It's interesting that the Lord of the Rings story ends up being self-referential. "But what if we could use this myth to accomplish good?" When maybe the best answer is to “destroy” the myth.
Words like “truth” and “myth” are absolutist and exclusive. We need to teach people to think critically and determine what is “likely” or “improbable” and always be open to being incorrect. Our best thinkers and scientists are so often proven wrong by the next. Even referencing Tolkien’s source material, the whole story of the Bible hinges on us failing to determine what is “true” or “good” and what is “false” or “evil” and how our response to those determinations can expose human faults. Life is gray rather than black and white simply because none of us have the capacity to fully understand and process everything.
I think there's a lot more to this discussion. For one, the Nazis asked Tolkien directly to use his work and he very politely declined. And then, between the Hobbit and LOTR, he made sure dwarves could not be used as an antisemitic stereotype. And Tolkien never publicly said why he didn't like Dune. He felt it unprofessional to say. But I do think totalitarian will use whatever they can. It's not a reflection of defect in the original work, just whether the movement found the literature useful in shifting public opinion.
I think Tolkien’s devout Catholicism played a role as well. The man loved Jesus & Dune’s whole thing was a critique of messianic figures. Edit: To clarify, being religious doesn’t inherently make you dislike Dune. As a religious person myself, I am a fan of the books, especially in our modern era in which televangelists, politicians, & other disgusting opportunists take advantage of other people’s faiths to increase their own wealth & power. However, I do think Dune’s critique in the book is not just of false messiahs & disingenuous opportunists (though it certainly addresses them). The book explicitly says multiple times that Paul & later Leto II do such horrible things in order to make people realize just how horrible the very idea of a messiah is, so that none are ever entrusted with such power again. It’s definitely a bit of a twisted self-justification that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you think about it, but that is how they rationalized committing atrocities: becoming a horrible dictator & jihadi so that they could be pointed at as a historical mistake to never again repeat. Also, to those saying “Dune is a critique of Islam, not Christianity,” they’re sister religions & extremely similar. The aesthetic is more based on Islam because the author thought that would be cooler & fit his setting better, but the critique can apply to either religion equally.
@@kadmiiAFAIK Tolkien was a devout catholic until his death. Dune directly criticized his faith/religion and thus his worldview (as well as other messianic religions and religion as a whole). Pretty easy to see why he’d have an innate bias against it. Additionally great authors can agree to disagree on the medium (as mentioned in this short) as well as religious matters (E.g. Tolkien and CS Lewis) without actually thinking a story is poorly written.
@@kadmiihaha, well, looks like I’m going to come in sort of in the middle here. Firstly, I’d encourage everyone to read Tablet Magazine’s review of the newest film, which does a great job conveying the complexity in Dune I think many are missing. Secondly, Tolkien was from a mixed (yes, within Christianity) faith background, which I identify a whole lot with…though now, I suppose as always really, I only identity as believing in G-d, who made a covenant with Abraham (that as a Jew I am bound to) and gave his words to Moses on that confounding mountain (I almost get some LOTR vibes from it all). Anyway that matters, that Tolkien had a very open mind and realistic view of the world from a very young age…because while he was indeed a Christian and a catholic (and I offer absolutely no scorn upon that and would find a desire to erase that fact odious)…he nearly defined his early life by a willingness to see text with new eyes, and have an open mind.
It really comes down to three reasons: 1. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and Dune is very critical of religions and messianic figures in particular. 2. Tolkien hated allegory. Dune is an allegory. 3. Tolkien fundamentally believed that there is good in the world, and that the darkest days still have hope. Dune has a far darker take on human nature.
I don't get how the messiah critique matters to Catholicism in particular Edit: my point here was misunderstood. What I'm saying is: how is it his "devout Catholicism", *specifically,* that'd made him dislike Dune. I am fully aware about Christianity's messiah thing, but in the case of Catholics - that I know of - nothing about their doctrine makes them at odds with Dune's message. Also, how would any Christian (Catholics in particular) would see Dune as blasphemous, or in conflict with their faith partially? It's literally NOT about Christ.
Left out a major piece of context, Tolkien was saying in the letter that no author can really judge another authors work, because they will always have stylistic and creative differences, and he used dune as an example of a good book he didn’t care for. He specifically said dune was a good book, he just didn’t like it. He never said it was terrible or anything like that.
@@disgruntledmoderate5331 “Is your favorite color blue?” -Tolkien: “no it’s green, blues cool too tho.” TH-camrs for some reason: “Why Tolkien HATES the color blue and thinks ANYONE who likes that color should be killed.”
It reminds us that there was a time when critique could be genuine and civilised. As opposed to an attack on one's character and automatically a reason for visceral rebuke.
Many people who supported the Christian crusades use lord of the rings as a prime media example of defeating racially different people ie. Orcs and goblins who happen to be stereotypes for Jewish people and African American prople.
I think when they said "Lord of the Rings" they meant "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and by JRR Tolkein they actually meant Richard Wagner. But even then, it wasn't Wagner's fault. He died in 1883, long before ww2 even happened.
@@normifiedIt wasn't to Frank himself, rather it was a response to a friend who bought him a copy of Dune. He didn't want to criticize Frank Herbert directly or publicly since Tolkien saw him as a budding author, and didn't want to discourage him or ruin his publicity.
@@normified It's the same difference as a nowadays influencer calling another one criticizing them for something they did vs posting a hit piece about the same thing Do you think there is a difference there?
@@tylerpatti9038 I think I misunderstood: I thought you were implying that Tolkien disrespected Hurbert but didn't dislike him. I think I understand what you are getting at now: Tolkien might have disliked Dune but that doesn't necessarily mean that he disrespected its author. Correct me if I've misunderstood again.
@@supraguy4694 Many people use many words in many different ways to mean many different things in many different situations and contexts. The evolution of language and the variety of ways in which it is used, understood and misunderstood around the world provides little indication of anybody's emotional capacity. Language is in constant flux :)
@@og8263and star wars not based on Dune. We can say Warhammer 40k based, and Warhammer Fantasy based on LOTR. But you know it is hard to create something completely unique from the start.
Star wars is heavily inspired by Dune. Read/watch both and you will see that that is undeniable. George Lucas (sometimes dexterously, sometimes hamfisted-ly) drew inspiration/directly took from tons of things, like Dune and WW2 imagery and films among others. Once again, this is undeniable and well documented. Dune and LOTR are both Mt. Fujis (look it up, it's a great quote ab LOTR) in their respective genres (Sci-fi & fantasy).@@leman7648
The problem here is that this was not the reason he claimed to hate Dune. As a matter of fact, he gave no such reason in this letter. Second, this portrayal of The Lord of the Rings’ ethical argument is inaccurate. There is no such thing as a story *about* “good vs evil.” The Lord of the Rings actually deals heavily with questions of grey morality and manipulative authority, the allure of power, and the manipulation of art, beauty, and “sacred” things. That exact message is all over the story. Tolkien’s idea of heroism is only challenging to Dune in that it assumes that a somewhat Platonic “good” can exist within the hero, even a flawed hero. So many TH-camrs wax philosophical over The Lord of the Rings, yet fail to miss the fundamental reason that the story’s mythos is challenging to postmodern moral tastes; it’s not the lack of grey and mixed morality - it’s the insistence upon some absolute moral good that *does* exist and *can* prevail, and must do so only in the midst of darkness. Men, elves, and dwarves are all corrupted in his story, and the Orcs are the “White Walker” juxtaposition. But, to continue with this other metaphor, he includes some insistence upon an absolute good, something GRRM refuses to assume, likely for his own reasons. ASOIAF included the entire moral spectrum (even absolute evil) *except* for absolute good. This makes it congruous with postmodern tastes. It’s not that you’re wrong to like Dune, or even to prefer it, it’s that your deconstruction of both stories by such a massive stretch misses the point of both, especially in juxtaposition. To complicate things further, this is only *speculated* to be the reason Tolkien hated Dune, usually by Dune fans, for that matter.
Dune, for all of the hype, is absolutely a rallying cry of its own kind. It’s playful, but nevertheless triumphalist for a sort of low-brow atheism that refuses to grapple with the obvious flaws Herbert intentionally portrays in this viewpoint. Imbedded in Dune’s message is a cry for help, and I don’t think this was an accident. Herbert would certainly disagree with Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, but would pine for it, nevertheless. This, in itself, is a powerful point missed by those who continue to hammer on about this debate on the internet.
Dune is, partially, about the damage religion (can) do and it also delves into topics such as human nature and heroism. TLOTR is pretty much a parody on the bible and is about good vs evil. ASOIAF is about all of that and more; that’s why I love it and don’t feel much for the other two book series. Name me one morally grey character in TLOTR who is actually morally grey. No, Baromir doesn’t count because he is influenced by the ring and Saruman is evil.
@@sudowtf LOTR gives life to mythological archetypes that inspire the best within us. Despite being lost in darkness and horror. The story has the most value of the 3 mentioned in helping to create a grounded and healthy mind in the chaos and confusion of the industrial world. Ideal characters are the point, to show us the way within. Having said that. The closest to a morally grey character I can think of would be Denethor. A wise and strong man slowly broken by a lack of hope, falling into selfish and destructive apathy. Not a foolish tyrant, but a great mind led astray. ASoIaF is a great story but its value in inspiring the best within and compelling the human spirit forward is the lowest among the 3. It does a better job at mirroring the chaos and confusion of our world, rather than inspiring beyond it.
@@AARon11414Ever since Descartes Christianity has been on the decline. All people like Ed Feser can do is say, “Well if we return to Thomism, Christendom will be saved!” The seeds of the Enlightenment lie dormant in Thomism. Dune takes place after the Butlerian Jihad, a holy war against artificial intelligence. Kierkegaard and Heidegger point the way forward for Christendom.
@@sudowtf Weird to say that Boromir doesn't count because he's corrupted by the ring when that's the entire point. Yes, the method of which Boromir gets corrupted is the ring but the ring is a tangible thing for something that is intangible in the real world, power. The reason the hobbits have a hard time getting corrupted is because their base desire doesn't require power to keep for the most part. A simple life just chilling, happy to ignore and be ignored, requires almost nothing. It is ambition and desire that the ring (power) uses to corrupt. Enough that people lose sight of what they were trying to achieve in the first place. Saying that the ring is the only reason Boromir got corrupted and therefore nullifies him from being morally gray is a very surface level read what is happening.
Don’t forget how Tolkien said he still thought it was a good book but it just wasn’t his taste. It was truly him just saying “it’s good but it’s not for me”
I think that's the best form of criticism. You can recognise the merits, but it just doesn't work for you. Like he didn't just shit on it to be a dick.
It’s funny, I’ve said the opposite about a lot of things. Like critically, I can poke enough holes in things to make Swiss cheese look like an airlock seal, but like it still makes me happy.
@@JustinTK416 same thing, basically recognizing the quality of the work is not related to your enjoyment of it. Wish more people had that kind of awareness. Too many think “I didn’t like it” = “bad”
So the idea of "thanks, I hate it." Something can be meaningful, useful and important, but unpleasant. It may have been too close to home and challenging to enjoy, where say McCaffrey's Pern saga is more palatable to a "fantasy as moral play and escapism" mindset, as opposed to a Herbert/GRRM "fantasy as an allegory for society and the foibles and weaknesses of man, and the challenge of being imperfect but striving to be better". You could even argue it's the same as Marvel vs DC - Marvel focusing on the humanity of superhumans, DC focusing on the challenges of always being beyond reproach and not human.
Lord of the rings is not about politics, good guys or bad guys. It's about overcoming your inner demons and facing your fears. Being or trying to be a good person in the midst of horrors
Saying Herbert fought in wwii is a bit of a stretch. He was a photographer for the Navy’s construction battalion and was discharged after 6 months when he suffered a non combat injury. Tolkien on the other hand fought in the trenches at the battle of Somme, with him being at the front of a German gas attack and eventually getting trench fever. Most of his friends died and his battalion had been almost completely wiped out during the battle. The two had vastly different military experiences
@@IEVLB I mean the wording of “Tolkien fought in World War I, but Herbert was in World War II” implies it. Most people would hear that sentence and assume it meant Herbert also fought, which just isn’t really the case. Either way it’s just a weird thing to bring up, because I don’t think their military service or what each experienced in the wars is very relevant to why he disliked Dune, but rather it’s the themes of Dune and who Tolkien was a person and an author. Tolkien was very religious, Dune is fairly anti religious. Tolkien’s themes are about hope, love and overcoming evil, Dune is fairly dark and has more morbid political undertones to it.
@@brendan9868he literally says "Tolkien fought in WWI, but Herbert WAS in WWII". The fact that you assumed he meant that Herbert also fought is a misinterpretation on your part.
@@Renan-n3yIf Herbert being a non-combatant photographer deserves a note as being in WWII, then Tolkien deserves it too. Tolkien not only fought on the front line of WWI where he experienced the brutality of war, but he also served as an air raid ward and codebreaker in WWII thanks to his extensive linguistic knowledge (he had also experience, he was a signals officer in WWI, deciphering both encrypted allied communication and intercepted enemy messages). Kind of unfair.
For context: Tolkien fought in the trenches of WW1 as a second lieutenant, fighting in four or five major battles, including the somme. Frank herbert was a photographer in the Navy Seabees for 6 months and went home after receiving a non combat related head injury. So, they're wartime experiences differ greatly and may have less to do with herberts worldview.
@@mimimurloughtrue but you would need to be in the battlefield to see the enemy shooting your friends head off At the end of the day they had completely different experiences
Y'all simplify Tolkien too much. Evil in his works is a constant repeating threat to the world, that average people must endlessly overcome and hold faith in goodness. Complexity does not equal nuance
But the """characters""" in Lord of the rings aren't nuanced. There are no good parts of Sauron or Saruman, they're just flat evil placeholders. There are no evil parts of Gandalf or Frodo. The only evil thing about any of the good guys is when they have the evil ring on them. The bad guys are personality-less orcs who do what Sauron says because.....
@@logantotmanBoromir? Faramir? Isildur? The Haradrim? Ringwraiths? Everyone seduced by the ring or corrupted by Sauron has some bad in them that is abused by him
@@logantotmanyeah, because Sauron is the embodiment of evil. As for nuance, it is just an excuse for people who want to do morally questionable things.
I hate these analyses with intensity. We don't know why he disliked Dune. He didn't specify why. He said it wouldn't be appropriate for someone working in more or less the same milieu to do so. Every time people say that Tolkien disliked Dune for this or that moral or philosophical reason they're blowing smoke. For all we know, it was entirely stylistic and not thematic. In fact, if you really think about it both books deal with the same warnings about the corruptive influence of power.
Yeah the dude was either too lazy or afraid of actually looking up Tolkien's point of view or simply reading the letter for the short and instead spelled out his own headcanon of whatever he thinks happened trough Tolkien's mind.
Another Tolkien quote elucidates this a bit: “I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language." He also says that: "The only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it." Finally, he states elsewhere that LOTT isn’t an allegory of atomic power, but of power in general, of war but not a specific war. In sum total, I think he’s saying that what he hates is intentional, deliberate allegory. He hates allegory that can only be mapped one way, to offer only a single interpretation. To him, allegory occurs naturally and can be interpreted universally.
@@kevinbeck8836what? No it IS a nasal moisture collector. It’s called a catch tube. The Fremen breathe through their noses and the tube reduces the amount of water they lose from their breath.
@@ModeratelyCool The italian far right views LOTR as a metaphor for their fight on foreigners - the rhetoric by the leadership is very cultured and soft, but go to the rallies and you can hear people of certain ethnicities and skin colours being described as orcs and goblins and trolls invading the 'pure' west. They read the book as a vindication of higher cultures' rights to fight and destroy lower cultures, and protect themselves from them. The leadership has been pushing it, and encouraging the media to discuss LOTR through this viewpoint, and have been co-opting LOTR events in Italy.
So many comments are claiming Dune is a condemnation of messianic figures and religion, which is why Tolkien didnt like it but its hard to see how Tolkien could see it as an attack on his religious beliefs. Dune shows how a messianic figure can be dangerous because they can command their followers to commit acts of violence and war, but its hard to see how Tolkien could view this as an attack on Jesus (considering Jesus was a poor carpenter who wouldnt even let his followers pull out a sword, nevertheless start a war). Seems like other explainions (like his dislike for allegories) is more likely.
with respect, unlike what this video is implying things like post-modernism and dadaism, the avant garde, started after ww1 not ww2. if anything mainstream art post-ww2 was more reactionary and traditional as a consequence of the culture war of the cold war, with the avant garde becoming steadily more commercialized as time moved on.
Yes the more detailed version would be that WW1 started the avant garde, and then with the Spanish Revolution and WW2 you had people experiencing the totality of war for the first time from the perspective of the avant garde-- and also able to access a wide variety of photographs and videos of the adversary.
@@_magnifyThe pattern of art falling is far older than that. The Renaissance saw the rise of this intensely beautiful, integrated artwork. In the middle ages, you often don't know who the artist is. In the Renaissance, you ALWAYS know who the artist is. And, so the cult of the artist began, where people started seeing this embodied beauty as being *from* the artist. It's a deep, big picture, subtle point. Lucifer was the most beautiful angel in Heaven, as the story goes. His mistake was to confuse his own beauty with himself, seeing himself as the source of that beauty, rather than something that was granted to him. Modern art is very much the result of the belief that the art itself is from the artist, and not this dance that the artist does with all of these other beautiful patterns of nature, of reality. Crediting yourself when you've learned from thousands upon thousands of people, and from nature yourself is extremely arrogant. It's EXACTLY what we did, and that's why it's extremists who are the only ones using these classical forms today.
That's not exactly accurate. Paul is definitely a hero, in the context of the first novel, but the entirety of Dune(the 6-book series, not just the initial entry) is a critique on the dangers that any society faces when anyone is placed in the role of "hero."
@@SyniStar616 Paul is not a hero in the first novel. Herbert wrote the rest of the series almost in spite of that notion. The Arteries accept Arrakis from the Emperor with the expressed deliberate effort to USE the Fremen, despite their honorable status among the other houses. At the end of the day, they operate and thrive in the same dangerous and treacherous political landscape. And at the end of the novel, Paul exploits their religious fanaticism and the false prophesy of the Bene Geserit as well as their very own planetary recourse (spice) to dominate their culture. Chani represents the only path and where Paul COULD be a hero which he abandons for power
@@SyniStar616 He starts as the hero, but by the start of Dune Messiah its clear he's become very much a galaxy shaking villain, much much worse than the Harkonnens or Shaddam.
@cirian75 right, that's what I said. In the context of the first novel, he's a hero. Dune, as a series, however, is a critique on the danger posed to society by "heroes."
