What if Gandalf is not a shepherd of Middle Earth but a Drug Lord who is introduced to Pipe Weed during RoP. We know he loves the longbottom leaf but what if he loved it so much he helped the Hobbits settle the Shire as a free labor grow farm? As the Orc population grows they threaten his kingdom in the Shire so he hires Aragorn. Not to protect the half-lings because he loves them, but because they grow the best Pipe Weed in all of Middle Earth. If Sauron claims Middle Earth, Gandalf loses a massive chunk of his customer base and Sauron likely legalizes the product. Makes a ya think!!
Eskov bases his novel on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history written by the victors".[2][3] Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves.
Surely the elves are rich in all the ways that matter? They have peace, beauty, song, long lives, freedom from want etc.
In a sense, Elves are the grandchildren of Keynes' famous essay - they have solved the "economic problem" and live in an "age of leisure and of abundance."
Tolkien's contrast between the Dwarves - who "delved too greedily and too deep" - or men - who were "blinded by their greed" - and the virtue of the Elves is very reminiscent of Keynes:
"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals... The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for
what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological
propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease."
That makes sense. Tolkien definitely wants us to think of them as rich, especially a place like Lothlórien.
I really like the Keynes analogy. They are roughly the same generation and in that circle of highly educated Brits. Of course they ran in different circles. Tolkien, the Catholic, wasn't joining Bloomsbury but there are similarities. Maybe this is just what that class thought would happen with more wealth and it turns out that's not what people want. They want TVs and smartphones.
Hello! I think the reason why elves are were not as rich as an "advanced" economy (e.g. flying cars) is for their thousands of years war with Morgoth. Their resources, time, and intelligence were alloted for defeating Morgoth instead of creating technologies or cultivating their knowledge. As we know from the Endogeneous Growth Theory, it's the from investment in innovation and knowledge that shifts the production possibilities of an (elf) economy.
War is definitely relevant. I should have said more about that. Yes they’ve had thousands of years to grow but they’ve also had to spend a lot of resources on war which is not directly productive. It could have spillover effects from war R&D but I’m skeptical of that theory, as we lay out in the paper linked.
We know that orcs are carnivorous omnivores with a fondness for meat that maggoty bread does not satisfy. We also know that Mordor is a barren wasteland covered by rolling volcanic clouds from Mount Doom.
The wasteland of Mordor could not support industrialised grain farming to feed livestock to supply meat, and orcs are not known to live agrarian lifestyles. Which implies that there must be a huge volume of trade in meats from the Easterlings or other areas and races, under duress or otherwise. How would this distort meat prices in Middle Earth given the rapid expansion in the orc population in the late third age. What are the orcs trading, if they are trading anything at all, for this meat?
Great question. I've thought a lot about how we don't see the production that must occur in a city link Gondor or even the shire. I hadn't thought of Mordor at all
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel sees off Frodo while wearing French nails. This implies the existence of elven nail bars. Would these be subject to Baumol’s cost disease? I have all the big questions.
The elves aren't 'richer' because they appear to live in a post-scarcity society. Efficiency loses importance when there isn't a time constraint on anything (except war) due to elven near immortality. We never hear of elven money either which I'm going to use as evidence that elves don't appear to have pressing economic concerns the way that hobbits or men do. Elven magic could also reduce the pressure for wealth accumulation because the barrier to amenities is likely lowered because of magical creation.
Durin III's rejection of Elrond's offer seems to be a classic example of bounded rationality. Absent information that isn't available to the watcher, Durin's objections appear primarily religious and racial. So he's making a sub-optimal economic decision based on his rejection the Elves' quest to "cheat death," likely due to the violent and racist history between elves and dwarves.
OR Durin recognizes that the elves will be in a significantly worse economic position once they lose the light of valinor and he's hoping to take advantage of that. The elves will either become mortal and significantly damage their post-scarcity economic model, or flee to the west and Durin will lead the most economically and technologically advanced civilization in Middle Earth. Either way it opens up significant opportunities for his kingdom.
The LOTR are books written by a white boy about white boys for white boys. The Amazon revival series at least remedies this with inserting women, non-whites, binaries, etc. The end of this series showed a young girl going into the world as the companion of an elderly gentleman. Wow.
More interesting from an economic point of view would be the costs of making this series, how decisions where to allocate the available money are made, how the costs are earned back, etc. The same goes for that other graphics-laden monstrosity, HBO's House of the Dragon.
"The LOTR are books written by a white boy about white boys for white boys", are you implying that women or people of color should not read Tolkien because it is not for them. And if you don't know, women are already part of Tolkien's legendarium (Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen, etc.).
And what's wrong wth Amazon inserting women, non-whites, or binaries in a FANTASY world? If talking trees can exist in Middle-Earth, why should be these type of people should be excluded? Sorry but you're acting like a sexist and a racist from 1950s.
