Why Tolkien Didn't Like Dune
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2024
- Frank Herbert's Dune is one of science fiction's most influential and impactful pieces of literature. The political, religious and ecological themes surrounding the story have helped sculpt future novels for generations. That being said, while it's primarily regarded as hugely important to the masses, there's one equally important fantasy writer who had his own differing opinions on the story -- J. R. R. Tolkien.
In 1966, Tolkien wrote a letter to a man named John Bush regarding him obtaining a copy of Herbert's book. When asked about his opinion, Tolkien gave Bush a cordial but blunt description of what he felt. According to the letter, Tolkien prefaced by saying that he finds it impossible for an author to speak about another who works in a similar subject matter. He then adds, "In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case, it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment." - Zábava
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It's interesting that the Lord of the Rings story ends up being self-referential. "But what if we could use this myth to accomplish good?" When maybe the best answer is to “destroy” the myth.
@granite_4576 We don't live in a post-myth world, we just don't call them myths
"You think you were the first person to believe their war was justified??" -big ass owl from ATLA
Television was front and center in Nazi Germany, as nowhere else on Earth, what was the programing like?
Words like “truth” and “myth” are absolutist and exclusive. We need to teach people to think critically and determine what is “likely” or “improbable” and always be open to being incorrect. Our best thinkers and scientists are so often proven wrong by the next. Even referencing Tolkien’s source material, the whole story of the Bible hinges on us failing to determine what is “true” or “good” and what is “false” or “evil” and how our response to those determinations can expose human faults.
Life is gray rather than black and white simply because none of us have the capacity to fully understand and process everything.
I think there's a lot more to this discussion. For one, the Nazis asked Tolkien directly to use his work and he very politely declined. And then, between the Hobbit and LOTR, he made sure dwarves could not be used as an antisemitic stereotype. And Tolkien never publicly said why he didn't like Dune. He felt it unprofessional to say.
But I do think totalitarian will use whatever they can. It's not a reflection of defect in the original work, just whether the movement found the literature useful in shifting public opinion.
I think Tolkien’s devout Catholicism played a role as well. The man loved Jesus & Dune’s whole thing was a critique of messianic figures.
Edit: To clarify, being religious doesn’t inherently make you dislike Dune. As a religious person myself, I am a fan of the books, especially in our modern era in which televangelists, politicians, & other disgusting opportunists take advantage of other people’s faiths to increase their own wealth & power. However, I do think Dune’s critique in the book is not just of false messiahs & disingenuous opportunists (though it certainly addresses them). The book explicitly says multiple times that Paul & later Leto II do such horrible things in order to make people realize just how horrible the very idea of a messiah is, so that none are ever entrusted with such power again. It’s definitely a bit of a twisted self-justification that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you think about it, but that is how they rationalized committing atrocities: becoming a horrible dictator & jihadi so that they could be pointed at as a historical mistake to never again repeat. Also, to those saying “Dune is a critique of Islam, not Christianity,” they’re sister religions & extremely similar. The aesthetic is more based on Islam because the author thought that would be cooler & fit his setting better, but the critique can apply to either religion equally.
I thought so too. My granny for instance didn't like Dune for the very same reason.
Bro would have had a field day with His Dark Materials
perhaps, but I feel like he ought to have appreciated the notion of a false messiah that manipulates and destroys the society he purportedly saves
@@kadmiiAFAIK Tolkien was a devout catholic until his death. Dune directly criticized his faith/religion and thus his worldview (as well as other messianic religions and religion as a whole). Pretty easy to see why he’d have an innate bias against it. Additionally great authors can agree to disagree on the medium (as mentioned in this short) as well as religious matters (E.g. Tolkien and CS Lewis) without actually thinking a story is poorly written.
@@kadmiihaha, well, looks like I’m going to come in sort of in the middle here. Firstly, I’d encourage everyone to read Tablet Magazine’s review of the newest film, which does a great job conveying the complexity in Dune I think many are missing. Secondly, Tolkien was from a mixed (yes, within Christianity) faith background, which I identify a whole lot with…though now, I suppose as always really, I only identity as believing in G-d, who made a covenant with Abraham (that as a Jew I am bound to) and gave his words to Moses on that confounding mountain (I almost get some LOTR vibes from it all). Anyway that matters, that Tolkien had a very open mind and realistic view of the world from a very young age…because while he was indeed a Christian and a catholic (and I offer absolutely no scorn upon that and would find a desire to erase that fact odious)…he nearly defined his early life by a willingness to see text with new eyes, and have an open mind.
It really comes down to three reasons:
1. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and Dune is very critical of religions and messianic figures in particular.
2. Tolkien hated allegory. Dune is an allegory.
3. Tolkien fundamentally believed that there is good in the world, and that the darkest days still have hope. Dune has a far darker take on human nature.
Nicely summarized - put it into a short video and you have this one beat by a mile.
It comes down to one reason:
1) we'll never know because he never said
Herbert does have a point. Not everything in the world is white and black. Moral ambiguity will always exist
I don't get how the messiah critique matters to Catholicism in particular
Edit: my point here was misunderstood. What I'm saying is: how is it his "devout Catholicism", *specifically,* that'd made him dislike Dune. I am fully aware about Christianity's messiah thing, but in the case of Catholics - that I know of - nothing about their doctrine makes them at odds with Dune's message.
Also, how would any Christian (Catholics in particular) would see Dune as blasphemous, or in conflict with their faith partially? It's literally NOT about Christ.
@@Gelatinocyte2Catholicism and Christianity in general are based on a Messiah figure
"Dune cannot be co-opted by extremists" is a very bold take
Exactly what I was thinking.
yes, i for example do it all the time
How had LoTR been co-opted by extremist groups? I'm so confused about that
What extremist groups use lotr as a rousing cry? I genuinely don't know what this guy is refering to...
@@ModeratelyCool The italian far right views LOTR as a metaphor for their fight on foreigners - the rhetoric by the leadership is very cultured and soft, but go to the rallies and you can hear people of certain ethnicities and skin colours being described as orcs and goblins and trolls invading the 'pure' west.
They read the book as a vindication of higher cultures' rights to fight and destroy lower cultures, and protect themselves from them.
The leadership has been pushing it, and encouraging the media to discuss LOTR through this viewpoint, and have been co-opting LOTR events in Italy.
guy literally told half the story and concluded something Tolkien never said
I am not surprised coming from this channel...
How smart you have to be to not understand a short is only 60 seconds?
That simply isn't true. The only thing he attributes to Tolkien is the quote "I dislike Dune with intensity"
His conclusion is not framed as something Tolkien said, but as his own opinion (shared by others)
@@Grawlix-P Tolkien is more right on this. This guy, like other "critiques" channels just spread misinformation over art pieces to compel their political narrative agenda.
@@user-ph8dk3hk6o I feel like this content is ai generated, are you perhaps getting this same feeling??? lmao
Left out a major piece of context, Tolkien was saying in the letter that no author can really judge another authors work, because they will always have stylistic and creative differences, and he used dune as an example of a good book he didn’t care for. He specifically said dune was a good book, he just didn’t like it. He never said it was terrible or anything like that.
Yes! Thank you for bringing this up!
@@disgruntledmoderate5331
“Is your favorite color blue?”
-Tolkien: “no it’s green, blues cool too tho.”
CZcamsrs for some reason: “Why Tolkien HATES the color blue and thinks ANYONE who likes that color should be killed.”
That's exactly what I thought. Tolkien is a fantasy guy, Herbern is sci-fi. No hard feelings (the "intensity" aside) just not his genre, simple as.
