642 réponses à ce sujet

[billy the squid]

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...
If you aren't that well in formed about a piece of literature then don't get in the middle of a discussion between two posters when you don't have the knowledge to support what was said. 

I never had anything to say about Lord of the Rings, until just now. It was your blatant intellectual dishonesty about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird that prompted me to post, and nothing else.

I was only ever talking about To Kill A Mockingbird. Don't make your discussion with me about Lord of the Rings.

Then read it and understand the context and point of what I said. If you can't then don't. If you think that is what I derived from To Kill a Mocking Bird, then you hoplessly misunderstood what I said and didn't read properly. 

I know enough about the text of Lord of the Rings to know that not a single black character within that text is presented as heroic. That is just pointing out a fact.

You deliberately lied about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird to make your "point". It's not the same thing at all.

Oh really? I stripped out all characters, content and context to deliberately make the same inane, absurd claim that the poster I was arguing with made, and used the exact same technique to achieve her own claim that there is implied racism within the literature. 

Do you understand? I went and bit your head off because you blundered into the middle of things. If you still haven't grasped that making a deliberately absurd comparison to highlight how stupid the intial calim was, then I really can't lower myself anymore intellectually to explain that to you. 

Yes, there's not one heroic character from Umbar and Rhun either. In fact Tolkien follows the Fellowship, it's not a geo political spanning novel like A Song of Ice and Fire, so why would it deal with any of the states under the Shadow of Sauron and how they came to fight or were subjigated? Why would there be characters from there when the Trilogy focuses on the War of the Ring which is in the West not the South and the East were other ethnic groups reside? It doesn't go into the actions of the Dwarves or the men of Dale either.

Pointing out "look there's no heroc black character!" and drawing implications from it is stupid and lazy. 

Okay, so... where are the heroic black characters in his other work? Or do all his novels deal only with the West, and never the East or South? And if that's the case, then why did he feel the need to include them at all? Simply to say "Hey, I invented all these other continents in my mind as well!" ?

His other works don't even deal with middle earth, being the sole domain of Gods Elves and Orcs etc., some a precursors and others take place after, And none of them are on the scale of Lord of the Rings. Such as the Silmarilion, the Red book of Westermarch which deals with the events in the east after Lord of the Rings. there are more writtings than I can remember. 

Creating a detailed world within the literature is clearly something people shouldn't strive for then? Why not? It's something other than Orc, and carries on with the inherrent corruption of the ring and men's weakness, the power to subjugate people etc. They happen to border Mordor.

But then again, you think JK Rowling is a a better author, so clearly we're going to disagree.. 

Modifié par billy the squid, 01 juillet 2013 - 08:54 .

[Plaintiff]

Filament wrote...

I just never understood how Atticus could legally argue that an injury sustained couldn't have possibly been made with a right hand, it had to be someone left-handed, because it was on the right side of her face. And supposedly this is an example of stellar legal defense.

If I remember rightly, the victim in question also has bruises around her neck that indicate throttling, and the defendant has only one working arm.

While it's still possible the defendant could've caused those injuries, it's not probable.

[Silfren]

Plaintiff wrote...

Silfren wrote...
Heh.  I adore Tolkien's writings...in fact I just picked up a new book he wrote that Christopher got published, about King Arthur.  But even I would like to see some of the conventions he started die.  Just because I love Tolkien doesn't mean I also like copycat repetition.  I hate it.  There's something to be said for originality, yo.

There, I said it: I love Tolkien yet I'm quite capable of recognizing how problematic much of his work is.

He just seems too proud of his imagination, if you ask me. He wants to show off this world and these languages that he created, without much thought for whether or not they actually serve the narrative, and often, at lleast for me, they detract from it heavily by dragging down the pacing.

But I can't deny that he is a staple of the genre.

I can't disagree with you, honestly.  Tolkien's work is undeniably derivative.  My favorite aspect of his writing is less the story--though I do like it--than the writing itself.  I'm a language nerd, so anything written in a "high" style enthralls me.  Frankly the story could be sh*t but if it was written in Anglo-Saxon blank verse I'd be all over it.  What drew me to his work in the first place was reading that he created some fourteen languages and wanted to give them a historical background. 

