![]() ![]() The world (of men) actually has undergone a decline in their advancement since the fall of Numenor (being the equivalent to Atlantis which also was considered superior to old Greece when Platon "invented" it) and during the 3rd Age. He no longer cares for growing things." - Treebeard)Īnother thing to be taken into account ist that book Gondor should rather be considered an antique society on a technology level similar to the Roman Empire than medieval Europe, as it is depicted in the movies. But now he has a mind of metal, and wheels. ![]() (Quote: "There was a time when Saruman would walk in my woods. Sidenote: The evil in LotR, especially Saurons transformation of Isengard to this massive war machinery is Tolkiens metaphor for the industrialization and the pollution and destruction of nature that came with it, peaking in World War I. Later revolutions were connected to industrialization and therefore also people accumulating immense amounts of wealth on the cost of the working class. Tolkien just didn't bother writing novels about it because that's not the kind of story he wanted to tell. Sidenote: This does not mean there were never any famines or conflicts in the world of men, actually I think the 3rd Age must have been full of it. "A song of Ice and Fire", where lots of the nobles are much more realistic from our point of view). This is not happening in Middle Earth since Tolkien has decided to use an idealized version of a feudalistic society (completely different to e.g. Bad rulers who lived in obscene wealth and debauchery like the Ancien Régime in France while squeezing every last morsel out of their starving polulation. The Age of Enlightenment, which is just not a thing in Middle Earth (yet). ![]() In my opinion it is because the revolutions on Earth have been fueled by several things: While these are legitimate questions, I think it was not necessary for Tolkien to answer them, since he wanted to tell another kind of story. ![]() Trying to teach the Orcs to be good citizens." Did Aragorn carry out a policy of systematic Orc genocide? Did he send his knights out into the hills to kill all the Orcs? Even the little baby Orcs? Or was there Orc rehabilitation going on. Sauron fell down, but you see all the Orcs running away. They weren’t all killed, they ran away into the mountains. But I want to know what was his tax policy, and what did he do when famine struck the land? And what did he do with all those Orcs? A lot of Orcs left over. "He did what he wanted to do very brilliantly, I’ve said this before, but… I look at the end and it says Aragorn is the king and he says, ‘And Aragorn ruled wisely and well for 100 years’ or something. Last but not least, there was a lack of capitalist mentality, peasants were not asked to work to death, just to finance the (expensive) hobbies of their lords. Peasants were also generally not involved in wars, which would be a massive social stress. Part of it comes again from religion: God assigned you as a ruler, it's your responsibility to do a good job. Last but not least, surprisingly medieval aristocracy was relatively good in keeping their peasants happy and avoid rebellions. Also, there was a strong religion argument against revolting: the ruling class has been appointed directly by God. Before that there were only misorganized rebellions that mostly ended in a bloodbath by the ruling class. Revolutions are something that came with the creation of a middle class in modern era and with industrial revolution later on. My take is that people are too busy avoiding world destruction to start messing with their own rulers.Īside of that lotr is pretty much a medieval Europe. The second aspect is the constant presence of a greater for to fight, first mortgoth then Sauron. I guess you could justify that by the fact that a lot of kings immortal for what concerns elves, so no much hope of overruling them once they are in power. There is some political games in the second era with the house of numenor but that's about it. For the most part people are loyal to their kings and (almost) nobody has a hidden schedule. Yeah it's something I always found a bit missing in Tolkien's work, there is not politics. ![]()
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