No, but liking something too much means your a nazi. Oh and the only reason we have abstract or expressionistic art is because of Trump support- sorry I mean nazis or just generally people I disagree with or think are wrong.
Actually, the fact he sent a contrucive letter and explained why he didn't like it shows he still has some level of respect for the Dune book and author...he basically said "Not for me, but good work"
This video seems to ask the question “is it better to believe a beautiful lie or acknowledge a painful truth?” The truth is that it’s a lie of omission that people’s only options are to choose between those two absolutes. I can’t say much for dune except that I was counting the seconds till it was over and I could do something else (both the book and movie) needless to say, this has not been the case with LOTR. It is a pet peeve of mine when people try to make a connection between extremists and Tolkien, or accuse his fans of being nazis. Nothing could be further from the truth. You could say Tolkien “strongly disliked” the nazis. He even went as far, on one occasion, to lecturing them about what “Aryan” actually meant. And Hitler was a person he referred to only as “That Man.”
Which myth serves us better? Both Sophie Scholl and Graf Staufenberg, two of the most well-known heroes of the resistance against the Nazis were inspired by Christianity and heroic stories. Yes, it is true, the Nazis had their own mythology. But it's the tired old fallacy. We do not believe in good and evil. Because being judgemental would make us fascist. But what does fascist even mean? Nothing practical as far as I can tell. It fulfills the same purpose as accusing someone of heresy or witchcraft. But this isn't about that. The world needs people who are so morally solid they are willing to face down a crowd. Growing up in Germany it was painfully obvious how messed up the world is in that regard. The lone hero going against the crowd was glorified until he was the archvillain (COVID cough cough) but then again others came out heroically glueing themselves to the streets to stop traffic. Was that good? YMMV. The thing is the "hero" needs more than courage. They also need introspection, compassion, humility (and other things). Tolkien understood that. And he constructed his heroes that way. Herbert's deconstructionist work certainly has its points, but, as the saying goes, it's easy to destroy and hard to build up. TLDR: If I was stranded on a lonely island with only one author I'd take Tolkien over Herbert any day.
I just wrote a comment to the maker of this video. Fascists being defined as authoritarian makes them fundamentally against tolkiens entire message. He believes god gives free will (secret fire). Fascism leaves no room for choice.
Tolkien never hated Dune. If we just look pass the clickbait title and statement we would be able to tell that Tolkien said he likes the storytelling and structure of Dune, he’s just not a big fan of it (sci-fi).
Past. The word you meant to use was past. Because of this your basic understanding of either author seems tenuous. You also meant to say that Tolkien liked the story rather than likes it. Are you sure you're a reader?
Past. The word you meant to use was past. Because of this your basic understanding of either author seems tenuous. You also meant to say that Tolkien liked the story rather than likes it. Are you sure you're a reader?
@@LPno.9 Oh, thanks for the corrections. Eng is my 2nd language so I still struggle with grammar and all. And yes, I do read but that doesn’t mean my English has to be perfect for TH-cam’s comment section :)
@@vivs9314 Maybe you should comment in the primary language in which you speak and read. TH-cam provides a handy translation feature. Better that than give the impression that you aren't able to grasp the material.
Both serve us well. It is vital that we all hold in our hearts that good can triumph over evil as long as those who are good stand. It is also vital that we understand that the world is a complex place and that food and evil are not always what they appear and charismatic leaders are not necessarily a vector for good.
I suspect another reason that Tolkien didn’t like Dune is the fact that Dune isn’t “literary.” That’s not to say Dune isn’t well written, but rather that it has a more straightforward style of storytelling that focuses on delivering the plot and less on setting the stage. When I read Dune, I was quite surprised how modern it felt. It didn’t have a lot of the artistic flourishes I noticed in LotR.
It's exactly why it IS "well written" the whole devotion to this classical form of writting was a mistake to begin with. I like Hobbit, it's okay, good, great maybe. But going through Tolkien style in LotR was just such masochistic form of pleasure, it's boring when you read it, though interesting when you stop and appreciate. But still it's pain.
This is a great point. I read both in high school. LOTR feels like someone eith vocal talents and a lute could practically SING the story as a performance. Dune is certainly more of a realistic sounding narrative just giving us the facts and political machinations. I think Tolkien probably didn't love the hints of Abrahamic religions being violent and manipulative, but I can also see the story being too blunt, cruel, and cynical for his tastes!
@@Garvin285 As soleone who grew up with the hobbit and similar writings, let me tell you, when I first tried to read the more "modern" stuff, I was in pain ("I have to read through everyone's inner monologues? So cringe!") It is pretty subjective but I do admit in this day and age, I'm in the minority here
@@aazhieFrom my understanding Tolkien probably didn't like anything that didn't have a somewhat positive ending or uplifting section as he was very much affected by the war. This was a big reason (along with catholicism) why Tolkien was so keen on good vs evil narratives with good prevailing in most instances.
That’s funny because Dune actually has an extremely fascist approach in its emphasis on aesthetics and moral ambiguity. It makes the audience think they know better than they do.
A truly insane take to suggest that the Dune myth serves society more than LOTRs. Your summary of Tolkien doesn't do justice to his serious wrestling with evil and the corruption of the human heart. Though he believes there is moral coherence in the universe, he's just as skeptical of power as Herbert.
The entire LOTR series can be boiled down to a message of "power corrupts, no matter how good your intentions are." There is literally no other possible way to interpret it.
The problem is there really is no evil or good. Nevermind how rare it is that someone would paint themselves as evil. The very idea is absolutiist and removes the idea of self interest from the discussion. I imagine you find it very hard to understand why things happen.
@@koc988 Saruman firmly believes he is doing the right thing throughout the story. Your point is incoherent. It's like saying there's no math because some dude says that 2+2=5 and thinks it's correct.
@@koc988 evil in lord of the rings is defined as self interest. Boromir's interest in protecting his people. Frodo's interest in holding onto the ring. Gandalf's interest in guiding mortals. All of these are good things as long as the heroes are not blinded by that self interest which is what the ring does. How it corrupts. You have read 'good' and 'evil' and ignored the definitions and then pretended there were none offered.
I think the difference is that extremists who might use Dune as a rallying cry would fundamentally be ignoring the message of the source material, whereas those who co-opt LOTR could actually make an argument (however flawed) that the message of Tolkien’s work supports their worldview. The same can’t really be done with Dune.
Alia is very likely science fictions original depiction of woke. Non binary, maddened by anxiety and paranoia. Dead father/hero, neglected by mother, surrounded by sycophants and with a complete aversion to reality/truth. No heroes, only monsters to kill. Frank Herbert described the Abomination 50 years before their widespread emergence.
@SarastistheSerpent I really don't see how anyone could misconstrued LotR and have yet to see that. Can you give an actual example of people seriously doing this or is it along the same line of cops getting a punisher tattoo despite punisher killing cops.
That simply isn't true. The only thing he attributes to Tolkien is the quote "I dislike Dune with intensity" His conclusion is not framed as something Tolkien said, but as his own opinion (shared by others)
@@Grawlix-P Tolkien is more right on this. This guy, like other "critiques" channels just spread misinformation over art pieces to compel their political narrative agenda.
That would also explain Magnify’s point about morality in both stories. Morality in Christianity is very much good vs evil, which then in turn affects the stories told by its constituents.
@@michaelflamel2611Also as I heard from others: Paul is basically a manufactured messiah, formed by centuries of eugenics and human meddling. How do you think a devout Catholic gonna react to that?
I like that you said "skeptical." I've seen quite a few people try to make Dune out to be anti-religous propaganda recently and I think that just isn't a fair or reasonable approach to it. Much like other sci-fi, it's intent is to warn you not to tell you what to think.
@@prometheus5405seeing corpses, while incredibly traumatizing does not equate to actively fighting in the war and watching dudes get killed around you.
It's because Tolkien apparently never stated his reason for disliking Dune. He only wrote a friend that he didn't like it and couldn't get himself to read it through. That's basically it.
@@michaelmurphy3976 Mans really rolled up and said, "OP is right, Nazis are bad, so OP is right that LotR isn't as good for society as DUNE." Aight cool, Watchmen is bad because people might align themselves with Rorschach. You see how that's a reach there? I _also_ think Nazis are bad, it's the coldest take since 1940, however I don't think we should act like Volkswagen is an inherently lesser car company than Ford because of that.
@DisPater-xs2pu how so? Tolkien was a highly educated combat veteran of 1 world wars and he lived through another. He spent half his life knee deep in the bloodiest most violent period of history this world has ever seen. Is it so hard to believe that he'd want his fantasy realm to be a place that shows the good in people and the hope that we as humans can be better?
@@SigismundSonOfDorn Same here! I'm a particular fan of his dream cycle, especially the dream quest of unknown kadath. The idea of an alternate dimension you inhabit when you dream, if you're aware of its existence or stumble into it; and can live an entire life separately from your own. Randalph Carter seemed to be a much more elderly man in the dreamlands due to his experience. The ghouls! They get so much lore in it. They have a whole society, tunnel into our world from the dreamlands, they're capable of communicating and speak an actual language that Carter understands, and uses to recruit them for help on his journey. I really vibe with Lovecraft, the dude has this almost punkish/teen vibe I guess. Like the fact the ghouls use tombstones as weapons, it goes so well with their aesthetic.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 that's one of my favorites too actually. Such an interesting concept that people don't really play around with these days despite how much you could do with it.
Neither serves better, but both serve. Lord of the Rings warns us about the promise of powers and how little things can corrupt and destroy us, The Ring and Golem being prime examples. Dune on the other hand warns about different dangers, about zealotry and grand plans spinning out of control, which is just the start of things. Which I think is one of the major reasons Dune can't serve as a rallying cry, part of it's message is: Beware of Rallying Cries. Basically.
You are giving LOTR too little credit. Smeagol/Gollum shows that a person can be simultaneously innocent and wicked. Boromir shows that assumed virtues like loyalty and patriotism can be turned to bad ends. And Frodo shows that no person can be entirely virtuous. Even he succumbs to the ring in the end.
I would disagree slightly about Boromir, he’s a courageous and honorable man who desires to do good, but he doesn’t understand that the ring would corrupt these ideals and cause him to replace Sauron as a tyrant. In the end, he acquires understanding, repents and dies a hero defending people weaker than him. Destroying the ring is saying that the only way to defeat evil (sin) is to resist it entirely
that's an extremely silly interpretation of Frodo: his purpose (similarly to Boromir's) is to show that the Ring can twist anyone including the virtuous. And we see, specifically, how: he begins to grow possessive of "His" burden, clutching and (sort of nobly) preventing any other from holding it, even as it destroys him. It's not to show that Frodo is himself "evil" in some way, but that no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances. Think of what Gandalf and Galadriel said when confronted with the choice to have the Ring.
Gee whiz @@bumfricker2487 , I think "no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances" sounds pretty similar to "no person can be entirely virtuous". Or at least, similar enough not to be called "extremely silly" by your righteous self. Sheesh...
Moreso, SARUMAN. The literal angel and The White Head Of Council, the ultimate authority, becames extra evil and resembling Sauron. Like... How is it not nuanced?
LOTR being appropriated by “extremist” groups just feels like a pointless thing to bring up when talking about the value of the work. Any story with good vs evil could be appropriated by bad groups of people. It doesn’t take away from the beautiful messages and themes of LOTR.
@@mikethered4864 they don't center the ideology around LOTR, but LOTR indeed has a lot of elements from Christianity and Royalism in it, so it naturaly attracts people who like these things.
That's the point, art is propaganda. Postmodernists want to remove films with crazy ideas like "good and evil" from the public consciousness. That's why they ruin all of the classics. Stars wars, lotr, etc.
@matthiasdarrington3271 what an insane time to be alive when Christians are labeled as extremists simply for holding views which have been accepted in society for hundreds or even thousands of years.
More obscure fun fact for y'all: Tolkien read some of Shakespeare's plays and stated that he felt "bitter disappointed and disgust". But I think that this is exactly why he was able to write what he wrote - because he found his own voice and stick with him
I would argue despite that the struggle for good over evil has inspired many more people to do small acts of kindness rather than extremists. "I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love" - Tolkien
@@vicentedongo5575 At the end of the day, everybody has their own conception of “good” vs “evil”. You can be rational and postmodern as much as you want but you still believe in good and evil. Rather than denying the entire concept itself its better to figure out what exactly good and evil means.
It’s also pretty interesting because Tolkien clearly uses a lot of Christian stories and beliefs as influences in his writing and world building, while Dune has a lot of similarities with certain Islamic beliefs in certain areas. It’s very fascinating comparing the two, to be honest.
@@kightsun it's kinda not that insulting. As an Arab Muslim Iraqi male, I read the books and watched the movies of dune. The book talks about not trusting outsiders, taking care of the land, faith is different from tradition and don't wait for someone to save you, save yourselves. Literally Islam. Lol
I don’t think you can really call Dune a myth because it doesn’t really match the criteria of a myth found across cultures. Tolkien, on the other hand, consciously made his stories as a mythology.
Funny enough, Dune itself addressed this in multiple books. Its refers more to 'prophecy' but myth isn't a far separate concept. And prophecy was both indoctrinated and used by the powerful in ways best understood through reading Chapterhouse and God Emperor. Basically it was all a set-up to take advantage of public support.
This is the only sensible comment in this entire section. I’m always dubious of the “know-it-all” channels, but this guy really shouldn’t delve into literary analysis based on a private letter without analyzing the content of said letter.
Dune isn’t « a myth », but it is based on myths just as much as LotR, just moreso religious myths and myths about savior figures than fairy tales or pagan European mythology. LotR has its meta foundations built on IRL myths, whereas Dune uses myths explicitly within its universe, built off of various IRL ones.
@@NotYou3005Or try to do literary analysis of two such dense works as LotR and Dune in a goddamn youtube short. There are entire channels and communities dedicated to just ONE of those series. I've watched hours long videos examining the morality and motivations of Sauron 😂
@jetblack4108 not really, he subtly sprinkles in with his own political leanings just enough so as to appear neutral. Remember that weird rib video he did back then?
So, all we have from Tolkien is that he "disliked it with intensity". No statement from Tolkien as to why he disliked it. So the rest of the video is simply conjecture on someone's part.
I bet he was just annoyed the main character had a boring normal name like "Paul" despite being 20,000 years in the future. I mean come on Frankie, even by Dune standards that's pretty lazy.
This short starts as 'why did tolkien hate dune' but then turns into 'lord of the rings isn't as good as dune because extremists can appropriate it' which is a weird flex to me. like, my guy, extremists can appropriate ANYTHING for their own means.
Dune is about a bunch of extremists right? If you’re going to stretch already then just say the real secret message was that the extremists were secretly right instead of wrong
I also love how you can just label anything an “extremist” group, I think it’s extremism to want go stamp out Christianity and moral values, but I guess I’m the extremists for believing that
This is one of the first videos of yours ive disliked im afraid... I think it's unfair to interpolate so much from a few words Tolkien wrote to a friend in private. I've been seeing this trend of 'Tolkien HATED Dune' all over the booktube scene and it's just clickbaity. Its just a reach to claim Tolkien hated Dune for it's ambiguity and make the guy seem so simple and black and white when his writing was fulfilling a specific purpose. Writers and their creations can be two different beasts. You ever see Miyazaki? He can seem the most cynical nihilist in interviews yet makes the most magical and hopeful media. Artists are multifaceted, and shorts like this don't do that justice imo
Yeah there are definitely a lot of reasons why Tolkien could have disapproved. (Aesthetic disagreements, procedural disagreements, ethical disagreements...). Mostly I thought the topic is a good intro to the general shift that happened in Artists who were born before and after World War 1.
@@_magnify I totally understand and think that's a super cool idea to delve into! I just worry that a lot of people could be taking away from this a shallow understanding of Tolkien's thought process behind writing LOTR and his feelings in general. A lot of what you said was interpolated from a short private message he wrote to a friend. If I wrote that I "greatly disliked this short" and someone 100 years later made a think piece on why I was incompatible with your work (which is untrue, I love your videos!) and then went on with more assumptions I would be quite miffed haha
@@_magnifyExcept this general shift didn't happen after ww2, it happened during and after ww1. To say that art before ww2 was still hopeful and bleak is not correct at all. I mean 1920's is like peak abstract art era and and even before ww1 it was getting a little dark but then it went into overdrive. In fact Tolkien is an anomaly among artists for being so positive after ww1, ww2 essentially being seen as just an extension of ww1. You talk about the tragedies of ww2 but just a reminder that people were throwing mustard gas at each other and cutting their legs off from trench foot.
@@tsm688oh for sure. i just meant that most people want to have a simpler black/white, evil/good world. but reality is complex and full of shades of gray.
it's not about the world in its entirety, it's about hero's, in LOTR, like he said good and evil are clear, so hero's are good, there is hope, the good guys can win. Meanwhile in dune, the apparent hero starts a genocidal war even though he can see the future which means that's literally the best path, the golden path
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry" It absolutely can, all you have to do is miss or deliberately ignore the point. Some reactions to the movie would indicate that's easier to do than you might think.
Well, the movie itself is also way WAY more binary than the book is. I mean, for exemple, simple as that: the emperor is the one who made the plot against the atreid in the movie, not the Harkonnen who then bring up the emperor to back them up (with the intent to screw him up later in the process), plus they even made the emperor look an awfull lot like fucking palpatine in SW 1, 2 and 3, when he should more likely look like the God-Emperor from WH40k (abeit older). The movie is somewhere in between between Herbert and Tolkien's work. On another hand, it's still an incredible movie and I still don't think it's possible to adapt Dune into a movie because of how dense in data the books are.
The fear of creating something good because it might be used for evil is the best way to excuse oneself from creating anything. What good will that do?
I don’t think this is a case of good things in Lord of the Rings being used for evil, it is a case of inherently violent and dehumanizing parts of Lord of the Rings being used for violence and dehumanization.
I don't know what you're referring to. There are some parts within Tolkien's legendarium that do not fit with today's standards of racial sensitivity, but his portrayal of evil races had more to do with long term manipulation by entities with power than the mere concept of good people and evil people.
@@_magnifyWhen you simplify everything in the matter that you do, I can see why you find so many issues. Would you remove the concept of orcs and goblins then? Dross take
LOTR had grey characters but it had a clearly defined grammar of morality. Dune does not share a similar moral landscape and in the later books the God Emperor is an intergalactic tyrant and an inhuman abomination who also happens to be guiding humanity towards its best interests and away from cataclysmic disaster
@@jessl1934 yes Denethor does have conflicting motivations, but at the end of the day Tolkien’s moral assessment of him is very clear, that Denethor is a guy with noble intentions who tragically succumbed to despair and pessimism.
