Kevin's Watch

Has anyone iven thought to the racial purity in the land? in most fantacy we see crossbreeding of species ie elf/human, in the land we dont even see culteral cross offspring other than Esmer whose heretage takes place outside the land, come onSRD lets see a bit of sandgorgan and giant action

This is not most fantasy! (this could be a fun topic, tho... )

Speaking of race: are the Haruchai black?
That's how I always picture them.
Curly short cropped hair, brown skin.
Their fighting style is Asian but I always see them as being black (African if you will)

...Am I the only one who picked up on the " eye contact" going on between Liand and the Ramen gal..?..Not necessarily inter racial, but definitely an interesting development of mixing of innocence and service. There is a sub plot that I expect more on.

..With Stave completly bar'ed from the rest of haruch,,even tho maimed, where will he go to " take care of business"? Perhaps the Ramen and Haruchai will find common ground.

...Even more disturbing,,is the concept of some necrophilia. A relationship between the dead and the " living" ( well,,the still in existance anyway). The potential is there. ....MEL

the urichi are dark brown skinned im sure this is mentioned many times, excoecially in gilden fire

the ramen are also brown skinedas ars some of the woodhaven and stonedowners,

one other issue is the inherent racism in fantacy fiction sum intelligent races are inherenly evil tolkin was much critised for this, SDR is addressed this in the second chronicals by redeaming the urviles, but he still needs to rewrite a bit of the lands history chronicals but in the last two did we

I always asumed the Haruchai to be East Indian looking--but that's just me.

As far as racial cross-breeding--It may have happened at Revelstone; like was Mhoram a stowndowner or woodhelvin?

Some scary combinations may be--A sandgorgan and a cavewight--man now they could kick some ass.

How about a Hustin and an Argulah--there's barely enough brains in either of them, but a Boar-faced Ice monster would be pretty scarry.

A Merwife and a Wraith? She lights up when she....

yeah, i always pictured the Haruchai as Samurai warriors...

but not necessarily japanese looking...i couldnt see them as BLACK per se, and i dont recall them ever being described as 'dark skinned' but...i have read the chrons in awhile, so thats just my memory...but i dont have a problem with them being dark skinned...just so everybody knows...uh...its all good...

It's funny, in the first three books, I always pictured them as white, especially in TPTP, I could vividly see Bannor with graying hair and crow's feet.

But in the second Chrons, I universally pictured them as Asiatic. Go figure.

Cail wrote:It's funny, in the first three books, I always pictured them as white, especially in TPTP, I could vividly see Bannor with graying hair and crow's feet.

But in the second Chrons, I universally pictured them as Asiatic. Go figure.

Me too, but now in my rereads they have dark skin.

It made it more interesting to me that they would be black but that they live in the high cold mountains.
Just not the typical mental picture I would have of the type of people living in that environment.

Who says that they have to fit in any of our worlds racial catagories?If I want to picture Bruce Lee with Kareem Abdul Jabar's skin tone I am sure that would be o.k. with SRD-in fact Bruce Lee crossed with Kareem would be one bad mofo.

Sunbaneglasses wrote:Who says that they have to fit in any of our worlds racial catagories?If I want to picture Bruce Lee with Kareem Abdul Jabar's skin tone I am sure that would be o.k. with SRD-in fact Bruce Lee crossed with Kareem would be one bad mofo.

I didn't say that they did have too fit.
Actually I said that that it made them MORE interesting.
It's just vague enough to make me wonder.
I like that.

Why must we limit ourselves to Earthly descriptions? There's no point, really, unless it's for a movie. I always see the Haruchai with very, very tan skin, short black hair, and dang it, I don't care what the book says, they are not shorter than me. *bounces up and down like an enraged squirrel*

Ahem. Now that that's over. What about ur-Vile and FireLion cross? Heh heh.... Flaming acid.....

I always picture the Haruchai as looking Tibetan, because of their fighting style and their high altitude origins.

The Tolkien stuff is silly. When you base your story on northern European myths, naturally northern Europeans are going to be your heroes (and many of your villains), and outlanders are going to seem, well, outlandish.

It would have been totally bogus for the Toliken of 1937-54 to write some story that confomed to PC sensibilities that wouldn't even exist for another 40 years. Kevin Costner can do dumb stuff like plunking a Moor down into Sherwood Forest as the new hero of Robin Hood. What results may or may not be a good story, but the point is that it's no longer the story of Robin Hood.

Anyway, if it's legit to jump on Tolkien (and every other past writer) for not reading the rules of 1998 in their crystal balls and writing accordingly, than all of today's writers are equally guilty. Somehow I doubt that no-talent hacks like Mieville who have nothing better to do than snipe at far greater writers than themselves are any better at writing to 2050 standards than JRRT was at writing to 2000 standards.

Turn it around: how many historic African or Asian or Middle Eastern stories depict Europeans heroically?

Anyway, even within TLOTR, characters such as Ghan Buri Ghan are depicted as inherently more noble than Denethor, etc.

Anyway, unlike in Tolkien, Feist, etc., SRD's non-human intelligent species probably aren't capable of interbreeding with humanity: waynhim, ur-viles, (sandgorgons, if they're intelligent), Giants (I hope!) The only exception are the elohim, and they're not really supposed to do it (or to want to).

no-talent hacks like Mieville who have nothing better to do than snipe at far greater writers than themselves

You've read his books? I'd be interested to hear more of your opinion on him if so (personally, I think that his criticism of Tolkien was overly harsh, but in some ways valid). Perhaps you could visit the Mieville thread?