I was a lot younger when I first got into his works and I'd probably be defending him just as vehemently if this "discussion" were taking place 20 years ago.  Fortunately I'm a little less prone to being star-struck these days.

Aside from steampunk--which thanks for introducing me to that, by the way--do you have a novel that you can point to as an example of your preferred form of fantasy?

[Plaintiff]

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...
If you aren't that well in formed about a piece of literature then don't get in the middle of a discussion between two posters when you don't have the knowledge to support what was said. 

I never had anything to say about Lord of the Rings, until just now. It was your blatant intellectual dishonesty about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird that prompted me to post, and nothing else.

I was only ever talking about To Kill A Mockingbird. Don't make your discussion with me about Lord of the Rings.

Then read it and understand the context and point of what I said. If you can't then don't. If you think that is what I derived from To Kill a Mocking Bird, then you hoplessly misunderstood what I said and didn't read properly. 

I know enough about the text of Lord of the Rings to know that not a single black character within that text is presented as heroic. That is just pointing out a fact.

You deliberately lied about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird to make your "point". It's not the same thing at all.

Oh really? I stripped out all characters, content and context to deliberately make the same inane, absurd claim that the poster I was arguing with made, and used the exact same technique to achieve her own claim that there is implied racism within the literature. 

Do you understand? I went and bit your head off because you blundered into the middle of things. If you still haven't grasped that making a deliberately absurd comparison to highlight how stupid the intial calim was, then I really can't lower myself anymore intellectually to explain that to you. 

Yes, there's not one heroic character from Umbar and Rhun either. In fact Tolkien follows the Fellowship, it's not a geo political spanning novel like A Song of Ice and Fire, so why would it deal with any of the states under the Shadow of Sauron and how they came to fight or were subjigated? Why would there be characters from there when the Trilogy focuses on the War of the Ring which is in the West not the South and the East were other ethnic groups reside? It doesn't go into the actions of the Dwarves or the men of Dale either.

Pointing out "look there's no heroc black character!" and drawing implications from it is stupid and lazy. 

Okay, so... where are the heroic black characters in his other work? Or do all his novels deal only with the West, and never the East or South? And if that's the case, then why did he feel the need to include them at all? Simply to say "Hey, I invented all these other continents in my mind as well!" ?

His other works don't even deal with middle earth, being the sole domain of Gods Elves and Orcs etc., some a precursors and others take place after, And none of them are on the scale of Lord of the Rings. Such as the Silmarilion, the Red book of Westermarch which deals with the events in the east after Lord of the Rings. there are more writtings than I can remember. 

Creating a detailed world within the literature is clearly something people shouldn't strive for then. But then again, you think JK Rowling is a a better author, so clearly there's no accounting for taste. 

I said nothing of the kind. I said her work was different.

[Tarek]

Steelcan wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
So?  What is your point?  We should have racial diversity in games to prove we arent racists?

We should acknowledge that there are audiences besides the "straight white male" that might be worth appealing to.

They are the largest part of the market.  It is only logical that theyvare the ones being cpurted by publishers and developwrs.

that is false

[Hazegurl]

Renwillow wrote...

 For fear of setting off another cluster#$%@ of angry quote pyramids...

I feel like this discussion has become a bit of a battle redefining PCness in the fantasy genre.  Not that I haven't enjoyed the "was Tolkien racist or not" sidebar, but I get enough of that sort of conversation from my friends who think that an English major is a good career choice.  

It seems like we have 2 types of arguments going on.  First, we have "minority" (using this term pretty loosely given global statistics) consumers who would like to have a hero who looks more like them.  On the other, we have the reality of a game set in ONE continent (based on Europe) that is pretty isolated from any other continents that might exist in that world.  The more you add racial diversity to a small geographic areaa, the more you push the boundaries of realism.  Well, pushing realism more than a fantasy RPG already does.

Both are completely understandable viewpoints, but I'm not sure you can really get one without sacrificing the other.  At what point is a compromise really achievable?

Now that my somewhat serious point has been made...

However, if you're some white person who just wants to play an Asian character because you think you'd look like a badass ninja, I'll be over in my corner here laughing at you.