It reminds us that there was a time when critique could be genuine and civilised. As opposed to an attack on one's character and automatically a reason for visceral rebuke.
@@klidthelid8361 To make it fair tho you would need to say you dislike blue with some in intensity
Tolkien hated dune, Herbert hated Star Wars, Lucas hated Jabba the Hut… so it all makes sense to me. 😂
Dune isn't based on LOTR.
Like LOTR is the base for most fantasies, Dune is the base for most science fiction stories
@@og8263 ok, good point, wrong comment, as nobody said otherwise here
@@og8263what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
@@og8263and star wars not based on Dune. We can say Warhammer 40k based, and Warhammer Fantasy based on LOTR. But you know it is hard to create something completely unique from the start.
Star wars is heavily inspired by Dune. Read/watch both and you will see that that is undeniable. George Lucas (sometimes dexterously, sometimes hamfisted-ly) drew inspiration/directly took from tons of things, like Dune and WW2 imagery and films among others. Once again, this is undeniable and well documented. Dune and LOTR are both Mt. Fujis (look it up, it's a great quote ab LOTR) in their respective genres (Sci-fi & fantasy).@@leman7648
How has LoTR been co-opted by extremist groups? I genuinely dont understand how thats possible.
Because people on Reddit told him so
I mean, there were people that actually believed the "okay" hand gesture was co-opted by right-wing extremists because somebody on the internet said it was.
Some people are quite quixotic their search for villains to destroy.
Thank God I wasn't the only one wondering this, it seemed so out of pocket.
@@toxicreaper1180 same... that was weird.
I've never seen a video which so completely misunderstands both stories to such a self-satisfied degree, and completely fails to answer its own question.
Bravo for farting into your hand and passing it off as literary criticism.
what's being misunderstood? lord of the rings is pretty black and white and dune is mostly shades of gray, at least compared to dune
@@mogo-wc7xw The Lord of the Rings isn't black and white at all, and there are more shades of grey in The Silmarillion than in Dune. I'm a huge fan of both and appreciate both for their nuance and subtlety when it comes to their moral explorations. Such takes as 'Lotr is morally simplistic' are just fodder from Reddit, mostly by people who don't actually read the story.
What did you expect? The guy is clearly liberal.
@@mogo-wc7xw Read the actual letter for yourself and you'll understand. The original commenter is 100% correct
@@Lodatzorit wasn't a comparison of the worlds in the texts, but of the texts themselves. Bringing up a different one doesn't jive with comparing the stories in the texts. Taking the stories as they are is what he did. Maybe that's where your disagreement should focus
"Not a single elf in the entire book. 1/10" - Tolkien
He should've waited for Messiah
"Where are the trees?'
White people aren’t the heroes 0/10
"10/10" - any gnome
"Doesn't mention the position of the sun in the sky enough 0/10"
It was very respectful of Tolkien just to send a private letter explaining the reasons rather than making public statements for publicity.
haha like it makes that big of a difference, tolkien was still like "this shit sucks bro"
Back then if you wanted publicity you had to specifically publish it in the newspapers lol
@@normifiedIt wasn't to Frank himself, rather it was a response to a friend who bought him a copy of Dune. He didn't want to criticize Frank Herbert directly or publicly since Tolkien saw him as a budding author, and didn't want to discourage him or ruin his publicity.
Tolkien was a respectful critic, as he was respectful with criticisms of his own work.
It's a dying behaviour these days and it shows.
@@normified
It's the same difference as a nowadays influencer calling another one criticizing them for something they did vs posting a hit piece about the same thing
Do you think there is a difference there?
I'd be embarrassed to publicly state this take
Funny that WWII was good vs evil, WWI was more balanced in terms of the guilt of both fronts
Remember dislike and disrespect are two different things.
Disrespect is something that people give to those they dislike.
@@J-sv9dp Tolkien didn't dislike Hurbert, he disliked Dune.
@@tylerpatti9038 I think I misunderstood: I thought you were implying that Tolkien disrespected Hurbert but didn't dislike him.
I think I understand what you are getting at now: Tolkien might have disliked Dune but that doesn't necessarily mean that he disrespected its author.
Correct me if I've misunderstood again.
Many people lack the emotional capacity to discern the two
@@supraguy4694 Many people use many words in many different ways to mean many different things in many different situations and contexts.
The evolution of language and the variety of ways in which it is used, understood and misunderstood around the world provides little indication of anybody's emotional capacity.
Language is in constant flux :)
For context: Tolkien fought in the trenches of WW1 as a second lieutenant, fighting in four or five major battles, including the somme. Frank herbert was a photographer in the Navy Seabees for 6 months and went home after receiving a non combat related head injury.
So, they're wartime experiences differ greatly and may have less to do with herberts worldview.
Tolkien even served at the battle of the somme, where he lost two of his best friends at the battle
You didn't have to fight WWII for the nazis to make your head spin
@@mimimurlough
Being in the middle of the fight and hearing the news about said fight are two halfs better off separate
@@mimimurloughtrue but you would need to be in the battlefield to see the enemy shooting your friends head off
At the end of the day they had completely different experiences
I believe Tolkien's Catholicism plays more of a role than their World War ideas.
But yes, those are quite different experiences and mindsets.
Virgin grey morality vs Chad heroic morality
Who gets to be the hero in your world?
@@shinjite06 me
@@krulak292Based
Hell yeah 🍷🗿
@@krulak292 You're the villain in mine though, so how does that work?
This Dune bro found out Tolkien said he disliked Dune and got mad about it so he made this disrespectful short. He is even laughing at times about how LOTR can used by extremist groups (anything can) as if that delegitimizes Tolkien's opinion of Dune.
nah, he used the "hate" meta to attract certain fanbase (Tolkien fan) to get engagement and succeed. It's not that deep lmao
Sounds like you're the one who got mad.
@b_uer you just said the same thing he did but with simpler words.
@agustinnegro8854 haha I guess my reading comprehension isn't that great. I was just trying to point out this short was a bait for engagement, but yet the original commenter seems to take this thing seriously (which afaik, none of his words implying the same as I said). Anyhow, no hate! I love both series ^^
@@b_uer yeah, but it should be taken seriously in the sense of looking down at people that make engagement bait.
Saying Herbert fought in wwii is a bit of a stretch. He was a photographer for the Navy’s construction battalion and was discharged after 6 months when he suffered a non combat injury.
Tolkien on the other hand fought in the trenches at the battle of Somme, with him being at the front of a German gas attack and eventually getting trench fever. Most of his friends died and his battalion had been almost completely wiped out during the battle.
The two had vastly different military experiences
This point deserves a lot more recognition.
tbf he didn't say Herbert fought in WWI
@@IEVLB I mean the wording of “Tolkien fought in World War I, but Herbert was in World War II” implies it. Most people would hear that sentence and assume it meant Herbert also fought, which just isn’t really the case.
Either way it’s just a weird thing to bring up, because I don’t think their military service or what each experienced in the wars is very relevant to why he disliked Dune, but rather it’s the themes of Dune and who Tolkien was a person and an author.
Tolkien was very religious, Dune is fairly anti religious. Tolkien’s themes are about hope, love and overcoming evil, Dune is fairly dark and has more morbid political undertones to it.
@@brendan9868he literally says "Tolkien fought in WWI, but Herbert WAS in WWII". The fact that you assumed he meant that Herbert also fought is a misinterpretation on your part.
