The Lord of the Chings
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In his forward to The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien vigorously denies any allegorical meaning in his work. He addresses this point directly, saying, “As for any inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical” (11). Despite the strength of this statement alone, he goes even further: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence” (12).
To the barely-literate immigrant or uneducated trailer park reader, this may seem to be a definitive statement about his intent to create a self-contained story universe which stands on its own merits. A closer examination of the text, however, reveals to all but the most obtuse and mentally deficient that this is not the case. There is a very significant historical and cultural context Tolkien constantly references throughout his work, and nowhere is this more evident than in his characters, the peoples of Middle-Earth. With this in mind, it becomes blindingly obvious that his statements denying allegory are ironic, indeed, scathingly so. Anyone whose mother did not freebase crack-cocaine during her gestation period can clearly see that the races and events described in The Lord of the Rings are meant to function as thinly-veiled analogues of the people and history of Asia.
We begin with the Elves, or Tolkien’s mythical version of the Koreans. They are both found in the north. They are tall, fair-skinned, attractive, clearly superior in genetics, and do ridiculous things for lofty or, more often, incomprehensible reasons. They produce and consume preserved leafy cuisine with very little known nutritional content, yet a person could subsist for months on just that food alone. In a show of linguistic sophistication, they created the first alphabet in the land, something which no one else has ever bothered to learn. It is also interesting to note that late in Elven history, the Elves were split into two peoples, those who had seen the glory of the West, and those who had not.
In an interesting revelation, we learned in The Silmarillion that when elves are pushed over the edge, when they get angry and suffer intense pain and/or humiliation, they turn into orcs. Why, just the other day, I mistook a Korean for Chinese, and I witnessed a monstrous transformation: his face contorted like a devil-worshipping epileptic, and he started foaming at the mouth. I swear I heard him scream something like, “Che irumeun GORGUL imnida!!!” at which point he proceeded to eat a chubby little mainland Chinese kid in a bone stew. Time will tell if this glorious race disappears into the West with needless plastic surgery and questionable adoption practices.
In discussing the superiority of the Elves, our attention is also naturally drawn to the Numenorian Men, or the Japanese. They are both hyper-advanced, inventive, and live on an island of miracles and wonders. They have unreasonably long names that all sound alike. It has been their dream for untold generations to go deep into the West and discover the secrets of the gods, and they did succeed in getting pretty far until the gods bombed the living shit out of them. They were bombed like no other peoples had ever been bombed before or since. In recent days they have begun to travel around the world visiting major cultural centers and don’t really accomplish much, but do look at a lot of things. They never recovered from the disaster and, while they still know more than everyone around them, they have very little idea what they’re doing anymore. They’re pretty sure they should be everyone’s king, but no one really believes them, especially when they’re always found in pubs and hostess bars with names like “The Prancing Pony.”
A brief note on the gods, or white people. They broke up continents physically in Middle-Earth; they did it politically all over Asia. It is said that the universe began when the gods started to sing. They sang in harmony for some time, and while the content of the song is never specified in The Silmarillion, it probably involved prancing around barefoot outdoors, wearing shoes indoors, and committing mass slavery, genocide, and/ or drug trafficking on five continents (plus one Indian sub-continent). Imagine a song that could do all that and convince its listeners that the choir was morally superior: a song that could, for example, codify in law that women were nothing more than chattel-in-corsets, and yet still make its rapt audience believe that Asian men were the patriarchal misogynists (and somehow effeminate pansies at the same time)! Utterly fantastic. Reality bends to their very will. And all was good until one of the gods - the Germanic-sounding one, naturally - decided to sing a different tune, at which point all hell broke loose. What more can I say? Only gods have the power, pride, and sense of humor to do this and watch “Friends” with a bag of low-fat microwave popcorn at the end of the day.
Now we come to the Vietnamese, or as Tolkien surely liked to call them, Dwarves. They are a short, hardy, resilient folk. The Dwarves were the only race who proved incorruptible before the might of the gods: even the last of the dwarf lords, knowing they were vastly outmatched, spat in the face of the enemy before he died. Though the Vietnamese successfully withstood the foreign onslaught, their population and infrastructure was completely decimated as a result, and now they live in hills generally out of everyone’s way. When they travel out into the world, they start fights for no reason, and it’s not uncommon to find a gang of twelve or thirteen of them at your door demanding food or alcohol. It’s also difficult to tell their men from their women, and they often make sounds like “rngag.”
At this point you may be thinking to yourself, “What about all the other types of Asians? There are many more Asian cultures, particularly in the south-east, than races in Tolkien’s novels!” This is an astute observation, to be sure. This is also why Tolkien created his most unique and endearing race, the Hobbits. Like South-East Asians, they are short, hairy, and live in holes in the ground. They’re generally pleasant unless they haven’t eaten enough, and no one really takes them seriously, but they’re always good for a laugh. This is not unexpected, given that they have names like “Pippin” and “Mungo.” They are probably gay. The Hobbits split their shire into various “Farthings” and “Delvings” and “Bottoms,” and view strangers from other parts of the Shire with suspicion; South-East Asians like to emphasize the differences between them as well, insisting that “Laotians” and “Filipinos” and “Cambodians” are distinct and unique peoples with a rich diversity of history and culture, but let’s face it, you’re all hobbits to us.
Finally, we arrive at the Men. These are the regular, i.e. non-Numenorian Men, also known as Chinese people. They’re not particularly smart, strong, skilled, beautiful, resilient, principled, or kickass in any way, but they’re everywhere. They like to eat, favor their eldest sons even if the son sucks, and ruin the self-esteem of the rest of their kids. They only managed to muddle their way through the centuries on sheer numbers, and there are so damn many of them that everyone just accepts that the Third Age belongs to them. Even the gods don’t know what to do about this. It is also no coincidence that China refers to itself as the “Middle-Kingdom” and Tolkien’s tale takes place in “Middle-Earth.”
Considering that this analysis has been written in English, there is a chance that, to borrow a term from Tolkien, a queer sort of folk is reading this. They are a race of hyphenated monstrosities, most likely inbred (because, really, how many of the guys can get dates?), known to some as “Asian-Americans.” What the hell is a hyphenated identity anyway? Is it like a hyphenated last name? Is it some sort of ghetto-speak for, “The fence pole is up my ass and I love sitting on it?” At any rate, some of them may be asking themselves, “Where are the Asian immigrants? Where are the Asian-Americans and their ilk?” It’s no surprise that Tolkien would not have chosen to include them in his tale, as Asian-Americans don’t really fit anywhere. From an economic, political, media, and even artistic standpoint, it’s clear that they’re so insignificant, and quite frankly, irritating, that mentioning them adds no value and in fact undermines the achievement of worthy goals.
So read, ye English-literate Asians, all six of you, and see your past, present, and future as revealed in the great allegory of Tolkien the White.
Works Cited
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. London: HarperCollins, 1993. 6th paperback edition.
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