It also seems that you're clueless of Tolkien's lore. The stranger is an istar who is already existing even before the creation of Arda (just like Mairon / Sauron), so calling him an elderly gentleman does not make any sense since he is basically an angel-like being. Second, we don't really know how old is Nori but it suggests that she is at least a teenager. There's nothing wrong for a Harfoot to go with an angel-like being.
The article don't even include politics in this discussion of the show keeps making this a big deal.
I think it is wonderful the LOTR fantasy world has become more diverse. My remark was about the original books. That I could never stomach exactly for this reason - the worlds described were so full of (white-ish) males. Tolkien had great imagination but even he could not get away from a reality where women were supposed to stay at home and were lesser human beings. This series remedies that at least. (Yep, very racist/sexist of me that I wanted these worlds to be more diverse from the start.)
Young girls should not go traveling with elderly guys. I do not care she is a Harfoot and he is angel-like being or whatever. I just comment on what I see. Too many girls abducted/abused should have the writers pause to think. They could have added a third traveler.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted your statement on the inclusivity of the show. However, I'm not sure if it's right to state that Tolkien's view on women is limited to them being "housewives". In fact, we have Galadriel that according to him was great in athleticism and combat. As well as Luthien who was a great heroine of the First age. But I agree that majority of his books were dominated by male characters.
For the issue of the Stranger and Nori that you've mentioned, I think that Nori is not a young girl anymore. Yes, Sadoc mentioned that she is still young but not as young as an 8 or 9 year old (Perhaps she is a late teenager or young adult). The show also suggests that the travel is more of a companionship than something that is maligned.
Thank you - I should have explained it better. (I edited the sentence.)
Even if the Harfoot is a teenager, she should not be shown going off with a male by herself. Do you have any idea how many girls disappear every year ? How many girls are abducted ? In the US about 195,000 females under the age of 21 went missing in 2021. And some 165,000 males - so young boys are at risk too. About half of the missing kids/adolescents are from minorities. This TV series is sold all over the world, also to countries where children go missing even faster - girls abducted for the sex industry, boys often to work, while hardly fed. I do not care how benign the relationship is - the people making this series should have known better.
Fair enough. I just never thought of such disturbing things from an innocent and wholesome series but yes I got your point. I think the showrunners have overlooked it since they were adapting a Tolkien series which is light-hearted. Now that you've mentioned it, I think they should at least include Nori's family with the stranger to avoid such maligned perception.
What if Gandalf is not a shepherd of Middle Earth but a Drug Lord who is introduced to Pipe Weed during RoP. We know he loves the longbottom leaf but what if he loved it so much he helped the Hobbits settle the Shire as a free labor grow farm? As the Orc population grows they threaten his kingdom in the Shire so he hires Aragorn. Not to protect the half-lings because he loves them, but because they grow the best Pipe Weed in all of Middle Earth. If Sauron claims Middle Earth, Gandalf loses a massive chunk of his customer base and Sauron likely legalizes the product. Makes a ya think!!
It does make you think. Have you heard of this fanfic? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
Eskov bases his novel on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history written by the victors".[2][3] Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves.
Will read! Thanks!
Surely the elves are rich in all the ways that matter? They have peace, beauty, song, long lives, freedom from want etc.
In a sense, Elves are the grandchildren of Keynes' famous essay - they have solved the "economic problem" and live in an "age of leisure and of abundance."
Tolkien's contrast between the Dwarves - who "delved too greedily and too deep" - or men - who were "blinded by their greed" - and the virtue of the Elves is very reminiscent of Keynes:
"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals... The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognised for
what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological
propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease."
That makes sense. Tolkien definitely wants us to think of them as rich, especially a place like Lothlórien.
I really like the Keynes analogy. They are roughly the same generation and in that circle of highly educated Brits. Of course they ran in different circles. Tolkien, the Catholic, wasn't joining Bloomsbury but there are similarities. Maybe this is just what that class thought would happen with more wealth and it turns out that's not what people want. They want TVs and smartphones.
Hello! I think the reason why elves are were not as rich as an "advanced" economy (e.g. flying cars) is for their thousands of years war with Morgoth. Their resources, time, and intelligence were alloted for defeating Morgoth instead of creating technologies or cultivating their knowledge. As we know from the Endogeneous Growth Theory, it's the from investment in innovation and knowledge that shifts the production possibilities of an (elf) economy.
War is definitely relevant. I should have said more about that. Yes they’ve had thousands of years to grow but they’ve also had to spend a lot of resources on war which is not directly productive. It could have spillover effects from war R&D but I’m skeptical of that theory, as we lay out in the paper linked.
We know that orcs are carnivorous omnivores with a fondness for meat that maggoty bread does not satisfy. We also know that Mordor is a barren wasteland covered by rolling volcanic clouds from Mount Doom.
