The Tolkien Mega-Thread

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Just finished Beowulf. Tolkien cleverly borrowed lots of ideas from this!

In more ways than I thought. The story comes across as a doom-filled pre-apocalyptic tale. Memento Mori for historians and storytellers both.
 
So many interpretations and adaptations of Beowulf in media: in most of them the writers and directors are patting themselves on the back for their oh-so-clever post-modernist takes in which the supernatural is stripped down to mundane or misunderstood subversions (Grendel and his Mother were the victims! They were neanderthals defending their lands from the colonial Norwegians! Beowulf was a Gaston-like fraud!). None of these covered the other, grander and full-on tragedy of the story, the cyclical, sardonic wit or dramatic buildup.

Even the 13th Warrior, which I enjoyed a lot, really missed the point.
 
The Subhumans and the Angel

The page hauled the day’s stack of reports up the winding stair of the black tower. He was short for one of the Angel’s subhuman legionaries but he had strong legs and a strong back built by bearing the endless streams of reports and orders up and down the stairs. The position of tower page was one of authority and shame. Not fit for the legions but still a worthy beast of burden.
Ratskinner shouldered past the angel’s assistant causing her to stumble and drop a folio of reports. The papers scattered on the floor. She gave an exasperated groan as he took the day’s folios full of orders from the shelf and loped down the stairs. The human female always smelled like something tasty and looked soft enough to go down easy, he liked that in a victim.

As his footfalls fell away the assistant said, “They don’t respect me,” shaking a little with rage.

“They don’t respect anyone,” the angel replied with a shrug, “not even me. They have to fear you. They simply aren’t the kind of people who respect others. I should know, I made them that way.”

“At first, I was fascinated by the idea of selective breeding. Getting a cow to bear all ring straked or solid calves and such. What the mortals won’t dream up! Many of the monsters that plague the world today were a direct result of my early dabbling in the art. But I thought to myself, ‘why not breed a better mortal? Stronger, tougher, more apt to take direction. If their free will be inviolable, might it not be adjusted so they will chose what I want them to chose?” The physical aspects proved relatively simple and I am forever dabbling and discovering new combinations and surprises but the mind and spirit proved more difficult and in the end, less related to parentage and traits. Do you know what it really takes to make one of my subhumans? You have to treat them like they are less than human, it’s really as simple as that.”

“The schools are key of course. You’ve seen the budget items and you know my creatures need to be able to read orders and file reports. It’s so much easier for them to drop a note to condemn their fellows than it is to speak out in public. Not to mention developing discipline and narrowness of vision. They need to know what happens to weaklings and fools. To achieve that I need teachers that can be strict and cruel at need to maintain order, of course, and so, these are drawn from the weaklings and failures, small and bitter they are of little use to the legions but are so apt to take their revenge on the whelps in the class room. I see to it that the males and females receive their education. It’s all very coeducation and progressive, the mating impulse helps to keep things competitive and directed away from dangerous notions and philosophies. Most of the females wind up in the breeding chambers where their fickle affections can be used to keep the males hostile and frustrated, but there have always been a few with the vicious streak needed for command in the legions.”

The assistant nodded, “I learned my letters at home, from a tutor. A lady must needs be able to write letters, of course, and all the books of protocol and etiquette won’t read themselves, you know? All the rules and expectations, how to be a proper lady and obtain a good marriage and rear children. But it wasn’t so different from your schools, the ladies watching the young gallants bashing each other in the courtyard to impress us. I was so glad when father’s chancellor abducted me. I finally got out of the castle and once I had bashed his brains out with a brick I wandered the world in bad company for a while and finally wound up here.

The angel, who was gazing out the window into the distance looked back suddenly when the assistant stopped, “wait, what was that, did I miss something important? I think I am quite done with the reports today, thank you. Sometimes the minutia defeats even me. You may go.”

The next morning Ratskinner was found face down in the sump with the back of his head bashed in with a brick. The new tower page was much more deferential to the angel’s assistant and the incident was forgotten quickly enough as is only right and proper.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top