Thaale wrote:I always picture the Haruchai as looking Tibetan, because of their fighting style and their high altitude origins.

The Tolkien stuff is silly. When you base your story on northern European myths, naturally northern Europeans are going to be your heroes (and many of your villains), and outlanders are going to seem, well, outlandish.

It would have been totally bogus for the Toliken of 1937-54 to write some story that confomed to PC sensibilities that wouldn't even exist for another 40 years. Kevin Costner can do dumb stuff like plunking a Moor down into Sherwood Forest as the new hero of Robin Hood. What results may or may not be a good story, but the point is that it's no longer the story of Robin Hood.

Anyway, if it's legit to jump on Tolkien (and every other past writer) for not reading the rules of 1998 in their crystal balls and writing accordingly, than all of today's writers are equally guilty. Somehow I doubt that no-talent hacks like Mieville who have nothing better to do than snipe at far greater writers than themselves are any better at writing to 2050 standards than JRRT was at writing to 2000 standards.

Turn it around: how many historic African or Asian or Middle Eastern stories depict Europeans heroically?

Anyway, even within TLOTR, characters such as Ghan Buri Ghan are depicted as inherently more noble than Denethor, etc.

Anyway, unlike in Tolkien, Feist, etc., SRD's non-human intelligent species probably aren't capable of interbreeding with humanity: waynhim, ur-viles, (sandgorgons, if they're intelligent), Giants (I hope!) The only exception are the elohim, and they're not really supposed to do it (or to want to).

the point about tolkin and racism, is not simple 1990 political correctness and it is naive to judge it so, I dont think tolkin was any more or less bigitod or racist than anyoneelse of that ear, but the simplicity that one racial group are irredmable evil while others are 'noble' higher than other races andmore deservig of life is throughot lotr, and remember nobility,markism and facisim are all around tolkin, and his world was as critically literally as our p.c. world today, gollem fell from grace and could be redeamed, orcs are geneticly evil, gods walk middle earth life is cheap, despite tolkis insistance its not just a story no work of fiction is

mickwalker wrote:I dont think tolkin was any more or less bigitod or racist than anyoneelse of that ear, but the simplicity that one racial group are irredmable evil while others are 'noble' higher than other races andmore deservig of life is throughot lotr, and remember nobility,markism and facisim are all around tolkin, and his world was as critically literally as our p.c. world today, gollem fell from grace and could be redeamed, orcs are geneticly evil, gods walk middle earth life is cheap, despite tolkis insistance its not just a story no work of fiction is

Did you read the books or just see the movies?
I think you need to read (or reread) some volumes of the "Silmarillion" and "The History of Middle Earth".
The Silmarillion hints at the tragic fate of the Elves that were captured early by Morgoth.
Morgoth's Ring shows a few ideas where Tolkien might have been going with "orc redemption".
What makes a race of people "noble" in Middle Earth is a lot *more* than just the mindset of that particular race of people.
The Valar gave the people of Numenor great physical (or even genetic) Gifts, not just a few pretty trees.

mickwalker wrote:but the simplicity that one racial group are irredmable evil while others are 'noble' higher than other races andmore deservig of life is throughot lotr...

No, that is not all throughout the series or anywhere in it. It's a paper-tiger argument set up by JRRT's critics so that they can then tear it down.

And of course that accusation itself (Tolkien created only pure good and pure evil) is what's grossly simplistic, so it's ironic that his critics always fall back on the claim of valuing complexity. Well, it's not very "nuanced" to simplistically claim that Tolkien was simplistic!

One thing to keep in mind here was what Tolkien was and wasn't trying to do: he wasn't writing a C.S. Lewis "Space" book set on Mars. He wasn't writing a Gene Wolfe book set in earth's future. He wasn't writing an alternate world fantasy series set in The Land or Xanth or Midkemia or Discworld.

He was writing a book supposedly set in this earth’s actual past. He liberally used existing myths and legends as his source materials. That meant wise and ethereal elves; greedy yet stalwart dwarves; and goblins who jump out of caves to waylay travelers. Tolkien didn’t invent any of that – he used it.

And the reason he used it faithfully rather than twisting it to conform to our (or his) preferences is that it would have destroyed the story’s believability to change it. JRRT didn’t have 2000’s sensibilities, but he did have 1950’s. He could have changed things to fit his preferences, if not ours. But he still didn’t end TLOTR with the orcs joining the 4th Age version of the U.N., or being religiously converted, or being psychoanalyzed into respecting themselves and others. And this was not only because any such methods of reform would sound anachronistic, it is because the resulting change itself couldn’t be reconciled with the known, historical perception of goblins and kobolds.

People who say JRRT “should” or “shouldn’t have” treated certain characters or races differently miss the point: of course he could have done so, but to do so would have shattered the image of a supposed pre-history of our actual world.

JRRT is of course not the first or the last author to set his works in our supposedly actual past, and everyone else who writes such a story faces the same issue: in order for the story to be plausible and readable, you can’t flagrantly violate what is known of our actual past. So if you write about goblins, you always have to take into account the actual real world fact that throughout real world history, goblins have had a negative perception in that part of the world (and others, of course), and your story has to square with that fact, which you and all your readers know.

I have always thought the Haruchai were dark, with slightly asiatic features.....more East Indian than Chinese. Putting that aside, I have always thought the Haruchai were HOT. Extremely so. I wish I could marry one.