I’ve always thought he killed Borodin off too soon who might have successfully challenged him for the throne and for the use of the ring. It would’ve been a very interesting conflict.
Yeah I hear you in that just because the cartels drink coconut water doesn’t mean coconut water is bad. However when a story is routinely used for dehumanization and violence, it is good to ask whether they may be something in the story that is not bringing out the best in humanity.
@@_magnify any story which has good guys and bad guys, or even a story which has only various levels of bad guys, can be used in the way you’re describing. It’s basically an extension of Godwin’s Law. “I have some issue with you, therefore you’re like the Orcs, or Voldemort, or The Empire, or the Harkonnen, etc. Therefore you’re a villain, therefore I can hate you.” So long as any one or any thing in a story or historical event displays any obviously negative traits, someone will compare someone they don’t like to it. It seems to me less an issue with any particular story, and more an issue of human nature.
@@_magnify Well, "the best" according to the post-modernist harm-avoidant directive, that would be "extremist" in relation to most ways of thought that came before. Conflict is a fundamental part of nature, it's not "good" or "bad". It's ironic considering a binary "good" and "bad" such as in LOTR is considered simplistic.
if tolkien was alive he would be considered a extremist by most ( not a natzi, but he was a devout catholic, not just a devout catholic a traditional catholic because he was upset with vatican 2).
i don’t get how LOTR could even be appropriated by extremist groups. i feel like the messages are very straightforward, it’s very much an anti fascist tale that emphasizes the importance of seeing past differences and creating bonds with others. it’s a tale of love and hope
I love LOTR the books are amazing with great detail and depth. I love how in the books J.R.R. Tolkien leaves you on edge or wondering were the next chapter will lead. The hobbit wasn’t my fav but the LOTR has a great story line but also keeps you at the edge of your seat. Every time I read it I find something different I didn’t notice the first time. I’ve only read it through once and reading it through the second time but it’s interesting to notice things I didn’t notice the first read through
I looked it up. The text of the letter (to a fan who sent him a copy of the book) is as follows: ‘Thank you for sending me a copy of Dune. I received one last year from Lanier and so already know something about the book. It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike DUNE with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment. Would you like me to return the book as I already have one, or to hand it on?’”.
@@tenhauser Absolute fucking lie, that. He could've just continued with it, but instead decided to use his platform to say that Tolkien's work helps support extremism. This guy's a twat.
Tolkien is trying to immerse you in a story, and Herbert a conversation. I believe Tolkien disliked the writing itself. Although I love Dune, Herbert spends the entirety of the book hitting you over the head with his philosophical ideas and beliefs. The story comes second to the conversation he wants to have, and at a cost of character development and world building (in the first book). Many of the characters of Dune aren't likeable and the decisions they are going to make aren't left to mystery or interpretation. Tolkien created to entertain and doesn't appreciate the allegory that is DUNE.
I doubt this is the reason. Tolkien also disliked Narnia, which does take place in a moral universe. I rather suspect that Dune‘s worldbuilding wasn‘t up to his standards. (But since he didn‘t explain the reason, we will never know for sure.)
Dune tries to use allegory to criticize Messianic figures. It very much tries to deliberately convince the reader of that. Ironically, Dune actually shows us what would have happened if Jesus was what the local authorities wanted him to be...
The idea that artists must cater how they write in order to not be used by evil people is not something anyone should give a damn about Evil is non-negotiable, they will use anything they can in any manner they can no matter what it says or does
Consider how the Ukrainian army is currently dehumanizing the Russians by calling them "orcs" in slang. This is not a misunderstanding of Lord of the Rings, it is a direct application of Tolkien's exact worldview.
@@_magnify you think that is Tolkiens fault? Slurs for enemies have existed since the beginning. During the American revolution American soldiers would hang British sympathizers and say it didn't matter because they "were torys not human". During ww2 people came up with a name for their enemies like Jerry for the Germans, and would refer to them as such. If anyone is fighting anyone else they will either believe themselves to be the good guy, or they wouldn't fight
@_magnify . Insulting your literal enemy in a war is not extremism. Wanting to cancel other people for saying something that offends you is extremism though.
The Ukrainian example is just one of the more recent and troubling ones. There are plenty of other examples of extremist groups using Aragorn's "Men of the West" speech, or Italian neo-fascist youth in the 1970s calling themselves "the order of the ring." When a story is routinely used this way, I think it is fair to ask whether there is something in it that does not bring out the best in humanity. If so, I don't really believe it should be censored and banned. But it would make sense to hold it at arms length and take it with a grain of salt. @@laslov7812
One thing that is often overlooked here, is the first book. The Silmarilion had the elves commit atrocities, betrayal and all kind of evil deeds. The elves we see in Hobbit were the remains of once great people, but those that were old enough to remember those times don't talk much about it, because there was quite a bit of horror involved. Elrond watched his people being cut down by another elven party in the war of Sirion (he was not of age then) and lost both his mother and father that day. Galadiel? Holy crap she has seen so much war and murder it is a wonder she is still mentally stable. And Thranduil, who is simply known as the Elvenking in the Hobbit, lost his father Oropher in the war against Sauron. And then there is LotR itself, which ends with the elves more or less leaving. Some earlier, some later. It is not really a happy ending, not really. It is more a story of people being corrupted and the battle against said corruption. But Hobbit and LotR were bot more hopeful than Silmarilion which was the story of how said corruption began. But also remember, those dwarves, that survived Hobbit, we see a few again, as corpses in the mines of Moria... what a happy ending they had.
Tolkien didnt say why. I think its really unfair to pretend to know why. Narnia's author had a really similar worldview to that of Tolkien, and he still hated Narnia. Dune's author admitted that the message he was trying to convey didnt come across to readers of the book. Thats one of many failures of the book that might have bothered Tolkien. But we don't know, that's the point. P.S. if ever the creator reads this. I really like most of your videos. Very interesting facts. But, sometimes, it veers into speculation but keeps the same "factual" presentation. I think its intellectually problematic.
This guy reads a Twitter thread from an amateur literary critic and made it into a short. He's putting words into Tolkien's mouth. Tolkien never elaborated his reasoning on Dune, and Tolkien's works are not as shallow as "good guys win".
@@agin1519 there is a clear "side" on Tolkien's ideals, but there's so much reduction on The Lord of the Rings' philosophy. Especially when you take into context the whole Middle Earth Legendarium.
@@FrostDirt yeh. I’ve made it a page into the Similarion about 3 times…so I find myself unable to comment about the Valar et al! I feel either the answer is much more complicated than a short. Or it’s that Tolkien really liked his own work and that which he studied, which is why he went into it in such detail, and tended to look down on everything else to a greater or lesser extent because it wasn’t what he liked which was his stuff!
@@agin1519 You're right, Tolkien engrossed himself in classical texts, especially of European origins. Naturally he is estranged from more modern genres like Herbert's sci-fi and other stuff, so developing a kind of of dislike for it is par for the course. However, I wouldn't call him "looking down" on other works. He was, after all, a man of class that keeps opinions to himself (or his correspondences).
@@agin1519 I think it could be said that Sauron has a bit of ambiguity to him, in a way. Sauron wasn't always bad, he was once a servant of the Valar but got drawn into evil by Morgoth. After Morgoth was imprisoned by the Valar, it seems like Sauron may have been legitimately sorry for the harm he had caused, and wanted to help rebuild after the end of the War of Wrath. But you see, he got rather resentful of the Valar and of the Creator God Eru Illuvatar. He felt like the Valar came, caused a bunch of destruction in their attack and capture of Morgoth, and then left people to clean up the mess. He felt as though the gods had abandoned Middle Earth, and was determined to establish order and prosperity. He genuinely started with a desire to bring safety and order to Middle Earth, but he fell back into his dark ways as he began to come to the conclusion that the only way he could do that was through force and control, deciding that if the gods had abandoned them, then he would make himself the god of Middle Earth. So while what he does is unambiguously bad, his motivations are a lot more complex than just "power for powers sake" or "because he's evil".
I've never seen a video which so completely misunderstands both stories to such a self-satisfied degree, and completely fails to answer its own question. Bravo for farting into your hand and passing it off as literary criticism.
@@mogo-wc7xw The Lord of the Rings isn't black and white at all, and there are more shades of grey in The Silmarillion than in Dune. I'm a huge fan of both and appreciate both for their nuance and subtlety when it comes to their moral explorations. Such takes as 'Lotr is morally simplistic' are just fodder from Reddit, mostly by people who don't actually read the story.
@@Lodatzorit wasn't a comparison of the worlds in the texts, but of the texts themselves. Bringing up a different one doesn't jive with comparing the stories in the texts. Taking the stories as they are is what he did. Maybe that's where your disagreement should focus
@@JethroBulmer not even american but I agree, there was already an existing web of alliances. WW1 started because the heir to AH was shot. WW2 started because an Austrian Painter wanted revenge
@@mandategaming the two guys who disagreed with OP are Nazis bro. They believe that moustache man and the Failed Reich weren't the bad guys for trying to exterminate a large part of the world
Dune absolutely can be. The idea of a group of colonized folk throwing off the yoke of oppression can be appropriated by any number of groups of people whether their causes be justified or not. The idea that moral ambiguity makes any story any less susceptible to appropriation by folks is comically silly.
That’s technically true but the book is quite clear on the fact that those colonized folks throwing down their chains leads to the slaughter of billions of innocent, you (general you) would have to be quite daft to read dune and only retain the part where they throw down their chain and not connect it to the part where that ends in tragedy, whereas for Tolkien it’s probably a bit easier to read all of it, in context, and still come out of it with the idea that your bad actions are justified because you’re the good guy and your enemies are those horrendous corrupt gremlins that can’t be reasoned with. I agree that the whole « nazis liked pretty thing so we should be wary of pretty things » is one of the smoothest brain takes ever (though one that artists have cited all too often -_-), but it’s probably true that it’d be easier to hijack LOTR than dune
@@nathanjora7627 that’s the interesting part with dune and the way it’s written. Are those people genuinely innocent. They thrived off the oppression of the fremen and the exploitation of their lands. Grew fat on the spice and created an empire and by proxy the religion that was used to bring the imperium to its knees all because they assumed they could control the masses. There’s plenty of modern day extremeists groups who would feel levels of empathy towards people whom are ostensibly fed a lie and play into it to force accelerations. It’s harder than lotr cause any story that has a clear cut take on good and evil falls to it. Dune just forces you to look at things from the perspective of Chani and by proxy the fremen elders to get there.
@@deadeye7924 « are those people genuinely innocent » … The billions of civilians that were just going about their business ? Yes, yes they were. « They thrived off the oppression of the fremen » I mean no not really, that was mostly the guilt and the landsraad, not the common folks, and the oppression of the fremen was only incidental to the obtention of the spice, not actually required. To say that the common folks of the empire weren’t innocent because of that, at least innocent enough to say that billions of innocents were killed during the jihad, is about as absurd as saying that the people who died in the WTC during the nine II weren’t innocent because the stuff they bought had some oppressed guy somewhere in the chain of production. « created an empire and by proxy the religion that was used to bring the imperium to its knees » The common folks of the empire had exactly zero involvement in the actions of the bene gesserit that led to the creation of said religion, so… What are you even on about ? Unless you mean the orange catholic Bible in which case that’s a different religion that was also not made by the citizens of the empire, and once again using that justification IRL (unless the religion directly involves evil and has its normal practitioners partake in it) would rapidly show how utterly deranged such a standard is. « Dune just forces you to look at things from the perspective of Chani and by proxy the fremen elders to get there » … What ? Are you sure you’re talking about the books and not the movie ?
@@nathanjora7627"Quite daft" sums up a lot of the rank-and-file extremists pretty well. Or if not that then willfully ignorant. Being, for example, a neo-nazi already requires believing that white, nominally-Christian men who own a lot of guns are just extremely oppressed and unfairly held back in life.................. If someone can apply that level of selective observation to literally every experience they have, then ignoring some subtleties in literature in favor of the broad outlines is pretty simple. (Basically having selective reasoning is not an accidental feature here--it's a pre-requisite. If we were talking about people who accurately assessed the nuances of life and reacted in a measured, appropriate way, then they wouldn't be nut jobs, they'd just be people.)
@@kray3883 A lot of white nominally Christian men live in bad enough conditions that it’s quite easy to believe that they’re oppressed, regardless of whether or not they live well comparatively to some other demographics (on average). That’s even truer when you take into account explicit policies in major fields and companies designed to prop up minorities, and the frequent anti-white racism from their ideological enemies, which they can get away with far more easily than anyone could were the races reversed. Of course there’ll still be a lot of biases and misinformation and exaggeration etc that’ll be required to get from « generally white people have it okay even if some portions of academia are really heckin racist and positive discrimination sucks and big business owners are pretty often "liberals" » to « white people are currently being kept down by a cabal of powerful elites controlled by Jews and queer black people to undermine Christianity and install a one world communist government », but the point remains, a lot of white folks have it ba and it’s not hard for them to find examples ; however isolated ; of injustices committed against their group, if only because our modern world facilitâtes this with digital echo chambers, so it’s easy to radicalize. For dune though, it’s not subtle in any way, and you don’t have things that would pre-curate the parts of the book that’ll align with your vision of things, so it requires a much greater degree of idiocy or willful ignorance to get the critique of religions and messianic figures wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but it’s not nearly as easy as you make it out to be.
Love the Vonnegut appearance! I just finished his book Bluebeard and it was the best book I’ve read in years. This video touches on the theme of the book .:)
“Morally ambiguous,” “morally ambivalent,” and “morally complex” are three different things. To imply that Tolkien’s myth is reductively simple on a moral level is to misunderstand it. As Alan Jacobs put it, Tolkien is not interested in the moment that a person doesn’t know what is the right thing to do. He’s interested in the moment where a person knows what is right, but doesn’t know if they can do it. So characters can be morally complex in a world where morality is not ambivalent. Most of us agree (including the maker of this video) that certain morals are NOT ambiguous or ambivalent, ie Nazism was evil. Tolkien would agree. The tension in his world comes from the fact that while you can put values and systems, to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories. The line between good and evil runs down the center of all of us. That’s not morally ambivalent, but it is morally complex. To judge Tolkien’s work based on the way that people misunderstand and/or ignorantly appropriate it is, to my mind, disappointing. Does the value of art really lie in “how it serves us”? And if so, isn’t that turning all art, in a sense, into propaganda?
No?... good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies living beings or things... it's a maniqueíst vision that born in monotheísts ethics systems( can be seen in Judaísm/Cristianism/Muslims)... what we CAN categorize like good or like evil, it's behaviors... and it's directly attached with the perspective of things that the individual feel or see as " bad " or " good"( estimulate him or anothers/ or harm him or anothers; in phisical or ideological way)... and THAT was the thing that Tolkien doesn't understand and overcriticised Frank Herbert to demonstrate( his Catholic Faith served has a anvil too... he was very conservative and didn't knowed to pick well Frank's point...) Sorry my poor english, i'm not North American...
Look at recent history and recent "art." There is a belief that art should be propaganda in order to be considered "good," even if it's to the detriment of the story being told. There is a certain worldview that believes that its value is how it can be utilized rather than what can be learned from it.
Thank you. Most criticism of these concepts, at least on the Internet, is laced with the same condescension one would expect from a nihilistic middle-schooler. I guess this masterful philosopher/linguist/author just couldn't grasp the "higher" concept of moral ambiguity, because he was a product of a bygone era lol The one unintelligible reply above lends credence to this.
I also feel like reducing an authors work to how people today use it is really discrediting art too. Authors can't really write a story with "But what if in 20 years a fascist government appropriates my work" in mind. And neither should they have to.
@@paulorenatobarbosa2874”you can put values and systems to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories” “Good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies to living beings or things” and “we can categorize things as good or evil by its behaviors” Based on both these quotes you are saying the same thing as the original commenter. So why did you write “no?…” as if to refute what the original commenter was saying and use this made up disagreement to undermine his/her ideas?
Oh yeah lets bash Tolkien one of the best writers for having hope. Just cause you don't umderstand the deeper meaning of let's say gollum who is both good AND evil you don't have to call his work less than dune. Sorry. You just don't seem to get it.
Oh no, let's defend our lord Tolkien because nobody is allowed to dislike it. He fought in the war, unlike Frank who only took photos, so he can't be wrong.
@@Daniel_Rodrigues_89this is not a personal Thing. It does not matter if you went to war, or if you I quote "only took photos". This is about Art. But hey if you think taking Photos is not as important as fighting this is on you. I think both jobs are important.
Fascinating point about artists in WWII. I was struck that Herbert’s characters become machines, using spice to function like calculators, and navigators and soothsayers. Whereas Tolkien’s characters are wary of machines and destroy the items that make characters more powerful than human.
That is one of the core themes of Dune. In its lore, a long time ago, there was a human-machine war, and thus, there was a commandment NOT to develop any advanced machines beyond the basics. This means, all development happened via genetic engineering and the human body became the tools or instruments instead of machines.
@@WhiteDove73-888 I can't speak for OP, but I feel like the word machine here is being used in a more abstract sense than 'computers'. Either way no need to be hostile about it sheesh
I've never read Dune or LOTR (I was the turbo nerd in school who read nonfiction like Shattered Sword), and your comment brings up an interesting tidbit mentioned at the end of the short. Some of the earlier ideas of German fascism are luddite in nature, particularly in its ideas regarding a worker's place in society. Where the communist's ideal answer to industrialization is to seek the rights of the workers and form collectives, in this sense fascism initially sought a return to the artisanal craft of skilled workmen. LOTR's messaging of shunning machinery could be appealing to an extremist group that idealizes fascism. Of course, this is entirely conjecture. Personally I feel fascism is more of a phenomenon than an actual ideology, limited moreso to vague ideas of nationalism, authoritarianism, and anti-communism. I just thought it was an interesting dichotomy. Also, I'm not saying Tolkien was a fascist, he was pretty clear on his stance of the inherent evil of Nazism.
Linking Tolkien's work with extremist groups feels disingenuous. Any jackass can twist a piece of media to fit their narrative. Singling out Tolkien while implying Herbert's work can't get the same treatment seems unfair.
He's saying extremists like to appropriate traditional narratives (good vs evil), and that Dune eschews simple tradition. It is not saying one is better than the other, just that one criticizes the very notion of propaganda or "good guys" or "messiah's," while the other thrives on elements of propaganda.
LOTR has a lot of underlying themes of racial difference and racial determinism. Though, he wasn’t an outspoken racist, there’s a strong and straightforward case to be made that his books are embedded with racist ideas. “The evil wizard Sauron is associated with darkness. His cannon fodder are orcs, debased humanoid creatures who live only to fight and hate. Tolkien described them in a letter as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.” In contrast, the elves, the epitome of purity and good, are associated with whiteness and fair skin. Elrond and Arwen (technically half-elven characters) are unusual in being part human and having dark hair. Tolkien did very little to challenge the tie between white skin and goodness. The main protagonists were virtually all white.”