@@user-vi2dz3fk6gIf Herbert being a non-combatant photographer deserves a note as being in WWII, then Tolkien deserves it too. Tolkien not only fought on the front line of WWI where he experienced the brutality of war, but he also served as an air raid ward and codebreaker in WWII thanks to his extensive linguistic knowledge (he had also experience, he was a signals officer in WWI, deciphering both encrypted allied communication and intercepted enemy messages). Kind of unfair.
Y'all simplify Tolkien too much. Evil in his works is a constant repeating threat to the world, that average people must endlessly overcome and hold faith in goodness. Complexity does not equal nuance
But the """characters""" in Lord of the rings aren't nuanced. There are no good parts of Sauron or Saruman, they're just flat evil placeholders. There are no evil parts of Gandalf or Frodo. The only evil thing about any of the good guys is when they have the evil ring on them. The bad guys are personality-less orcs who do what Sauron says because.....
While this is partially true, it is worth noting that nuance and some complexity is required when analysing what truly is good or accurate.
The issue is individual people in LotR don't wrestle with good and evil as much as entire peoples do, as a communal whole. And 'wrestle' is a VERY generous word. See the orcs.
@@logantotman1574Boromir? Faramir? Isildur? The Haradrim? Ringwraiths?
Everyone seduced by the ring or corrupted by Sauron has some bad in them that is abused by him
@@logantotman1574yeah, because Sauron is the embodiment of evil. As for nuance, it is just an excuse for people who want to do morally questionable things.
"Which myth serves us better?"
*Who is us?*
Humanity
Jews
*What do you mean by serve?*
@@TheSergio1021 Your a slave to the banks and modern capitalism,who owns the banks and stocks of giant corporations.
Good question
*smugly asserts that a clear moral paradigm is dangerous*
Well, it certainly can be. Your morality may not be my morality, and the "clearer" you are about it, the more dangerous you become to me.
if morality is relative I should only support the one that serves me.
That's literally not what happened.
He's asserting that people can bastardize a good thing to get people to do evil things. Again, the Nazis played Beethoven at rallies.
Now people bastardize LOTR's story to fit their own moral ideas but Dune can't be done like that because it's so morally grey.
To use a qoute from Borderlands; "Everyone's the hero in their own story".
Dune is an allegory. Simple as that.
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations..."
Part of a longer quote by Tolkien.
Yeah the dude was either too lazy or afraid of actually looking up Tolkien's point of view or simply reading the letter for the short and instead spelled out his own headcanon of whatever he thinks happened trough Tolkien's mind.
LotR is an allegory so…
@hz.kemalpasa2997 Right? I mean, almost any creative work can be interpreted as an allegory 🤷♀️
Another Tolkien quote elucidates this a bit: “I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."
He also says that: "The only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it."
Finally, he states elsewhere that LOTT isn’t an allegory of atomic power, but of power in general, of war but not a specific war.
In sum total, I think he’s saying that what he hates is intentional, deliberate allegory. He hates allegory that can only be mapped one way, to offer only a single interpretation. To him, allegory occurs naturally and can be interpreted universally.
@@madhoney2766 yeah this short feels deliberately disingenuous.
The charging cable as a nasal moisture collector really had me there 😂
It’s not a nasal moisture collector, it’s a tube to drink water from
@@kevinbeck8836He looks identical to Gerrard from Peep Show
I was super confused by it at first! I didn't realize what it was supposed to represent at first!
@@kevinbeck8836what? No it IS a nasal moisture collector. It’s called a catch tube. The Fremen breathe through their noses and the tube reduces the amount of water they lose from their breath.
@blueberries254 that's what I was saying!!
This is the most reddit brained take I've seen in a while
Tolkien never hated Dune. If we just look pass the clickbait title and statement we would be able to tell that Tolkien said he likes the storytelling and structure of Dune, he’s just not a big fan of it (sci-fi).
In the letter you're talking about, Tolkien said Dune was a good book, but he just didn't like it.
I think that's the best form of criticism. You can recognise the merits, but it just doesn't work for you. Like he didn't just shit on it to be a dick.
It's easier to just say Tolkien "hAtES DuNe" because it baits people and generates more engagement
It’s funny, I’ve said the opposite about a lot of things. Like critically, I can poke enough holes in things to make Swiss cheese look like an airlock seal, but like it still makes me happy.
@@JustinTK416 same thing, basically recognizing the quality of the work is not related to your enjoyment of it. Wish more people had that kind of awareness. Too many think “I didn’t like it” = “bad”
So the idea of "thanks, I hate it."
Something can be meaningful, useful and important, but unpleasant. It may have been too close to home and challenging to enjoy, where say McCaffrey's Pern saga is more palatable to a "fantasy as moral play and escapism" mindset, as opposed to a Herbert/GRRM "fantasy as an allegory for society and the foibles and weaknesses of man, and the challenge of being imperfect but striving to be better".
You could even argue it's the same as Marvel vs DC - Marvel focusing on the humanity of superhumans, DC focusing on the challenges of always being beyond reproach and not human.
Dune is used as a rallying cry by people who don’t get that, even though Paul is the protagonist, he’s not the hero.
That's not exactly accurate. Paul is definitely a hero, in the context of the first novel, but the entirety of Dune(the 6-book series, not just the initial entry) is a critique on the dangers that any society faces when anyone is placed in the role of "hero."
@@SyniStar616 Paul is not a hero in the first novel. Herbert wrote the rest of the series almost in spite of that notion. The Arteries accept Arrakis from the Emperor with the expressed deliberate effort to USE the Fremen, despite their honorable status among the other houses. At the end of the day, they operate and thrive in the same dangerous and treacherous political landscape. And at the end of the novel, Paul exploits their religious fanaticism and the false prophesy of the Bene Geserit as well as their very own planetary recourse (spice) to dominate their culture. Chani represents the only path and where Paul COULD be a hero which he abandons for power
Pauldidnothingwrong
@@SyniStar616 He starts as the hero, but by the start of Dune Messiah its clear he's become very much a galaxy shaking villain, much much worse than the Harkonnens or Shaddam.
@cirian75 right, that's what I said. In the context of the first novel, he's a hero. Dune, as a series, however, is a critique on the danger posed to society by "heroes."
"Maybe the best answer is to destroy the myth" is a terrible idea stated in the most unmanly way possible.
Thank you
If you're extremist enough, Dune can suit you just fine. "Paul Atriedes did nothing wrong, the empire had it coming cause might makes right!". See?
“I have only seen the movies and I didn’t realize how blatantly obvious that the Main Character is objectively bad especially after book 2” vibes.
@@omgjlmiub fr
Aye but not about logic with these guys. It's about destroying western culture and accusing anyone who opposes them of being extremists. The little clip is just there to try associate enjoying Lord Of The Rings with being evil.
@@omgjlmiub You're talking about people who unironically defend Adolf Hitler. You really think it will be blatantly obvious to them who's a bad guy?
Except the empire exemplify might makes right and Paul despite being ultimately right sees horrific consequences for his actions
"Herbert was in world war 2" yeah... I don't think you can compare his 6 months as a navy photographer to what Tolkein did in the previous war.
We can
Participation in a war does not equal credibility.
motherfuckers are powerscaling writers now, it doesn't matter how long when it's still a fucking WAR
Herbert saw tons of corpses too, no?
@@prometheus5405seeing corpses, while incredibly traumatizing does not equate to actively fighting in the war and watching dudes get killed around you.
He once said fantasy should uplift the reader, not depress them
To be fair. Dune is Sci Fi aka Made to make you think and depress you. Lovecraft is to make you never sleep again.
@@arnowisp6244 i really enjoy Lovecraft lol. Not really spooky so much as it is interesting.