I agree, but I don't think it would be too out of the ordinary to have a dark skinned protagonist in a European like setting. Shakespeare had no problems writing a dark skinned man as a lead for Othello. So I don't see how it is far fetched and pushing the boundaries and settings for a player to create a dark skinned character as their Inquistitor. Especially if they leave his origins open like they did for Hawke's background. I imagine that Malcolm was Rivani and made a sort of Middle Eastern looking Hawke to reflect that.

I personally liked that in DA2 you could create a dark skinned Hawke and have the entire Hawke family be dark skinned too. In DAO, I made a dark skinned Cousland and honestly, it looked like mama Cousland was a naughty woman at one point and papa Cousland must have been stupid, in the know, or just plain blind. lol!

I think DA2 is an awesome step in the right direction. Of course some people then complained that it was unrealistic to have the only black noble family in Kirkwall. But what aren't players complaining about these days.

[Silfren]

Random Jerkface wrote...

Silfren wrote...

There, I said it: I love Tolkien yet I'm quite capable of recognizing how problematic much of his work is.

I hate the Lord of the Rings, it was disgusting, I hate it with my life, it will not leave me alone.

Might I ask what it was you hated?

[Steelcan]

Tarek wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
So?  What is your point?  We should have racial diversity in games to prove we arent racists?

We should acknowledge that there are audiences besides the "straight white male" that might be worth appealing to.

They are the largest part of the market.  It is only logical that theyvare the ones being cpurted by publishers and developwrs.

that is false

If you take all the different subsets of the video game market, white hetero male, black hetero male, asian hetero female, etc... the largest one will be white hetero male

[Rawgrim]

Tarek wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
So?  What is your point?  We should have racial diversity in games to prove we arent racists?

We should acknowledge that there are audiences besides the "straight white male" that might be worth appealing to.

They are the largest part of the market.  It is only logical that theyvare the ones being cpurted by publishers and developwrs.

that is false

It is probably false, yes. As a side note: Drizzt is black, though. And he is a very very popular hero. I think the hero in Ursula Le Guen`s books is coloured as well. I can think of several others too, but there are more white heroes out there.

In Tolkien`s deffence, he did set out to make an alternative mythological England, in a way. So it makes sense that his characters look "english", I guess.

[billy the squid]

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

billy the squid wrote...
If you aren't that well in formed about a piece of literature then don't get in the middle of a discussion between two posters when you don't have the knowledge to support what was said. 

I never had anything to say about Lord of the Rings, until just now. It was your blatant intellectual dishonesty about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird that prompted me to post, and nothing else.

I was only ever talking about To Kill A Mockingbird. Don't make your discussion with me about Lord of the Rings.

Then read it and understand the context and point of what I said. If you can't then don't. If you think that is what I derived from To Kill a Mocking Bird, then you hoplessly misunderstood what I said and didn't read properly. 

I know enough about the text of Lord of the Rings to know that not a single black character within that text is presented as heroic. That is just pointing out a fact.

You deliberately lied about the content of To Kill A Mockingbird to make your "point". It's not the same thing at all.

Oh really? I stripped out all characters, content and context to deliberately make the same inane, absurd claim that the poster I was arguing with made, and used the exact same technique to achieve her own claim that there is implied racism within the literature. 

Do you understand? I went and bit your head off because you blundered into the middle of things. If you still haven't grasped that making a deliberately absurd comparison to highlight how stupid the intial calim was, then I really can't lower myself anymore intellectually to explain that to you. 

Yes, there's not one heroic character from Umbar and Rhun either. In fact Tolkien follows the Fellowship, it's not a geo political spanning novel like A Song of Ice and Fire, so why would it deal with any of the states under the Shadow of Sauron and how they came to fight or were subjigated? Why would there be characters from there when the Trilogy focuses on the War of the Ring which is in the West not the South and the East were other ethnic groups reside? It doesn't go into the actions of the Dwarves or the men of Dale either.

Pointing out "look there's no heroc black character!" and drawing implications from it is stupid and lazy. 

Okay, so... where are the heroic black characters in his other work? Or do all his novels deal only with the West, and never the East or South? And if that's the case, then why did he feel the need to include them at all? Simply to say "Hey, I invented all these other continents in my mind as well!" ?

