all real myths are also extremely racist. Please be aware that I do not say that it follows from that this diminishes their literary or spiritual value. In particular, I love LOTR. I can look past its racist attitudes and appreciate its many other virtues, but to pretend the racism is not there is absurd, and perhaps morally dangerous. I find this absurd tbh. In your view, is **2001** a racist work because it imagines aliens who are more evolved than humans? If not, how does that differ from LotR? How do you feel about the very common trope that equates beauty with virtue? ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/44 "2012-01-25T20:08:35Z")
There are distinctions within the books between the “races” you are right. But I think you are reading some things in that aren’t there. The Rohirrim aren’t “fair” because they are more like the Númenóreans but because they are Norse-ish analogs, of a sort, that migrated from the far North. On average they are much more fair that the Númenóreans who were formed from several different peoples including the Folk of Hador (tall blond blue eyed), Folk of Bëor (medium grey-eyed brunettes sometimes “swarthy”), Folk of Haleth (short and broad, dark haired, dark eyed), and some Drúedain (very short, and broad, swarthy, with thin, dark “lanky” hair). Take a guess at which were the best spiritually and left Númenór as it was becoming evil? The Drúedain. The only one of these we see in the main books is Ghân-buri-Ghân. So height, fair skin and blindness don’t stem from spiritual purity. The fact that a sub group of Númenóreans who happened to be particularly strong and tall and blond, also happened to receive the blessing of long life etc, is a coincidence. There were plenty of short, dark Númenóreans who also got the same blessing. The royal house of Gondor and Arnor happened to be mostly descendents of Hador. But they had to be descended from someone. And the various evil Númenóreans don’t stop being Númenóreans just because they are evil. By the time of the LotR most of them are living outside the scope of the story. Most are still evil or more likely evil-ish, depending on how much sway Sauron had over their lands. Those like the ones in Umbar are totally under Sauron’s rule. And like the Faithful some were tall and blond, and some were not. Their goodness seems completely unrelated to their physical desription or power. And yes, the elves did have distinctions among them. But these are almost entirely related to which ones spent the most time with the Valar. And the blessing seems to have faded with the generations. Really just about the only “High Elves” we know about by the third age are Galadriel and Glorfindel. The later generations of Noldor are included by men as “High Elves,” but by the third age the distinction between the elven peoples of the west had largely blurred away. All the post War or Wrath “Noldor” kingdoms were formed primary of Sindar. And most were non-blond, and not particularly tall. Yes, there were stereotypes throughout the books. Characters… not the author, but characters… frequently use these stereotypes. But they are just that, and are frequently subverted. Every group we spend any time with pretty quickly shows a broad range of types of characters. The hobbits, a largely agrarian society, look a lot like turn of the century rural England. I wonder where Tolkien got the inspiration for that? 🙂 And it includes all the characters such a society would be expected to display. There are villains of a sort (the Sackville-Bagginses, Sandyman). heroes of a sort (the Maggots, the Cottons) and a lot of other various characters. For the most part we don’t know which of the original three clans any are from. And none of the characters we do know about are really from a specific clan. While the major houses all have Fallohide blood they also all have Harfoot and Stoor blood. There was simply no longer any clan separation by the time of the LotR. Gandalf did not select Bilbo because he was part Fallohide, but because he was a bit of a rapscallion as a young hobbit as were several of his relatives (his mother, other Tooks), and he thought that tendency could be brought back out in Bilbo. Likewise among the other peoples we spend any book time with, we see a broad variety of distinction both physically and character wise. Remember Wormtongue and Eomer were both Rohirrim. The Master and Bard were both men of Esgaroth. The butler, the captain, and Legolas were all elves of Mirkwood. tldr; Yes, there were some distinctions between the “races” in LotR. But many of these you seem to be over-exaggerating. And while some characters do seem to live up to their supposed racial characteristics, their are plenty that defy them. And the supposedly spiritually superior races, demonstrate no spiritual superiority. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/45 "2012-01-25T21:03:35Z")
