Talk:Minority criticisms of The Lord of the Rings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle-earth, which aims to build an encyclopedic guide to J. R. R. Tolkien and his legendarium. Please visit the project page for suggestions and ideas on how you can improve this and other articles.
Assessment ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale. Article Grading: The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

[edit] Noncompliance

These are specifically minor criticisms with no mention of notability. It specifically says it's views of a minority of people, which goes against its notability. To me, the subject seems like it's breaking NPOV by being specifically minority criticisms aimed to disparage the subject. The article subject also seems like a soapbox with propaganda. Finally, even though the claims are referenced, the references aren't necessarily notable, particularly about the idea that LotR is racist, when the referenced material argues the opposite. The idea of the phallic symbols is farfetched as well, mentioning that anything longer than it is wide can be thought of as a phallic symbol. I will concede, however, that Alex Ross is notable.

While I'm not dismissing these claims, I feel they only deserve a sentence (with the same sources) in the main LotR article without much elaboration, since they really are minor views. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The article became more neutral in terms of presenting both sides of the argument since Uthanc's edit. I further edited it a bit more to make it more neutral, to remove what seemed to me like propaganda. However, this article still does not mention why it is notable, save for it's minor criticisms of a well-known work. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The criticisms discussed in this article are only held by a minority, but this is a significant minority. While I do not agree with any of them, I've heard the racism accusations made often enough by prominent enough people to believe that they deserve more than a passing reference, no matter how silly the accusations are. (There used to be a whole article about the racism accusations, but it appears to have been deleted, which it shouldn't have been.) The accusations of plagiarism from Wagner managed to get the attention of Tolkien, to the degree that he felt it was necessary to issue a defence on his behalf (the "both rings were round" quote). I completely agree with you that the phallic symbolism criticisms are utterly ridiculous. I found the text at the talk page of the LOTR article, and included it only because I found it amusing in its absurdity. I wouldn't really object if the text were removed from this article as well. However, I will defend the sections on racism and plagiarism if they are threatened with removal. Kindest regards, Sauron's Mightiest Orc 20:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

We're on the same side then. Sorry for thinking otherwise. Uthanc 08:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)