#for like 45 minutes with my friends talking about the absolutely bullshittiness of the entire situation

[sluttyten]

Fucking wild day at work today like what the fuck

[fandomsandfeminism]

JRR Tolkien, master of modern fantasy, held a deep, undying dislike for the Bard of England. Let's talk about why and how it impacted his writing.

Transcript: 

Alright, listen friends. I am not a complicated person with complicated hobbies. If you asked someone to name 3 things I like, they would be totally in  the right to list “Anime, Shakespeare, and Lord of the Rings.” So today we are going to talk about the intersection of two of these excellent things.

No… not Anime Romeo and Juliet…..though….I mean, it is a good show...t fixes some of my complaints about the original….maybe next time.

No, no, today we are going to talk about how JRR Tolkien absolutely freakin hated Shakespeare and that’s why Eowyn is a badass.

So, let’s start by talking about Tolkien. John Ronald Ruel Tolkien was born on January 3rd, 1892. The Hobbit was written in 1937, after he had served in world war 1, when Tolkien was 45. The Lord of the Rings was written in stages, the last book being released in 1949, when he was 57. So for most of his life, Tolkien was not “the guy who wrote Lord of the Rings.” Instead, for most of his adult life, Tolkien’s claim to fame was his research, translation, and annotation of Beowulf. (Yes, the Beowulf that your well meaning 12th grade English teacher will force you to read.)

You see, Tolkien was a professor of English and Literature at Oxford. Fun fact, he also worked on the Webster dictionary (specifically on words that began with W with a germanic origin. Dictionary writing is apparently very specialized.) He gave lectures and did research on ancient English literature and language as his specialty.

And let me make something clear. As a person who is academically trained in English literature, this ensures 2 things are true about Tolkien: 1. He was a huge nerd. And 2. He had Opinions.

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And Tolkien hated Shakespeare. Hated him. You see, Tolkien believed that too much time was spent in English Literature departments reading and studying Shakespeare. But before you leap to agree with him, know this: It was his opinion that a well rounded student of literature should spend little to no time reading ANYTHING more modern than Chaucer. Yeah, the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer. That’s right kids, anything more modern than 1478 was hip modern dribble unworthy of serious study. (Can you imagine what Tolkien would think of modern lit classes these days? Ha.)

But more than that, Tolkien believed that fantasy inherently could not be adequately represented on stage, and that any attempt to do so was fundamentally flawed. (This is where I point out that there are several stage adaptations of Lord of the Rings, including a musical version, all of which are pretty bad and all of which Tolkien would have hated)

He also took objection to Shakespeare drawing on Greek and Anglo-Saxon inspiration for his fairies and elves, rather than what Tolkien saw as a more refined and authentic source: Norse and Celtic traditions.

Tolkien looked at Shakespeare's elves and fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and felt that these corrupt, diminutive depictions of elves were horrible. They weren’t REAL elves. They didn’t act the way REAL elves should act! Like I said, the man had Opinions. Strong opinions about...elves.

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And that brings us to Macbeth. Set aside Tolkien for a moment while we go into some backstory about The Scottish Play.

Macbeth is arguably Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy. First performed in 1606 (Well after our Tolkien approved literary cut off of the 1470s) it follows the story of a well respected general Macbeth. One day on the road he comes across a trio of witches who give him a prophecy. Invoking the greek tradition of the 3 fates and greek prophesy, this premonition is destined to be true. They tell Macbeth that he will be king.

Macbeth relays this information to his wife, Lady Macbeth who...basically bullies him into regicide and murder so he can, in fact, become King. She tells him that she’s more of a man than he is because he’s pussyfooting around multiple premeditated murders of friends and allies.

She eventually kills herself out of regret and guilt. Oops. In the midst of all this killing and mayhem, Macbeth seeks out the witches again and asks them for more prophecy. Will he remain king? Will he be deposed, as he deposed the last king?

First, they tell him to beware his rival Macduff. Second, they tell him that no man born of a woman will kill him. Third, they tell him he will be safe until the great Birnam Wood comes to the castle. He feels pretty safe, since two of these three seem pretty impossible. All men are born of women and forests don’t generally go walking around.

In the end, just as with all prophecy, these things come true. Kind of. Macduff reveals that he was born via C-section, which, apparently counts as “not being born from a woman.” And a whole bunch of soldiers use branches of the Birnam forest to disguise themselves as they march on the castle. Macbeth is killed, and thus this tragedy of lust for power and greed has its tragic end.

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Now, despite your English Teacher’s most persuasive arguments, your future does not ultimately hinge on your ability to read and appreciate Macbeth. It will help you understand all the allusions in Hocus Pocus, and will probably strengthen your, ya know, general reading comprehension and cultural awareness, but ya know, you won’t die without it.

And Tolkien hated Macbeth. Specifically, he really took issue with, what he felt, was a cop out with the final 2 prophecies. He felt that the loopholes about c-section and camouflage cheated the audience, and he was not having it.

So. Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s excuse to write entire languages and genealogical histories with a loose thread of plot to move from one intense exploration of some odd bit of lore to another. Along with satisfying his need to write a new mythology for England and be the world’s biggest linguistics nerd, Tolkien was also able to address and ultimately fix what he saw as these flaws in Macbeth.

The first is the prophecy about Birnam forest marching on the castle. Rather than have the ~bullshit~ loophole about normal everyday soldiers using branches as camouflage, Tolkien looked that plot point in the eye and declared ENTS. Living, walking, actual tree people. Screw Shakespeare and the limitations of the stage. He could actually have a forest rise up and march on a fortress if he damn well wanted to. And so he did. The ents attack Sarumon's tower in stunning fashion. The man inside the castle, corrupted by a lust for power, is defeated.

The next, and ultimately coolest, is Eowyn. Specifically Eowyn’s duel with the Witch King. Take a minute and picture that scene in Return of the King. The Witch King stands over Eowyn on the battlefield, all confidence and radiating evil, and he declares “No man can kill me!”

The Witch King is, also, Macbeth- a human king driven to acts of evil by his lust for power. In Macbeth the “no man born of a woman can kill me” is solved by...c-section apparently not counting as being born? Tolkien looked that plot point dead in the face and threw Eowyn at it. SHE is no man. She, a woman, breaks that prophecy is a much more satisfying and less bullshitty way.

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So yes. That’s how Tolkien wrote one of the greatest scenes in modern fantasy just to pick a fight with William Shakespeare. Bonus fact, years later CS Lewis would similarly pick a fight with Tolkien because Tolkien had said that electric lamps had no place in fantasy. CS Lewis responded by putting a damn lamppost in the middle of Narnia just to mess with him.

In summary: Authors are petty and I love them.

So yeah. Thank you for watching this video! This channel is still really new, so I always appreciate comments and likes. I’ll be sure to see yall down in the comments. And as always, if you enjoyed listening to this queer millennial feminist with a BA in English, feel free to subscribe.