Why do liberals dislike LOTR so much?

Why do liberals dislike LOTR so much?

bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/12/22/sorry-tolkien-not-father-fantasy/pljM6NOC54JmFaqY8bzNSI/story.html

>Why has fantasy fiction prove so enduringly popular? Clearly part of the appeal lies in the way it speaks to our imagination. More than that, however, it lets writers work through complicated moral questions at a distance from the real world. It explores very human themes—loyalty, ambition, how to govern a society—in a setting imaginary enough to avoid coming across as partisan or preachy.

>The works that do this best—most recently “Game of Thrones,” “The Malazan Book of the Fallen,” Joe Abercrombie’s “First Law” novels—draw their mood and internal architecture from books with a very different worldview and moral code than “The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien will always have his place in the canon; after all, it’s fun to lose yourself in “The Hobbit” for three hours in a theater. But as people read the books and watch the bloated movie adaptations, it does no service to the genre to suggest that his work is the model for all that followed. It makes it all too easy for those new to these fantastical worlds to assume Tolkien’s prudishness, his sometimes archaic prose, and his Boy Scout characters are failings not of one man stooped over a desk in postwar Britain, but of all fantasy—for all time.

I love LOTR and I'm far left. Problem is with your murikkan "liberals".

Not diverse enough

Its always agenda with the left.

>Tolkien will always have his place in the canon; after all, it’s fun to lose yourself in “The Hobbit” for three hours in a theater.
Alright that actually triggered me,what the fuck go read the fucking books you moron god damnit.

sounds like a typical contrarian Sup Forums post desu

>The works that do this best—most recently “Game of Thrones,” “The Malazan Book of the Fallen,” Joe Abercrombie’s “First Law” novels
HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.

It's because the far let (and modern American leftist nihilists) don't take anything they do seriously. They also don't believe in virtuous people living virtuous lives. The idea that virtuous (though flawed) men have to overcome their weaknesses for the greater good is an affront to everything they hold dear, -- which is essentially nihilistic hedonism.

They love capeshit because it's superhumans effortlessly casting off stark and obvious external evils while quipping away because none of it really matters that much. There are humorous moments in Tolkien's works, but the characters actually take shit seriously.

It's really fucking sad that there's been an entire generation completely lost to the notion that trying to improve oneself or the world is bigoted.

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nani the fuck is this?

>Why do liberals dislike LOTR so much?
Every hardcore liberal I know loves LOTR.

Some so-called "enlightened" fantasy connoisseurs just think that by shitting on Tolkien they demonstrate that they have superior or more cultivated taste. They think that by upping smut and trash with fantasy trappings, they champion more "realistic" or "mature" fantasy stuff. Which speaks to their own immaturity.

That being said, one of my favorite fantasy authors, David Eddings, made fun of Tolkien in almost every one of his author intros for being such a prude. Eddings admittedly has a point ("I always thought it funny that girl Hobbits are more or less absent in Middle Earth. Does anyone in these stories have sex?" - paraphrased but you get the gist).

It's a story about a fucking hobbit going on a trek to a fucking volcano, what the fuck does sex have to do with anything

Hell that's the main reason why nothing can live up to LotR, it can do excitement without resorting to the low-hanging fruit like Game of Thrones used to do literally every episode when it started out, and I hear the books are even smuttier, Jesus Christ

I dislike LOTR (I'm not a modern day liberal)
but I think I know why.

LOTR is a tale of Good vs Evil, I find these kind of stories to be boring as it's used too often.

If LOTR was one of the first films/books I'd have seen I'd have probably liked it.

I saw it when I was around 14 in school (Don't ask) and my reaction was "Pretty boring desu."

Confirmation bias. LOTR was incredible popular with hippies in the 60s and 70s.

Liberals have no values beyond the basest and lowest urges, so of course Tolkien is 'prudish' and a 'boy scout'. These people can only despise that which they could never even come close to in their lifetimes.

>it does no service to the genre to suggest that his work is the model for all that followed
For all intents and purposes it's true that everything after Tolkien is drawing on Tolkien.

you need to get off that peterson juice m8.

because gandalf was meant to be portrayed as a proud overweight woman of color

I agree. American liberals are way too far to the rightwing.

Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichaen duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other? Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.

>implying you can get off this ride

They don't, only retards who write shitty clickbait articles do.
Back in the 60s LOTR was infamously popular with hippies due to its anti-war and anti-authoritarian themes

i want to call you a nerd but I understood everything you said. does that make D&D like Sauron? homosexual Melkor worshippers trying to complete the fatass' work?

>sorry-tolkien-not-father-fantasy
>doesn't talk about tolkien being the father of fantasy
quality bait

bloody post-modernist

>It's because the far let (and modern American leftist nihilists) don't take anything they do seriously.
well no shit, everything they believe is pretty much a double standard, if they had to apply the same rules to themselves their heads would explode

>the entire article is "Tolkien is bad because he's not edgy enough"
The state of modern journalism.