@@tonysmith5566 yes. Most white people do have engrained racist ideas that might be hard to recognize. It’s so deeply embedded into our western society. Especially at that time, racism was much more normalized and casual. Though there is evidence he also carried certain anti racist views, specifically he was anti-nazi. But I’m no Tolkien or LOTR expert lol just an anti racist.
Writing style probably was another reason why he hated Dune. Tolkien loved old literatures and their way of telling a story and that's why the silmarillion and the LOTR books were written like it's a religious book. While Dune is written like it's a political book pretending to be an epic story or saga like GOT.
Going out on a limb: maybe those "extremist groups" ARE the good guys. They're doing things because they're right, not because of some societal license or associated lust for power.
Ah that's why I didn't like Dune. Before anyone gets mad I simply don't like books that are written like this "and then he said and then she thought and then he insisted"
What's funny to me is that George RR Martin's writing style is very similar to Frank Herbet only more expanded upon and far more grim. A Song of Ice and Fire has no real heroes either.
I think both are two sides of the same coin. I believe in a strong moral universe and that most of us have an inherent desire to do the „right“ thing. I think most of us also have a strong sense of compassion. When we see others suffer it often makes us uncomfortable, even more so when we are the ones inflicting that pain. The harshest traumas in wars don’t come from what was inflicted on you, but more so from what horrors you were forced to commit, not that any trauma is „easy“. On the other hand this desire to do the „right“ thing and our compassion can also be exploited and used against us or used by others to their own advantage to gain power or commit crimes in the name of good.
Yeah, it‘s not difficult to say „Paul leading the Fremen Jihad was actually good“, given that Nazis don‘t view „many people died“ as necessarily a bad thing. + Dune is a universe in which eugenics actually work.
Aye but not about logic with these guys. It's about destroying western culture and accusing anyone who opposes them of being extremists. The little clip is just there to try associate enjoying Lord Of The Rings with being evil.
I promise you that people can use Dune as their rallying cry. People have been miss understanding the point of literature for literally ever. Ever see a Punisher skull with a thin blue line?
Tbf, I don't think Punisher is necessarily anti thin blue line or cop in general although I'm sure most just think "wow cool skull! Oh and he fights bad guys, rapists and mobsters? Heck yeah!" Frank Castle only really broke bad because of a miscarriage of justice that led to mob hit men getting off Scot free after bribing a judge. That's not really any individual cops fault or the cops as a wholes fault. It's more anti corruption in the Justice system. Something I think Cops should be
@@Lauren007Eexcept cops are a large part of that corruption. They're not going to fight against it. Frank Castle was never a fan of cops, in the comics particularly. So it's hilarious when cop worshippers and bootlickers use his symbol of vigilantism as a rallying cry to support the police and justice system, the very thing that failed him so badly. ACAB.
@@Lauren007E If Punisher existed, he'd hunt down and destroy cops who used him as a symbol. He KNOWS the things he does are super hell illegal and shouldn't be contemplated by those supposedly on the side of the law.
they certainly both have their place. I might say that stories like LOTR needed to happen for stories like dune to make sense. it's a sort of conversation across time.
I think that both are incredibly valuable to our society and our ways of thinking. Dune asks us to question authority and to make up one’s own mind. The Lord of the Rings is just as important because although there are distinct themes of who’s good and who’s evil, it still teaches us to hope in the face of darkness and adversity. It shows us that no matter what, there is some good in the world
Lord of the ring also exemplifies what is good and what is evil, it doesn’t just state « there’s good and evil », it shows what it means to be good (aka courage, altruism, resilience, loyalty, humility, etc), and what it means to be evil (aka greedy, egocentric, arrogant, cowardly, etc). It’s also more nuanced than people give it credit for, I mean the antagonist are (almost) literally all good guys that had their light perverted by their ambition or greed or suffering etc, which in and of itself is a worthy thing to point out, that evil is rarely born as such but rather as the corruption of good, in a lot of cases.
@@nathanjora7627 I agree that it is far more nuanced than what people give it credit for. Sauron doesn’t start out evil. He is not evil for the sake of evil. Frodo “fails” at his mission, but there is so much more to it than that. The courage that the heroes showcase is what makes them good, not because they are distinctly good. Each character is flawed and full of their own unique characteristics. It is easy to be corrupted, but I love that Tolkien makes it clear that that doesn’t not make you bad. It’s the choices you make. There are so many messages and themes and ways that the story can be read, which is what makes it one of the most beautiful things ever written, and my all time favourite book
It might also have had something to with the fact that Tolkien disliked allegory and aimed in his own writing for what he termed applicability, whereas Dune is a pretty obvious allegory for the Middle East.
Because rise of charismatic leaders that led people into commiting atrocities is happening only in Middle East and not.... checking notes... everywhere.
I’m seeing lots of speculation that I think is at least partially true, but I think the one thing that’s missing is that Tolkien was at the end of the day more or less an optimist ideologically. He was actually working on a sequel to Lord of The Rings, and it was filled with explicit political intrigue like Dune but for Tolkien he abandoned it bc he deemed it to be to dark to depressing.
Is Tolkien’s Harad with ‘Near Harad’ brown-skinned people in desert lands, and ‘Far Harad’ (further south) with black-skinned people (described by Tolkien as “black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues”), who all serve the dark Lord and hate the so called “civilised” Western men any less obvious of an allegory?
@justchilling704 it's interesting how the different authors looked at life. Tolkien served in the battle of somme where many of his friends died in the battle and of their injuries after the battle, and yet later in life he was still optimistic. Herbert did serve in the second war but only as a photographer, so while he was on the front he did not partake in the violence as much but he still grew to be more pessimistic
Tolkien said that in a PRIVATE LETTER and KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT PUBLICLY because he was a GENTLEMAN. Would have been nice if you could have included that. Two syllables would have cleared that up.
I don't think you did a good job explaining Tolkien's reasons for disliking Dune: Tolkien didn't like that dune because much alike other fantasy books it forgets the "fantasy" part, instead becoming a large Wikipedia "lore dump" for a (very good) fictional universe which is too elaborated to leave parts for you to imagine, and that lacks subtlety for spreading lore, too busy with realism while forgeting it's supposed to be "fantasy". For most critics Dune represent a book that is messing around with the secondary and forgets the primary, making a book of an Alien world while subcontiously being the same as ours. Basically we shouldn't look down upon simple things, we should embrace imagination and the child like aspects of Fantasy, unless we forget the entire meaning of "escapism". It's not about making the longest, most elaborated story, it's about conveying a feeling and emotion which for many people the book threw it out of the window and instead leaped back into our very own universe.
This is very pretentious of you dune and The lord of the rings are extremely different stories that deal in very different themes lord of the rings is a good story but it also lacks a lot of the nuance and complex storytelling of other works, it is fantasy, black and white with characters that are set up to grand and otherworldly but dune is realistic based on our own world, its a science fiction, a fictitious imaginary future not a fantastical one it wants to tell a completely different story thus it's characters it's world building and it's setting are vastly different it isn't a story you escape to because your childlike mind cant handle thinking about things it is one you invest yourself in and find yourself contemplating it's themes. As much as l love the works of Tolkien other than admiring his world and the characters bravery and good nature there isn't much to think about the lessons are extremely clear a child could pick up on them. This is not a bad thing as that is simply the story LOTR is trying to tell but don't go saying works like dune are "self-important" or forget the Fantasy when they are not trying to give the feeling of a Fantasy at all. Frank Herbert didn't want you to imagine something he wanted you to think about it, an allegory and a critique of the real world in a fictional story with real believable "human" characters not greater then human. If Paul was in LOTR in place of Aragorn it stands to reason that he would have succumbed to the rings influence and the story would have been a far darker one but a more realistic one. While if Aragorn was the Lisan Al Gaib Dune would have been over and done with by Dune Messiah as he is a too morally good of a person to create an interesting narrative after the first book. These are 2 complete different stories that take place in a fictional world of their makers creation and that is their only similarity that they are not real in every other category they can't be compared.
@@Stasy809 I understand where you are coming from, but I still stand strong with my original opinion. You brought up the fact that the two stories have entirely different settings to which we agree, but I don't think the setting or the author's vision is a factor in this equation. The best example I can bring up in order to explain myself is the first Starwars movie against the extended lore of today. The original movie is fantasy at its greatest, it does many things right while still presenting us different themes and allegories such as totalitarianism, destiny, maturing, progress against conservatism and much more while not being in your face about that. The movie didn't have the entire fully detailed Starwars lore backing it out when it was released, but it managed to deliver a believable universe that left your imagination the place to expand it. It built up on its own and left the unnecessary things to the audience. Allegory and Fantasy aren't water and oil, both can be mixed if done correctly and you can make the reader think without a wiki of a universe. I bet it wouldn't be as interesting on first watch if they dumped all of the expanded lore into it, explaining every single detail and its components. This is the style of "Fantasy", and it seems that you are talking about "Fiction". There is a reason why fantastic books are Romantic, over the top, larger than life and most of fictional universes are allegorical. While still having a goal for immersion, it's not their primary goal. Fantasy books are supposed to bring you into another alien existence through another's eyes whom are many times alien to that world too. Lord of the Rings never shows you its cards, it never has an overarching explainable universe because it's not very interested in that, instead it focuses on the story itself and builds up on it while letting you to fill the details. I can see how many people read Dune as a political essay, but as I mentioned before you can absolutely be an allegory and be a story focusing on charachters and emotions. Dune, while a very good book is not Fantastic. I can see people trying to read Dune and just think why didn't the author just wrote a political essay or a Glossary Wiki for his cool universe? What was the point in inserting those characters? I don't want to get too much into semantics but when we think of Fantasy we don't think about 1984, or other stories that build up on their world before the story itself. Dune is a fictional universe that makes you think, but doesn't make you feel for a lot of people. That's just my observation, both are legendary books on their own right, when I read Dune I don't feel anything.
@@General_Alch l agree with that yeah l Just think Dune and LOTR should not be judged in the same way but l don't disagree with you point on what fantasy is
@@General_Alch I don't know, this feels like a weird take. I don't see Dune as a fantasy series, so saying it fails at being fantastical feels wrong. While I don't think that fantasy and allegory mutually exclusive, I think escapism and nuance are.
The question shouldn't be "what myth servers us better"? That's a terrible question to be honest. The question is why do we surrender our popular media to specific groups at all? No group should have an exclusive claim on popular culture.
A Song of Ice and Fire is also similar to Dune, in that sense. Rather than good against evil, it is humans against humans. There is moral correctness is surrounded by ambiguity and the characters are complex, driven by many different aims, ideologies, morals, and pasts.
It's interesting that the Lord of the Rings story ends up being self-referential. "But what if we could use this myth to accomplish good?" When maybe the best answer is to “destroy” the myth.
@granite_4576 We don't live in a post-myth world, we just don't call them myths
"You think you were the first person to believe their war was justified??" -big ass owl from ATLA
Television was front and center in Nazi Germany, as nowhere else on Earth, what was the programing like?
Words like “truth” and “myth” are absolutist and exclusive. We need to teach people to think critically and determine what is “likely” or “improbable” and always be open to being incorrect. Our best thinkers and scientists are so often proven wrong by the next. Even referencing Tolkien’s source material, the whole story of the Bible hinges on us failing to determine what is “true” or “good” and what is “false” or “evil” and how our response to those determinations can expose human faults.
Life is gray rather than black and white simply because none of us have the capacity to fully understand and process everything.
I think there's a lot more to this discussion. For one, the Nazis asked Tolkien directly to use his work and he very politely declined. And then, between the Hobbit and LOTR, he made sure dwarves could not be used as an antisemitic stereotype. And Tolkien never publicly said why he didn't like Dune. He felt it unprofessional to say.
But I do think totalitarian will use whatever they can. It's not a reflection of defect in the original work, just whether the movement found the literature useful in shifting public opinion.
I think Tolkien’s devout Catholicism played a role as well. The man loved Jesus & Dune’s whole thing was a critique of messianic figures.
Edit: To clarify, being religious doesn’t inherently make you dislike Dune. As a religious person myself, I am a fan of the books, especially in our modern era in which televangelists, politicians, & other disgusting opportunists take advantage of other people’s faiths to increase their own wealth & power. However, I do think Dune’s critique in the book is not just of false messiahs & disingenuous opportunists (though it certainly addresses them). The book explicitly says multiple times that Paul & later Leto II do such horrible things in order to make people realize just how horrible the very idea of a messiah is, so that none are ever entrusted with such power again. It’s definitely a bit of a twisted self-justification that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you think about it, but that is how they rationalized committing atrocities: becoming a horrible dictator & jihadi so that they could be pointed at as a historical mistake to never again repeat. Also, to those saying “Dune is a critique of Islam, not Christianity,” they’re sister religions & extremely similar. The aesthetic is more based on Islam because the author thought that would be cooler & fit his setting better, but the critique can apply to either religion equally.
I thought so too. My granny for instance didn't like Dune for the very same reason.
Bro would have had a field day with His Dark Materials
perhaps, but I feel like he ought to have appreciated the notion of a false messiah that manipulates and destroys the society he purportedly saves
@@kadmiiAFAIK Tolkien was a devout catholic until his death. Dune directly criticized his faith/religion and thus his worldview (as well as other messianic religions and religion as a whole). Pretty easy to see why he’d have an innate bias against it. Additionally great authors can agree to disagree on the medium (as mentioned in this short) as well as religious matters (E.g. Tolkien and CS Lewis) without actually thinking a story is poorly written.
@@kadmiihaha, well, looks like I’m going to come in sort of in the middle here. Firstly, I’d encourage everyone to read Tablet Magazine’s review of the newest film, which does a great job conveying the complexity in Dune I think many are missing. Secondly, Tolkien was from a mixed (yes, within Christianity) faith background, which I identify a whole lot with…though now, I suppose as always really, I only identity as believing in G-d, who made a covenant with Abraham (that as a Jew I am bound to) and gave his words to Moses on that confounding mountain (I almost get some LOTR vibes from it all). Anyway that matters, that Tolkien had a very open mind and realistic view of the world from a very young age…because while he was indeed a Christian and a catholic (and I offer absolutely no scorn upon that and would find a desire to erase that fact odious)…he nearly defined his early life by a willingness to see text with new eyes, and have an open mind.
It really comes down to three reasons:
1. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and Dune is very critical of religions and messianic figures in particular.
2. Tolkien hated allegory. Dune is an allegory.
3. Tolkien fundamentally believed that there is good in the world, and that the darkest days still have hope. Dune has a far darker take on human nature.
Nicely summarized - put it into a short video and you have this one beat by a mile.
It comes down to one reason:
1) we'll never know because he never said
Herbert does have a point. Not everything in the world is white and black. Moral ambiguity will always exist
I don't get how the messiah critique matters to Catholicism in particular
Edit: my point here was misunderstood. What I'm saying is: how is it his "devout Catholicism", *specifically,* that'd made him dislike Dune. I am fully aware about Christianity's messiah thing, but in the case of Catholics - that I know of - nothing about their doctrine makes them at odds with Dune's message.
Also, how would any Christian (Catholics in particular) would see Dune as blasphemous, or in conflict with their faith partially? It's literally NOT about Christ.
@@Gelatinocyte2Catholicism and Christianity in general are based on a Messiah figure
Left out a major piece of context, Tolkien was saying in the letter that no author can really judge another authors work, because they will always have stylistic and creative differences, and he used dune as an example of a good book he didn’t care for. He specifically said dune was a good book, he just didn’t like it. He never said it was terrible or anything like that.
Yes! Thank you for bringing this up!
@@disgruntledmoderate5331
“Is your favorite color blue?”
-Tolkien: “no it’s green, blues cool too tho.”
TH-camrs for some reason: “Why Tolkien HATES the color blue and thinks ANYONE who likes that color should be killed.”
That's exactly what I thought. Tolkien is a fantasy guy, Herbern is sci-fi. No hard feelings (the "intensity" aside) just not his genre, simple as.
It reminds us that there was a time when critique could be genuine and civilised. As opposed to an attack on one's character and automatically a reason for visceral rebuke.
@@klidthelid8361 To make it fair tho you would need to say you dislike blue with some in intensity
Lord of the Rings, used by extremists? Poppycock! Rubbish! Tomfoolery! When? Where? Who? How? As an extremist Tolkien fan, I’m flabbergasted.
Many people who supported the Christian crusades use lord of the rings as a prime media example of defeating racially different people ie. Orcs and goblins who happen to be stereotypes for Jewish people and African American prople.
I think when they said "Lord of the Rings" they meant "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and by JRR Tolkein they actually meant Richard Wagner.
But even then, it wasn't Wagner's fault. He died in 1883, long before ww2 even happened.
@@eddardgreybeardwell..Wagner was an extremist at his own time. But you’re right that there’s a big space between the two anyway
@@keegster7167
Who's to say at his time he was an extremist?
Maybe he was the norm?
Nazguls = nazists?😂😂
It was very respectful of Tolkien just to send a private letter explaining the reasons rather than making public statements for publicity.
haha like it makes that big of a difference, tolkien was still like "this shit sucks bro"
Back then if you wanted publicity you had to specifically publish it in the newspapers lol
@@normifiedIt wasn't to Frank himself, rather it was a response to a friend who bought him a copy of Dune. He didn't want to criticize Frank Herbert directly or publicly since Tolkien saw him as a budding author, and didn't want to discourage him or ruin his publicity.
Tolkien was a respectful critic, as he was respectful with criticisms of his own work.
It's a dying behaviour these days and it shows.
@@normified
It's the same difference as a nowadays influencer calling another one criticizing them for something they did vs posting a hit piece about the same thing
Do you think there is a difference there?
Remember dislike and disrespect are two different things.
Disrespect is something that people give to those they dislike.
@@J-sv9dp Tolkien didn't dislike Hurbert, he disliked Dune.
@@tylerpatti9038 I think I misunderstood: I thought you were implying that Tolkien disrespected Hurbert but didn't dislike him.
I think I understand what you are getting at now: Tolkien might have disliked Dune but that doesn't necessarily mean that he disrespected its author.
Correct me if I've misunderstood again.
Many people lack the emotional capacity to discern the two
@@supraguy4694 Many people use many words in many different ways to mean many different things in many different situations and contexts.
The evolution of language and the variety of ways in which it is used, understood and misunderstood around the world provides little indication of anybody's emotional capacity.
Language is in constant flux :)
Tolkien hated dune, Herbert hated Star Wars, Lucas hated Jabba the Hut… so it all makes sense to me. 😂
Dune isn't based on LOTR.
