Quote from: beejazz;478869You going to give the orcs a bring your daughter to work day too?

No, I'm going to say all orcs are toddlers and don't live beyond the age of 4.

Quote from: Sigmund;478874No, I'm going to say all orcs are toddlers and don't live beyond the age of 4.

Well that's different. Toddlers are inherently evil.

Quote from: Benoist;478871It would be true if the author had not actually received letters pointing this very possible influence to him, which he then thought about actively to finally discard wholesale:





It is still possible that the man is basically deluding himself, but if he actually contemplated the possibility and decided to discard it has just not the case, I'm personally inclined to believe him, particularly considering the key chapter, the one that really opened Pandora's box as far as the Ring is concerned for JRRT, is "The Shadow of the Past", which was written "long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster".

Well, you can choose to fully believe him if you want, but I don't. I've read what he's said, and how he had folks asking him and all that, but I still find it hard to believe the war had no effect on his story writing. We'll never know for sure, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, but still I feel he had to have been influenced in at the very least a small way... just how I see it.

Edit: Now I do believe Tolkien when he said that the story he wrote was not meant to carry any lessons or commentaries on the war, I just feel that his writing was influenced by the experience of living through the war, no matter what he says on that front.

Quote from: Sigmund;478877Edit: Now I do believe Tolkien when he said that the story he wrote was not meant to carry any lessons or commentaries on the war, I just feel that his writing was influenced by the experience of living through the war, no matter what he says on that front.

He actually does agree with you, though you're not thinking of the right war:

Quote from: JRRT, Foreword to the LOTR, Second Edition, 1966One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.

Quote from: beejazz;478868I've gotten that it "justifies" hack and slash + insults

I've gotten that you can do it because personal preference + slander

I'm not saying its an indication of real world racism. I'm not saying there's anything morally wrong with it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who play with inherently evil orc babies. I'm saying that it creates a situation I'm sure I'm not alone in finding distasteful. And I'm saying there's no good reason to do so.

And what I'm saying, friend, is that just because you don't see the reason for that type of cosmology, doesn't mean one isn't there.

Seeing the predomination of posters that can type faster than they can think or read, not referring to any semblance of the argument of the man to whom they are posting a vociferous and angry response as they ride on the wings of glory, I thought that a simple diagram of opposing views might serve some purpose:  


Cosmology A

Orcs and other creatures, none of them evil, all of them with free will and their own individual inclinations, arrived at by the dictates of happenstance and reasonable concerns (where is the watering hole, why do the guys in the fort keep taking all the placer, what do you mean prima nocta, and the conflicts which so arise).


Cosmology B

Orcs (and perhaps some others) designed by the gods or God as evil and sentient, to serve some purpose, known or unknown to the players, not so fortunate as to have free will (or more fortunate if you look at it from another angle) - free will being the special province of a few races and those races dealing with all the issues of the free will present in Cosmology A.


These are two possible cosmological conditions.  Both equally valid.  Which one offers a wider range of roleplaying?  A richer context?  Which one is less or more puerile?  I dare not say.  I say only that these are two valid choices, either of which having been used countless times by masterful GMs to run campaigns of vast imaginative scope and searing intellectual depth - and some of which were fun.

I raise my glass to the cocksuckers that were fun.

Quote from: Benoist;478879He actually does agree with you, though you're not thinking of the right war:

True enough, I should not restrict my view to WWII, but I feel he was influenced by both wars. The difference is that WWI influenced his thoughts before the writing and at the very beginning, while WWII was an influence on him and his writing while actually writing the majority of the series. I mean, how coulld they not really? Once again, keep in mind I'm not saying he wrote the stories because of the wars, only that he was influenced by them. I do feel his portrayal of Sauron and the orcs was inluenced by his experiences, just not on a conscious or deliberate level. Just IMO though.

Quote from: Sigmund;478886True enough, I should not restrict my view to WWII, but I feel he was influenced by both wars. The difference is that WWI influenced his thoughts before the writing and at the very beginning, while WWII was an influence on him and his writing while actually writing the majority of the series. I mean, how coulld they not really? Once again, keep in mind I'm not saying he wrote the stories because of the wars, only that he was influenced by them. I do feel his portrayal of Sauron and the orcs was inluenced by his experiences, just not on a conscious or deliberate level. Just IMO though.

I see what you mean. Outside of what JRRT says about this, there's no way to know what was really going on in his mind. The Chapter "The Shadow of the Past" is important here, though: it's the part where Gandalf asks Frodo to throw the Ring in the fire, tells him about what's written on it, where we hear for the first time about the Ennemy and all that. It's really the breakthrough in the book as far as the whole plot is concerned, with the Council of Elrond basically fleshing out and filling in the blanks left from there. In this chapter alone, you can see the whole basic premise of the tale explained in clear terms. And this chapter was composed long before war with Hitler was on the agenda.