His other works don't even deal with middle earth, being the sole domain of Gods Elves and Orcs etc., some a precursors and others take place after, And none of them are on the scale of Lord of the Rings. Such as the Silmarilion, the Red book of Westermarch which deals with the events in the east after Lord of the Rings. there are more writtings than I can remember. 

Creating a detailed world within the literature is clearly something people shouldn't strive for then. But then again, you think JK Rowling is a a better author, so clearly there's no accounting for taste. 

I said nothing of the kind. I said her work was different.

You said you disliked Tolkein and JK Rowlng did other things well, or something, I'm paraphrasing. Which is fine, if you liked Harry Potter over Lord of the Rings, then that's your prerogative. I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise.

[FKA_Servo]

Steelcan wrote...
If you take all the different subsets of the video game market, white hetero male, black hetero male, asian hetero female, etc... the largest one will be white hetero male

That won't always be the case.

Also worth noting, not all white hetero males have panic attacks when presented the option of not playing a white hetero male.

Many of us find it refreshing, for the reasons exhaustively stated in this thread and many others.

[Enigmatick]

Rawgrim wrote...

Tarek wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
So?  What is your point?  We should have racial diversity in games to prove we arent racists?

We should acknowledge that there are audiences besides the "straight white male" that might be worth appealing to.

They are the largest part of the market.  It is only logical that theyvare the ones being cpurted by publishers and developwrs.

that is false

It is probably false, yes. As a side note: Drizzt is black, though. And he is a very very popular hero. I think the hero in Ursula Le Guen`s books is coloured as well. I can think of several others too, but there are more white heroes out there.

In Tolkien`s deffence, he did set out to make an alternative mythological England, in a way. So it makes sense that his characters look "english", I guess.

Drizzt is a drow I don't think that's really comparable.

[Steelcan]

TommyServo wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
If you take all the different subsets of the video game market, white hetero male, black hetero male, asian hetero female, etc... the largest one will be white hetero male

That won't always be the case.

Also worth noting, not all white hetero males have panic attacks when presented the option of not playing a white hetero male.

Many of us find it refreshing, for the reasons exhaustively stated in this thread and many others.

Your implication being that I do have one?

[Plaintiff]

Silfren wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Silfren wrote...
Heh.  I adore Tolkien's writings...in fact I just picked up a new book he wrote that Christopher got published, about King Arthur.  But even I would like to see some of the conventions he started die.  Just because I love Tolkien doesn't mean I also like copycat repetition.  I hate it.  There's something to be said for originality, yo.

There, I said it: I love Tolkien yet I'm quite capable of recognizing how problematic much of his work is.

He just seems too proud of his imagination, if you ask me. He wants to show off this world and these languages that he created, without much thought for whether or not they actually serve the narrative, and often, at lleast for me, they detract from it heavily by dragging down the pacing.

But I can't deny that he is a staple of the genre.

I can't disagree with you, honestly.  Tolkien's work is undeniably derivative.  My favorite aspect of his writing is less the story--though I do like it--than the writing itself.  I'm a language nerd, so anything written in a "high" style enthralls me.  Frankly the story could be sh*t but if it was written in Anglo-Saxon blank verse I'd be all over it.  What drew me to his work in the first place was reading that he created some fourteen languages and wanted to give them a historical background. 

I was a lot younger when I first got into his works and I'd probably be defending him just as vehemently if this "discussion" were taking place 20 years ago.  Fortunately I'm a little less prone to being star-struck these days.

Aside from steampunk--which thanks for introducing me to that, by the way--do you have a novel that you can point to as an example of your preferred form of fantasy?

Well, I'll be the last person to get on anyone's case just for being "derivative". As an aspiring author myself, I'm acutely aware of the influences in my work, and I would never claim to be wholly "original".

I'll admit, I am not into the "high fantasy" stuff just generally. Lately I've trended away from world-saving, evil-destroying quests, and I'm looking for stories that deal with more personal motivations: revenge, treasure seeking, things of that nature.

I'm looking for less Euro-centric stuff, or at least less derived from the medieval period and Arthurian legend. My creative project I'm writing for my Honours Degree is a fantasy set in post-Civil War Texas, it's sort of a deliberate attempt to prevent myself from relying on old fantasy tropes as much as possible.

