"Dark-skinned LoTR baddies mean Tolkien was racist!" (Barf alert)

The Guardian ^ | 2 December 2002 | John Yatt

[donmeaker]

Tolkien's history is of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman empire. In fact, the great city protected by its walls, Constantinopolos, fell by Turkish cannon and janissaries, the Muslim children of captured franks. The Orcs in the book were an interesting amalgamation of the Germans that Tolkien fought during WWI and the Medieval Turks. Note that the Turks were allies of the Germans during WWI. I think that in the Hobbit the dwarves begin as crude caricatures of the Jews, but get better as the story grows. In LOTR the dwarves are far better developed. Yes, I know the correct term is dwarfs, but Tolkien uses dwarves through out.

The movie makers actually did an interesting job of disguising that, transmuting the Scimitars of the Orcs into odd swords with a hook on the end. I have seen similar treatment in illustrated versions of the book. I don't see how someone can say that two branches of the same race, elves and goblins, are good and bad, and therefore the book is racist. Rather like the germans fighting the angles and saxons, and calling that war racist.

What happened in ROTK the book was a marshalling of all sources of western power to rescue the great city of Gondor. That is exactly what did not happen in 1453. The last king or emperor of the Romans died in a hopeless charge against the Turks, after removing all his badges of office.