• kibiz0r@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The ring doesn’t exist. And if it does, it’s not that bad. And if it is, we can use it for good. And if we can’t, it’s cuz we deserve it.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The book did have denialism, the movie skipped it but it’s there in the much more fun books.

    • Hextic@lemmy.world
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      “we don’t need to throw the FAKE ring into the fire! We can just eat lembas bread! That one guy ate some and didn’t get killed by an Orc I don’t care what Woke Rivendell says!”

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      It is the opinion of the Supreme Court of Gondor that evil no longer exists and thus pursuing endless power over Men through the use of the Ring is permissable and unlikely to result in ruin or abuse of power. So sayeth we all.

  • dub@lemmy.world
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    Unironically this is what would have happened in real life. Every fantasy good and evil conflict would have morons like we do now clamoring for ‘bOtH SiDEs’

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      The idiots clamoring for “both sides” wouldn’t be as loud and numerous if “fair and balanced” Orc News wasn’t pumping out Mordor’s propaganda 24/7.

    • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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      In the broader context of the novel it was that way. Rivendell wasn’t an open forum. And it shouldn’t have been.

      • hansmeiser666@lemmy.world
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        Uhm, yes it was, and all that took part in the council where there by pure chance (e.g. fate) in the book.

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
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          Fate? or the machinations of a wizard who was actually a demigod?

          Also, do you think Elrond would have allowed just anyone into that council?

        • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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          And, if you consider the mechanism of fate, the qualities in those present (that brought them there, then) and in those who would later be seduced by Sauron (that prevented them from being present) you would understand that we are saying the same thing.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It’s actually really funny because you’ve got 800 pages of dudes talking like they’re from Middle Earth and this dude shows up and starts spouting talking points like he’s a modern, career politician. Genuinely actually funny.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          Less funny when you think what this means, but yes, and in general LOTR’s humor is slow-paced, not too persistent, but of caliber impossible to ignore.

          • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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            Tolkiens humor is best described as subtle but mighty imo. I still chuckle a bit when thinking about the conversation between Bilbo and Gandalf at the beginning of the Hobbit. And even the prelude to the story has funny little details as well as the anecdote by Gandalf of how Golf was invented later on

          • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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            That’s usually described as distributism, a Catholic-libertarian kind of ideology, and I’m not sure how really progressive it is.

            In the sense that it’s directed at implementing Catholic ideas of moral society - it is progressive (like other inherently Christian utopias directed at making the world into something more virtuous than it was before), but definitely not classist.

            Ah, also it’s very explicitly “capitalist”, but, if we use the word “socialist” in its widest possible sense, it’s also that. Very much against common property and central regulation, but also very much for cooperatives, unions and all kinds of social activity to help each other.

            • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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              1 year ago

              you are right ofc. “relatively progressive” would have been more accurate. And I was thinking of the positive depictions of healthy (aka. non-toxic) masculinity as well the handling of gender roles

    • Noughmad@programming.dev
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      He is forced into it by Gondor and Rohan encroaching on his borders. The elves totally made an unwritten and unsigned promise to Morgoth that they would never expand their alliance (that somehow nobody except Sauron remembers).

      By the way, there were Elvish soldiers present at Helm’s deep. This is proof that the Elves are fueling this war at the cost of millions of human lives. The people of Gondor love Mordor and yearn to join it, but the Elves staged a coup and are now forcing its people into war.

  • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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    “Yeah, Sauron and the orcs are bent on conquering everything and enslaving everyone, but Denethor is mean to one of his sons, so there are no angels here. I can’t in good conscience support the Free Peoples until he apologises and steps down.”

  • CaptainEffort@lemmy.world
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    I’m open to being wrong, but I still think old shitty statues and stuff should be put in a museum or something. I think it’s important to preserve history, especially when it represents something bad. The Holocaust museum is a solid example, and imo is incredibly important.

    I’d even say the same for the One Ring if there wasn’t the chance for someone to reclaim it and become all powerful. I mean is it even possible to contain it?

    • RickRussell_CA@kbin.social
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      I still think old shitty statues and stuff should be put in a museum or something

      I don’t think anyone has a problem with that. But, that’s usually not what the regressive types are complaining about.

      To use the US example, the overwhelming number of “Confederate Monuments” were erected many decades after the Civil War, and typically funded by white supremacist groups or their close allies in city and state government. They were installed in public parks, on public easements, in front of public buildings, etc. Notably, they are typically not on graves, old battlefields, etc.