>I'm far left

We have reached a point where liberals are calling Classical Liberals like Thomas Jefferson racist. Their rabid cries of racism over every perceived, real or not, slight no longer register to me.

If you read the books then watch that first movie it's actually been pretty liberalized for hollywood

Book:
>dwarves and elves have an ages long rivalry
Movie:
>dwarf is a dumb fat graceless racist
>elves are cool and collected and witty and only respond to racism with haughty disdain

Book:
>the race of men is diluted. the bloodline of kings is now weak and mixed out.
but the last men are still valiant - the last stronghold against mordor.
aragorn can't wait to get on the throne again and restore honor to the species/race.
Movie
>le "human beings are a terrible" schtick
>poor mother earth
>men are all liars and selfish
>aragorn - the only good human - hates all other men for being selfish liars


The movie manages to maintain a few "old fashioned" ideals but hollywood knows american audiences can hardly tolerate it, so it's reeeally softballed at them.
Of course ten years later it's already outdated and hateful.

>for hollywood

for the purpose of hollywood*** to be clear

not "liberal EVEN FOR HOLLYWOOD"

>Why do liberals dislike LOTR so much?

>all white cast
>shows civilizations and cultures that are 100 percent white and worst of all happy
>shows multiple occasions where whites are romantically involved with other whites which may produce *gasp* white children
>all the villains are not played by evil white cis males
>no Muslims and the only Arabic characters are pledged to Sauron
>no blacks in the fellowship
>no Muslims in the fellowship
>no transexuals in the fellowship
>no Black/White romance involving the main characters
>most heroic character is a straight white cis male, second most heroic character is a straight white cis male

It basically breaks every modern Disney convention and could never be made today in it's current form. It's a miracle we got it. At this current rate it will probably be called hate speech and be banned from theaters the way that theater banned Gone With The Wind this week.

Whatever helps you survive the gulag, m8.

I know it's b8, but do you think there are leftists who genuinely think they can start a gulag, after their "revolution?"
Are they that deluded?

Because Tolkien was a devout Catholic who espoused monarchism and traditionalist religious values, and this is reflected in his works. Naturally postmodernists and Jewish lobbyists would hate such a work of art and rail their useful idiots against it.

I'm economically far-left and socially far-right. Basically Pope Francis with a tad of Hitler. I hate capitalism and consumerist culture but also hate jews, atheists, fags, degenerates, tranny gay crap.

Does that make me a radical centrist?

Fuck off

It's the Boston Globe's Mega-Jew paywall.

It's worse than any other newspaper website paywall I know of.

This is Sup Forums, where you get Sup Forumsweenies talking non-stop about "the day of the rope". Does it matter either way?
It makes you an edgy Stalinist.

>The works that do this best—most recently “Game of Thrones,”
A song of ice and fire you illiterate cunt.

>Does it matter either way?
Well it's pretty funny, Sup Forums is at least honest about it. I find it hilarious to think that leftists can't wait to start up concentration camps for mass murder.
Like I get it, cognitive dissonance and all that, but shouldn't there be a limit to a lack of self-awareness?

Because rightists keep using it for their retarded memes.

>leftists can't wait to start up concentration camps
You may want to leave your house and talk to actual people. You'll likely dismiss anything said here as trolling and bait (as you probably should) but, in case that you've lost touch with real political opinions like 99% of the internet, it's good to remind yourself that reality is much duller and nuanced than that.

Either way, good night, this was a good shit thread to cap off the evening.

Nah. Leftists have been calling Tolkien "cryptofascist" way before orcposting was a thing.

Not him but in my country you can litterally be thrown in prison for not being liberal enough regarding multiple subjects and most liberals i know (pretty much everyone i drink and party with) are not only ok with it but want more
The only one disconnected from reality is you

this is what perpetual virginity does to people

okay, which country is that?

lmao you're right, I'm sure leftists really can't wait to start up concentration camps

weird b8 m8

It doesn't present a viable tax policy

On a macro level it's good vs evil, but the subplots are all characters confronting darkness in themselves; it's far more morally grey than you might think.

why would a rational post saying that most political opinions are not extremist junk like what you read on the internet make you think its bait?

Canada

>It makes you an edgy Stalinist.

wtf i love judeobolshevism now!

Because the exchange started when someone implies that gulags are an actual possibility and goal of the left.
Which is silly b8. The left may be retarded, but not that retarded.

>cryptofascist

How is that a bad thing? I mean, I wouldn't even use the word "crypto", he full on supported Franco in the Spanish civil war. And that's not a bad thing, being a fascist doesn't preclude you from being moral. Democracy is not some infallible god, democracy can and does turn out shit. It's better to have a benevolent dictatorship.

Sauron dindu nuffin

>aragorn - the only good human - hates all other men for being selfish liars
not true
>men are all liars and selfish
not any of the rohirrim

>not any of the rohirrim
Motherfucking Faramir "I freely gave away the One Goddamn Ring".

go outside, moron

>Faramir
>rohirrim

bruh