Like LOTR is the base for most fantasies, Dune is the base for most science fiction stories
@@og8263 ok, good point, wrong comment, as nobody said otherwise here
@@og8263what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
@@og8263and star wars not based on Dune. We can say Warhammer 40k based, and Warhammer Fantasy based on LOTR. But you know it is hard to create something completely unique from the start.
Star wars is heavily inspired by Dune. Read/watch both and you will see that that is undeniable. George Lucas (sometimes dexterously, sometimes hamfisted-ly) drew inspiration/directly took from tons of things, like Dune and WW2 imagery and films among others. Once again, this is undeniable and well documented. Dune and LOTR are both Mt. Fujis (look it up, it's a great quote ab LOTR) in their respective genres (Sci-fi & fantasy).@@leman7648
The problem here is that this was not the reason he claimed to hate Dune. As a matter of fact, he gave no such reason in this letter.
Second, this portrayal of The Lord of the Rings’ ethical argument is inaccurate. There is no such thing as a story *about* “good vs evil.” The Lord of the Rings actually deals heavily with questions of grey morality and manipulative authority, the allure of power, and the manipulation of art, beauty, and “sacred” things. That exact message is all over the story. Tolkien’s idea of heroism is only challenging to Dune in that it assumes that a somewhat Platonic “good” can exist within the hero, even a flawed hero. So many TH-camrs wax philosophical over The Lord of the Rings, yet fail to miss the fundamental reason that the story’s mythos is challenging to postmodern moral tastes; it’s not the lack of grey and mixed morality - it’s the insistence upon some absolute moral good that *does* exist and *can* prevail, and must do so only in the midst of darkness.
Men, elves, and dwarves are all corrupted in his story, and the Orcs are the “White Walker” juxtaposition. But, to continue with this other metaphor, he includes some insistence upon an absolute good, something GRRM refuses to assume, likely for his own reasons. ASOIAF included the entire moral spectrum (even absolute evil) *except* for absolute good. This makes it congruous with postmodern tastes.
It’s not that you’re wrong to like Dune, or even to prefer it, it’s that your deconstruction of both stories by such a massive stretch misses the point of both, especially in juxtaposition. To complicate things further, this is only *speculated* to be the reason Tolkien hated Dune, usually by Dune fans, for that matter.
Dune, for all of the hype, is absolutely a rallying cry of its own kind. It’s playful, but nevertheless triumphalist for a sort of low-brow atheism that refuses to grapple with the obvious flaws Herbert intentionally portrays in this viewpoint. Imbedded in Dune’s message is a cry for help, and I don’t think this was an accident. Herbert would certainly disagree with Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, but would pine for it, nevertheless. This, in itself, is a powerful point missed by those who continue to hammer on about this debate on the internet.
Dune is, partially, about the damage religion (can) do and it also delves into topics such as human nature and heroism.
TLOTR is pretty much a parody on the bible and is about good vs evil.
ASOIAF is about all of that and more; that’s why I love it and don’t feel much for the other two book series.
Name me one morally grey character in TLOTR who is actually morally grey. No, Baromir doesn’t count because he is influenced by the ring and Saruman is evil.
@@sudowtf LOTR gives life to mythological archetypes that inspire the best within us. Despite being lost in darkness and horror. The story has the most value of the 3 mentioned in helping to create a grounded and healthy mind in the chaos and confusion of the industrial world. Ideal characters are the point, to show us the way within.
Having said that. The closest to a morally grey character I can think of would be Denethor. A wise and strong man slowly broken by a lack of hope, falling into selfish and destructive apathy. Not a foolish tyrant, but a great mind led astray.
ASoIaF is a great story but its value in inspiring the best within and compelling the human spirit forward is the lowest among the 3. It does a better job at mirroring the chaos and confusion of our world, rather than inspiring beyond it.
@@AARon11414Ever since Descartes Christianity has been on the decline. All people like Ed Feser can do is say, “Well if we return to Thomism, Christendom will be saved!” The seeds of the Enlightenment lie dormant in Thomism. Dune takes place after the Butlerian Jihad, a holy war against artificial intelligence. Kierkegaard and Heidegger point the way forward for Christendom.
@@sudowtf Weird to say that Boromir doesn't count because he's corrupted by the ring when that's the entire point. Yes, the method of which Boromir gets corrupted is the ring but the ring is a tangible thing for something that is intangible in the real world, power. The reason the hobbits have a hard time getting corrupted is because their base desire doesn't require power to keep for the most part. A simple life just chilling, happy to ignore and be ignored, requires almost nothing. It is ambition and desire that the ring (power) uses to corrupt. Enough that people lose sight of what they were trying to achieve in the first place. Saying that the ring is the only reason Boromir got corrupted and therefore nullifies him from being morally gray is a very surface level read what is happening.
Don’t forget how Tolkien said he still thought it was a good book but it just wasn’t his taste. It was truly him just saying “it’s good but it’s not for me”
That seems more like him to be honest.
A very valid opinion. "I can understand why people would like this. However, I do not like this."
Yeah, the title of this video is just clickbait.
In the letter you're talking about, Tolkien said Dune was a good book, but he just didn't like it.
I think that's the best form of criticism. You can recognise the merits, but it just doesn't work for you. Like he didn't just shit on it to be a dick.
It's easier to just say Tolkien "hAtES DuNe" because it baits people and generates more engagement
It’s funny, I’ve said the opposite about a lot of things. Like critically, I can poke enough holes in things to make Swiss cheese look like an airlock seal, but like it still makes me happy.
@@JustinTK416 same thing, basically recognizing the quality of the work is not related to your enjoyment of it. Wish more people had that kind of awareness. Too many think “I didn’t like it” = “bad”
So the idea of "thanks, I hate it."
Something can be meaningful, useful and important, but unpleasant. It may have been too close to home and challenging to enjoy, where say McCaffrey's Pern saga is more palatable to a "fantasy as moral play and escapism" mindset, as opposed to a Herbert/GRRM "fantasy as an allegory for society and the foibles and weaknesses of man, and the challenge of being imperfect but striving to be better".
You could even argue it's the same as Marvel vs DC - Marvel focusing on the humanity of superhumans, DC focusing on the challenges of always being beyond reproach and not human.
"Not a single elf in the entire book. 1/10" - Tolkien
He should've waited for Messiah
"Where are the trees?'
White people aren’t the heroes 0/10
"10/10" - any gnome
"Doesn't mention the position of the sun in the sky enough 0/10"
“LOTR was used by some racist people….maybe idk, but Dune is ambiguous so it magically can’t be co-opted and that makes it the better one” 🤓👆🏻
I'm racist.
Lord of the rings is not about politics, good guys or bad guys. It's about overcoming your inner demons and facing your fears. Being or trying to be a good person in the midst of horrors
This guy gets it.
Yeah. It's about how ordinary people just doing the right thing ended up saving the world, bot just the wizards amd kings.
This is the perfect example of the guilt-by-association fallacy.
Saying Herbert fought in wwii is a bit of a stretch. He was a photographer for the Navy’s construction battalion and was discharged after 6 months when he suffered a non combat injury.
Tolkien on the other hand fought in the trenches at the battle of Somme, with him being at the front of a German gas attack and eventually getting trench fever. Most of his friends died and his battalion had been almost completely wiped out during the battle.
The two had vastly different military experiences
This point deserves a lot more recognition.
tbf he didn't say Herbert fought in WWI
@@IEVLB I mean the wording of “Tolkien fought in World War I, but Herbert was in World War II” implies it. Most people would hear that sentence and assume it meant Herbert also fought, which just isn’t really the case.
Either way it’s just a weird thing to bring up, because I don’t think their military service or what each experienced in the wars is very relevant to why he disliked Dune, but rather it’s the themes of Dune and who Tolkien was a person and an author.
Tolkien was very religious, Dune is fairly anti religious. Tolkien’s themes are about hope, love and overcoming evil, Dune is fairly dark and has more morbid political undertones to it.
@@brendan9868he literally says "Tolkien fought in WWI, but Herbert WAS in WWII". The fact that you assumed he meant that Herbert also fought is a misinterpretation on your part.
@@Renan-n3yIf Herbert being a non-combatant photographer deserves a note as being in WWII, then Tolkien deserves it too. Tolkien not only fought on the front line of WWI where he experienced the brutality of war, but he also served as an air raid ward and codebreaker in WWII thanks to his extensive linguistic knowledge (he had also experience, he was a signals officer in WWI, deciphering both encrypted allied communication and intercepted enemy messages). Kind of unfair.
For context: Tolkien fought in the trenches of WW1 as a second lieutenant, fighting in four or five major battles, including the somme. Frank herbert was a photographer in the Navy Seabees for 6 months and went home after receiving a non combat related head injury.
So, they're wartime experiences differ greatly and may have less to do with herberts worldview.
Tolkien even served at the battle of the somme, where he lost two of his best friends at the battle
You didn't have to fight WWII for the nazis to make your head spin
@@mimimurlough
Being in the middle of the fight and hearing the news about said fight are two halfs better off separate
@@mimimurloughtrue but you would need to be in the battlefield to see the enemy shooting your friends head off
At the end of the day they had completely different experiences
I believe Tolkien's Catholicism plays more of a role than their World War ideas.
But yes, those are quite different experiences and mindsets.
Y'all simplify Tolkien too much. Evil in his works is a constant repeating threat to the world, that average people must endlessly overcome and hold faith in goodness. Complexity does not equal nuance
But the """characters""" in Lord of the rings aren't nuanced. There are no good parts of Sauron or Saruman, they're just flat evil placeholders. There are no evil parts of Gandalf or Frodo. The only evil thing about any of the good guys is when they have the evil ring on them. The bad guys are personality-less orcs who do what Sauron says because.....
While this is partially true, it is worth noting that nuance and some complexity is required when analysing what truly is good or accurate.
@@logantotmanBoromir? Faramir? Isildur? The Haradrim? Ringwraiths?
Everyone seduced by the ring or corrupted by Sauron has some bad in them that is abused by him
@@logantotmanyeah, because Sauron is the embodiment of evil. As for nuance, it is just an excuse for people who want to do morally questionable things.
lmao, an opinion by a British person who looted and massacred people all over the world
I hate these analyses with intensity. We don't know why he disliked Dune. He didn't specify why. He said it wouldn't be appropriate for someone working in more or less the same milieu to do so. Every time people say that Tolkien disliked Dune for this or that moral or philosophical reason they're blowing smoke. For all we know, it was entirely stylistic and not thematic. In fact, if you really think about it both books deal with the same warnings about the corruptive influence of power.
This channel sometimes makes some big assumptions with little context to support
Dune is an allegory. Simple as that.
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations..."
Part of a longer quote by Tolkien.
Yeah the dude was either too lazy or afraid of actually looking up Tolkien's point of view or simply reading the letter for the short and instead spelled out his own headcanon of whatever he thinks happened trough Tolkien's mind.
LotR is an allegory so…
@hz.kemalpasa2997 Right? I mean, almost any creative work can be interpreted as an allegory 🤷♀️
Another Tolkien quote elucidates this a bit: “I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."
He also says that: "The only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it."
Finally, he states elsewhere that LOTT isn’t an allegory of atomic power, but of power in general, of war but not a specific war.
In sum total, I think he’s saying that what he hates is intentional, deliberate allegory. He hates allegory that can only be mapped one way, to offer only a single interpretation. To him, allegory occurs naturally and can be interpreted universally.
@@sissel02 yeah this short feels deliberately disingenuous.
The charging cable as a nasal moisture collector really had me there 😂
It’s not a nasal moisture collector, it’s a tube to drink water from
@@kevinbeck8836He looks identical to Gerrard from Peep Show
I was super confused by it at first! I didn't realize what it was supposed to represent at first!
@@kevinbeck8836what? No it IS a nasal moisture collector. It’s called a catch tube. The Fremen breathe through their noses and the tube reduces the amount of water they lose from their breath.
@blueberries254 that's what I was saying!!
"Dune cannot be co-opted by extremists" is a very bold take
Exactly what I was thinking.
yes, i for example do it all the time
How had LoTR been co-opted by extremist groups? I'm so confused about that
What extremist groups use lotr as a rousing cry? I genuinely don't know what this guy is refering to...
@@ModeratelyCool The italian far right views LOTR as a metaphor for their fight on foreigners - the rhetoric by the leadership is very cultured and soft, but go to the rallies and you can hear people of certain ethnicities and skin colours being described as orcs and goblins and trolls invading the 'pure' west.
They read the book as a vindication of higher cultures' rights to fight and destroy lower cultures, and protect themselves from them.
The leadership has been pushing it, and encouraging the media to discuss LOTR through this viewpoint, and have been co-opting LOTR events in Italy.
So many comments are claiming Dune is a condemnation of messianic figures and religion, which is why Tolkien didnt like it but its hard to see how Tolkien could see it as an attack on his religious beliefs.
Dune shows how a messianic figure can be dangerous because they can command their followers to commit acts of violence and war, but its hard to see how Tolkien could view this as an attack on Jesus (considering Jesus was a poor carpenter who wouldnt even let his followers pull out a sword, nevertheless start a war). Seems like other explainions (like his dislike for allegories) is more likely.
with respect, unlike what this video is implying things like post-modernism and dadaism, the avant garde, started after ww1 not ww2. if anything mainstream art post-ww2 was more reactionary and traditional as a consequence of the culture war of the cold war, with the avant garde becoming steadily more commercialized as time moved on.
Yes the more detailed version would be that WW1 started the avant garde, and then with the Spanish Revolution and WW2 you had people experiencing the totality of war for the first time from the perspective of the avant garde-- and also able to access a wide variety of photographs and videos of the adversary.
@@_magnifyThe pattern of art falling is far older than that.
The Renaissance saw the rise of this intensely beautiful, integrated artwork. In the middle ages, you often don't know who the artist is. In the Renaissance, you ALWAYS know who the artist is.
And, so the cult of the artist began, where people started seeing this embodied beauty as being *from* the artist.
It's a deep, big picture, subtle point.
Lucifer was the most beautiful angel in Heaven, as the story goes. His mistake was to confuse his own beauty with himself, seeing himself as the source of that beauty, rather than something that was granted to him.
Modern art is very much the result of the belief that the art itself is from the artist, and not this dance that the artist does with all of these other beautiful patterns of nature, of reality.
Crediting yourself when you've learned from thousands upon thousands of people, and from nature yourself is extremely arrogant. It's EXACTLY what we did, and that's why it's extremists who are the only ones using these classical forms today.
Dune is used as a rallying cry by people who don’t get that, even though Paul is the protagonist, he’s not the hero.
That's not exactly accurate. Paul is definitely a hero, in the context of the first novel, but the entirety of Dune(the 6-book series, not just the initial entry) is a critique on the dangers that any society faces when anyone is placed in the role of "hero."
@@SyniStar616 Paul is not a hero in the first novel. Herbert wrote the rest of the series almost in spite of that notion. The Arteries accept Arrakis from the Emperor with the expressed deliberate effort to USE the Fremen, despite their honorable status among the other houses. At the end of the day, they operate and thrive in the same dangerous and treacherous political landscape. And at the end of the novel, Paul exploits their religious fanaticism and the false prophesy of the Bene Geserit as well as their very own planetary recourse (spice) to dominate their culture. Chani represents the only path and where Paul COULD be a hero which he abandons for power
Pauldidnothingwrong
@@SyniStar616 He starts as the hero, but by the start of Dune Messiah its clear he's become very much a galaxy shaking villain, much much worse than the Harkonnens or Shaddam.
@cirian75 right, that's what I said. In the context of the first novel, he's a hero. Dune, as a series, however, is a critique on the danger posed to society by "heroes."
Guys not liking something doesn't make you a bad person. Just thought I needed to say that.
No, but liking something too much means your a nazi. Oh and the only reason we have abstract or expressionistic art is because of Trump support- sorry I mean nazis or just generally people I disagree with or think are wrong.
Not according to Reddit and social media 😂
Actually, the fact he sent a contrucive letter and explained why he didn't like it shows he still has some level of respect for the Dune book and author...he basically said "Not for me, but good work"
This video seems to ask the question “is it better to believe a beautiful lie or acknowledge a painful truth?”
The truth is that it’s a lie of omission that people’s only options are to choose between those two absolutes.
I can’t say much for dune except that I was counting the seconds till it was over and I could do something else (both the book and movie) needless to say, this has not been the case with LOTR.
It is a pet peeve of mine when people try to make a connection between extremists and Tolkien, or accuse his fans of being nazis.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
You could say Tolkien “strongly disliked” the nazis. He even went as far, on one occasion, to lecturing them about what “Aryan” actually meant. And Hitler was a person he referred to only as “That Man.”
@@Lumosnight Imagine people comparing Dune to "edge lord philopshy." That would be silly.
Which myth serves us better? Both Sophie Scholl and Graf Staufenberg, two of the most well-known heroes of the resistance against the Nazis were inspired by Christianity and heroic stories. Yes, it is true, the Nazis had their own mythology. But it's the tired old fallacy. We do not believe in good and evil. Because being judgemental would make us fascist. But what does fascist even mean? Nothing practical as far as I can tell. It fulfills the same purpose as accusing someone of heresy or witchcraft. But this isn't about that.
The world needs people who are so morally solid they are willing to face down a crowd. Growing up in Germany it was painfully obvious how messed up the world is in that regard. The lone hero going against the crowd was glorified until he was the archvillain (COVID cough cough) but then again others came out heroically glueing themselves to the streets to stop traffic. Was that good? YMMV.
The thing is the "hero" needs more than courage. They also need introspection, compassion, humility (and other things). Tolkien understood that. And he constructed his heroes that way. Herbert's deconstructionist work certainly has its points, but, as the saying goes, it's easy to destroy and hard to build up.
TLDR: If I was stranded on a lonely island with only one author I'd take Tolkien over Herbert any day.
Well written 👏
I just wrote a comment to the maker of this video.
Fascists being defined as authoritarian makes them fundamentally against tolkiens entire message. He believes god gives free will (secret fire). Fascism leaves no room for choice.
Tolkien never hated Dune. If we just look pass the clickbait title and statement we would be able to tell that Tolkien said he likes the storytelling and structure of Dune, he’s just not a big fan of it (sci-fi).
Past. The word you meant to use was past. Because of this your basic understanding of either author seems tenuous. You also meant to say that Tolkien liked the story rather than likes it. Are you sure you're a reader?
Past. The word you meant to use was past. Because of this your basic understanding of either author seems tenuous. You also meant to say that Tolkien liked the story rather than likes it. Are you sure you're a reader?
