kaydeefalls | Gather 'round, kids. Time for your daily dose of overanalysis.

The New York Times wins extra special bonus points for their bigass double-page spread of TTT ad-ness, being that infamous huge-Arwen, missing-hobbits poster but with Merry and Pippin added into the picture next to Sam. Much gratitude there.

But.

Following is an excerpt from an article on the next page, entitled "Triumph of the Hobbit? Propaganda and 'Lord of the Rings'" (transcribed by me, and I've underlined the key bits):

But for all the proto-multiculturalism of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, in the current climate it's impossible not to experience Peter Jackson's "Two Towers" as war propaganda of unnerving power. The scene in which ranks upon ranks of enemy Uruk-hai warriors march in perfect order seems like a spine-chilling tip of the computer-graphics hat to Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." For such low, vile creatures, they have a lot of discipline. The enemy, whether Orc, Warg or Uruk-hai, is hideous and beastly, even monstrously humanoid but never simply human.

On the intentional level, "The Two Towers" is a grand adventure tale, in which good and evil are comfortingly clear. But even without the accidental echoes -- evil or "Evildoers?" Sauron or Saddam? And how many towers? -- the movie would have its own double edge. Dehumanizing the other guy is the first step in training soldiers and fighting wars. The danger is that this is what makes not just warfare palatable but extermination itself.

Hi, my name is kaydee, and that writer just pissed the fuck out of me. Oh, yeah, right, TTT is all about the greatness and glory of warfare, yup. Excuse me while I go throw my big, heavy copy of LotR at the journalist. Admittedly, earlier in the article she talks about Tolkien's insistence that LotR was NOT an allegory of war, which made me grudgingly concede that she did her research. BUT. Okay, lady, have you read the books? Have you noticed that the good guys are just as shattered by the whole experience as the bad guys? Hello, Frodo is practically fucking destroyed, to the point that he can't even live in the world he helped save. This is not a happy little let's-go-to-war! tale. This shows the horrors of war, on both sides.

Oh, and that pretty bit about dehumanizing the enemy, etc. Right, well, if I remember my RotK, I'm pretty sure that a heckuva lot of MEN were on Sauron's side, as well. The Easterlings, I think? And, okay, what if Tolkien had made the bad guys pretty little pixies, or elves, or something? Then what? I'll bet this journalist would've seen it as the enemy among us, or something, and come to the conclusion that the story was all about routing out evil within our own ranks, and maybe that's propaganda in support of body searches at airports. GAH.

And this makes EXTERMINATION PALATABLE? Wh'fuck?! It's Saruman who's trying to wipe out the race of men, not the other way around. And even when Grima finally bumps off Saruman (in the books; dunno how it'll work in the movies), it is not exactly a palatable extermination. Ahem: "Frodo looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that llong years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shrivelled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull." From RotK, "The Scouring of the Shire." Doesn't that extermination sound palatable? Yum, Saruman!corpse. You've GOT to be kidding me.

One last thing. I'd like to have a shout-out to every fucking nimrod who thinks "Two Towers" = "Twin Towers." I've had it up to HERE with that analogy. And Tolkien's towers were run by the bad guys, remember? Oh, right, I'm sorry, I forgot that LotR is about the extremist-religion terrorist Fellowship attacking the poor innocent Mordor capitalist infrastructure.

End rant. I think I'm gonna go fight a happy little war now.