@DisPater-xs2pu how so? Tolkien was a highly educated combat veteran of 1 world wars and he lived through another. He spent half his life knee deep in the bloodiest most violent period of history this world has ever seen. Is it so hard to believe that he'd want his fantasy realm to be a place that shows the good in people and the hope that we as humans can be better?
@@SigismundSonOfDorn Same here! I'm a particular fan of his dream cycle, especially the dream quest of unknown kadath. The idea of an alternate dimension you inhabit when you dream, if you're aware of its existence or stumble into it; and can live an entire life separately from your own. Randalph Carter seemed to be a much more elderly man in the dreamlands due to his experience. The ghouls! They get so much lore in it. They have a whole society, tunnel into our world from the dreamlands, they're capable of communicating and speak an actual language that Carter understands, and uses to recruit them for help on his journey. I really vibe with Lovecraft, the dude has this almost punkish/teen vibe I guess. Like the fact the ghouls use tombstones as weapons, it goes so well with their aesthetic.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 that's one of my favorites too actually. Such an interesting concept that people don't really play around with these days despite how much you could do with it.
Wait.....did you really say that because Nazis played Beethoven and displayed beautiful art that we should hate on both of these things?!? And that LOTR falls into Nazi adjacent territory?
I can't even bro
how is a movie about radical religious groups rallying around a single man not usable by extremists? the movie ends with them goin to holy war...
The idea that Dune couldn't be co-opted by extremists is totally bonkers.
I think the difference is that extremists who might use Dune as a rallying cry would fundamentally be ignoring the message of the source material, whereas those who co-opt LOTR could actually make an argument (however flawed) that the message of Tolkien’s work supports their worldview. The same can’t really be done with Dune.
It’s almost like a challenge.
Read Dune Messiah and get back to us on that.
Alia is very likely science fictions original depiction of woke. Non binary, maddened by anxiety and paranoia. Dead father/hero, neglected by mother, surrounded by sycophants and with a complete aversion to reality/truth.
No heroes, only monsters to kill.
Frank Herbert described the Abomination 50 years before their widespread emergence.
@SarastistheSerpent I really don't see how anyone could misconstrued LotR and have yet to see that. Can you give an actual example of people seriously doing this or is it along the same line of cops getting a punisher tattoo despite punisher killing cops.
"Which myth serves us better?"
Huh? I thoguht we were talking about why Tolkien didn't like Dune
Both serve us well. It is vital that we all hold in our hearts that good can triumph over evil as long as those who are good stand. It is also vital that we understand that the world is a complex place and that food and evil are not always what they appear and charismatic leaders are not necessarily a vector for good.
It's such an idiotic non-sequitor that I felt compelled to look through the comments, lol.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 yes exactly
Yeah, dude didn't actually explain why Tolkien said he didn't like it, just "art changes over time"
Like no shit lmao
Video should have been titled "Why I think Dune has a better worldview than LOTR."
Don’t forget how Tolkien said he still thought it was a good book but it just wasn’t his taste. It was truly him just saying “it’s good but it’s not for me”
We need an early life check on this guy.
oy vey
proving points, etc etc
Wtf
Subprime291, I have to recommend his first video "The Fascinating Secret Behind Hebrew Letters". Very cool and interesting stuff!
@@johnyoutube4073 he really nose a lot about Hebrew huh.
Just because bad people use good art, doesn’t mean you should stop making that art.
Don’t cede ground to evil.
Yeah I hear you in that just because the cartels drink coconut water doesn’t mean coconut water is bad. However when a story is routinely used for dehumanization and violence, it is good to ask whether they may be something in the story that is not bringing out the best in humanity.
@@_magnify any story which has good guys and bad guys, or even a story which has only various levels of bad guys, can be used in the way you’re describing. It’s basically an extension of Godwin’s Law. “I have some issue with you, therefore you’re like the Orcs, or Voldemort, or The Empire, or the Harkonnen, etc. Therefore you’re a villain, therefore I can hate you.”
So long as any one or any thing in a story or historical event displays any obviously negative traits, someone will compare someone they don’t like to it.
It seems to me less an issue with any particular story, and more an issue of human nature.
@@_magnifyyou sound like a fed
@@_magnify Well, "the best" according to the post-modernist harm-avoidant directive, that would be "extremist" in relation to most ways of thought that came before. Conflict is a fundamental part of nature, it's not "good" or "bad". It's ironic considering a binary "good" and "bad" such as in LOTR is considered simplistic.
@@_magnify Link? (routinely used for dehumanization and violence)?
LOTR being appropriated by “extremist” groups just feels like a pointless thing to bring up when talking about the value of the work. Any story with good vs evil could be appropriated by bad groups of people. It doesn’t take away from the beautiful messages and themes of LOTR.
What even are these extremist groups that supposedly center their ideology around LOTR?
@@mikethered4864 they don't center the ideology around LOTR, but LOTR indeed has a lot of elements from Christianity and Royalism in it, so it naturaly attracts people who like these things.
That's the point, art is propaganda. Postmodernists want to remove films with crazy ideas like "good and evil" from the public consciousness. That's why they ruin all of the classics. Stars wars, lotr, etc.
@matthiasdarrington3271 what an insane time to be alive when Christians are labeled as extremists simply for holding views which have been accepted in society for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Yes but that's also the difference with dune, it's harder for extremists to use a morally ambiguous character
You know why lefties can’t "map themselves" as the good guys in LOTR…😂
They hate LofR cause they know they are not the good guys 😂
Dipshit comments like these are why I really hate this short. He's basically handing LOTR over to these people and nobody fucking asked him to.
I mean this was funny but pretty sure a lot of "lefties" love LoTR so I dont get the point of this political projections.
Dune is criticism of the governments and LOTR is what the world should be.
I suspect another reason that Tolkien didn’t like Dune is the fact that Dune isn’t “literary.” That’s not to say Dune isn’t well written, but rather that it has a more straightforward style of storytelling that focuses on delivering the plot and less on setting the stage.
When I read Dune, I was quite surprised how modern it felt. It didn’t have a lot of the artistic flourishes I noticed in LotR.
It's exactly why it IS "well written" the whole devotion to this classical form of writting was a mistake to begin with. I like Hobbit, it's okay, good, great maybe. But going through Tolkien style in LotR was just such masochistic form of pleasure, it's boring when you read it, though interesting when you stop and appreciate. But still it's pain.
This is a great point. I read both in high school. LOTR feels like someone eith vocal talents and a lute could practically SING the story as a performance.
Dune is certainly more of a realistic sounding narrative just giving us the facts and political machinations.
I think Tolkien probably didn't love the hints of Abrahamic religions being violent and manipulative, but I can also see the story being too blunt, cruel, and cynical for his tastes!
@@Garvin285 As soleone who grew up with the hobbit and similar writings, let me tell you, when I first tried to read the more "modern" stuff, I was in pain ("I have to read through everyone's inner monologues? So cringe!") It is pretty subjective but I do admit in this day and age, I'm in the minority here
@@anonymousstacker2044 Yeah, of course, it's just my subjetcive opinion. I admire both writters in a way
@@aazhieFrom my understanding Tolkien probably didn't like anything that didn't have a somewhat positive ending or uplifting section as he was very much affected by the war. This was a big reason (along with catholicism) why Tolkien was so keen on good vs evil narratives with good prevailing in most instances.
with respect, unlike what this video is implying things like post-modernism and dadaism, the avant garde, started after ww1 not ww2. if anything mainstream art post-ww2 was more reactionary and traditional as a consequence of the culture war of the cold war, with the avant garde becoming steadily more commercialized as time moved on.