@@LPno.9 why did you comment twice
@@LPno.9 Oh, thanks for the corrections. Eng is my 2nd language so I still struggle with grammar and all. And yes, I do read but that doesn’t mean my English has to be perfect for TH-cam’s comment section :)
@@vivs9314 Maybe you should comment in the primary language in which you speak and read. TH-cam provides a handy translation feature. Better that than give the impression that you aren't able to grasp the material.
"Which myth serves us better?"
Huh? I thoguht we were talking about why Tolkien didn't like Dune
Both serve us well. It is vital that we all hold in our hearts that good can triumph over evil as long as those who are good stand. It is also vital that we understand that the world is a complex place and that food and evil are not always what they appear and charismatic leaders are not necessarily a vector for good.
It's such an idiotic non-sequitor that I felt compelled to look through the comments, lol.
@@M4TCH3SM4L0N3 yes exactly
Yeah, dude didn't actually explain why Tolkien said he didn't like it, just "art changes over time"
Like no shit lmao
Video should have been titled "Why I think Dune has a better worldview than LOTR."
I suspect another reason that Tolkien didn’t like Dune is the fact that Dune isn’t “literary.” That’s not to say Dune isn’t well written, but rather that it has a more straightforward style of storytelling that focuses on delivering the plot and less on setting the stage.
When I read Dune, I was quite surprised how modern it felt. It didn’t have a lot of the artistic flourishes I noticed in LotR.
It's exactly why it IS "well written" the whole devotion to this classical form of writting was a mistake to begin with. I like Hobbit, it's okay, good, great maybe. But going through Tolkien style in LotR was just such masochistic form of pleasure, it's boring when you read it, though interesting when you stop and appreciate. But still it's pain.
This is a great point. I read both in high school. LOTR feels like someone eith vocal talents and a lute could practically SING the story as a performance.
Dune is certainly more of a realistic sounding narrative just giving us the facts and political machinations.
I think Tolkien probably didn't love the hints of Abrahamic religions being violent and manipulative, but I can also see the story being too blunt, cruel, and cynical for his tastes!
@@Garvin285 As soleone who grew up with the hobbit and similar writings, let me tell you, when I first tried to read the more "modern" stuff, I was in pain ("I have to read through everyone's inner monologues? So cringe!") It is pretty subjective but I do admit in this day and age, I'm in the minority here
@@anonymousstacker2044 Yeah, of course, it's just my subjetcive opinion. I admire both writters in a way
@@aazhieFrom my understanding Tolkien probably didn't like anything that didn't have a somewhat positive ending or uplifting section as he was very much affected by the war. This was a big reason (along with catholicism) why Tolkien was so keen on good vs evil narratives with good prevailing in most instances.
That’s funny because Dune actually has an extremely fascist approach in its emphasis on aesthetics and moral ambiguity. It makes the audience think they know better than they do.
A truly insane take to suggest that the Dune myth serves society more than LOTRs.
Your summary of Tolkien doesn't do justice to his serious wrestling with evil and the corruption of the human heart. Though he believes there is moral coherence in the universe, he's just as skeptical of power as Herbert.
The entire LOTR series can be boiled down to a message of "power corrupts, no matter how good your intentions are."
There is literally no other possible way to interpret it.
The problem is there really is no evil or good. Nevermind how rare it is that someone would paint themselves as evil. The very idea is absolutiist and removes the idea of self interest from the discussion.
I imagine you find it very hard to understand why things happen.
@@koc988 Saruman firmly believes he is doing the right thing throughout the story.
Your point is incoherent. It's like saying there's no math because some dude says that 2+2=5 and thinks it's correct.
Almost like this guy is just pushing a narrative
@@koc988 evil in lord of the rings is defined as self interest.
Boromir's interest in protecting his people.
Frodo's interest in holding onto the ring.
Gandalf's interest in guiding mortals.
All of these are good things as long as the heroes are not blinded by that self interest which is what the ring does. How it corrupts.
You have read 'good' and 'evil' and ignored the definitions and then pretended there were none offered.
The idea that Dune couldn't be co-opted by extremists is totally bonkers.
I think the difference is that extremists who might use Dune as a rallying cry would fundamentally be ignoring the message of the source material, whereas those who co-opt LOTR could actually make an argument (however flawed) that the message of Tolkien’s work supports their worldview. The same can’t really be done with Dune.
It’s almost like a challenge.
Read Dune Messiah and get back to us on that.
Alia is very likely science fictions original depiction of woke. Non binary, maddened by anxiety and paranoia. Dead father/hero, neglected by mother, surrounded by sycophants and with a complete aversion to reality/truth.
No heroes, only monsters to kill.
Frank Herbert described the Abomination 50 years before their widespread emergence.
@SarastistheSerpent I really don't see how anyone could misconstrued LotR and have yet to see that. Can you give an actual example of people seriously doing this or is it along the same line of cops getting a punisher tattoo despite punisher killing cops.
guy literally told half the story and concluded something Tolkien never said
I am not surprised coming from this channel...
How smart you have to be to not understand a short is only 60 seconds?
That simply isn't true. The only thing he attributes to Tolkien is the quote "I dislike Dune with intensity"
His conclusion is not framed as something Tolkien said, but as his own opinion (shared by others)
@@Grawlix-P Tolkien is more right on this. This guy, like other "critiques" channels just spread misinformation over art pieces to compel their political narrative agenda.
@@FloripondioFiladelfio I feel like this content is ai generated, are you perhaps getting this same feeling??? lmao
Herbert did NOT participate in WW2 in any way whatsoever.
He was in the navy seabees as a photographer for 6 months. Internet is really easy to use
Is it also because Tolkien was a devoted Christian and Dune is skeptical towards organized religion?
Yeah Tolkien was devoted catholic, makes sense why he hated it
That would also explain Magnify’s point about morality in both stories. Morality in Christianity is very much good vs evil, which then in turn affects the stories told by its constituents.
@@michaelflamel2611Also as I heard from others: Paul is basically a manufactured messiah, formed by centuries of eugenics and human meddling. How do you think a devout Catholic gonna react to that?
yeah because dune is dumb
I like that you said "skeptical." I've seen quite a few people try to make Dune out to be anti-religous propaganda recently and I think that just isn't a fair or reasonable approach to it. Much like other sci-fi, it's intent is to warn you not to tell you what to think.
"Herbert was in world war 2" yeah... I don't think you can compare his 6 months as a navy photographer to what Tolkein did in the previous war.
We can
Participation in a war does not equal credibility.
motherfuckers are powerscaling writers now, it doesn't matter how long when it's still a fucking WAR
Herbert saw tons of corpses too, no?
@@prometheus5405seeing corpses, while incredibly traumatizing does not equate to actively fighting in the war and watching dudes get killed around you.
You literally never answered the question you posed
It's a short though
It’s answered subconsciously. The OP (rightly) rejects nazism on a good-evil moral dichotomy more akin to LOTR without reflecting on that
@@michaelmurphy3976 i didn't come here for his conjecture on Tolkiens opinion.
_"Give me facts, or give me death!"_
~Patrick Henry
It's because Tolkien apparently never stated his reason for disliking Dune. He only wrote a friend that he didn't like it and couldn't get himself to read it through. That's basically it.
@@michaelmurphy3976 Mans really rolled up and said, "OP is right, Nazis are bad, so OP is right that LotR isn't as good for society as DUNE." Aight cool, Watchmen is bad because people might align themselves with Rorschach. You see how that's a reach there? I _also_ think Nazis are bad, it's the coldest take since 1940, however I don't think we should act like Volkswagen is an inherently lesser car company than Ford because of that.
I like how he had the thought to have a nose plug, but ended up just taping a USB cable to his face.
He once said fantasy should uplift the reader, not depress them
To be fair. Dune is Sci Fi aka Made to make you think and depress you. Lovecraft is to make you never sleep again.
@@arnowisp6244 i really enjoy Lovecraft lol. Not really spooky so much as it is interesting.
@DisPater-xs2pu how so? Tolkien was a highly educated combat veteran of 1 world wars and he lived through another. He spent half his life knee deep in the bloodiest most violent period of history this world has ever seen. Is it so hard to believe that he'd want his fantasy realm to be a place that shows the good in people and the hope that we as humans can be better?
@@SigismundSonOfDorn Same here! I'm a particular fan of his dream cycle, especially the dream quest of unknown kadath. The idea of an alternate dimension you inhabit when you dream, if you're aware of its existence or stumble into it; and can live an entire life separately from your own. Randalph Carter seemed to be a much more elderly man in the dreamlands due to his experience. The ghouls! They get so much lore in it. They have a whole society, tunnel into our world from the dreamlands, they're capable of communicating and speak an actual language that Carter understands, and uses to recruit them for help on his journey. I really vibe with Lovecraft, the dude has this almost punkish/teen vibe I guess. Like the fact the ghouls use tombstones as weapons, it goes so well with their aesthetic.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 that's one of my favorites too actually. Such an interesting concept that people don't really play around with these days despite how much you could do with it.
Your conclusion is a huge reach
Neither serves better, but both serve. Lord of the Rings warns us about the promise of powers and how little things can corrupt and destroy us, The Ring and Golem being prime examples. Dune on the other hand warns about different dangers, about zealotry and grand plans spinning out of control, which is just the start of things. Which I think is one of the major reasons Dune can't serve as a rallying cry, part of it's message is: Beware of Rallying Cries. Basically.
Like how this includes 0 context of Tolkiens opinion or why.
You are giving LOTR too little credit. Smeagol/Gollum shows that a person can be simultaneously innocent and wicked.
Boromir shows that assumed virtues like loyalty and patriotism can be turned to bad ends.
And Frodo shows that no person can be entirely virtuous. Even he succumbs to the ring in the end.
I would disagree slightly about Boromir, he’s a courageous and honorable man who desires to do good, but he doesn’t understand that the ring would corrupt these ideals and cause him to replace Sauron as a tyrant. In the end, he acquires understanding, repents and dies a hero defending people weaker than him.
Destroying the ring is saying that the only way to defeat evil (sin) is to resist it entirely
that's an extremely silly interpretation of Frodo: his purpose (similarly to Boromir's) is to show that the Ring can twist anyone including the virtuous.
And we see, specifically, how: he begins to grow possessive of "His" burden, clutching and (sort of nobly) preventing any other from holding it, even as it destroys him.
It's not to show that Frodo is himself "evil" in some way, but that no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances. Think of what Gandalf and Galadriel said when confronted with the choice to have the Ring.
exactly! this dude seems disingenuous af
Gee whiz @@bumfricker2487 , I think "no person is beyond being twisted to do evil under the right circumstances" sounds pretty similar to "no person can be entirely virtuous". Or at least, similar enough not to be called "extremely silly" by your righteous self. Sheesh...
Moreso, SARUMAN. The literal angel and The White Head Of Council, the ultimate authority, becames extra evil and resembling Sauron. Like... How is it not nuanced?
LOTR being appropriated by “extremist” groups just feels like a pointless thing to bring up when talking about the value of the work. Any story with good vs evil could be appropriated by bad groups of people. It doesn’t take away from the beautiful messages and themes of LOTR.
What even are these extremist groups that supposedly center their ideology around LOTR?
@@mikethered4864 they don't center the ideology around LOTR, but LOTR indeed has a lot of elements from Christianity and Royalism in it, so it naturaly attracts people who like these things.
That's the point, art is propaganda. Postmodernists want to remove films with crazy ideas like "good and evil" from the public consciousness. That's why they ruin all of the classics. Stars wars, lotr, etc.
@matthiasdarrington3271 what an insane time to be alive when Christians are labeled as extremists simply for holding views which have been accepted in society for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Yes but that's also the difference with dune, it's harder for extremists to use a morally ambiguous character
More obscure fun fact for y'all:
Tolkien read some of Shakespeare's plays and stated that he felt "bitter disappointed and disgust".
But I think that this is exactly why he was able to write what he wrote - because he found his own voice and stick with him
No, he was just disappointed and saddened that the trees didn’t move in Macbeth. Hence the Ents.
As a person who did a Shakespeare play and found it not worth the hype, I can relate
@@Toramai-pi8wx That's true, however he also disliked his work as a whole. Look up letter 163
Catholics, smh
@@Toramai-pi8wxGenuinely laughed out loud at how silly this post was 😂
It's ironic that Tolkien favoured simple morality when he fought in ww1 which was much more morally ambiguous and vice versa for Herbert.
I would argue despite that the struggle for good over evil has inspired many more people to do small acts of kindness rather than extremists. "I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love" - Tolkien
As much as I love that quote, it’s not from Tolkien. It’s from the Hobbit movies, not any of his own writing. I still think it applies here though!
I disagree. Hateful, prejudicial people usually follow a “good vs evil” narrative, where they are the good ones
@@vicentedongo5575 At the end of the day, everybody has their own conception of “good” vs “evil”. You can be rational and postmodern as much as you want but you still believe in good and evil. Rather than denying the entire concept itself its better to figure out what exactly good and evil means.
@vicentedongo5575 so did the communists who killed millions. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy.
@@isaiah-6-8 It definitely applies, as Galadriel, and Gandalf have shown this sentiment in other words.
It’s also pretty interesting because Tolkien clearly uses a lot of Christian stories and beliefs as influences in his writing and world building, while Dune has a lot of similarities with certain Islamic beliefs in certain areas. It’s very fascinating comparing the two, to be honest.
Yeah but in a caracateur type of way. Dune is honestly insulting to Arab (both Islamic and non- Islamic) culture(s).
@@kightsunboo hoo
@@kightsun it's kinda not that insulting. As an Arab Muslim Iraqi male, I read the books and watched the movies of dune. The book talks about not trusting outsiders, taking care of the land, faith is different from tradition and don't wait for someone to save you, save yourselves. Literally Islam. Lol
a large part of the story is about not trusting messiahs as it can lead to things like genocidal holy wars, that is a critique of religion for sure
@@kightsunwomp womp
I don’t think you can really call Dune a myth because it doesn’t really match the criteria of a myth found across cultures. Tolkien, on the other hand, consciously made his stories as a mythology.
Funny enough, Dune itself addressed this in multiple books. Its refers more to 'prophecy' but myth isn't a far separate concept. And prophecy was both indoctrinated and used by the powerful in ways best understood through reading Chapterhouse and God Emperor. Basically it was all a set-up to take advantage of public support.
This is the only sensible comment in this entire section. I’m always dubious of the “know-it-all” channels, but this guy really shouldn’t delve into literary analysis based on a private letter without analyzing the content of said letter.
Dune isn’t « a myth », but it is based on myths just as much as LotR, just moreso religious myths and myths about savior figures than fairy tales or pagan European mythology.
LotR has its meta foundations built on IRL myths, whereas Dune uses myths explicitly within its universe, built off of various IRL ones.
@@NotYou3005Or try to do literary analysis of two such dense works as LotR and Dune in a goddamn youtube short. There are entire channels and communities dedicated to just ONE of those series. I've watched hours long videos examining the morality and motivations of Sauron 😂
@jetblack4108 not really, he subtly sprinkles in with his own political leanings just enough so as to appear neutral. Remember that weird rib video he did back then?
Lol extremist is such an extremely exaggerated term these days. Its come to mean someone who doesn't align with my narrative.
So, all we have from Tolkien is that he "disliked it with intensity". No statement from Tolkien as to why he disliked it. So the rest of the video is simply conjecture on someone's part.
yes. sometimes it’s interesting to think about why things are the way they are even if you don’t know for sure.
I bet he was just annoyed the main character had a boring normal name like "Paul" despite being 20,000 years in the future.
I mean come on Frankie, even by Dune standards that's pretty lazy.
@@HellbirdIV His second name is pretty cool, though😂😂😂😂.
It's not a well written novel, particularly for the time, that would have turned Tolkien off immediately.
It’s speculation
This short starts as 'why did tolkien hate dune' but then turns into 'lord of the rings isn't as good as dune because extremists can appropriate it' which is a weird flex to me.
like, my guy, extremists can appropriate ANYTHING for their own means.
Dune is about a bunch of extremists right? If you’re going to stretch already then just say the real secret message was that the extremists were secretly right instead of wrong
It's a really silly statement, I agree.
What extremists is he talking about? I only see Ukrainians and Democrats calling Russians Orcs.
The FBI will now infiltrate ComicCon to search for Christian nationalists.
I also love how you can just label anything an “extremist” group, I think it’s extremism to want go stamp out Christianity and moral values, but I guess I’m the extremists for believing that
This is one of the first videos of yours ive disliked im afraid... I think it's unfair to interpolate so much from a few words Tolkien wrote to a friend in private. I've been seeing this trend of 'Tolkien HATED Dune' all over the booktube scene and it's just clickbaity.
Its just a reach to claim Tolkien hated Dune for it's ambiguity and make the guy seem so simple and black and white when his writing was fulfilling a specific purpose. Writers and their creations can be two different beasts. You ever see Miyazaki? He can seem the most cynical nihilist in interviews yet makes the most magical and hopeful media. Artists are multifaceted, and shorts like this don't do that justice imo
Yeah there are definitely a lot of reasons why Tolkien could have disapproved. (Aesthetic disagreements, procedural disagreements, ethical disagreements...). Mostly I thought the topic is a good intro to the general shift that happened in Artists who were born before and after World War 1.
@@_magnify I totally understand and think that's a super cool idea to delve into! I just worry that a lot of people could be taking away from this a shallow understanding of Tolkien's thought process behind writing LOTR and his feelings in general. A lot of what you said was interpolated from a short private message he wrote to a friend.
If I wrote that I "greatly disliked this short" and someone 100 years later made a think piece on why I was incompatible with your work (which is untrue, I love your videos!) and then went on with more assumptions I would be quite miffed haha
That’s helpful to hear. Trying to figure out if there is any good way to communicate anything about books and movies in 60 seconds 😅😭
@@_magnify which is exactly why I wouldn't attempt it myself 😂 so I applaud the effort all the same!
@@_magnifyExcept this general shift didn't happen after ww2, it happened during and after ww1. To say that art before ww2 was still hopeful and bleak is not correct at all. I mean 1920's is like peak abstract art era and and even before ww1 it was getting a little dark but then it went into overdrive.
In fact Tolkien is an anomaly among artists for being so positive after ww1, ww2 essentially being seen as just an extension of ww1.
You talk about the tragedies of ww2 but just a reminder that people were throwing mustard gas at each other and cutting their legs off from trench foot.
Tolkien’s depiction of morality works when we’re united. Herbert’s works when we’re not
Tolkien's is the world we want, Herbert's is the world we get.
We don't want either of them. Tolkien's world really sucks when you look close at it.
