Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves.[2] For example, Barad-dûr, Sauron's citadel, appears in chapter 2 as
...that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic. The shining tower of the Barad-dûr citadel rose over the plains of Mordor almost as high as Orodruin like a monument to Man – free Man who had politely but firmly declined the guardianship of the Dwellers on High and started living by his own reason. It was a challenge to the bone-headed aggressive West, which was still picking lice in its log ‘castles’ to the monotonous chanting of scalds extolling the wonders of never-existing Númenor.
I should add that Kirill Yeskov is a paleontologist and science popularizer. Here's his own explanation how he wrote "The Last Ringbearer": one of the reasons he mentions is that Middle Earth was impossible geologically:
"It would hardly occur to anyone to seriously analyze the functioning of the ecosystem of a barren desert inhabited by predatory worms the size of a multiple unit train that feed on walking excavators and then sweat psychedelics: fantasy is fantasy, what do you want from it?"
He also wrote a great book on the Earth evolution and life evolution, in which he also explains how science works and worked earlier, and what were older theories, and Popper criterium as well.
>Being a paleoantologist, he made a question to Tolkien's book: why the Middle Earth had such strange land mass distribution, which is geologically impossible. And this started the "Last Ringbearer" book.
Unfortunately he missed the answer: at the time Tolkien was writing, plate tectonics was still considered an absurd hypothesis, the subject of mockery by "serious" geologists. As such the understanding of "geologically impossible" at that time was rather different than when Yeskov was writing a few decades later.
It was not until the 1950s that widespread sea floor mapping and research, made possible by the now-unnecessarily-large-and-mostly-idle US Navy, provided conclusive evidence that forced the geology establishment to accept plate tectonics.
It's easy to forget how recently we stopped being totally wrong about things like that.
If I recall correctly, the geography of Middle Earth was heavily changed during the wars between Morgoth and the Valas. I.e., it wasn't entirely shaped by natural processes but also by the willfull acts of semi-Gods
Meddlesome demons ruin everything. Too bad Feanor didn't think to create Stormbringer instead of the fucking Silmarils; he could have shoved it up Melkor's arse and then put the rest of the Valar and Maiar in their place.
Mordor is...it just doesn't work. It's a hard scrabble plain with a large inland sea bounded on 3 sides by jagged, abrupt mountains that are entirely isolated from any other ranges, and form right angles with each other...oh and the surround a cone volcano that just emerges from the ground.
Any one of these things (minus the, I repeat, NEAR PERFECT RIGHT ANGLES formed by the mountain range around Mordor) can be explained, but the conditions that lead to one preclude the other.
...are we just going to ignore the fact that Middle Earth also has wizards and mind-controlling rings?
I don't mean this dismissively, I just think more imagination is called for. If Mordor couldn't have arisen via normal plate tectonics, then geology must work differently on Middle Earth, or there must be other magical forces at play. (If I remembered anything significant about LoTR I would suggest a more specific theory.)
Oh sure, the in-universe explanation is that the fallen Valar Melkor, who became known as Morgoth the Black after his destruction of the Trees of the Valar, used his might to pervert and destroy the works of the other 11/12 Valar and "brought forth fire and leveled mountains and raised valleys" to create hellscapes out of their work, such that the Earth, instead of a garden, became discordant and all the plans of the Valar were marred. After the end of the First Age, when the host of the Valar came to the aid of Middle Earth and destroyed Melkor's fortress, and brought him to judgement to be cast into the Outer Dark, there was further geologic destruction as the powers of the hosts basically destroyed the continent/region of Middle Earth known as Beleriand.
After THAT there was a further catastrophe as the Numenoreans, corrupted into the Dark Arts by Sauron, who was their captive, decided to wage war on the Valar, who they believed were keeping the secret of immortality from them. The Valar were in a pickle, and abdicated their powers and called on Eru to judge, because this was outside their mandate. He Atlantis'd Numenor and destroyed the majority of their people (who had turned to worshiping Morgoth) - the Numenoreans who founded Gondor and Arnor and who created the political landscape of the Third and Fourth Ages were the remnant of that fallen civilization, who were warned of the destruction of the isle of Numenor and escaped on boats.
Also it can be supposed that Mordor was a partial creation of Sauron, who fled there after the fall of Numenor as a spirit (could be wrong about that)
This is where a lot of people get stuck. They see the enormous effort put into world-building Middle-earth and can't help but see a gaping geologic hole. Yes, geology must work differently, but how? It frustrates people to see entire languages and histories fleshed out in minute detail on one hand, but on the other "rocks just do different, bud" on the other.
Tolkien was a linguist, not a geologist or economist (his anti-industrial and pro-monarchical/religious perspective were a resistance to the changes occurring in his time), so it's no surprise that he spent so much time on the linguistics.
His formative encounters with industrialization were the horrors of mechanized warfare in WW1, after which he retreated to the cloistered worlds of academia, religion (he was a devout Catholic), and the rural countryside of England. The perspectives and protagonists of his stories reflect that personal arc as well.
He was overtly trying to give England back a pre-modern mythology that he felt it had lost, because he felt that it was a better vehicle for introducing Christianity to children than the comparatively stark biblical stories.