So - wait a minute - In the books - Orcs, Dwarfs, Elves, Men, Gaia, Hobbits, Ents, etc - were all different races - each with distinct features, attitudes, strengths and weaknesses - its not ‘racist’ or ‘racism’ to note that - anymore than it would be ‘racist’ or ‘racism’ to note the differences between dog, cat, horse, pony, human, etc. Racism - atleast in our common usage, and what I believe the OP is implying - is trying to attribute these distinctions to member of our own race based on some characteristic (skin color, area of birth) where the people being talked about are of the same race. To my knowledge, Tolkien was not trying to say that “black folks are drarfs, japanese = elves” or anything else. (compare that with the more obvious connotations of Roddenberry’s Trek with the Mongoloid Klingons in the original series and even then I don’t think he was intending racism in that sense) Apples and Oranges. Tolkien, based on his writings was not racist by that definition - compare this to (what I remember of) Lewis’ Narnia writings where it was (more) clear he was intending racist overtones. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/46 "2012-01-25T21:17:25Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Not everybody reads stories with the intention of trying to decipher some hidden real world correspondence. And Tolkien explicitly and adamantly denied that LOTR was allegorical. > [@Marley23](#): > > elves and dwarfs (I think he preferred that spelling) Unless I’m misremembering, “dwarfs” was the standard pre-Tolkien spelling (as in Disney’s _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_, for example), but Tolkien preferred “dwarves” (by analogy with “elves”) even though he knew it was nonstandard.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/47 "2012-01-25T21:27:45Z")
Tolkien himself stated that he regarded racism as “wholly pernicious and unscientific”. From wiki quotes: > [@](#): > > I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries? … I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine. > > No. 30: Letter to Stanley Unwin (1938-07-25); Tolkien’s German publishers had written to ask him whether he was of “Aryan” origin. > > I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by ‘arisch’. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. … But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. … I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. > > One of two draft letters (1938-07-25) written for Stanley Unwin to select as a response to his German publishers inquiry about his ancestry. The other letter refused to answer altogether on his ancestry; since the quoted letter persists, it seems that the other letter was sent. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/48 "2012-01-25T21:53:24Z")
Taking this analysis into Star Trek, is ST not espousing a racist worldview? Vulcans are very intelligent, very stoic, and strictly control their sexuality to the point of ritual. Klingons are violent and beastial, have a strange code of honor, and apparently even express this when raised by humans(Worf). Aliens and humans can freely breed together bizarrely, there was even a plot on Voyager where Blanna hates the fact she is half Klingon because she views it as ruining her life through violent impulses. Bringing this into the “real world” the implications are horrifying! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/49 "2012-01-25T21:58:52Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Taking this analysis into Star Trek, is ST not espousing a racist worldview? > > Vulcans are very intelligent, very stoic, and strictly control their sexuality to the point of ritual. > > Klingons are violent and beastial, have a strange code of honor, and apparently even express this when raised by humans(Worf). > > Aliens and humans can freely breed together bizarrely, there was even a plot on Voyager where Blanna hates the fact she is half Klingon because she views it as ruining her life through violent impulses. Bringing this into the “real world” the implications are horrifying! :eek: There’s even a “Starfleet is a Homosapiens Only club.” comment. However, Roddenberry was deliberately trying to make thought provoking points that could be applied to our society. Tolkien, I think, his only point was about hope, inner strength, and taking careful consideration of your actions, and less about society. I don’t think he painted The Shire as being a superior model for society over Gondor or Rivendell, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/50 "2012-01-25T22:00:01Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Then how come my cigar has a foreskin? It’s not Jewish? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/51 "2012-01-25T22:04:10Z")
I think that final letter pretty much settles it for those willing to listen. If anyone is determined to see racism in Tolkien’s writings then they will, regardless of his own protestations. I just don’t see it. By that standard we must also consider Terry Pratchett a racist, or pretty much any fantasy author who ever lived and wrote. It isn’t true of Pratchett and I suspect it isn’t true of Tolkien ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/52 "2012-01-25T23:54:50Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I think that final letter pretty much settles it for those willing to listen. > > If anyone is determined to see racism in Tolkien’s writings then they will, regardless of his own protestations. > > I just don’t see it. By that standard we must also consider Terry Pratchett a racist, or pretty much any fantasy author who ever lived and wrote. It isn’t true of Pratchett and I suspect it isn’t true of Tolkien To be fair there are some less flattering quotes. Such as this one: [QUOTE=Letter 210] The Orcs are definitely states to be corruptions of the ‘human’ form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) lease lovely Mongol-types. [/QUOTE] I can see where a modern reader can pick up the idea. But if you look at the body of his quotes on the matter, he seems to be quite a bit less racist than his contemporaries. Here is one of my favorites. [QUOTE=valedictory address to the University of Oxford in 1959] I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/53 "2012-01-26T00:03:51Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It’s not Jewish? Reform. