“Lord of the Rings” and the Right, By James Reed
The Left went into moral panic when The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies was released. Here was something which was grounded in White European culture and mythology, following the books to a high degree. And here was a classic battle of good versus evil, of a threatened race facing seemingly insuperable odds, but holding steadfast, and after great sacrifice, winning. Thus, the next instalment, The Hobbit, became much more woke, with the imagery of the bad orcs being White, and the Nordic elements being vastly diminished with "darker" characters. Still, that was a long way from the TV series which was well into woke mode, and hated by fans. I cannot comment too much here as I did not watch the rubbish, but watched reviews from the Critical Drinker on YouTube, one of the few film critics on YouTube from the Right, who canned it.
However, the mythology of The Lord of the Rings survives the present woke assault. As detailed below, the Left are still concerned that figures from the Right are drawing upon it for inspiration and naming. It stands to reason that we of the Right will choose such cultural icons, just as the Left have their poster boys of Marx, Engels, Stalin, Mao, and Xi. I say; so what?!
"As MSNBC host Rachel Maddow fretted about Sen. JD Vance being former President Donald Trump's choice for vice president, she complained about how "The Lord of the Rings" is loved by the far right.
On day three of the Republican National Convention, Maddow commented about Vance's ties to former PayPal CEO and Republican donor Peter Thiel, who she noted "has named his companies after things in 'The Lord of the Rings' series of JRR Tolkien books."
"'Lord of the Rings' is a sort of favorite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far-right and alt-right figures, both in Europe and the United States. Peter Thiel names all these things after Tolkien figures in places like his company Palantir, for example," Maddow said.
"Like his mentor, like Peter Thiel, who had given him all his jobs in the world, Mr. Vance also, when he founded his own venture capital firm with help from Peter Thiel, named it after a 'Lord of the Rings' thing. He called it Narya, N-A-R-Y-A, which you can remember because it's 'Aryan,' but you move the N to the front," she continued. "Apparently that word has something to do with elves and rings from 'The Lord of the Rings' series, I don't know."
While the MSNBC host appeared to try to draw a parallel between Narya, the venture capital firm, and "Aryan," an archaic term that has been associated with far-right racial ideology, Narya is named after one of the rings of power in "The Lord of the Rings" lore, specifically the ring of fire bestowed to elven kings.
Vance took center stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday to speak extensively about his humble origins in Ohio and his rise to become a public figure in American politics.
Vance also touched on Trump's "America First" agenda, promising to make allies pay their fair share for world peace instead of betraying "the generosity of the American taxpayer." On foreign policy, Vance promised that the administration would send service members to war "only when we must."
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