#Mongolia #lordoftherings #history
An existential threat to “civilized world of men” from a mysterious warlord from the east who commanded endless hordes of inhumanly violent warriors. A magical golden trinket that grants divine power. A inexplicable mass retreat caused by the warlord’s death. The story of the Mongol Empire would be preserved through history, but the mass trauma of it would filter down through a different institution: mythology. The stories we tell don’t seek out parallels and allegorize them, they find resonance where it’s already embedded in our cultural consciousness. Good men become heroes, evil men become monsters, ignorance gets plastered over with magical thinking. The stories end up telling the tale of how we processed history rather than the history itself. Chinggis Khaan, his homeland of Mongolia, and his Mongol hordes are nothing like Sauron, Mordor, and Orcs. But there’s much to learn about imagination and the cultural place of storytelling by comparing and contrasting the uncanny parallels along with the wildly bizarre inaccuracies.
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0:00 – the theory
6:44 – racist?
9:29 – the most interesting part of all this
11:59 – mongolians on genghis khan
14:03 – the realistic “what if”
16:21 – what i love about this theory
21:03 – bonus throat singing!
source
Here’s what I think are the three biggest questions on this theory:
1| LOTR is supposed to be an invented mythology of England. The Mongols never invaded England.
2| This theory works for Uruk-hai and the orcish armies at Pelennor Fields, but not for other orcs (like Moria goblins).
3| “BUT NO HORSES…!” (ie detail X of history or detail Y lore are absent/don’t match at all)
There are some “handwavey” answers to these questions. Question 1 could be handwaved with a “something something general western consciousness” type answer, and question 3 with a “bahh details”. But I think the second question really points to the better direction for answers here.
While it was exciting to present this theory as a clean 1-to-1 parallel of orcs to Mongols, I think the more realistic version of what’s going on here is that Sauron/orcs are an amalgamation of a ton of different “villains”, both historical and societal, throughout western history. A loud sign of this is the oliphants, which is an explicit parallel to non-Mongolian villain-of-the-west Hannibal bringing his big buddies over the alps to attack Rome. Orcs also parallel a lot of other “barbarian” groups the west fought against, and you see signs of this in other media’s depiction of orcs wearing clothes and armor more reminiscent of Germanic people, vikings, etc. Moria goblins and other instances of orcs we see in Middle Earth really just seem to bring to mind medieval and ancient criminals, highwaymen, mountain bandits, who were also extremely violent, extremely filthy, ate raw meat, etc.. Historically, England had a variety of different historical ties with the mainland, as part of the Roman Empire, as a place frequented and settled by Nordic peoples and Germanic peoples, etc. So I think it’s realistic that England would end up with a lot of stories passed down and part of its mythological archetype set that weren’t necessarily anchored to English soil.
So what we end up with was a mish-mash fantasy race built from aspects of all sorts of western boogeymen: bandits, criminals, Mongols, Huns, Carthaginians, northern barbarians, vikings, etc.. Orcs don’t fit any of them exactly and are flexible enough for the storyteller to use them for desired story purposes, while also being flexible enough for the audience to associate to and attach whatever their strongest specific historical or societal resonances happen to be for that individual in their own life and their own nightmares.
I think that’s closer to the reality. Genghis Khan plays a large role in anchoring this story’s villain because he played a large antagonistic role in European history, but he’s not the only one. So we have other villains playing large roles as well.
– The ALLEGORY QUESTION –
First of all, most broadly, saying a story isn’t allegory doesn’t mean “you cannot compare this to anything else” and it doesn't mean “this story was not inspired by anything else”. As I understand it, allegory in storytelling is when there’s a significant primary meaning to get from a story based on an interpretation that doesn't take the events of the story literally or at face value. For example, Plato’s allegory of the cave is (sorry Plato) NOT a very good story — when evaluated at face value, literally, as a story. It has a weird premise, no action scenes, no car chases, no sexy romance scenes — two thumbs down, taken as a story on a literal level. But interpreting it with a meaning APART from its literal events, taking it as a metaphor, THAT’S where the primary meaning of this story is. Look at Tolkien’s own example of allegory, “5 wizards, 5 sense” — that’s trying to use metaphor to find some primary meaning somewhere else, somewhere that’s NOT the literal events of the story.
This genghis khan idea is not saying The Lord of the Rings is TRYING TO TEACH US something about the Mongol invasion period. It’s not saying we can find STORY MEANING by treating the story of Sauron as a correlate to this historical event, like “ah this story is NOT about Frodo and the Ring, there’s a deeper symbolic meaning behind Tolkien’s words!” No, this is not that. Just like it’s not Tolkien trying to tell us something ABOUT World War 1, or the industrial revolution. There’s no PRIMARY meaning in those ways of understanding the story. But that doesn't mean that tolkien wasn’t inspired by his experiences in the war. It doesn’t mean that his values relating to industrialization won’t shine through in the story he chooses to tell. And it doesn’t mean that he didn’t borrow resonance from history: from nordic people, from languages, and from the Mongols. That’s how I see this topic.
Nice video! But i think the Huns fit more into the "Mordorian spirit", since they actually controlled big parts of Europe and threatened the Roman hegemony, making even the Pope run away(and Tolkien was Catholic). One by one they fell, and a last alliance of western "righteous" men stopped the Hun "barbaric" horde…at the heart of western powers.