      Folks quite reasonably think we should remove monuments that were put up as a big “F U” to remind black folks who is really in charge. These statues are certainly shitty, but they also are not “old”. They’re much younger than the people/conflicts they memorialize, and have no historical significance (except to the white supremacists who put them there).

      Of course it’s not just the US. I remember in the wake of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, communist sympathizers complained at the removal of Soviet monuments. I remember college professors complaining at the renaming of Leningrad back to St. Petersburg, calling it a “dangerous right-wing move” and an erasure of Lenin’s history and legacy.

        • loklan@lemmy.world
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          There are quite a few “statue parks” in Russia where they dumped all the old communist statues. Row after row of lenins, the odd khrushchev or brezhnev, a rare stalin tucked down the back. Lots of actually pretty good art of the common people looking super swole as they march into a glorious future.

          All sitting in a muddy field in the outer suburbs of Moscow or Petersburg. It’s a tourist trap but I found it to be a pretty poetic experience when I visited.

          • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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            First of all there’s Museon near the Gorky Park, where one of such places is combined with a memorial to Stalinism’s victims.

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      The thing is that most of the statues in question were not created prior to the civil war, or even directly after. They were funded and installed by people mad about reconstruction and later about desegregation. Many of the statues being discussed today were put in place in the 50s. They have no historical relevance except as a monument to the racists who wanted a large, visible reminder that they had power at one point, as a threat that they’d continue trying to gain it back.

      • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
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        And largely the ones which are older than that and do have some sort of historical or general memorial purpose are being treated differently. A few years ago Orlando relocated a Johnny Reb statue from 1911 to the Confederate part of a local cemetery and I think that’s the most appropriate thing to do with that specific statue.

    • Lemdee@lemmy.world
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      I mean is it even possible to contain it?

      No. Somebody even wrote three whole books to say it can’t be contained. They’re pretty good too.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
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      I think I’m fine with that as long as it’s properly contextualized. In the cases of statues the history to tell isn’t actually about the person the statue is about but rather the context and circumstances of the propaganda campaign that lead to it being built. When you see statues and posters in a Holocaust museum it’s in the context of how they were propagandized.

      Either way, no way in hell should it be put in a place of honor like a park.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      Those statues were not created with the intent of creating art. They are not historical in the sense of their subject. If we’re talking about Confederate statues then they were largely created during the Jim Crow era, many in the 1950s-60s. They were created with the intent to harass and ostracize black people in America and promote white nationalism.

      They are not art and have no historical value. If we want to preserve them, they should be in an exhibit about Jim Crow-era hate speech. And in that case, we don’t need all of them; just prominent examples. We can take a chunk of Stone Mountain, for instance, to show next to pictures of it before it is dynamited.

    • Meowing Thing@lemmy.world
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      Exactly! I agree with you and think that we should expose our past as it was and how it impacted the world. Learning from our mistakes prevents us from committing them again.

    • iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world
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      There’s a huge difference between an American Civil War museum and having symbols/statues celebrating the traitors to the existing nation everywhere.

    • алсааас [she/they]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      I agree with you that problematic statues/symbols should be displayed in museums with the goal of teaching people about mistakes of the past. I mostly take an issue with the public display of stuff like that

      On the One Ring: The issue is that it itself has a nature which cannot be change, cannot be harvested without the wielder being corrupted. And any value it might have had is greatly outweighed by the danger it poses

    • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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      I think it’s a reference to the fact you got Americans defending a faction that started a civil war over the right to own other people.

      • DaveNa@lemmy.ml
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        Got you. But I don’t think it’s a “reference to a fact that there are Americans.” Is that well worded? And after you pointed it out (thanks). Isn’t the meme referring to the destruction of Confederate monuments/stuff?

        • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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          My impression is that it was a reference to confederate statues/stuff being removed. I don’t think there are many non-Americans that really care about that topic which is why I specified.

          • DaveNa@lemmy.ml
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            Yeah, I heard about it like a year ago or more, not now. Maybe they are at it again. But the first thing you think when you read the meme is the opposite of the title, you know, the people that scream and cry about everything, everywhere. You know, minorities. And they are not associated to the left. But idk, maybe I and decades of history around the world are wrong. Thanks for your feedback.