Now the chapter was revised later on with rewrites of the drafts that led to the LOTR we see in print, but we can retrace the actual steps of the composition from the very first drafts from Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series. It seems to me, from this evidence, that the overall plot structure of the LOTR already existed when WW2 broke out.

Quote from: J Arcane;478808I'm pretty sure RPGnet would've locked this thread and banned Benoist for reposting a private conversation.

The question of the privacy of the post didn't even come to my mind until it was mentioned on this thread. This was a post from the author which was then shared via G+ by Levi on some circles, though I did not actually look which. I even directly linked to Levi's post on G+ thinking anyone could see it (see the OP). I honestly have a hard time thinking of spreading posts like this as "private conversations", though you're right: I should have considered it. I will in the future.

Quote from: Benoist;478887I see what you mean. Outside of what JRRT says about this, there's no way to know what was really going on in his mind. The Chapter "The Shadow of the Past" is important here, though: it's the part where Gandalf asks Frodo to throw the Ring in the fire, tells him about what's written on it, where we hear for the first time about the Ennemy and all that. It's really the breakthrough in the book as far as the whole plot is concerned, with the Council of Elrond basically fleshing out and filling in the blanks left from there. In this chapter alone, you can see the whole basic premise of the tale explained in clear terms. And this chapter was composed long before war with Hitler was on the agenda.

Now the chapter was revised later on with rewrites of the drafts that led to the LOTR we see in print, but we can retrace the actual steps of the composition from the very first drafts from Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series. It seems to me, from this evidence, that the overall plot structure of the LOTR already existed when WW2 broke out.

Absolutely, and what I'm saying has nothing to do with why he wrote the story or even what kind of story he wanted to write. I'm referring only to the details.

Edit: Hell, maybe Sauron was influenced more by the Kaiser than the Fuehrer... that would make sense too.

Quote from: Sigmund;478890Absolutely, and what I'm saying has nothing to do with why he wrote the story or even what kind of story he wanted to write. I'm referring only to the details.

Hard to know. Are you thinking of any particular details that struck you especially in this regard?

Quote from: beejazzI've gotten that it "justifies" hack and slash. Which it isn't needed for. For reasons I explained above.

Apparently an insult.

QuoteI've gotten that you can do it because personal preference is all the justification you need. Which is one of those dumb arguments that can be used to justify all things. I prefer campaigns where orcs are a regenerating food source that taste like jelly... that doesn't make regenerating jelly orcs less arbitrary.

Apparently jelly orcs are slander?

QuoteThese are two possible cosmological conditions. Both equally valid. Which one offers a wider range of roleplaying? A richer context? Which one is less or more puerile? I dare not say. I say only that these are two valid choices, either of which having been used countless times by masterful GMs to run campaigns of vast imaginative scope and searing intellectual depth - and some of which were fun.

So... given the description of the cosmology you give, there's magical compulsion. Which may or may not be the same thing as inherent evil depending on how flexible and reversible magic is but whatever. And it sounds like you're going for... what? a tragic tone?

I'm just asking a specific reason for the appeal of the idea.

You can dare not say, and refuse to make a value judgment. But I think it's a topic worth discussing. In fact the topic of what is and isn't tasteful has been on the board's mind lately, with topics on torture, rape and pillage, and what have you on the front page for a while now.

Quote from: boulet;478841CRKrueger: that was brilliant and fun to read!

Quote from: Benoist;478845I concur. CRK wins the thread.

Indeed. That post was a joy to wake up to this morning. Thank you, CRKrueger.

I could go into it.  To do it right would require a rather long post and maybe half an hour of my time to get right.  That is more time than I am willing to devote to a post that seems insincere.  Insincere, first, because you seem extremely intelligent and fully capable of having come across the reasons before, both in theological breakdowns, if not in posts prior in this thread, which you have not included in the dismissive post from which I quoted.

Insincere also because of this comment.

Quote from: beejazz;478893And it sounds like you're going for... what? a tragic tone?

I know when I'm having a conversation and when I'm not.

As far as the "appeal" of the "idea" is concerned.  That's covered in Cosmology A vs B.

The general literary consensus I'm familiar with is that Tolkien did not set out to write a specific WWII allegory, and the fact that so many people tried to interpret LotR as one annoyed him so much that he rather overstated the contrary opinion.  Certainly it is absurd to think that anyone living and writing through WWII would not have their writing be profoundly affected by the experience.

As for the OP, he lost me the second he used the words "privileged" and "colonialist".  Cultural Marxism is bullshit, and I have no time for people who keep that tripe in their brains.

Now all we need is a sculptor willing to do Nixon-faced orcs and we can put this bitch to bed.