Yes the more detailed version would be that WW1 started the avant garde, and then with the Spanish Revolution and WW2 you had people experiencing the totality of war for the first time from the perspective of the avant garde-- and also able to access a wide variety of photographs and videos of the adversary.
@@_magnifyThe pattern of art falling is far older than that.
The Renaissance saw the rise of this intensely beautiful, integrated artwork. In the middle ages, you often don't know who the artist is. In the Renaissance, you ALWAYS know who the artist is.
And, so the cult of the artist began, where people started seeing this embodied beauty as being *from* the artist.
It's a deep, big picture, subtle point.
Lucifer was the most beautiful angel in Heaven, as the story goes. His mistake was to confuse his own beauty with himself, seeing himself as the source of that beauty, rather than something that was granted to him.
Modern art is very much the result of the belief that the art itself is from the artist, and not this dance that the artist does with all of these other beautiful patterns of nature, of reality.
Crediting yourself when you've learned from thousands upon thousands of people, and from nature yourself is extremely arrogant. It's EXACTLY what we did, and that's why it's extremists who are the only ones using these classical forms today.
Tolkien never said why he didn’t like Dune. He just “intensely disliked” it. In fact, he never said more than that because he didn’t feel like that was his place. THIS is what he said.
“It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment”
Anything beyond that is speculation. Also folks saying it’s because of his religious beliefs is just simple minded. This guy implying that it’s moral ambiguity is also simple minded. Tolkien was a fan of A Voyage to Arcturus, a book that was most certainly NOT Christian nor morally black & white. This video is pointless snobbery.
LOTR as an idea and Dune as a reality check to keep us humble (like both)
A truly insane take to suggest that the Dune myth serves society more than LOTRs.
Your summary of Tolkien doesn't do justice to his serious wrestling with evil and the corruption of the human heart. Though he believes there is moral coherence in the universe, he's just as skeptical of power as Herbert.
The entire LOTR series can be boiled down to a message of "power corrupts, no matter how good your intentions are."
There is literally no other possible way to interpret it.
The problem is there really is no evil or good. Nevermind how rare it is that someone would paint themselves as evil. The very idea is absolutiist and removes the idea of self interest from the discussion.
I imagine you find it very hard to understand why things happen.
@@koc988 Saruman firmly believes he is doing the right thing throughout the story.
Your point is incoherent. It's like saying there's no math because some dude says that 2+2=5 and thinks it's correct.
Almost like this guy is just pushing a narrative
@@koc988 evil in lord of the rings is defined as self interest.
Boromir's interest in protecting his people.
Frodo's interest in holding onto the ring.
Gandalf's interest in guiding mortals.
All of these are good things as long as the heroes are not blinded by that self interest which is what the ring does. How it corrupts.
You have read 'good' and 'evil' and ignored the definitions and then pretended there were none offered.
Is it also because Tolkien was a devoted Christian and Dune is skeptical towards organized religion?
Yeah Tolkien was devoted catholic, makes sense why he hated it
That would also explain Magnify’s point about morality in both stories. Morality in Christianity is very much good vs evil, which then in turn affects the stories told by its constituents.
@@michaelflamel2611Also as I heard from others: Paul is basically a manufactured messiah, formed by centuries of eugenics and human meddling. How do you think a devout Catholic gonna react to that?
yeah because dune is dumb
I like that you said "skeptical." I've seen quite a few people try to make Dune out to be anti-religous propaganda recently and I think that just isn't a fair or reasonable approach to it. Much like other sci-fi, it's intent is to warn you not to tell you what to think.
You lost a fair bit of credibility with this one chief.
You did not answer your question
Guys not liking something doesn't make you a bad person. Just thought I needed to say that.
No, but liking something too much means your a nazi. Oh and the only reason we have abstract or expressionistic art is because of Trump support- sorry I mean nazis or just generally people I disagree with or think are wrong.
Not according to Reddit and social media 😂
Actually, the fact he sent a contrucive letter and explained why he didn't like it shows he still has some level of respect for the Dune book and author...he basically said "Not for me, but good work"
This video seems to ask the question “is it better to believe a beautiful lie or acknowledge a painful truth?”
The truth is that it’s a lie of omission that people’s only options are to choose between those two absolutes.
I can’t say much for dune except that I was counting the seconds till it was over and I could do something else (both the book and movie) needless to say, this has not been the case with LOTR.
It is a pet peeve of mine when people try to make a connection between extremists and Tolkien, or accuse his fans of being nazis.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
You could say Tolkien “strongly disliked” the nazis. He even went as far, on one occasion, to lecturing them about what “Aryan” actually meant. And Hitler was a person he referred to only as “That Man.”
@@Lumosnight Imagine people comparing Dune to "edge lord philopshy." That would be silly.
Your conclusion is a huge reach
You're a liar, Tolkien never said why he disliked Dune, and thought it would be wrong for one working author to criticize the works of another.
The Lord of the Rings is objectively inspiring
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
It absolutely can, all you have to do is miss or deliberately ignore the point. Some reactions to the movie would indicate that's easier to do than you might think.
Oh it's incredibly easy to do with Dune. I can't do it on here but I could totally show you how easy it would be to coopt Dune
@@ManiacMayhem7256 My point exactly.
Well, the movie itself is also way WAY more binary than the book is.
I mean, for exemple, simple as that: the emperor is the one who made the plot against the atreid in the movie, not the Harkonnen who then bring up the emperor to back them up (with the intent to screw him up later in the process), plus they even made the emperor look an awfull lot like fucking palpatine in SW 1, 2 and 3, when he should more likely look like the God-Emperor from WH40k (abeit older).
The movie is somewhere in between between Herbert and Tolkien's work.
On another hand, it's still an incredible movie and I still don't think it's possible to adapt Dune into a movie because of how dense in data the books are.
@@kur0shir060
The miniseries is as close as it got and it was good despite the effects.
@@ManiacMayhem7256 Didn't see the miniseries, just talking about the movies, so, maybe. Can't speak of what I didn't see. :)
The idea that artists must cater how they write in order to not be used by evil people is not something anyone should give a damn about
Evil is non-negotiable, they will use anything they can in any manner they can no matter what it says or does
Consider how the Ukrainian army is currently dehumanizing the Russians by calling them "orcs" in slang. This is not a misunderstanding of Lord of the Rings, it is a direct application of Tolkien's exact worldview.
@@_magnify you think that is Tolkiens fault? Slurs for enemies have existed since the beginning. During the American revolution American soldiers would hang British sympathizers and say it didn't matter because they "were torys not human". During ww2 people came up with a name for their enemies like Jerry for the Germans, and would refer to them as such. If anyone is fighting anyone else they will either believe themselves to be the good guy, or they wouldn't fight
@@_magnify the Russians can stop acting like orcs in Ukraine, then.
@_magnify . Insulting your literal enemy in a war is not extremism. Wanting to cancel other people for saying something that offends you is extremism though.
The Ukrainian example is just one of the more recent and troubling ones. There are plenty of other examples of extremist groups using Aragorn's "Men of the West" speech, or Italian neo-fascist youth in the 1970s calling themselves "the order of the ring." When a story is routinely used this way, I think it is fair to ask whether there is something in it that does not bring out the best in humanity. If so, I don't really believe it should be censored and banned. But it would make sense to hold it at arms length and take it with a grain of salt. @@laslov7812
Lord of the Rings is a better myth. Just because beautiful and clear things are used by bad people, doesn't mean that they actually justify those bad people's actions. One of the things that makes bad people bad is that they use good things for evil purposes. That theme is literally in Lord of the Rings.
