Tolkien

2.1

J.R.R Tolkien's fantastical world of Middle Earth is, as you might be thinking, not an alien sci-fi world. Middle Earth may be filled with a plethora of unique races, cultures, environments, and creatures, it is more certainly a fantasy and not a sci-fi. Still, I think it's of importance to discuss it here, because of the aforementioned uniqueness of its world. I won't be going into nearly as much detail as I have done with the other pieces of media, and I will mostly be skipping out on most of the magic, wizards, and storyline aspects of these books/movies.

As before, I strive to answer three questions in regard to Middle Earth; how does Tolkien build his fantasy environment, and create unique cultures? How does he create their aesthetics, based on how they function in the story and world? And how does he use real-life influences to make his world relatable and interesting to his audience, on an aesthetic level and a worldbuilding level? Tolkien's work was well-known for being satirical, despite how high-fantasy it might seem, and the vast majority of his work is based off some kind of real-life conflict or culture.

Races of Middle Earth

One thing that Tolkien loved the most was creating interesting, diverse fantasy races. He based all the races of Middle Earth on real cultures, sometimes in slightly racist ways simply by virtue of the time period he wrote his books in. Every aspect of a race is based heavily off their purpose in the story, their aesthetic, and whatever real-life race or culture they are based off.

Of course, when it comes to aesthetic qualities, Tolkien's actual books hold only descriptions, which is not really what I need. For the purposes of analysing these races' aesthetics and weaponry, I will be mostly looking into the Peter Jackson movies. I will be referencing a book by Chris Smith (one of Tolkien's modern-day editors, and who helped Jackson with the movies), discussing the weaponry and armour of these movies.

Elves

The elves (or Quendi as they called themselves) are one of the most important races on Middle Earth. Seen as being wiser and fairer than the other races, they tended to wear silk, had their hair long, and all their armour and weaponry was beautifully-made and infused with “elf magic”.

Elves are often referred to as “fair folk”, or “people of the stars”. There are even a few moments in the movies where we can see Legolas — the most prominent elf in the show — walking literally lighter than the others. For example, when they are on the frigid mountain of Caradhras, Legolas was able to walk on top of the snow where everyone else sunk in.

When it comes to weapons and armour, the Elves have a very distinctive style — there are no harsh edges, other than the points of blades, and all of their attire contains flowing shapes and lines. The elves prefer to use bows generally than blades, and a longbow is Legolas' signature weapon in the books. These weapons are not only known to be used by hunters, which matches with the Elves' elegant and skilled nature, however they are more arc-like, and therefore match with the elves' shape language. Elven armour is often gold or silver, and there are rarely large patches of leather, making them distinctive from the other races. It gives them a glimmering look, and makes them look more refined and elegant.

Tolkien's development of the Elves' culture based on existing mythology and culture is almost famous — the Elvish language is what's known as a conlang, or a constructed language. He developed it to the point where it can be learned and spoken. The Elvish dialect is based heavily on Welsh, and in fact a large proportion of the Elven race is based on Celtic and Gaelic culture.

Tolkien himself actually discredited the clear parallels to Celtic fae and pixies when it comes to his elves, and stated that they were more similar to the Teutonic figure of the Alp. He thought that relating elves to fairies made them seem weak and tricky, where he wanted them to be strong and dangerous. Despite this, many people still relate Tolkien's elves to Celtic fairies, even if this is more of a subconscious Western influence.

Dwarves

The dwarves (or Khazâd in their own tongue) are symbolically and aesthetically the polar opposite of the elves. They are proud, hardy, and primarily live underground. They are also known as naugrim meaning “stunted people” or gonnhirrim, the “masters of stone”. Furthermore, they are significantly shorter than men and elves, being around 4'6 (1.37 m) on average, and are always bearded, and never bald. They are known for their loyalty and stubbornness, which we can especially see in the Hobbit book where Thorin Okensheild and his party are like family, with a steadfast determination to restore their people to their former glory.

When it comes to their weapons and armour, as I said, they are almost the polar opposite of the elves both in style and shape. Their weaponry is square, with wooden handles and blackened metal, which reflects their role in the story as miners and blacksmiths. Some of their weapons even appear to be similar to workman's tools, such as their battleaxes and hammers.

