This is Annalisa, one of the new concierges over at the main UBS branch–we’ve worked together before when I’ve subbed at the HUB location.

I just had to comment after reading this post, having read the entire LOTR trilogy 3 times, and the Hobbit probably 5 (maybe 6–it’s become one of my favorite books, and I’ve come to like Bilbo more perhaps more than Frodo).

In any case, while I’m not really shocked that you haven’t read Return of the King (I haven’t read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yet), I couldn’t believe that people didn’t know what the title “Return of the King” referred, to! It very directly refers to Aragorn’s journey, which I thought would be obvious to anyone who has read the book, and especially anyone who has seen the movie. (I have to make one more aside here and say that while it was realistic, Viggo’s unwashed hair really bugged me).

In regards to your other point, I have to agree with you that despite being the most epic mythology composed in our modern time, the series does display a racist philosophy in it’s depiction of some of the enemies. I don’t find it so present in the orcs/goblins, which are non-racial creatures that Tolkien employs to symbolize evil vs. the good represented by (most) humans, elves and dwarves. It is a very clear-cut distinction, very much along the lines of other Western epics and sagas.

What I find most problematic, and what you wouldn’t have encountered not having read RotK, is Tolkien’s depiction of another human “race” called the Haradim. They are not so subtly patterned after some sort of quasi-Middle Eastern culture, described as dark-skinned, come from the south (they’re not even on the map), and get recruited to fight for Sauron (why they do isn’t very well explained; it seems that they are simply bad people).

Also more subtly indicative of an underlying racist streak in LOTR is the geography Tolkien employs. The good-guys races are from the north and west, and the bad-guys from the east and south (the exception being Saruman, though he was not originally an “evil” character).

I realize that this has been a very long response, which only serves to prove that people who have something to say about LOTR have *a lot* to say about LOTR. I didn’t even get to Tolkien’s portrayal of the female characters, which are too few and far between. Eowyn, who has the most important female role (not hard when there are only two), gets a rather confused treatment by Tolkien, who can’t seem to make up his mind whether it’s okay to have a woman play such a crucial role in the outcome of the war rather than stay home and take care of her people. And yet the role she plays is one that according to some prophesy cannot be fulfilled by a man. Go figure.

Well, I guess I did say something on the topic of women in LOTR after all, and I won’t bore you any longer with the many other things I could say on the subject of this epic work