Critical Hits by J. Robert Lennon & Carmen Maria Machado

Author:J. Robert Lennon & Carmen Maria Machado [Lennon, J. Robert & Machado, Carmen Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2023-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Lord of the Races

Race is not just part of world building in fantasy. It is the world.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion borrow heavily from the creatures and worlds of Norse mythology—Middle-earth is based on Midgard, Mordor on Muspelheim, and so on. But Tolkien applied a twentieth-century lens to a ninth-century cosmology—what were once Yggdrasil’s “creatures” (dwarves, elves, humans, giants) Tolkien called “races,” each with particular physical and moral characteristics: Elves are fair and intuitive, Dwarves are ruddy and proud, Hobbits are earthy farming folk, and Orcs—black-skinned, socially dead, corrupted—are an unpaid labor force representing a great evil.

Race is so foundational to Tolkien’s world building that even Galadriel’s opening monologue for the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings (2001) establishes race as the frame for the story (emphasis mine):

The world is changed.… It began with the forging of the great rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest, and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else, desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made.

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