@@tsm688oh for sure. i just meant that most people want to have a simpler black/white, evil/good world. but reality is complex and full of shades of gray.
it's not about the world in its entirety, it's about hero's, in LOTR, like he said good and evil are clear, so hero's are good, there is hope, the good guys can win. Meanwhile in dune, the apparent hero starts a genocidal war even though he can see the future which means that's literally the best path, the golden path
Idk if I want to live in Tolkien’s universe it’s kind of a sausage fest
@@caspermcgonagle1532 at least someone has his priorities straight :D
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
It absolutely can, all you have to do is miss or deliberately ignore the point. Some reactions to the movie would indicate that's easier to do than you might think.
Oh it's incredibly easy to do with Dune. I can't do it on here but I could totally show you how easy it would be to coopt Dune
@@ManiacMayhem7256 My point exactly.
Well, the movie itself is also way WAY more binary than the book is.
I mean, for exemple, simple as that: the emperor is the one who made the plot against the atreid in the movie, not the Harkonnen who then bring up the emperor to back them up (with the intent to screw him up later in the process), plus they even made the emperor look an awfull lot like fucking palpatine in SW 1, 2 and 3, when he should more likely look like the God-Emperor from WH40k (abeit older).
The movie is somewhere in between between Herbert and Tolkien's work.
On another hand, it's still an incredible movie and I still don't think it's possible to adapt Dune into a movie because of how dense in data the books are.
@@kur0shir060
The miniseries is as close as it got and it was good despite the effects.
@@ManiacMayhem7256 Didn't see the miniseries, just talking about the movies, so, maybe. Can't speak of what I didn't see. :)
The fear of creating something good because it might be used for evil is the best way to excuse oneself from creating anything. What good will that do?
I don’t think this is a case of good things in Lord of the Rings being used for evil, it is a case of inherently violent and dehumanizing parts of Lord of the Rings being used for violence and dehumanization.
I don't know what you're referring to. There are some parts within Tolkien's legendarium that do not fit with today's standards of racial sensitivity, but his portrayal of evil races had more to do with long term manipulation by entities with power than the mere concept of good people and evil people.
@@_magnifyWhen you simplify everything in the matter that you do, I can see why you find so many issues. Would you remove the concept of orcs and goblins then? Dross take
@@xaoc6084 Yes, there being inherently "evil races" was terrible and Tolkien himself said he regretting writing them that way.
@@_magnifyyou clearly didn't read the books and just going of the things you read on your beloved reddit, what a basement dweller
Now please explain why Herbert hated Iron Maiden.
LOTR had its share of grey characters e.g. Denethor. It was not just good vs evil.
See people are also putting these books into absolutes. Tolkien only deals in black and white and Dune only deals in shades of gray.
Part of what makes Denethor one of the most compelling characters in the series I think.
LOTR had grey characters but it had a clearly defined grammar of morality.
Dune does not share a similar moral landscape and in the later books the God Emperor is an intergalactic tyrant and an inhuman abomination who also happens to be guiding humanity towards its best interests and away from cataclysmic disaster
@@jessl1934 yes Denethor does have conflicting motivations, but at the end of the day Tolkien’s moral assessment of him is very clear, that Denethor is a guy with noble intentions who tragically succumbed to despair and pessimism.
I’ve always thought he killed Borodin off too soon who might have successfully challenged him for the throne and for the use of the ring. It would’ve been a very interesting conflict.
Just because bad people use good art, doesn’t mean you should stop making that art.
Don’t cede ground to evil.
Yeah I hear you in that just because the cartels drink coconut water doesn’t mean coconut water is bad. However when a story is routinely used for dehumanization and violence, it is good to ask whether they may be something in the story that is not bringing out the best in humanity.
@@_magnify any story which has good guys and bad guys, or even a story which has only various levels of bad guys, can be used in the way you’re describing. It’s basically an extension of Godwin’s Law. “I have some issue with you, therefore you’re like the Orcs, or Voldemort, or The Empire, or the Harkonnen, etc. Therefore you’re a villain, therefore I can hate you.”
So long as any one or any thing in a story or historical event displays any obviously negative traits, someone will compare someone they don’t like to it.
It seems to me less an issue with any particular story, and more an issue of human nature.
@@_magnifyyou sound like a fed
@@_magnify Well, "the best" according to the post-modernist harm-avoidant directive, that would be "extremist" in relation to most ways of thought that came before. Conflict is a fundamental part of nature, it's not "good" or "bad". It's ironic considering a binary "good" and "bad" such as in LOTR is considered simplistic.
@@_magnify Link? (routinely used for dehumanization and violence)?
“Lord of the Rings has been appropriated by extremist groups…” no. Lord of the Rings has many fans who love fantasy and stories.
if tolkien was alive he would be considered a extremist by most ( not a natzi, but he was a devout catholic, not just a devout catholic a traditional catholic because he was upset with vatican 2).
i don’t get how LOTR could even be appropriated by extremist groups. i feel like the messages are very straightforward, it’s very much an anti fascist tale that emphasizes the importance of seeing past differences and creating bonds with others. it’s a tale of love and hope
I love LOTR the books are amazing with great detail and depth. I love how in the books J.R.R. Tolkien leaves you on edge or wondering were the next chapter will lead. The hobbit wasn’t my fav but the LOTR has a great story line but also keeps you at the edge of your seat. Every time I read it I find something different I didn’t notice the first time. I’ve only read it through once and reading it through the second time but it’s interesting to notice things I didn’t notice the first read through
I looked it up. The text of the letter (to a fan who sent him a copy of the book) is as follows:
‘Thank you for sending me a copy of Dune. I received one last year from Lanier and so already know something about the book. It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike DUNE with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment. Would you like me to return the book as I already have one, or to hand it on?’”.
He sounds so nice
the OP made him sound arrogant...
@@SuperIronicTBH it's hard to fully flesh out your message in a short format. It could be completely unintentional.
what a polite man
@@tenhauser Absolute fucking lie, that. He could've just continued with it, but instead decided to use his platform to say that Tolkien's work helps support extremism.
This guy's a twat.
Tolkien is trying to immerse you in a story, and Herbert a conversation. I believe Tolkien disliked the writing itself. Although I love Dune, Herbert spends the entirety of the book hitting you over the head with his philosophical ideas and beliefs. The story comes second to the conversation he wants to have, and at a cost of character development and world building (in the first book). Many of the characters of Dune aren't likeable and the decisions they are going to make aren't left to mystery or interpretation. Tolkien created to entertain and doesn't appreciate the allegory that is DUNE.
I doubt this is the reason. Tolkien also disliked Narnia, which does take place in a moral universe. I rather suspect that Dune‘s worldbuilding wasn‘t up to his standards. (But since he didn‘t explain the reason, we will never know for sure.)
You think that. Also, he didn't like allegories.
“The lion should have its own language”
He disliked Narnia because it has no coherent story, like why the hell is SANTA CLAUS in the book series?
Dune tries to use allegory to criticize Messianic figures. It very much tries to deliberately convince the reader of that.
Ironically, Dune actually shows us what would have happened if Jesus was what the local authorities wanted him to be...
@@SubtotalStar850-uh8pg He specifically didn't like the MIXTURE of mythological creatures because it didn't make sense
Awesome podcast and some nice insights.
I am very sorry for your loss
The idea that artists must cater how they write in order to not be used by evil people is not something anyone should give a damn about
Evil is non-negotiable, they will use anything they can in any manner they can no matter what it says or does
Consider how the Ukrainian army is currently dehumanizing the Russians by calling them "orcs" in slang. This is not a misunderstanding of Lord of the Rings, it is a direct application of Tolkien's exact worldview.
@@_magnify you think that is Tolkiens fault? Slurs for enemies have existed since the beginning. During the American revolution American soldiers would hang British sympathizers and say it didn't matter because they "were torys not human". During ww2 people came up with a name for their enemies like Jerry for the Germans, and would refer to them as such. If anyone is fighting anyone else they will either believe themselves to be the good guy, or they wouldn't fight
@@_magnify the Russians can stop acting like orcs in Ukraine, then.
@_magnify . Insulting your literal enemy in a war is not extremism. Wanting to cancel other people for saying something that offends you is extremism though.
The Ukrainian example is just one of the more recent and troubling ones. There are plenty of other examples of extremist groups using Aragorn's "Men of the West" speech, or Italian neo-fascist youth in the 1970s calling themselves "the order of the ring." When a story is routinely used this way, I think it is fair to ask whether there is something in it that does not bring out the best in humanity. If so, I don't really believe it should be censored and banned. But it would make sense to hold it at arms length and take it with a grain of salt. @@laslov7812
One thing that is often overlooked here, is the first book. The Silmarilion had the elves commit atrocities, betrayal and all kind of evil deeds. The elves we see in Hobbit were the remains of once great people, but those that were old enough to remember those times don't talk much about it, because there was quite a bit of horror involved. Elrond watched his people being cut down by another elven party in the war of Sirion (he was not of age then) and lost both his mother and father that day. Galadiel? Holy crap she has seen so much war and murder it is a wonder she is still mentally stable. And Thranduil, who is simply known as the Elvenking in the Hobbit, lost his father Oropher in the war against Sauron.
And then there is LotR itself, which ends with the elves more or less leaving. Some earlier, some later. It is not really a happy ending, not really. It is more a story of people being corrupted and the battle against said corruption. But Hobbit and LotR were bot more hopeful than Silmarilion which was the story of how said corruption began. But also remember, those dwarves, that survived Hobbit, we see a few again, as corpses in the mines of Moria... what a happy ending they had.
Tolkien: yeah, it doesn’t really do it for me.
TH-cam content creators: WhY dId ToLkEiN hAtE dUnE!!!!???
Damn you Old bri"sh!
"dislike with intensity" is the definition of hate
dislike intensely means hate
@@12DAMDO No
@@88happiness NO
I loved that part where you explained WHY Tolkien didn’t like Dune.
Tolkien didnt say why. I think its really unfair to pretend to know why.
Narnia's author had a really similar worldview to that of Tolkien, and he still hated Narnia.
Dune's author admitted that the message he was trying to convey didnt come across to readers of the book. Thats one of many failures of the book that might have bothered Tolkien.
But we don't know, that's the point.
P.S. if ever the creator reads this. I really like most of your videos. Very interesting facts.
But, sometimes, it veers into speculation but keeps the same "factual" presentation. I think its intellectually problematic.
This seems to be a trend, I've been seeing a bunch of 'Tolkien HATED Dune' around the book tube scene. It's majorly clickbaity imo
This guy reads a Twitter thread from an amateur literary critic and made it into a short. He's putting words into Tolkien's mouth. Tolkien never elaborated his reasoning on Dune, and Tolkien's works are not as shallow as "good guys win".
There’s not a lot of ambiguity about Sauron to be fair though? You never think, wait the dude could just be misunderstood.
@@agin1519 there is a clear "side" on Tolkien's ideals, but there's so much reduction on The Lord of the Rings' philosophy. Especially when you take into context the whole Middle Earth Legendarium.
@@FrostDirt yeh. I’ve made it a page into the Similarion about 3 times…so I find myself unable to comment about the Valar et al! I feel either the answer is much more complicated than a short. Or it’s that Tolkien really liked his own work and that which he studied, which is why he went into it in such detail, and tended to look down on everything else to a greater or lesser extent because it wasn’t what he liked which was his stuff!
@@agin1519 You're right, Tolkien engrossed himself in classical texts, especially of European origins. Naturally he is estranged from more modern genres like Herbert's sci-fi and other stuff, so developing a kind of of dislike for it is par for the course. However, I wouldn't call him "looking down" on other works. He was, after all, a man of class that keeps opinions to himself (or his correspondences).
@@agin1519 I think it could be said that Sauron has a bit of ambiguity to him, in a way. Sauron wasn't always bad, he was once a servant of the Valar but got drawn into evil by Morgoth. After Morgoth was imprisoned by the Valar, it seems like Sauron may have been legitimately sorry for the harm he had caused, and wanted to help rebuild after the end of the War of Wrath. But you see, he got rather resentful of the Valar and of the Creator God Eru Illuvatar. He felt like the Valar came, caused a bunch of destruction in their attack and capture of Morgoth, and then left people to clean up the mess. He felt as though the gods had abandoned Middle Earth, and was determined to establish order and prosperity. He genuinely started with a desire to bring safety and order to Middle Earth, but he fell back into his dark ways as he began to come to the conclusion that the only way he could do that was through force and control, deciding that if the gods had abandoned them, then he would make himself the god of Middle Earth. So while what he does is unambiguously bad, his motivations are a lot more complex than just "power for powers sake" or "because he's evil".
I've never seen a video which so completely misunderstands both stories to such a self-satisfied degree, and completely fails to answer its own question.
Bravo for farting into your hand and passing it off as literary criticism.
what's being misunderstood? lord of the rings is pretty black and white and dune is mostly shades of gray, at least compared to dune
@@mogo-wc7xw The Lord of the Rings isn't black and white at all, and there are more shades of grey in The Silmarillion than in Dune. I'm a huge fan of both and appreciate both for their nuance and subtlety when it comes to their moral explorations. Such takes as 'Lotr is morally simplistic' are just fodder from Reddit, mostly by people who don't actually read the story.
What did you expect? The guy is clearly liberal.
@@mogo-wc7xw Read the actual letter for yourself and you'll understand. The original commenter is 100% correct
@@Lodatzorit wasn't a comparison of the worlds in the texts, but of the texts themselves. Bringing up a different one doesn't jive with comparing the stories in the texts. Taking the stories as they are is what he did. Maybe that's where your disagreement should focus
Ironic because WWI was the more complex conflict while WWII is more good vs evil.
😐............................... sure.
LMAO American education strikes again
@@JethroBulmer not even american but I agree, there was already an existing web of alliances. WW1 started because the heir to AH was shot. WW2 started because an Austrian Painter wanted revenge
@@mandategaming the two guys who disagreed with OP are Nazis bro. They believe that moustache man and the Failed Reich weren't the bad guys for trying to exterminate a large part of the world
@@JethroBulmer not American education but western and pacific front. If we talk about east it's a different story with two totalitarian regimes.
Tolkien also said that a large part of it was his own preoccupation with LotR, and that he didn’t think he could fairly critique another work
Dune absolutely can be. The idea of a group of colonized folk throwing off the yoke of oppression can be appropriated by any number of groups of people whether their causes be justified or not. The idea that moral ambiguity makes any story any less susceptible to appropriation by folks is comically silly.
That’s technically true but the book is quite clear on the fact that those colonized folks throwing down their chains leads to the slaughter of billions of innocent, you (general you) would have to be quite daft to read dune and only retain the part where they throw down their chain and not connect it to the part where that ends in tragedy, whereas for Tolkien it’s probably a bit easier to read all of it, in context, and still come out of it with the idea that your bad actions are justified because you’re the good guy and your enemies are those horrendous corrupt gremlins that can’t be reasoned with.
I agree that the whole « nazis liked pretty thing so we should be wary of pretty things » is one of the smoothest brain takes ever (though one that artists have cited all too often -_-), but it’s probably true that it’d be easier to hijack LOTR than dune
@@nathanjora7627 that’s the interesting part with dune and the way it’s written. Are those people genuinely innocent. They thrived off the oppression of the fremen and the exploitation of their lands. Grew fat on the spice and created an empire and by proxy the religion that was used to bring the imperium to its knees all because they assumed they could control the masses. There’s plenty of modern day extremeists groups who would feel levels of empathy towards people whom are ostensibly fed a lie and play into it to force accelerations. It’s harder than lotr cause any story that has a clear cut take on good and evil falls to it. Dune just forces you to look at things from the perspective of Chani and by proxy the fremen elders to get there.
@@deadeye7924 « are those people genuinely innocent »
… The billions of civilians that were just going about their business ? Yes, yes they were.
« They thrived off the oppression of the fremen »
I mean no not really, that was mostly the guilt and the landsraad, not the common folks, and the oppression of the fremen was only incidental to the obtention of the spice, not actually required. To say that the common folks of the empire weren’t innocent because of that, at least innocent enough to say that billions of innocents were killed during the jihad, is about as absurd as saying that the people who died in the WTC during the nine II weren’t innocent because the stuff they bought had some oppressed guy somewhere in the chain of production.
« created an empire and by proxy the religion that was used to bring the imperium to its knees »
The common folks of the empire had exactly zero involvement in the actions of the bene gesserit that led to the creation of said religion, so… What are you even on about ? Unless you mean the orange catholic Bible in which case that’s a different religion that was also not made by the citizens of the empire, and once again using that justification IRL (unless the religion directly involves evil and has its normal practitioners partake in it) would rapidly show how utterly deranged such a standard is.
« Dune just forces you to look at things from the perspective of Chani and by proxy the fremen elders to get there »
… What ? Are you sure you’re talking about the books and not the movie ?
@@nathanjora7627"Quite daft" sums up a lot of the rank-and-file extremists pretty well. Or if not that then willfully ignorant. Being, for example, a neo-nazi already requires believing that white, nominally-Christian men who own a lot of guns are just extremely oppressed and unfairly held back in life.................. If someone can apply that level of selective observation to literally every experience they have, then ignoring some subtleties in literature in favor of the broad outlines is pretty simple.
(Basically having selective reasoning is not an accidental feature here--it's a pre-requisite. If we were talking about people who accurately assessed the nuances of life and reacted in a measured, appropriate way, then they wouldn't be nut jobs, they'd just be people.)
@@kray3883 A lot of white nominally Christian men live in bad enough conditions that it’s quite easy to believe that they’re oppressed, regardless of whether or not they live well comparatively to some other demographics (on average).
That’s even truer when you take into account explicit policies in major fields and companies designed to prop up minorities, and the frequent anti-white racism from their ideological enemies, which they can get away with far more easily than anyone could were the races reversed.
Of course there’ll still be a lot of biases and misinformation and exaggeration etc that’ll be required to get from « generally white people have it okay even if some portions of academia are really heckin racist and positive discrimination sucks and big business owners are pretty often "liberals" » to « white people are currently being kept down by a cabal of powerful elites controlled by Jews and queer black people to undermine Christianity and install a one world communist government », but the point remains, a lot of white folks have it ba and it’s not hard for them to find examples ; however isolated ; of injustices committed against their group, if only because our modern world facilitâtes this with digital echo chambers, so it’s easy to radicalize.
For dune though, it’s not subtle in any way, and you don’t have things that would pre-curate the parts of the book that’ll align with your vision of things, so it requires a much greater degree of idiocy or willful ignorance to get the critique of religions and messianic figures wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but it’s not nearly as easy as you make it out to be.
Dune is about Worms. Tolkien hated worms.