What group has appropriated LOTR?
It’s also pretty interesting because Tolkien clearly uses a lot of Christian stories and beliefs as influences in his writing and world building, while Dune has a lot of similarities with certain Islamic beliefs in certain areas. It’s very fascinating comparing the two, to be honest.
Yeah but in a caracateur type of way. Dune is honestly insulting to Arab (both Islamic and non- Islamic) culture(s).
@@kightsunboo hoo
@@kightsun it's kinda not that insulting. As an Arab Muslim Iraqi male, I read the books and watched the movies of dune. The book talks about not trusting outsiders, taking care of the land, faith is different from tradition and don't wait for someone to save you, save yourselves. Literally Islam. Lol
a large part of the story is about not trusting messiahs as it can lead to things like genocidal holy wars, that is a critique of religion for sure
@@kightsunwomp womp
Tolkien's is the world we want, Herbert's is the world we get.
We don't want either of them. Tolkien's world really sucks when you look close at it.
@@tsm688oh for sure. i just meant that most people want to have a simpler black/white, evil/good world. but reality is complex and full of shades of gray.
it's not about the world in its entirety, it's about hero's, in LOTR, like he said good and evil are clear, so hero's are good, there is hope, the good guys can win. Meanwhile in dune, the apparent hero starts a genocidal war even though he can see the future which means that's literally the best path, the golden path
Idk if I want to live in Tolkien’s universe it’s kind of a sausage fest
@@caspermcgonagle1532 at least someone has his priorities straight :D
Overall Tolkien serves us better. The very reason why different groups are tempted to use his story for a nefarious gains is the reason why, his story is potent, powerful, and meaningful. That can be dangerous, that's why it's useful.
We actually don't know why JJR disliked dune, those letters where private and we shouldn't say without room for error what would be the reason...it's a bit assumptive.
He intensely disliked allegory.
Dune is an allegory.
So, all we have from Tolkien is that he "disliked it with intensity". No statement from Tolkien as to why he disliked it. So the rest of the video is simply conjecture on someone's part.
yes. sometimes it’s interesting to think about why things are the way they are even if you don’t know for sure.
I bet he was just annoyed the main character had a boring normal name like "Paul" despite being 20,000 years in the future.
I mean come on Frankie, even by Dune standards that's pretty lazy.
@@HellbirdIV His second name is pretty cool, though😂😂😂😂.
It's not a well written novel, particularly for the time, that would have turned Tolkien off immediately.
It’s speculation
You literally never answered the question you posed
It's a short though
It’s answered subconsciously. The OP (rightly) rejects nazism on a good-evil moral dichotomy more akin to LOTR without reflecting on that
@@michaelmurphy3976 i didn't come here for his conjecture on Tolkiens opinion.
_"Give me facts, or give me death!"_
~Patrick Henry
It's because Tolkien apparently never stated his reason for disliking Dune. He only wrote a friend that he didn't like it and couldn't get himself to read it through. That's basically it.
@@michaelmurphy3976 Mans really rolled up and said, "OP is right, Nazis are bad, so OP is right that LotR isn't as good for society as DUNE." Aight cool, Watchmen is bad because people might align themselves with Rorschach. You see how that's a reach there? I _also_ think Nazis are bad, it's the coldest take since 1940, however I don't think we should act like Volkswagen is an inherently lesser car company than Ford because of that.
LotR: we have good guys and bad guys.
Dune: everyone is bad. Get Fucked.
This guy: "Tolkein is extremist!!"
Lord of the ring: lets defeat the bad guys with the power of friendship
Dune: lets save our family by manipulating everyone around us with the knowledge we gain from drugs
You are giving LOTR too little credit. Smeagol/Gollum shows that a person can be simultaneously innocent and wicked.
Boromir shows that assumed virtues like loyalty and patriotism can be turned to bad ends.
And Frodo shows that no person can be entirely virtuous. Even he succumbs to the ring in the end.
I would disagree slightly about Boromir, he’s a courageous and honorable man who desires to do good, but he doesn’t understand that the ring would corrupt these ideals and cause him to replace Sauron as a tyrant. In the end, he acquires understanding, repents and dies a hero defending people weaker than him.
Destroying the ring is saying that the only way to defeat evil (sin) is to resist it entirely
that's an extremely silly interpretation of Frodo: his purpose (similarly to Boromir's) is to show that the Ring can twist anyone including the virtuous.
And we see, specifically, how: he begins to grow possessive of "His" burden, clutching and (sort of nobly) preventing any other from holding it, even as it destroys him.
It's not to show that Frodo is himself "evil" in some way, but that no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances. Think of what Gandalf and Galadriel said when confronted with the choice to have the Ring.
exactly! this dude seems disingenuous af
Gee whiz @@bumfricker2487 , I think "no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances" sounds pretty similar to "no person can be entirely virtuous". Or at least, similar enough not to be called "extremely silly" by your righteous self. Sheesh...
Moreso, SARUMAN. The literal angel and The White Head Of Council, the ultimate authority, becames extra evil and resembling Sauron. Like... How is it not nuanced?
Tolkien: yeah, it doesn’t really do it for me.
CZcams content creators: WhY dId ToLkEiN hAtE dUnE!!!!???
Damn you Old bri"sh!
"dislike with intensity" is the definition of hate
dislike intensely means hate
@@12DAMDO No
@@88happiness NO
Tolkein: "I dislike Dune"
Herbert: "May thy knife chip and shatter
Honestly, the raw amount of people I see saying "Paul Atreides is the bad guy" makes me think people don't understand Dune at all and the message of it is wasted on them.
Blame Dennis' take on Dune for that. He recently said that he changed the second half of the first book because he didn't wanted to adapt the book; rather, he wanted to adapt it's "message".
God only knows what is he planning for Dune Messiah.
I would argue despite that the struggle for good over evil has inspired many more people to do small acts of kindness rather than extremists. "I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love" - Tolkien
As much as I love that quote, it’s not from Tolkien. It’s from the Hobbit movies, not any of his own writing. I still think it applies here though!
I disagree. Hateful, prejudicial people usually follow a “good vs evil” narrative, where they are the good ones
@@vicentedongo5575 At the end of the day, everybody has their own conception of “good” vs “evil”. You can be rational and postmodern as much as you want but you still believe in good and evil. Rather than denying the entire concept itself its better to figure out what exactly good and evil means.
@vicentedongo5575 so did the communists who killed millions. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy.
@@isaiah-6-8 It definitely applies, as Galadriel, and Gandalf have shown this sentiment in other words.
LOTR and The Dune Chronicles are two of my favorites! Such incredible gifts Tolkien and Herbert were given to write as they did.
Dune is about Worms. Tolkien hated worms.
Well said :-)
And Spiders
@@LeviathanSpeaks1469Fuck spiders
More obscure fun fact for y'all:
Tolkien read some of Shakespeare's plays and stated that he felt "bitter disappointed and disgust".
But I think that this is exactly why he was able to write what he wrote - because he found his own voice and stick with him
No, he was just disappointed and saddened that the trees didn’t move in Macbeth. Hence the Ents.
As a person who did a Shakespeare play and found it not worth the hype, I can relate
@@Toramai-pi8wx That's true, however he also disliked his work as a whole. Look up letter 163
Catholics, smh
@@Toramai-pi8wxGenuinely laughed out loud at how silly this post was 😂
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry" you are vastly underestimating the media literacy of society
Sory but in dune 2, we quickly understand who's the bad guy
Neither serves better, but both serve. Lord of the Rings warns us about the promise of powers and how little things can corrupt and destroy us, The Ring and Golem being prime examples. Dune on the other hand warns about different dangers, about zealotry and grand plans spinning out of control, which is just the start of things. Which I think is one of the major reasons Dune can't serve as a rallying cry, part of it's message is: Beware of Rallying Cries. Basically.