My favourite author right now is Jasper Fforde. He's less outright "fantasy" and more "speculative fiction". I love his settings, his wacky sense of humour, and how incredibly meta his stuff is. I think I've mentioned before that I think you'd appreciate the way he treats female characters, also.

Another favourite work of mine is Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy, which is dark fantasy that deals a lot with death and the afterlife. Even though the world is partly inspired by medieval history (with the other part being based on 1920s-era England, and the technological advancements of that time), it's still very original. The magic system is quite unique, the creatures also, and again, kickass female characters that I think you'd appreciate.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:10 .

[Rawgrim]

Enigmatick wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...

Tarek wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
So?  What is your point?  We should have racial diversity in games to prove we arent racists?

We should acknowledge that there are audiences besides the "straight white male" that might be worth appealing to.

They are the largest part of the market.  It is only logical that theyvare the ones being cpurted by publishers and developwrs.

that is false

It is probably false, yes. As a side note: Drizzt is black, though. And he is a very very popular hero. I think the hero in Ursula Le Guen`s books is coloured as well. I can think of several others too, but there are more white heroes out there.

In Tolkien`s deffence, he did set out to make an alternative mythological England, in a way. So it makes sense that his characters look "english", I guess.

Drizzt is a drow I don't think that's really comparable.

Well I am sure people would have brought it up if he was a white elf, and the rest of his companions are also white. "Why isn`t there any coloured heroes in these books???".

He is a drow, and very darkskinned, and his skincolour does get brought up in derogatory ways during the books. Mostly its because his race is considered evil, of course. But there is an element of racism in there too.

[Enigmatick]

^Good point.

Modifié par Enigmatick, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:09 .

[Gotholhorakh]

Plaintiff wrote...
Okay, so... where are the heroic black characters in his other
work?

Really? Which parts of Tolkien's work do you think were conspicuously missing a black heroic character? The mythos for the English? The translations of European mythology? What?

Is every author in history racist if he or she does not not have one heroic character from every branch of humanity in their body of work? I'm curious to know how far you would take that.

Plaintiff wrote...

He just seems too proud of his imagination, if you ask me.

The above quote, in reference to Tolkien, is pretty much a classic. Well done.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:09 .

[Rawgrim]

Plaintiff wrote...

Silfren wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Silfren wrote...
Heh.  I adore Tolkien's writings...in fact I just picked up a new book he wrote that Christopher got published, about King Arthur.  But even I would like to see some of the conventions he started die.  Just because I love Tolkien doesn't mean I also like copycat repetition.  I hate it.  There's something to be said for originality, yo.

There, I said it: I love Tolkien yet I'm quite capable of recognizing how problematic much of his work is.

He just seems too proud of his imagination, if you ask me. He wants to show off this world and these languages that he created, without much thought for whether or not they actually serve the narrative, and often, at lleast for me, they detract from it heavily by dragging down the pacing.

But I can't deny that he is a staple of the genre.

I can't disagree with you, honestly.  Tolkien's work is undeniably derivative.  My favorite aspect of his writing is less the story--though I do like it--than the writing itself.  I'm a language nerd, so anything written in a "high" style enthralls me.  Frankly the story could be sh*t but if it was written in Anglo-Saxon blank verse I'd be all over it.  What drew me to his work in the first place was reading that he created some fourteen languages and wanted to give them a historical background. 

I was a lot younger when I first got into his works and I'd probably be defending him just as vehemently if this "discussion" were taking place 20 years ago.  Fortunately I'm a little less prone to being star-struck these days.

Aside from steampunk--which thanks for introducing me to that, by the way--do you have a novel that you can point to as an example of your preferred form of fantasy?

I'll admit, I am not into the "high fantasy" stuff just generally. Lately I've trended away from world-saving, evil-destroying quests, and I'm looking for stories that deal with more personal motivations: revenge, treasure seeking, things of that nature.

I'm looking for less Euro-centric stuff, or at least less derived from the medieval period and Arthurian legend.