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/54 "2012-01-26T00:18:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And Tolkien explicitly and adamantly denied that LOTR was allegorical. > > Unless I’m misremembering, “dwarfs” was the standard pre-Tolkien spelling (as in Disney’s _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_, for example), but Tolkien preferred “dwarves” (by analogy with “elves”) even though he knew it was nonstandard.[/hijack] Just to draw this on further, Tolkien didn’t like “dwarfs” as a word (he would have liked it have remained “dwarrows” or “dwerrows” as that was the M.E.\* plural, long-forgotten by his time), so he went with something else. Later he realized he probably could have gotten away with reintroducing ‘dwerrows’ once ‘dwarves’ caught on. He did use “Dwarrowdelf” to suggest that the place name was a much older one. \*Middle English, not some other reading of that abbreviation ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/55 "2012-01-26T00:56:35Z")
Some good discussion here, very interesting (though mainly covering old ground.) I concur about the Druedain, they definitely represent ‘good guys’ who run counter to Western stereotype. JRRT struggled with his concept of orcs up until his death, not being able to really fit in sentient creatures that were inherently evil or unredeemable into his worldview. He kept searching for ways to mitigate the corner he’d subcreated himself into. I’d say the Professor was pretty enlightened on the topic of races and stereotypes, for a man of his era and upbringing. In his personal life he spoke out against the treatment of the ‘coloreds’, denounced anti-semitism, and in his fiction portrayed even the ‘noblest’ folks as being susceptible to corruption and greed. Besides, he based his fiction on _Myths_ both retold and re-invented, not on _Truths_. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/56 "2012-01-26T01:00:28Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > JRRT struggled with his concept of orcs up until his death, not being able to really fit in sentient creatures that were inherently evil or unredeemable into his worldview. He kept searching for ways to mitigate the corner he’d subcreated himself into. Weren’t Orcs descendants of some of the earliest Elves to awaken in the world, captured by Morgoth and tortured/debased until they became what they were? I always thought that the Elves should have spent more time trying to “cure” the Orcs, rather than kill them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/57 "2012-01-26T01:06:36Z")
When I encountered Tolkien and Lewis in the 1970s, I certainly noticed the imagery of the Southrons and Telemarines and the Orcs as somewhat racist when compared to the Northerners who happened to be white. I am disinclined to attribute it to racism in two men who frequently spoke out against the evils of racism, but rather to imagery of light and dark, which certainly can be attributed to racism, but is not intended to be racist. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/58 "2012-01-26T01:36:02Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Weren’t Orcs descendants of some of the earliest Elves to awaken in the world, captured by Morgoth and tortured/debased until they became what they were? That’s how it was written in the Silmarillion, which CJRT edited and published after his dad’s death. But that ignores JRRT’s re-writes and letters and other scratchings on his “problem” with orcs being an inherently corrupt sentient race. It didn’t fit with his own personal beliefs nor with the ethical system he was trying to imbue his Middle-Earth writings with. > [@](#): > > I always thought that the Elves should have spent more time trying to “cure” the Orcs, rather than kill them. JRRT wrote similar things, speculating that there may be special rooms in Mandos set aside for slain orcs, where they might be healed. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/59 "2012-01-26T06:05:10Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well gosh, a racist would probably deny being a racist. Stop the presses! Are you a racist? We’ll apply your own standard to your answer. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607/60 "2012-01-26T06:11:33Z")
Well, I think the very least someone coud say, is that, his is a mythology and chronology of the historical conflict of various mythological nations and races. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-tolkien-a-racist/610607.md?page=4)