I don’t think you can really call Dune a myth because it doesn’t really match the criteria of a myth found across cultures. Tolkien, on the other hand, consciously made his stories as a mythology.
Funny enough, Dune itself addressed this in multiple books. Its refers more to 'prophecy' but myth isn't a far separate concept. And prophecy was both indoctrinated and used by the powerful in ways best understood through reading Chapterhouse and God Emperor. Basically it was all a set-up to take advantage of public support.
This is the only sensible comment in this entire section. I’m always dubious of the “know-it-all” channels, but this guy really shouldn’t delve into literary analysis based on a private letter without analyzing the content of said letter.
@@NotYou3005Actually this channel is very well researched, highly informative and a voice of sensibility and reason, in all the chaotic content that is so over saturated across social media platforms. I hope he post more context like this.
Dune isn’t « a myth », but it is based on myths just as much as LotR, just moreso religious myths and myths about savior figures than fairy tales or pagan European mythology.
LotR has its meta foundations built on IRL myths, whereas Dune uses myths explicitly within its universe, built off of various IRL ones.
@@NotYou3005Or try to do literary analysis of two such dense works as LotR and Dune in a goddamn youtube short. There are entire channels and communities dedicated to just ONE of those series. I've watched hours long videos examining the morality and motivations of Sauron 😂
Why is there a USB cable taped to your face?
"dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
sigma grindset yt shorts creators: "hold my beer"
Take it as fact that Tolkien would dislike you, passionately.
I'm sure he would cry himself to sleep about that. Lmao
Jeez.
@@agu9302Oldest, most intelligent Dune enthusiast:
@@kronk9418 You guys are shitting yourself over a tame analysis of Tolkien I'm not sure you want to play this game
As anyone with a brain would.
"Dune... can't really be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
My friend you underestimate Nazis on Twitter.
Yeah, it‘s not difficult to say „Paul leading the Fremen Jihad was actually good“, given that Nazis don‘t view „many people died“ as necessarily a bad thing. + Dune is a universe in which eugenics actually work.
Nazis today wave a red black and green flag. And they're usually on the keft
Now dune is entering pop culture through the movie medium, im sure ppl would find a way to rally behind Lisan Al Gaib
Fr, they already do with extremely blatant anti-nazi media, Dune is much easier.
E
Tolkien would have despised A Song of Ice and Fire
Ironic because WWI was the more complex conflict while WWII is more good vs evil.
😐............................... sure.
This is one of the first videos of yours ive disliked im afraid... I think it's unfair to interpolate so much from a few words Tolkien wrote to a friend in private. I've been seeing this trend of 'Tolkien HATED Dune' all over the booktube scene and it's just clickbaity.
Its just a reach to claim Tolkien hated Dune for it's ambiguity and make the guy seem so simple and black and white when his writing was fulfilling a specific purpose. Writers and their creations can be two different beasts. You ever see Miyazaki? He can seem the most cynical nihilist in interviews yet makes the most magical and hopeful media. Artists are multifaceted, and shorts like this don't do that justice imo
Yeah there are definitely a lot of reasons why Tolkien could have disapproved. (Aesthetic disagreements, procedural disagreements, ethical disagreements...). Mostly I thought the topic is a good intro to the general shift that happened in Artists who were born before and after World War 1.
@@_magnify I totally understand and think that's a super cool idea to delve into! I just worry that a lot of people could be taking away from this a shallow understanding of Tolkien's thought process behind writing LOTR and his feelings in general. A lot of what you said was interpolated from a short private message he wrote to a friend.
If I wrote that I "greatly disliked this short" and someone 100 years later made a think piece on why I was incompatible with your work (which is untrue, I love your videos!) and then went on with more assumptions I would be quite miffed haha
That’s helpful to hear. Trying to figure out if there is any good way to communicate anything about books and movies in 60 seconds 😅😭
@@_magnify which is exactly why I wouldn't attempt it myself 😂 so I applaud the effort all the same!
@@_magnifyExcept this general shift didn't happen after ww2, it happened during and after ww1. To say that art before ww2 was still hopeful and bleak is not correct at all. I mean 1920's is like peak abstract art era and and even before ww1 it was getting a little dark but then it went into overdrive.
In fact Tolkien is an anomaly among artists for being so positive after ww1, ww2 essentially being seen as just an extension of ww1.
You talk about the tragedies of ww2 but just a reminder that people were throwing mustard gas at each other and cutting their legs off from trench foot.
The fear of creating something good because it might be used for evil is the best way to excuse oneself from creating anything. What good will that do?
I don’t think this is a case of good things in Lord of the Rings being used for evil, it is a case of inherently violent and dehumanizing parts of Lord of the Rings being used for violence and dehumanization.
I don't know what you're referring to. There are some parts within Tolkien's legendarium that do not fit with today's standards of racial sensitivity, but his portrayal of evil races had more to do with long term manipulation by entities with power than the mere concept of good people and evil people.
@@_magnifyWhen you simplify everything in the matter that you do, I can see why you find so many issues. Would you remove the concept of orcs and goblins then? Dross take
@@xaoc6084 Yes, there being inherently "evil races" was terrible and Tolkien himself said he regretting writing them that way.
Large numbers of scholars are studying the Lord of The Rings as well as Tolkien's other works because of the deep parallels to reality and the patterns that match the great mythologies that have lasted thousands of years. He is coming to be recognized as important to the development of literature as some of the greats of the past, like Shakespeare. Dune is a politicized story idea most relevant to a limited time and societal movement. Dune was made famous because readers misunderstood the story and believed it was a hero’s journey (another mythical archetypal tale that speaks to human nature across thousands of years) when Herbert didn't intend that. Tolkien’s work will be remembered and studied long after Herbert’s work is lost to the sands of time because Tolkien knew what he was doing when he wrote a thousand-year story.
You think World War 2 was more morally ambiguous than WW1? That's a bit of a hot take. I'm full on board with Tolkien on this.
LOTR had its share of grey characters e.g. Denethor. It was not just good vs evil.
See people are also putting these books into absolutes. Tolkien only deals in black and white and Dune only deals in shades of gray.
Part of what makes Denethor one of the most compelling characters in the series I think.
LOTR had grey characters but it had a clearly defined grammar of morality.
Dune does not share a similar moral landscape and in the later books the God Emperor is an intergalactic tyrant and an inhuman abomination who also happens to be guiding humanity towards its best interests and away from cataclysmic disaster
@@jessl1934 yes Denethor does have conflicting motivations, but at the end of the day Tolkien’s moral assessment of him is very clear, that Denethor is a guy with noble intentions who tragically succumbed to despair and pessimism.
I’ve always thought he killed Borodin off too soon who might have successfully challenged him for the throne and for the use of the ring. It would’ve been a very interesting conflict.
I looked it up. The text of the letter (to a fan who sent him a copy of the book) is as follows:
‘Thank you for sending me a copy of Dune. I received one last year from Lanier and so already know something about the book. It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike DUNE with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment. Would you like me to return the book as I already have one, or to hand it on?’”.
He sounds so nice
the OP made him sound arrogant...
@@rolas2700 it's hard to fully flesh out your message in a short format. It could be completely unintentional.
what a polite man
@@tenhauser Absolute fucking lie, that. He could've just continued with it, but instead decided to use his platform to say that Tolkien's work helps support extremism.