Their armour emphasises their naturally more square build, and contains a lot of straight edges and geometric shapes. Where the elven armour is made up of flowing lines and curves, the dwarves utilise rectangles and scaled sections to make their armour look more similar to stone carvings or hardy metalwork.

The original idea of a dwarf, or at least in the way they are portrayed in Middle Earth, comes from Germanic folklore, where they are portrayed as skilled craftsmen who commonly live on or under mountains. The most well-known example of this is in Norse mythology, as they are portrayed in the Eddas. This is, of course, the building blocks Tolkien used to create his dwarves, as a lot of the stereotypes we as a modern society have about dwarves comes from this well-known folklore.

Something else that I found interesting is the sheer number of parallels between Tolkien's dwarves and Hebrew culture, especially in the case of modern Judaism. For one, Tolkien's dwarven language is based on Hebrew, and a lot of their culture is based around Hebrew folklore and traits. Tolkien himself stated how regarding the dwarves “There's a tremendous love of the artefact, and of course the immense warlike capacity of the Jews, which we tend to forget nowadays.” Many people have criticised this, as a lot of the stereotypes Tolkien built into the dwarves can come off as rather anti-Semitic when you make this connection. Some traits the dwarves (especially in the Hobbit book) display can be seen in this light, such as their greed or their cowardliness, and they are not seen as “heroic” or “brave” in the same way the humans and elves are portrayed.

Beasts and Animals

Warg

Wargs, also called wild wolves, were a type of demonic creature introduced to us in The Hobbit as the mounts of goblins. It is unclear based on what I've seen whether the wargs are sentient beings or simply wild animals, but in any sense they clearly take their inspiration from wolves, cats, and other dangerous wild animals. Their eyes and ears indicate they are powerful predators, and therefore set off alarm bells in the average person's head.

Shelob

Shelob was a great spider-like creature who is most notable for attacking Frodo and Sam in the final Lord of the Rings book. She has been described as part-spider, part-demon, and is the child of the spider-like being Ungoliant.

Of course, Shelob is based off a spider, and the concept of giant spiders is not uncommon in folklore — many people speculated that she was based off the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, however Tolkien stated that there was no direct influence on that account. Still, the existence of a giant spider is not uncommon, and can trigger a sort of primal fear in humans.

Dragons and Fell Beasts

The existence of dragons in Middle Earth is not that surprising — they are a staple of the fantasy genre, and can be seen in many forms over countless different types of culture and mythology. I've lumped the dragons of middle earth in with the Fell Beasts that the Nazgul ride, given that they look similar and have similar influences.

I could go into great detail about the many influences and inspirations of dragons on the western world, and how they are essentially a mixture of all the animals humans fear the most (snakes, big cats, bats, etc.) however we'd be here all day. All that matters is that these creatures in the context of Middle Earth are designed to look glorious, imposing, and terrifying.

Environments

Helm's Deep

Helm's Deep is, according to its wiki page, “a gorge in the north-west White Mountains […]. It also referred to the whole defensive system, including the Deeping Wall and the fortress known as the Hornburg.” It was a human settlement ruled at the time of the books by King Théoden, and was a point of refuge for the Rohirrim. In the books, this citadel was the point of the famous Battle of Helm's Deep, fought by many of our main characters, however the city eventually fell and was conquered by Sauron's army.

Helm's Deep in its adaptations and portrayals consists of square-shaped towers, blocky walls and buildings, and arching columns. This is meant to allude to medieval architecture, such as churches or keeps you might see in the Middle Ages. The keep was mostly filmed at Dry Creek in the Pater Jackson adaptations, an active quarry located in New Zealand — this really aided the stoney, jagged look of the terrain.

Rivendell

Rivendell (or Imlandris in Elvish) was according to the wiki “an Elven outpost in the Misty Mountains on the eastern edge of Eriador.” Established by the half-elf Elrond as a point of refuge from Sauron, this is one of the main Elven cities we see in the books/movies, and so is the main point of reference we get for Elven architecture.

In contrast to Helm's Deep, we can see a lot more wood in Rivendell — curved, intricate patters, similar to what we see with the Elven armour and weaponry seems to be a lot more common. Triangular roofs and decor makes this architecture very distinctive. According to David Salo (Tolkien's linguist), Rivendell could have been inspired by Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland — for the Pater Jackson films, Kaitoke Regional Park was the site used to film Rivendell.

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