The Last Ringbearer

R

Rob Harding

Well-Known Member
I've just discovered this gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer

Never heard of it before and not being a Russian speaker/reader, I've never read it. But the premise sounds fanstastic and the story really grips me.

Maybe not one for Tolkien purists. Although, if we take Lord of the Rings in the intent it was written, as a recorded history to be read by its own merits (as a secondary world) for me, this really sticks to that by honouring it as its own reality but telling the other stories that could've been written about those 'real' events. This is the kind of retelling or adaptation I find fascinating.

But is it written well? That's my question. Does it read well? Has anyone come across this and read it themselves? I'd love to hear thoughts from anyone.

Thanks

EDIT: just discovered the English translation is available as a free e-book. May have to explore.
 
Rob Harding said:
Is it? Just poorly written? Or not engaging?
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Too much in style of communistic propaganda which always potrayed the West as opressive and anti-worker while themselves putting hungry workers into prisons and poluting the rivers and air disregarding any safety levels - all in the name of progress. Have been there, seen that as a child, read similar style retellings of actual events in the newspapers in my early youth. As such such texts are far too similar to my childhood experiences. The husband of my nanny has been beaten to death in prison while I was a toddler - I was told about it much later, but still - I just cannot stand such kind of texts myself - too much like the real thing for me...
 
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I didn't even recognize that...
But it certainly had blunt single or non-dimensional characters, very stereotypical tolerant polytheistic paganism vs. Intolerant monotheism, and orcs and easterlings as noble savages stereotyped by the Westlands in an overtly cliche racist manner. An ammassement of such dull tropes. Plus it was written quite boring and not very enthusiastic...almost cold.
 
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The issues surrounding messaging in less concerned with. Art can be interesting but have messages I disagree with. Tolkien does that at times for me. But if the writing is boring and one-dimensional, that’s what brings it down. I may give it a crack but won’t invest much.
 
I just can't imagine Sauron presenting hiself as the tolerant major deity in a polytheist pantheon... he might do so briefly , in Angmar maybe, until he is main god and the other gods become obsolete or illegal, but it wouldn't be his usual policy.He is boss and he is sole boss and doesn't share.

Orcs and humans interacting could have been interesting! How does that work? But making them noble savages again... that destroys the whole thrill of the idea why that relation could still work despite orcs being the extreme creatures they are.

Gondor also is not (yet) an expansionist realm... it is like the byzantine empire, a former major player on the retreat , a shadow of itself... certainly not a power on the conquest.

So the books protagonists fall themselves for Sauronite propaganda instead of deconstructing white council propaganda i guess...

I only wish they'd do so in a more entertaining way!
 
Haerangil said:
So the books protagonists fall themselves for Sauronite propaganda instead of deconstructing white council propaganda i guess...

I only wish they'd do so in a more entertaining way!
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Indeed. As far I remember Rohan does not play an independant role politically? I have read it very long ago (I could not force myself to finish due to the problems described above), and I do not remember the details. Do the Dunlendings feature at all?
 
Oh so are you’re worried that it doesn’t stick to characterisation and geo-political leanings of Tolkien’s presented world? Is that it just feels incorrect? Cos your criticism of Sauron is that he isn’t in line with Tolkien’s version which I understand to be the entire point. That’s what I’m drawn to. A different interpretation of who Sauron really is, who Aragorn is as told not from the perspective of the victors. From the synopsis I understood ‘orc’ to be a racial slur as opposed to another race of beings. Which is interesting and speaks to some of the subconscious racial stereotyping that does exist in Tolkien’s middle-Earth stories and could be an interesting counter.
 
Rob Harding said:
Oh so are you’re worried that it doesn’t stick to characterisation and geo-political leanings of Tolkien’s presented world?
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No, just that ignoring Rohan and Dunlendings which were actually most affected by the Sauronian and Sarumanian propaganda would imho a priori destroy the whole premise of the story. Rohan is the battlefield of the propaganda war in LOTR and I had the impression it was ignored as an own entity in this retelling.
Also in the last millenium of the 3rd age elves did no go to Mordor and were not in direct contacts with the Easterlings. So how they could be considered a direct instant danger? Were they the story's "reptilians/Illuminati" or something?
Actually for such a kind of propaganda-conflict story I think the Dunlendings would be a far more fruitfull setting imho.