The wasteland of Mordor could not support industrialised grain farming to feed livestock to supply meat, and orcs are not known to live agrarian lifestyles. Which implies that there must be a huge volume of trade in meats from the Easterlings or other areas and races, under duress or otherwise. How would this distort meat prices in Middle Earth given the rapid expansion in the orc population in the late third age. What are the orcs trading, if they are trading anything at all, for this meat?
Great question. I've thought a lot about how we don't see the production that must occur in a city link Gondor or even the shire. I hadn't thought of Mordor at all
In the movies (not the books however) Gondor's farms are just totally missing:
https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel sees off Frodo while wearing French nails. This implies the existence of elven nail bars. Would these be subject to Baumol’s cost disease? I have all the big questions.
Thanks Brian! More of like this please!
Will do! And thanks for the support!
The elves aren't 'richer' because they appear to live in a post-scarcity society. Efficiency loses importance when there isn't a time constraint on anything (except war) due to elven near immortality. We never hear of elven money either which I'm going to use as evidence that elves don't appear to have pressing economic concerns the way that hobbits or men do. Elven magic could also reduce the pressure for wealth accumulation because the barrier to amenities is likely lowered because of magical creation.
Durin III's rejection of Elrond's offer seems to be a classic example of bounded rationality. Absent information that isn't available to the watcher, Durin's objections appear primarily religious and racial. So he's making a sub-optimal economic decision based on his rejection the Elves' quest to "cheat death," likely due to the violent and racist history between elves and dwarves.
OR Durin recognizes that the elves will be in a significantly worse economic position once they lose the light of valinor and he's hoping to take advantage of that. The elves will either become mortal and significantly damage their post-scarcity economic model, or flee to the west and Durin will lead the most economically and technologically advanced civilization in Middle Earth. Either way it opens up significant opportunities for his kingdom.
The LOTR are books written by a white boy about white boys for white boys. The Amazon revival series at least remedies this with inserting women, non-whites, binaries, etc. The end of this series showed a young girl going into the world as the companion of an elderly gentleman. Wow.
More interesting from an economic point of view would be the costs of making this series, how decisions where to allocate the available money are made, how the costs are earned back, etc. The same goes for that other graphics-laden monstrosity, HBO's House of the Dragon.
"The LOTR are books written by a white boy about white boys for white boys", are you implying that women or people of color should not read Tolkien because it is not for them. And if you don't know, women are already part of Tolkien's legendarium (Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen, etc.).
And what's wrong wth Amazon inserting women, non-whites, or binaries in a FANTASY world? If talking trees can exist in Middle-Earth, why should be these type of people should be excluded? Sorry but you're acting like a sexist and a racist from 1950s.
It also seems that you're clueless of Tolkien's lore. The stranger is an istar who is already existing even before the creation of Arda (just like Mairon / Sauron), so calling him an elderly gentleman does not make any sense since he is basically an angel-like being. Second, we don't really know how old is Nori but it suggests that she is at least a teenager. There's nothing wrong for a Harfoot to go with an angel-like being.
The article don't even include politics in this discussion of the show keeps making this a big deal.
I think it is wonderful the LOTR fantasy world has become more diverse. My remark was about the original books. That I could never stomach exactly for this reason - the worlds described were so full of (white-ish) males. Tolkien had great imagination but even he could not get away from a reality where women were supposed to stay at home and were lesser human beings. This series remedies that at least. (Yep, very racist/sexist of me that I wanted these worlds to be more diverse from the start.)
Young girls should not go traveling with elderly guys. I do not care she is a Harfoot and he is angel-like being or whatever. I just comment on what I see. Too many girls abducted/abused should have the writers pause to think. They could have added a third traveler.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted your statement on the inclusivity of the show. However, I'm not sure if it's right to state that Tolkien's view on women is limited to them being "housewives". In fact, we have Galadriel that according to him was great in athleticism and combat. As well as Luthien who was a great heroine of the First age. But I agree that majority of his books were dominated by male characters.
For the issue of the Stranger and Nori that you've mentioned, I think that Nori is not a young girl anymore. Yes, Sadoc mentioned that she is still young but not as young as an 8 or 9 year old (Perhaps she is a late teenager or young adult). The show also suggests that the travel is more of a companionship than something that is maligned.
Thank you - I should have explained it better. (I edited the sentence.)
Even if the Harfoot is a teenager, she should not be shown going off with a male by herself. Do you have any idea how many girls disappear every year ? How many girls are abducted ? In the US about 195,000 females under the age of 21 went missing in 2021. And some 165,000 males - so young boys are at risk too. About half of the missing kids/adolescents are from minorities. This TV series is sold all over the world, also to countries where children go missing even faster - girls abducted for the sex industry, boys often to work, while hardly fed. I do not care how benign the relationship is - the people making this series should have known better.
Fair enough. I just never thought of such disturbing things from an innocent and wholesome series but yes I got your point. I think the showrunners have overlooked it since they were adapting a Tolkien series which is light-hearted. Now that you've mentioned it, I think they should at least include Nori's family with the stranger to avoid such maligned perception.