Elon Musk Actually Would not Get ‘The Lord of the Rings’

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novels—and the related “legendarium” of characters, histories, myths, maps, and constructed languages—have served as a bedrock of so-called “nerd tradition” since their publication within the mid-Nineteen Fifties.

With its clear-cut characterizations, and (more-or-less) cleanly delineated strains between Good and Evil, Tolkien’s imagined Center-earth—an unlimited and geographically variegated realm teeming with elves, dwarves, wizards, dragons, orcs, and halflings—will be pretty known as archetypal. It’s the kind of trendy fable that may be tailored to any time, place, or state of affairs. Properly, virtually any.

Not too long ago, the US Division of Homeland Safety has taken to “Shire-posting.” That’s: utilizing quotes and imagery from Tolkien’s books (and director Peter Jackson’s blockbuster film diversifications) as a part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s enrollment efforts. One meme, posted to X on Wednesday, quoted the character Merry (performed by Dominic Monaghan within the movies) warning his pal, “There gained’t be a Shire, Pippin”—a reference to the peaceful hobbits’ verdant homeland being encroached upon by the forces of the evil wizard Sauron, and his designs to carry the entire of Center-earth to heel.

Such mythic myopia appears widespread of late. Elon Musk took to X this week to defend British far-right determine and anti-immigration agitator Tommy Robinson, with recourse to Tolkien’s story: “The hobbits,” Musk waxed, “have been capable of stay their lives in peace and tranquility, however solely as a result of they have been protected by the arduous males of Gondor.”

Gondor, for anybody who was too busy being cool in highschool to pore over the made-up histories of Center-earth, was a kingdom of courageous warriors known as Númenóreans, also called “males.” It’s maybe value mentioning that, by the point of the Lords of the Rings unfolding, the throne of Gondor is absent, and the dominion itself has fallen into disrepair below the shoddy care of a bunch of lazy, corrupt stewards. The so-called “arduous males” of Gondor have develop into cowards, and quislings. Extra to the purpose, it’s usually accepted that Tolkien’s hobbits survive (and thrive) due to their humility and noble earnest virtues. Not as a result of they’d robust man warriors operating protection for them. Loads of Musk’s reply guys identified that his put up propagated a complete misreading of the novel.

All through Trump’s second time period, varied authorities businesses have drawn from a properly of popular culture references—from Pokémon to Halo—in a clear effort to seem relatable, or “based mostly.” (“Based mostly” is an honorific sometimes bestowed by the fitting on anybody or something openly sexist, racist, or in any other case “un-woke.”) However The Lord of the Rings posts scan as particularly egregious—or simply silly—as a result of they appear so antithetical to Tolkien’s work, and the worldview it expresses.

I’m not super-familiar with Tolkien’s prolonged appendices and all of the hefty tomes of non-canon Center-earth arcana, however as enthusiastic reader of Tolkien as a boy (who had a psychedelic poster for the Lord of Rings books on his bed room wall), I don’t appear to recall any scenes of Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf, Galadriel, and the gang ripping round in an unmarked van, carrying face-smothering neck gaiters, hassling immigrants at carwashes, and kicking down housing complicated doorways in late night time raids. If something, such scenes bear extra direct comparability to “The Scouring of the Shire,” the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings, which sees the hobbits returning house from their epic journey to search out their sleepy province tyrannized by ruffians and two-bit rent-a-cops, all within the thrall of a decrepit wizard.