This guy's a twat.
“Lord of the Rings has been appropriated by extremist groups…” no. Lord of the Rings has many fans who love fantasy and stories.
if tolkien was alive he would be considered a extremist by most ( not a natzi, but he was a devout catholic, not just a devout catholic a traditional catholic because he was upset with vatican 2).
Nice way to sneak “extremist groups” in there. Everything said before can safely be dismissed
This short starts as 'why did tolkien hate dune' but then turns into 'lord of the rings isn't as good as dune because extremists can appropriate it' which is a weird flex to me.
like, my guy, extremists can appropriate ANYTHING for their own means.
Dune is about a bunch of extremists right? If you’re going to stretch already then just say the real secret message was that the extremists were secretly right instead of wrong
It's a really silly statement, I agree.
What extremists is he talking about? I only see Ukrainians and Democrats calling Russians Orcs.
The FBI will now infiltrate ComicCon to search for Christian nationalists.
I also love how you can just label anything an “extremist” group, I think it’s extremism to want go stamp out Christianity and moral values, but I guess I’m the extremists for believing that
The fact you try and equate so called extremists and Tolkien tells me everything I need to know about you.
I don't think Tolkien would have approved of how his story ends up being used, but there is something in the LOTR myth that makes it very easy to be appropriated for nefarious purposes. A few examples are how the Ukrainian army currently calls the Russian army “orcs”, neo-fascist Italian youth in the 70s calling themselves “the order of the ring”, various groups using Aragorn’s “Men of the West” speech on Twitter and Telegram, not to mention Tolkien’s own support of Franco in the Spanish Revolution.
@@_magnifySays more about whoever they are than Tolkien or his writings
@@_magnify Well then welcome to war buddy. Dehumanization is a key aspect of war propagation. Whether they be unemotional spec ops killers that want to "operate" all the time or religious fanatics that see Jihad as the only path to imposing their religion on all, all soldiers dehumanize.
@@_magnify Also, going "wow can't you believe that they call their enemies orcs? I think they might not like their opponents!" Is weak sauce dude. They're trained killers, do you think they get their job done by thinking "wow, the people I am killing are just like me; I'm practically killing myself!"? I mean come on dude. You're treating the war equivalent of the sky being blue like it's some kind of crazy revelation.
@@_magnifyTake a load of this guy
To compare two artists or even two individuals makes as much sense as to seek perfection. People are infinite, perfection can never be achievable hy humans.
I only care about finding out why there is a lightning cable tape to his face.
This guy reads a Twitter thread from an amateur literary critic and made it into a short. He's putting words into Tolkien's mouth. Tolkien never elaborated his reasoning on Dune, and Tolkien's works are not as shallow as "good guys win".
There’s not a lot of ambiguity about Sauron to be fair though? You never think, wait the dude could just be misunderstood.
@@agin1519 there is a clear "side" on Tolkien's ideals, but there's so much reduction on The Lord of the Rings' philosophy. Especially when you take into context the whole Middle Earth Legendarium.
@@FrostDirt yeh. I’ve made it a page into the Similarion about 3 times…so I find myself unable to comment about the Valar et al! I feel either the answer is much more complicated than a short. Or it’s that Tolkien really liked his own work and that which he studied, which is why he went into it in such detail, and tended to look down on everything else to a greater or lesser extent because it wasn’t what he liked which was his stuff!
@@agin1519 You're right, Tolkien engrossed himself in classical texts, especially of European origins. Naturally he is estranged from more modern genres like Herbert's sci-fi and other stuff, so developing a kind of of dislike for it is par for the course. However, I wouldn't call him "looking down" on other works. He was, after all, a man of class that keeps opinions to himself (or his correspondences).
@@agin1519 I think it could be said that Sauron has a bit of ambiguity to him, in a way. Sauron wasn't always bad, he was once a servant of the Valar but got drawn into evil by Morgoth. After Morgoth was imprisoned by the Valar, it seems like Sauron may have been legitimately sorry for the harm he had caused, and wanted to help rebuild after the end of the War of Wrath. But you see, he got rather resentful of the Valar and of the Creator God Eru Illuvatar. He felt like the Valar came, caused a bunch of destruction in their attack and capture of Morgoth, and then left people to clean up the mess. He felt as though the gods had abandoned Middle Earth, and was determined to establish order and prosperity. He genuinely started with a desire to bring safety and order to Middle Earth, but he fell back into his dark ways as he began to come to the conclusion that the only way he could do that was through force and control, deciding that if the gods had abandoned them, then he would make himself the god of Middle Earth. So while what he does is unambiguously bad, his motivations are a lot more complex than just "power for powers sake" or "because he's evil".
“Morally ambiguous,” “morally ambivalent,” and “morally complex” are three different things. To imply that Tolkien’s myth is reductively simple on a moral level is to misunderstand it. As Alan Jacobs put it, Tolkien is not interested in the moment that a person doesn’t know what is the right thing to do. He’s interested in the moment where a person knows what is right, but doesn’t know if they can do it. So characters can be morally complex in a world where morality is not ambivalent. Most of us agree (including the maker of this video) that certain morals are NOT ambiguous or ambivalent, ie Nazism was evil. Tolkien would agree. The tension in his world comes from the fact that while you can put values and systems, to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories. The line between good and evil runs down the center of all of us. That’s not morally ambivalent, but it is morally complex. To judge Tolkien’s work based on the way that people misunderstand and/or ignorantly appropriate it is, to my mind, disappointing. Does the value of art really lie in “how it serves us”? And if so, isn’t that turning all art, in a sense, into propaganda?
No?... good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies living beings or things... it's a maniqueíst vision that born in monotheísts ethics systems( can be seen in Judaísm/Cristianism/Muslims)... what we CAN categorize like good or like evil, it's behaviors... and it's directly attached with the perspective of things that the individual feel or see as " bad " or " good"( estimulate him or anothers/ or harm him or anothers; in phisical or ideological way)... and THAT was the thing that Tolkien doesn't understand and overcriticised Frank Herbert to demonstrate( his Catholic Faith served has a anvil too... he was very conservative and didn't knowed to pick well Frank's point...)
Sorry my poor english, i'm not North American...
Look at recent history and recent "art." There is a belief that art should be propaganda in order to be considered "good," even if it's to the detriment of the story being told. There is a certain worldview that believes that its value is how it can be utilized rather than what can be learned from it.
Thank you. Most criticism of these concepts, at least on the Internet, is laced with the same condescension one would expect from a nihilistic middle-schooler.
I guess this masterful philosopher/linguist/author just couldn't grasp the "higher" concept of moral ambiguity, because he was a product of a bygone era lol
The one unintelligible reply above lends credence to this.
I also feel like reducing an authors work to how people today use it is really discrediting art too. Authors can't really write a story with "But what if in 20 years a fascist government appropriates my work" in mind. And neither should they have to.
@@paulorenatobarbosa2874”you can put values and systems to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories”
“Good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies to living beings or things” and “we can categorize things as good or evil by its behaviors”
Based on both these quotes you are saying the same thing as the original commenter. So why did you write “no?…” as if to refute what the original commenter was saying and use this made up disagreement to undermine his/her ideas?
That’s not what the letter Tolkien wrote said but I guess those clicks don’t come on their own huh
For the critical thinker, both serve a purpose. One as an example for idealistic good, and the other as a caution against the end justifying the means and the shirking of responsibility.
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry..."
Meanwhile, half the Internet:
LISAN AL GAIB!!!
The Internet users that keep parroting that line definetly missed the point of Dune.