#ooc

I like that.

I need to remember that one for Bronte's quotes 🙂

/roll 5

/roll 5

/roll 5

Oh boy. Mom has pissed off my Aunt on FB and I don't know how to tell my Aunt that if she feels personally attacked by what my Aunt put up, it says more about her choices than any targeting against her specifically my mom have done

Whereas I got into a rather delightful debate online about Tolkien dwarves and their beards...

I'm such a jerk. I prefer female dwarves without beards.

now glorious sideburns, sure

“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.


That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.” "They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. In so doing they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares anymore what particular knot they used in the binding?"
― A.R. Moxon

That's what my mom put up complete with citation

My Aunt got huffy "Are you really calling patriotic Americans who are concerned about the economic future of the country, and believe that declining religious values is bad for the soul of the country, Nazis?"

What I wanted to say was "If you feel personally insulted, that's more on you than my mom" or even "if the Jackboot chafes, take it off" but instead.. I said:

"I can't speak for A. R. Moxon, but there are plenty of folks who are concerned about the economic future of the country, or worry about the soul of the country, or are religious, who DON'T support fascism, who don't believe the ends justify the means. Or to put it another way, Christians of Nazi Germany who supported Hitler even if they told themselves it was for the greater good of Germany, were indeed Nazis. Those Christians (and others) in Germany who worked against Hitler because they knew his actions were evil? Not Nazis. "By their fruits you shall know them" kind of thing"

Of course, my response is historically simplistic, but I was trying to word it NICELY

I agree with you, but also - it's not a fight you can win

this sort of person will never be convinced (maaaaybe in person over time with gentle education, but over the internet where they can be textually righteous? Never)

I love your mom, though 😄

I am very fond of that quote.

I know, but she's putting words in my mom's mouth and I guess both trying to keep the peace, and also resenting words being put in my mom's mouth stirred me.

Definitely see that!

My Aunt is not an idiot. She's quite smart, but it's a shame to see her sucking up the Koolaid

Now, what you have to remember, is that Middle Earth was modeled as a British mythology, and with a lot of Norse influence. So, the humans are modeled as fair skinned folk. Elves were created during an eternal night (about ~4000 years before the sun!) and therefore logically (as far as logic can be applied to fantasy!) would not have a use for melanin in their skin.

Dwarves were based on germanic/norse stock, which also leans towards fair skin, but as they were sculpted, not evolved, who is to say what they looked like? You'd have to ask Aulë. As far as I can remember, other than height, build, and beards, no skin colors are ever mentioned for any of their tribes. (That's not taking 'Dark Dwarves' into account, nor Dark Elves, which are an ENTIRELY different thing.)

The Eldar are called "fair of skin and grey-eyed", but of the other elves (such as the Eastern Elves) who are mentioned only in passing, there is no description...

Guess it depends on what they were sculpted from? Maybe they come in various gray stone colors?

To be honest, my Tolkein Lore is weak, so I can say "I duran have a clue" 🙂

I'm not so much caring about the skin tones - THAT gets problematic because of how it was written. Tolkien wasn't actively racist like, say, Lovecraft, but some of his stuff doesn't go over well in our modern political climate

example - there are swarthy and dark skinned people, but they are evil. NOW, they are not evil because of their race, but because of Wizards that were sent to their lands to protect them who didn't do their job and got corrupted in turn

BUT, the fact of the matter is still that the dark skinned folk didn't get 'saved' from Melkor, which has Colonial savior overtones.

I DO tdraw the line at naked faced dwarves, that's just wrong! Tolkien made a point about that. 🙂

...unless they were recently shamed and forced to shave out of penance. or had been captured by orcs or something, they would shave dwarves to mock them.

He was Glorn, son of Duvorn, but now he is Shorn, a son who mourns

HA

Or a daughter! Dwarven has only he/him/his pronouns, used for both ^_^

Oh yes, let's open a whole 21st century box of worms 😉

I am not sure if I'm going to like the Rings of Power show or not, I really hope it's good. Wheel of time has been ranked like 6.5 to 7.5 range for me depending on episode

And Vox Machina the animated series got better after the first few episodes

Author Terry Pratchett double down on the male dwarf trope. On the Discworld, Dwarven courtship involves a very delicate and careful process of discovery as to what the gender the other dwarf is. His culture for dwarves is actually pretty amazing. I have the feeling that he was going to inspect the trolls in the same way, but died before he could do so.

A loss that. He seemed a decent guy as well as a heck of a writer

Agreed.

Okay. Off , back at 7ish

Hi

((hug))

your aunt sucks

She's a good woman in a lot of ways but holy shit