My favourite author right now is Jasper Fforde. He's less outright "fantasy" and more "speculative fiction". I love his settings, his wacky sense of humour, and how incredibly meta his stuff is. I think I've mentioned before that I think you'd appreciate the way he treats female characters, also.

Another favourite work of mine is Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy, which is dark fantasy that deals a lot with death and the afterlife. Even though the world is partly inspired by medieval history (with the other part being based on 1920s-era England, and the technological advancements of that time), it's still very original. The magic system is quite unique, the creatures also, and again, kickass female characters that I think you'd appreciate.

I think you might like Joe Abercrombie`s First Law trilogy. He is more gritty, and turns stereotypes completely around. It was refreshing to read those books.

[FKA_Servo]

Steelcan wrote...
Your implication being that I do have one?

I'm not saying you do. Some of the posters here sure do, though.

You do seem to be endorsing the notion that the majority should be catered to at the expense of the minority.

Modifié par TommyServo, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:13 .

[Steelcan]

TommyServo wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
Your implication being that I do have one?

I'm not saying you do. Some of the posters here sure do, though.

You do seem to be endorsing the notion that the majority should be catered to at the expense of the minority.

Not necessarily endorsing, just pointing out that its the way the cookie crumbles.  I'm all for more customization of characters, just not at the expense of immersion breaking.

[FKA_Servo]

Steelcan wrote...
Not necessarily endorsing, just pointing out that its the way the cookie crumbles.  I'm all for more customization of characters, just not at the expense of immersion breaking.

I think the fundamental disagreement is how this can possibly be immersion breaking. There's no need for it to be. There's nothing in the established setting that suggests it should be. There's space for it. We've basically only been to Ferelden (and Kirkwall) so far. It's a big continent, encompassing a ton of different climates and geographic areas.

Frankly, I don't see why people would bat an eye if it were revealed that the full spectrum of humanity occupied various corners of Thedas itself, if not the world beyond.

Modifié par TommyServo, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:25 .

[Gotholhorakh]

Filament wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Is it really? Care to expand on that?

That you're scared ****less of a label that's not nearly on the level of eternal social damnation that you seem to think it implies, as it would if you labeled someone a child molester.

Wow, that's pretty impressively stupid.

Don't worry though, I don't think you're the tallest poppy in this thread in that regard. Given that Tolkien was just too proud of his imagination, and that we can, apparently, deduce that Wole Soyinka is probably racist because there ain't no vikings in The Road.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 01 juillet 2013 - 09:27 .

[Steelcan]

TommyServo wrote...

Steelcan wrote...
Not necessarily endorsing, just pointing out that its the way the cookie crumbles.  I'm all for more customization of characters, just not at the expense of immersion breaking.

I think the fundamental disagreement is how this can possibly be immersion breaking. There's no need for it to be. There's nothing in the established setting that suggests it should be. There's space for it. We've basically only been to Ferelden (and Kirkwall) so far. It's a big continent, encompassing a ton of different climates and geographic areas.

Frankly, I don't see why people would bat an eye if it were revealed that the full spectrum of humanity occupied various corners of Thedas itself, if not the world beyond.

With the exception of Par Vollen and Tevinter, Thedas is basically climatically identical to Western Europe. 

[Silfren]

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
Okay, so... where are the heroic black characters in his other
work?

Really? Which parts of Tolkien's work do you think were conspicuously missing a black heroic character? The mythos for the English? The translations of European mythology? What?

Is every author in history racist if he or she does not not have one heroic character from every branch of humanity in their body of work? I'm curious to know how far you would take that.

Plaintiff wrote...

He just seems too proud of his imagination, if you ask me.

The above quote, in reference to Tolkien, is pretty much a classic. Well done.

Tolkien wasn't simply inspired from earlier works, is the thing.  He lifted some various ideas whole cloth.  His conceptions of elves and dwarves come straight from Scandinavian mythology.  Magic rings?  Broken swords?  Gold-hoarding dragons?  The list goes on.  There's also Gandalf, otherwise known as the Norse God, Odin.  Beowulf, Arthurian tales, the Volsung Saga

A lot could be said about Tolkien's works, but original ain't one of them.  He wrote well, but let's not pretend he was the first and everyone after him was the copycat.  Tolkien himself partook in the tradition of borrowing ideas shamelessly.