Draugluin wrote:
That's entirely false...
I didn't say, "All whites good, all non-whites bad." I said "most non-whites bad." I don't think the fact that some Numenoreons et all fought for Sauron changes the situation.
Equating Sauron with Allah makes no sense, nor have I come across anything that suggests that Tolkien intended that. The maiar and valar are a pantheon of non-historical deities, an aspect of the mythology Tolkien developed for Britain. Sauron would be more equivalent with a villain deity or entity in any given mythology or religion--ie, Satan, Loki, Malsumis, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, Ares/Hades, etc.
Tolkien didn't think Allah was real, so giving Allah power in his story makes no sense.
I want to make this distinction--if Sauron did not actually exist in the book, if he was just an idea, or the unrevealed or invisible figure of an Orcish/Easterling religion, then having Easterlings and Haradrim fight on the side of Mordor would not be racist.
In the canon of the LotR universe, the stories contained in the Silmarillion, etc, are not just "Numenoreon mythology" or "Elvish mythology," but rather historical fact. Sauron, and his master Morgoth, are living entities that interact frequently with the inhabitants of Middle-earth, and they are objectively evil.
To make an equivalency--let us assume, for example, that traditional Christian theology is entirely true, and everyone knows it. Everyone also knows which side is good, and which side is bad, and that the bad side wants to destroy the world and torture everyone forever. Satan shows up and establishes an empire in the east. The vast majority of Europeans oppose him. Why not? It's a no-brainer. Nonetheless, some Europeans join up, some Africans are enslaved, and by and large nearly all of the non-white people of the world volunteer to fight for Satan.
What?
That's my interpretation of "race relations" in LotR. The story could have been told without non-Europeans, but when they do show up in the story they're all fighting for "Satan" (or any evil deity/entity in any given world religion or mythology), for one reason or another.
I don't think Sauron is a 1:1 equivalent of Satan, just to make things clear, but I do think he represents an objectively evil deity. I should also mention that I do not think that LotR is just a fantasy version of medieval Europe. I think it's meant to be prehistoric British mythology.
Your interpretation may be different. That is often the case with art and literature. And that's okay.