Also the idea of destroying magic by throwing a Palantir into Galadriel's mirror? How? Both kind's were similar Noldo devices. It is like to expect that smashing a radio into a tv would somehow pemanently destroy all radio wave transmission for all eternity. So clearly the story does not takes itself seriously beyond the surface level - just like communistic propaganda was also not really internally coherent.

So we are coming again to the communstic propaganda trope - blame imagined threads from imagined versions of your enemies to validate your own existence. Of which I have already had enough for a lifetime in real world.
 
Hmm... that fits to communist as well as other ideologies as well, it reminds me of the far right for example... replace elves by zionists, works too.

My major isuue is still that the way the story was told was not very interesting and you didn't get into the chracacters. Poor storytelling.
 
I think i'd still like the idea of such a story told from the "evil" perspective... i think i remember fanfic tales like "the fellowship of evil" and "the little hellhawk" doing that quite well... i think Eskovs anti-fanfic has a good or at last basically interesting premise but is badly executed.
 
See, I think what interests me is that it doesnt sound like it’s just ‘did you know it’s actually Gondor who were bad and Sauron is good’. Which seems a bit dull. Rather ‘the history you’ve learnt simply isn’t accurate and here is where these people really stood and actually these people weren’t part of it or didn’t exist and that’s not even how these things work and this person isn’t even what you understand them to be.’ And I like that it’s presented as another groups told history so it’s not necessarily more or less true but is instead another telling of the same tell. Which feels very in keeping with history. So I don’t mind Sauron not being what people have been led to believe or Rohan not even being a player. It’s an alternative history but in world. I’ve not really seen that before. I’ve seen lots of ‘what if maleficent was nice though’ stories though. Again, the premise might intrigue me but I may hate the writing. I think all this criticism is making me want to find out more for myself lol it’s a shame though that this version sounds if it’s not executed in a way that makes the characters engaging.
 
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Well read it. I didn't read it through myself, only in parts... to me it felt like someone trying to expose Tolkien as conservative christian propaganda but ended up writing far more of propaganda himself.
 
Haerangil said:
Well read it. I didn't read it through myself, only in parts... to me it felt like someone trying to expose Tolkien as conservative christian propaganda but ended up writing far more of propaganda himself.
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Which is flat and superficial... Just as communistic propagada was... One felt that those who wrote it never really believed themselves in what they were writing. As I said I have attempted to read this story long ago but have not managed through. But maybe you will like it. I cannot stand even Bertold Brecht's works for the same reasons - and those are qualitatively better.
 
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Haerangil said:
Well read it. I didn't read it through myself, only in parts... to me it felt like someone trying to expose Tolkien as conservative christian propaganda but ended up writing far more of propaganda himself.
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I will give it a read. I'm less interested in what the author might want to do and whether it works well as a story in its own right. Tolkien certainly was writing Christian propaganda by his own admission. Everyone who creates imbues it with some of their worldview. Not sure that's a critisim. It's just whether it also works as enjoyable art. Which I suppose is entirely subjective. I'm always interested to find interpretations and adaptations better than the sources they draw from. Annoyingly I have lots of marking at the minute, but as soon as I have a free moment I'll find a translation.

EDIT: I've read the first page, this isn't for me lol. You were right. The writing isn't good. Shame
 
Propaganda is in my opinion something different, propaganda is willingly ifluencing people and spreading a political message...

of course everybody has opinions and a worldview.There is no true neutrality.

Yeah, ... too bad isn't it.
 
Haerangil said:
Propaganda is in my opinion something different, propaganda is willingly ifluencing people and spreading a political message...
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Yes, this is very true. I'm more a socialist and ideological anarchist than a capitalist and certainly not a royalist so there is a lot in Tolkien I don't enjoy and perhaps why some of this interests me. The Shire though is very pleasant. That all said, I really don't want to get into political discourse, I was just saying why this piece drew my focus.
 
I am a Marxist. And i hate Marxism , especially marxism-leninism, from my deepest heart . And i am technically also a philosophical pagan. And I love Tolkien who was a christian conservative with almost libertarian leanings. World's a complicated mess...
 
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