Well said :-)
And Spiders
@@LeviathanSpeaks1469Fuck spiders
Love the Vonnegut appearance! I just finished his book Bluebeard and it was the best book I’ve read in years. This video touches on the theme of the book .:)
“Morally ambiguous,” “morally ambivalent,” and “morally complex” are three different things. To imply that Tolkien’s myth is reductively simple on a moral level is to misunderstand it. As Alan Jacobs put it, Tolkien is not interested in the moment that a person doesn’t know what is the right thing to do. He’s interested in the moment where a person knows what is right, but doesn’t know if they can do it. So characters can be morally complex in a world where morality is not ambivalent. Most of us agree (including the maker of this video) that certain morals are NOT ambiguous or ambivalent, ie Nazism was evil. Tolkien would agree. The tension in his world comes from the fact that while you can put values and systems, to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories. The line between good and evil runs down the center of all of us. That’s not morally ambivalent, but it is morally complex. To judge Tolkien’s work based on the way that people misunderstand and/or ignorantly appropriate it is, to my mind, disappointing. Does the value of art really lie in “how it serves us”? And if so, isn’t that turning all art, in a sense, into propaganda?
No?... good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies living beings or things... it's a maniqueíst vision that born in monotheísts ethics systems( can be seen in Judaísm/Cristianism/Muslims)... what we CAN categorize like good or like evil, it's behaviors... and it's directly attached with the perspective of things that the individual feel or see as " bad " or " good"( estimulate him or anothers/ or harm him or anothers; in phisical or ideological way)... and THAT was the thing that Tolkien doesn't understand and overcriticised Frank Herbert to demonstrate( his Catholic Faith served has a anvil too... he was very conservative and didn't knowed to pick well Frank's point...)
Sorry my poor english, i'm not North American...
Look at recent history and recent "art." There is a belief that art should be propaganda in order to be considered "good," even if it's to the detriment of the story being told. There is a certain worldview that believes that its value is how it can be utilized rather than what can be learned from it.
Thank you. Most criticism of these concepts, at least on the Internet, is laced with the same condescension one would expect from a nihilistic middle-schooler.
I guess this masterful philosopher/linguist/author just couldn't grasp the "higher" concept of moral ambiguity, because he was a product of a bygone era lol
The one unintelligible reply above lends credence to this.
I also feel like reducing an authors work to how people today use it is really discrediting art too. Authors can't really write a story with "But what if in 20 years a fascist government appropriates my work" in mind. And neither should they have to.
@@paulorenatobarbosa2874”you can put values and systems to some extent, into the categories of good and evil, you can’t put people into those categories”
“Good and evil are not metafisical entities that applies to living beings or things” and “we can categorize things as good or evil by its behaviors”
Based on both these quotes you are saying the same thing as the original commenter. So why did you write “no?…” as if to refute what the original commenter was saying and use this made up disagreement to undermine his/her ideas?
Oh yeah lets bash Tolkien one of the best writers for having hope. Just cause you don't umderstand the deeper meaning of let's say gollum who is both good AND evil you don't have to call his work less than dune. Sorry. You just don't seem to get it.
Oh no, let's defend our lord Tolkien because nobody is allowed to dislike it. He fought in the war, unlike Frank who only took photos, so he can't be wrong.
@@Daniel_Rodrigues_89this is not a personal Thing. It does not matter if you went to war, or if you I quote "only took photos". This is about Art. But hey if you think taking Photos is not as important as fighting this is on you. I think both jobs are important.
gollum is more pitiful than good and evil
It's Reddit brain. Post modern neoliberal garbage that just doesn't like anything that people just so much as claim to be right wing adjacent
Ye, compare the most fundamental storytelling to extremism. You represent modern lack of morality perfectly.
Fascinating point about artists in WWII. I was struck that Herbert’s characters become machines, using spice to function like calculators, and navigators and soothsayers. Whereas Tolkien’s characters are wary of machines and destroy the items that make characters more powerful than human.
That is one of the core themes of Dune. In its lore, a long time ago, there was a human-machine war, and thus, there was a commandment NOT to develop any advanced machines beyond the basics. This means, all development happened via genetic engineering and the human body became the tools or instruments instead of machines.
What are u talking about??? That’s the entire story of dune. No computers. Go read for once ???
@thedude4594 Just because they don't know the entire lore of Dune does not mean they don't actively read? What do you get out of being rude
@@WhiteDove73-888 I can't speak for OP, but I feel like the word machine here is being used in a more abstract sense than 'computers'. Either way no need to be hostile about it sheesh
I've never read Dune or LOTR (I was the turbo nerd in school who read nonfiction like Shattered Sword), and your comment brings up an interesting tidbit mentioned at the end of the short. Some of the earlier ideas of German fascism are luddite in nature, particularly in its ideas regarding a worker's place in society. Where the communist's ideal answer to industrialization is to seek the rights of the workers and form collectives, in this sense fascism initially sought a return to the artisanal craft of skilled workmen. LOTR's messaging of shunning machinery could be appealing to an extremist group that idealizes fascism. Of course, this is entirely conjecture. Personally I feel fascism is more of a phenomenon than an actual ideology, limited moreso to vague ideas of nationalism, authoritarianism, and anti-communism. I just thought it was an interesting dichotomy. Also, I'm not saying Tolkien was a fascist, he was pretty clear on his stance of the inherent evil of Nazism.
Linking Tolkien's work with extremist groups feels disingenuous. Any jackass can twist a piece of media to fit their narrative. Singling out Tolkien while implying Herbert's work can't get the same treatment seems unfair.
Yeah he was off with that
He's saying extremists like to appropriate traditional narratives (good vs evil), and that Dune eschews simple tradition. It is not saying one is better than the other, just that one criticizes the very notion of propaganda or "good guys" or "messiah's," while the other thrives on elements of propaganda.
LOTR has a lot of underlying themes of racial difference and racial determinism. Though, he wasn’t an outspoken racist, there’s a strong and straightforward case to be made that his books are embedded with racist ideas.
“The evil wizard Sauron is associated with darkness. His cannon fodder are orcs, debased humanoid creatures who live only to fight and hate. Tolkien described them in a letter as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”
In contrast, the elves, the epitome of purity and good, are associated with whiteness and fair skin. Elrond and Arwen (technically half-elven characters) are unusual in being part human and having dark hair.
Tolkien did very little to challenge the tie between white skin and goodness. The main protagonists were virtually all white.”
@@ptycat you sayin he racist? Lol
@@tonysmith5566 yes. Most white people do have engrained racist ideas that might be hard to recognize. It’s so deeply embedded into our western society. Especially at that time, racism was much more normalized and casual.
Though there is evidence he also carried certain anti racist views, specifically he was anti-nazi.
But I’m no Tolkien or LOTR expert lol just an anti racist.
Writing style probably was another reason why he hated Dune. Tolkien loved old literatures and their way of telling a story and that's why the silmarillion and the LOTR books were written like it's a religious book. While Dune is written like it's a political book pretending to be an epic story or saga like GOT.
Going out on a limb: maybe those "extremist groups" ARE the good guys. They're doing things because they're right, not because of some societal license or associated lust for power.
Ah that's why I didn't like Dune. Before anyone gets mad I simply don't like books that are written like this "and then he said and then she thought and then he insisted"
The Silmarillion wasn't written to be like the Bible by Tolkien, it was meant to be background information that his son later published.
What's funny to me is that George RR Martin's writing style is very similar to Frank Herbet only more expanded upon and far more grim. A Song of Ice and Fire has no real heroes either.
@@Dragonwolfworm True.
I think both are two sides of the same coin. I believe in a strong moral universe and that most of us have an inherent desire to do the „right“ thing. I think most of us also have a strong sense of compassion. When we see others suffer it often makes us uncomfortable, even more so when we are the ones inflicting that pain. The harshest traumas in wars don’t come from what was inflicted on you, but more so from what horrors you were forced to commit, not that any trauma is „easy“.
On the other hand this desire to do the „right“ thing and our compassion can also be exploited and used against us or used by others to their own advantage to gain power or commit crimes in the name of good.
"Dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry..."
Meanwhile, half the Internet:
LISAN AL GAIB!!!
The Internet users that keep parroting that line definetly missed the point of Dune.
"Dune... can't really be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
My friend you underestimate Nazis on Twitter.
Yeah, it‘s not difficult to say „Paul leading the Fremen Jihad was actually good“, given that Nazis don‘t view „many people died“ as necessarily a bad thing. + Dune is a universe in which eugenics actually work.
Nazis today wave a red black and green flag. And they're usually on the keft
Now dune is entering pop culture through the movie medium, im sure ppl would find a way to rally behind Lisan Al Gaib
Fr, they already do with extremely blatant anti-nazi media, Dune is much easier.
E
"dune can't be used as a straightforward rallying cry"
sigma grindset yt shorts creators: "hold my beer"
You had me until "extremists."
If you're extremist enough, Dune can suit you just fine. "Paul Atriedes did nothing wrong, the empire had it coming cause might makes right!". See?
“I have only seen the movies and I didn’t realize how blatantly obvious that the Main Character is objectively bad especially after book 2” vibes.
@@omgjlmiub fr
Aye but not about logic with these guys. It's about destroying western culture and accusing anyone who opposes them of being extremists. The little clip is just there to try associate enjoying Lord Of The Rings with being evil.
@@omgjlmiub You're talking about people who unironically defend Adolf Hitler. You really think it will be blatantly obvious to them who's a bad guy?
Except the empire exemplify might makes right and Paul despite being ultimately right sees horrific consequences for his actions
That’s not what the letter Tolkien wrote said but I guess those clicks don’t come on their own huh
he used that to try and paint LotR as bad and Dune as good... its painfully obvious his intention.
@@Shiirow yep.
@@Shiirowhe did it for views.
Everyone calm down. Both stories are just awful
@@dormin91then whats a good story, wise guy? Youre just gonna dunk on two classics and not offer what you find a better alternative?
I promise you that people can use Dune as their rallying cry. People have been miss understanding the point of literature for literally ever. Ever see a Punisher skull with a thin blue line?
Tbf, I don't think Punisher is necessarily anti thin blue line or cop in general although I'm sure most just think "wow cool skull! Oh and he fights bad guys, rapists and mobsters? Heck yeah!"
Frank Castle only really broke bad because of a miscarriage of justice that led to mob hit men getting off Scot free after bribing a judge. That's not really any individual cops fault or the cops as a wholes fault. It's more anti corruption in the Justice system. Something I think Cops should be
@@Lauren007Eexcept cops are a large part of that corruption. They're not going to fight against it. Frank Castle was never a fan of cops, in the comics particularly. So it's hilarious when cop worshippers and bootlickers use his symbol of vigilantism as a rallying cry to support the police and justice system, the very thing that failed him so badly.
ACAB.
@@Lauren007E If Punisher existed, he'd hunt down and destroy cops who used him as a symbol.
He KNOWS the things he does are super hell illegal and shouldn't be contemplated by those supposedly on the side of the law.
they certainly both have their place. I might say that stories like LOTR needed to happen for stories like dune to make sense. it's a sort of conversation across time.
I think that both are incredibly valuable to our society and our ways of thinking. Dune asks us to question authority and to make up one’s own mind. The Lord of the Rings is just as important because although there are distinct themes of who’s good and who’s evil, it still teaches us to hope in the face of darkness and adversity. It shows us that no matter what, there is some good in the world
Lord of the ring also exemplifies what is good and what is evil, it doesn’t just state « there’s good and evil », it shows what it means to be good (aka courage, altruism, resilience, loyalty, humility, etc), and what it means to be evil (aka greedy, egocentric, arrogant, cowardly, etc).
It’s also more nuanced than people give it credit for, I mean the antagonist are (almost) literally all good guys that had their light perverted by their ambition or greed or suffering etc, which in and of itself is a worthy thing to point out, that evil is rarely born as such but rather as the corruption of good, in a lot of cases.
@@nathanjora7627 I agree that it is far more nuanced than what people give it credit for. Sauron doesn’t start out evil. He is not evil for the sake of evil. Frodo “fails” at his mission, but there is so much more to it than that. The courage that the heroes showcase is what makes them good, not because they are distinctly good. Each character is flawed and full of their own unique characteristics. It is easy to be corrupted, but I love that Tolkien makes it clear that that doesn’t not make you bad. It’s the choices you make. There are so many messages and themes and ways that the story can be read, which is what makes it one of the most beautiful things ever written, and my all time favourite book
I sense a special motive behind this video and it seems other people in the comments are noticing the flaws with this short.
Yeah I'm not a fan. I think I'm unsubscribing. Post-Modernism isn't cool
It might also have had something to with the fact that Tolkien disliked allegory and aimed in his own writing for what he termed applicability, whereas Dune is a pretty obvious allegory for the Middle East.
Because rise of charismatic leaders that led people into commiting atrocities is happening only in Middle East and not.... checking notes... everywhere.
I’m seeing lots of speculation that I think is at least partially true, but I think the one thing that’s missing is that Tolkien was at the end of the day more or less an optimist ideologically. He was actually working on a sequel to Lord of The Rings, and it was filled with explicit political intrigue like Dune but for Tolkien he abandoned it bc he deemed it to be to dark to depressing.
Is Tolkien’s Harad with ‘Near Harad’ brown-skinned people in desert lands, and ‘Far Harad’ (further south) with black-skinned people (described by Tolkien as “black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues”), who all serve the dark Lord and hate the so called “civilised” Western men any less obvious of an allegory?
@justchilling704 it's interesting how the different authors looked at life. Tolkien served in the battle of somme where many of his friends died in the battle and of their injuries after the battle, and yet later in life he was still optimistic. Herbert did serve in the second war but only as a photographer, so while he was on the front he did not partake in the violence as much but he still grew to be more pessimistic
In a scenario: one must die and one will survive, i choose tolkien's stuff any day.
Tolkien said that in a PRIVATE LETTER and KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT PUBLICLY because he was a GENTLEMAN. Would have been nice if you could have included that. Two syllables would have cleared that up.
I don't think you did a good job explaining Tolkien's reasons for disliking Dune: Tolkien didn't like that dune because much alike other fantasy books it forgets the "fantasy" part, instead becoming a large Wikipedia "lore dump" for a (very good) fictional universe which is too elaborated to leave parts for you to imagine, and that lacks subtlety for spreading lore, too busy with realism while forgeting it's supposed to be "fantasy".
For most critics Dune represent a book that is messing around with the secondary and forgets the primary, making a book of an Alien world while subcontiously being the same as ours.
Basically we shouldn't look down upon simple things, we should embrace imagination and the child like aspects of Fantasy, unless we forget the entire meaning of "escapism".
It's not about making the longest, most elaborated story, it's about conveying a feeling and emotion which for many people the book threw it out of the window and instead leaped back into our very own universe.
Well stated. This is why I couldn't make it past chapter 2 of Dune. Writing felt way too self important. LOTR however I revisit constantly 💓
This is very pretentious of you dune and The lord of the rings are extremely different stories that deal in very different themes lord of the rings is a good story but it also lacks a lot of the nuance and complex storytelling of other works, it is fantasy, black and white with characters that are set up to grand and otherworldly but dune is realistic based on our own world, its a science fiction, a fictitious imaginary future not a fantastical one it wants to tell a completely different story thus it's characters it's world building and it's setting are vastly different it isn't a story you escape to because your childlike mind cant handle thinking about things it is one you invest yourself in and find yourself contemplating it's themes. As much as l love the works of Tolkien other than admiring his world and the characters bravery and good nature there isn't much to think about the lessons are extremely clear a child could pick up on them. This is not a bad thing as that is simply the story LOTR is trying to tell but don't go saying works like dune are "self-important" or forget the Fantasy when they are not trying to give the feeling of a Fantasy at all. Frank Herbert didn't want you to imagine something he wanted you to think about it, an allegory and a critique of the real world in a fictional story with real believable "human" characters not greater then human.
If Paul was in LOTR in place of Aragorn it stands to reason that he would have succumbed to the rings influence and the story would have been a far darker one but a more realistic one.
While if Aragorn was the Lisan Al Gaib Dune would have been over and done with by Dune Messiah as he is a too morally good of a person to create an interesting narrative after the first book.
These are 2 complete different stories that take place in a fictional world of their makers creation and that is their only similarity that they are not real in every other category they can't be compared.
@@Stasy809 I understand where you are coming from, but I still stand strong with my original opinion. You brought up the fact that the two stories have entirely different settings to which we agree, but I don't think the setting or the author's vision is a factor in this equation.
The best example I can bring up in order to explain myself is the first Starwars movie against the extended lore of today. The original movie is fantasy at its greatest, it does many things right while still presenting us different themes and allegories such as totalitarianism, destiny, maturing, progress against conservatism and much more while not being in your face about that. The movie didn't have the entire fully detailed Starwars lore backing it out when it was released, but it managed to deliver a believable universe that left your imagination the place to expand it. It built up on its own and left the unnecessary things to the audience.
Allegory and Fantasy aren't water and oil, both can be mixed if done correctly and you can make the reader think without a wiki of a universe.
I bet it wouldn't be as interesting on first watch if they dumped all of the expanded lore into it, explaining every single detail and its components.
This is the style of "Fantasy", and it seems that you are talking about "Fiction". There is a reason why fantastic books are Romantic, over the top, larger than life and most of fictional universes are allegorical. While still having a goal for immersion, it's not their primary goal. Fantasy books are supposed to bring you into another alien existence through another's eyes whom are many times alien to that world too. Lord of the Rings never shows you its cards, it never has an overarching explainable universe because it's not very interested in that, instead it focuses on the story itself and builds up on it while letting you to fill the details.
I can see how many people read Dune as a political essay, but as I mentioned before you can absolutely be an allegory and be a story focusing on charachters and emotions.
Dune, while a very good book is not Fantastic. I can see people trying to read Dune and just think why didn't the author just wrote a political essay or a Glossary Wiki for his cool universe? What was the point in inserting those characters?
I don't want to get too much into semantics but when we think of Fantasy we don't think about 1984, or other stories that build up on their world before the story itself. Dune is a fictional universe that makes you think, but doesn't make you feel for a lot of people.
That's just my observation, both are legendary books on their own right, when I read Dune I don't feel anything.
@@General_Alch l agree with that yeah l Just think Dune and LOTR should not be judged in the same way but l don't disagree with you point on what fantasy is
@@General_Alch I don't know, this feels like a weird take. I don't see Dune as a fantasy series, so saying it fails at being fantastical feels wrong. While I don't think that fantasy and allegory mutually exclusive, I think escapism and nuance are.
The question shouldn't be "what myth servers us better"? That's a terrible question to be honest. The question is why do we surrender our popular media to specific groups at all? No group should have an exclusive claim on popular culture.
A Song of Ice and Fire is also similar to Dune, in that sense. Rather than good against evil, it is humans against humans.
There is moral correctness is surrounded by ambiguity and the characters are complex, driven by many different aims, ideologies, morals, and pasts.