Yes, we are on the same page as to what influences affected Tolkien, his limitations, his authorial intentions and goals, and the historical context in which his work was created.
What the geophillic fans wish to hear however is more akin to, "Yes, Tolkien operated within these constraints. It would be great if someone could fanfic or headcannon their way into a reasonable conclusion with the benefit of hindsight and scientific and narrative advances we've made in the meantime." It's a small gesture that opens a door rather than shuts one and provides just a bit more cognitive closure for the people who want it.
> What the geophillic fans wish to hear however is more akin to, "Yes, Tolkien operated within these constraints. It would be great if someone could fanfic or headcannon their way into a reasonable conclusion with the benefit of hindsight and scientific and narrative advances we've made in the meantime."
Note how he discusses plate tectonics and Tolkein's ignorance, having forgotten (or never realized) that plate tectonics was not taken seriously in Tolkein's time.
He has written a big book on evolution of Earth and theories around it. [1]
It includes a whole chapter on plate tectonics, the preceding theories, and how plate tectonics itself was gradually accepted. In the book, there's also a large review on other scientific problems, like where the Sun gets energy from, why the Earth has magnetic field, where does internal the heat of the Earth come from, etc. Lots of "how do we know that..." questions. A great review, highly recommend.
So he's 100% aware what status plate tectonics had in Tolkien's time. I think he also mentions that as a linguist he wasn't a geologist, and could draw the land whichever way he imagined.
It’s a no brainer that a person cannot be equally oriented both in linguistics and in geology. ... So it would be quite possible to declare an amnesty to the Professor at this place: they say, an offense undoubtedly took place, but it does not pose a particular public danger.
Brian Eno had these "Oblique Strategy" cards with pithy sayings printed on them. He would famously refer to the card deck when in need of inspiration. My favourite card says "Honor thy Error as a hidden intention."
Paleoanthologist is one of the best Freudian slips I've seen in a while. GO WITH IT!
I liked the idea of The Last Ringbearer, but I found the writing pretty awful, like something written by a teenager for an English assignment.
> Mordor then made its second mistake ... although, as it always is with strategic decisions, that could only be judged post factum: had the move worked, as it had every chance of doing, it would no doubt have been recorded as brilliant.
> That was when the Mirror first made a difference; imagine a contemporary fast-moving war in which one side has the advantage of spy satellites.
I would consider that a fault of the translation rather than the original writing, though not knowing Russian I couldn't say for sure. Translating literary works is a necessarily imperfect art, and as I understand it this translation was done on the translator's free time without compensation, so I'll take what I can get!
Translator is not to blame, since he's not a professional translator. Not even sure if he is a native English speaker. He did a translation because he was a fan of the original book in Russian, and I'm grateful to him, since otherwise I would not be able to read it.
It's a pity that Tolkien Foundation actively battled any attempt to publish this book in English. Has that not been the case, I'm sure some publisher would appoint a professional translator to do a much better job at it.
Honestly this reinterpretation is not that far from themes that exist in LOTR, given that it was partly an allegory of the wars. It's just making Mordor not represent fascism.
Reminds me of something I learned last week when I was thinking about how the Harry Potter goblins are (probably unintentionally) built from second-hand racist stereotypes. Apparently the Dwarves of Middle Earth represent Jewish faith and the Elves Christian. During the writing of The Hobbit, Tolkien was influenced by the anti-Jewish sentiment and there's a few questionable throw away lines about the warlike treasure hoarding Dwarves. Between The Hobbit and LOTR though, with an intense hatred of Hitler and having a brief and intensely close relationship with a Jewish friend he realized the error of his ways - showing the Dwarves in more positive light and making the Dwarves and Elves work together a key part of the story. Some say he was inverting the stereotypes of Wagners Ring and intentionally highlighting positive stereotypes.
This isn't entirely conjecture or revisionist analysis of the text either - he talked about how the Dwarfish language was intentionally Semite and indeed it has a Hebrew-like qualities.
So in a sense, "The Last Ring Bearer" isn't a unique idea - you can argue that Middle Earth of LOTR itself is a reinterpretation of the Middle Earth of The Hobbit.
On the topic of Harry Potter and reimaginative fan-fiction, there's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, in which Harry is reimagined as a science- and technology-savvy rationalist.
It also, IMO, has better and fairer treatment of the houses than the canon, which I felt was pretty reductive. (Gryffindor good, Slytherin evil, the other two may as well not exist.) I think the books would have been better to have, say, Hermione in Ravenclaw, Ron in Hufflepuff, and Harry in Gryffindor. The only thing that would have had to been dropped was the silly "Gryffindor wins the house cup every year" bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves.[2] For example, Barad-dûr, Sauron's citadel, appears in chapter 2 as
...that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic. The shining tower of the Barad-dûr citadel rose over the plains of Mordor almost as high as Orodruin like a monument to Man – free Man who had politely but firmly declined the guardianship of the Dwellers on High and started living by his own reason. It was a challenge to the bone-headed aggressive West, which was still picking lice in its log ‘castles’ to the monotonous chanting of scalds extolling the wonders of never-existing Númenor.