In reality, everyone was seeking for dominance, trough whatever means. Bribery, lies, treachery, terror etc was standard procedure on all sides, be it the visi-goths, the Huns, the Romans.
cheers
love this
I'm a similar vein, American horror movies feel like trauma from native American wars and raids and general settler life-painted/masked/odd silhouetted enemies that have a strange language/calls in an extremely isolated situation with little support or options available
Now cyberpunk genre and horror movies appear to reflect fear of corruption/economic destruction
For a while comic books also did something similar – fears of radiation, gmos, scary businessman or technologies
This is very interesting BUT I gotta say, I think that only half of this trope comes from the mongols, the other half comes from the fall of rome. The vast unbeatable hordes comes from the mongols, the decadance and glory of the civilisation at risk, lots of the barbarian nature of the enemies, and the deep existential fear come from the fall of rome.
The huns intentionally scarred their own faces, and the goths fought on foot and en masse. The fear clearly extends even into britian, the mongols weren't around for that long, and only caused so much fear so far west BECAUSE they were playing into the trope of barbarians ending the world that the fall of rome represented to the medieval mind.
This idea of 'eastern barbarians' is a recurring trope and was also applied to and reinforced by the ottomans, and the germans in ww1
Given how a bunch of the really old school illustrated versions of "The Hobbit" depict the Orcs with Mongol/Steppe gear it's fair to say that this idea isn't new. But Tolkien is much too good of a writer to base anything solely on one thing. Look for example at the siege of Gondor: We have Hannibal ante portas mixed with the winged hussars at Vienna and the Turks at Constantinople.
As a fan of your channel, and a Canadian living in Mongolia I was super disappointed when you said "It's not like I'm going to Mongolia," haha, I'm glad you got to see so much of this very beautiful country. If you come here in the middle of winter it'll feel a bit more like Mordor though ; )
Probably it is also Attila and the Huns. Mongols were not a threat to the "West" the way Huns were. Sometimes Mongols were seen as a possible allies against the Muslims. The Huns vanished from history when Attila died. Mongols were still very powerful after Genghis Khan. They didn't stop expanding. And Attila became a character in germanic and christian legends.
The trope about monsters coming from nowhere, causing caos and destruction can also be found in the history of the Viking invansions (from the british isles perspective) and in the least known Sea Peoples that cause the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE) and simply disappeared.
Wow, the transfer to Mongolia was a cool one. But… I would think that the Tolkien's epics took lot from the mythology and history of the migration era, which really would make Attila the Hun a much better Sauron candidate. But I'm not complaining, the video was good.
I would like to fly to Sauron International Airport and do some sigt seeing in modern Mordor 😅
It's kinda interesting that even though Genghis khan and the Mongols conquered so much, most of them ended up getting assimilated into the culture of the places they conquered.
Sauron was way ahead of Genghis Khan there.
Whenever the term Easterling came up in Tolkien's stories I would almost immediately picture them as Mongolian-inspired because of how well known Ghengis Khan and his invasions were, you know, coming out of the east and into the west (Europe), and how in the Silmarillion Tolkien describes the newly come Easterlings after the Dagor Bragollach as being "Swarthy Men". It's not all doom and gloom though, because even though you had the treacherous Ulfang and his evil sons Uldor, Ulfast and Ulwarth, you also had the heroic Bor and his sons Borlach, Borlad and Borthand who were loyal to the Elves of Beleriand. Though they died in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad they were fighting against Morgoth, to which the Elves honor them with gratitude and with the title of Faithful.
I see the parallels and the analogy that you're making which is fine and certainly has some validity but I think if you look at it a little more closely you're going to find that this was really an analogy about and a symbolic story about what the world was going through during World War 1 in World War II the end of the second age being World War I and the war of the Ring being World War II just saying
The fact that you mentioned Bulgarian first made me do a double take…I rarely hear my country get mentioned on Youtube
Loved the vid!
I believe Tolkien even said the orcs are supposed to be like the mongols. Obviously Ghenghis was not a fallen angel but yea I think you’re 100% right. The mongol invasions are deeply imbedded in the Caucasian subconscious.
What about Attila the Hun? I think he make a better candidate for Sauron. Gondor is eastern Rome. The Turks (Orks)are the descendants of the Huns and Gondor is Constantinople.
The orcs were inspired by huns and the mongol horde but sauron himself has many inspirations. Satan, the dark side of Oðin, and industrialization and greed.
I always thought Sauron was an amalgamation of all the worst parts of being a godlike tyrant.
I THOROUGHLY DESPISE ALLEGORY.
I'm glad to hear someone articulating this concept in the way that you are with your perspective on it. This is an idea that Ive tried to communicate to people plenty of times before and just fallen on completely deaf ears.
As criticism, I would contend the same argument could be made for the Umayyad caliphate taking the eastern Mediterranean from Byzantium, or the Ottoman-Hapsburg wars – The battle of Helm's Deep is basically just copy pasted from the 1683 Siege of Vienna. When analyzing cultural narratives, I think it's exceptionally difficult to pick apart the myth-making from the actually lived factual history, and that's what makes this kind of "direct comparison" a bit dicey.
I find the similiarities between Ancient Rome and Genghis Khans Empire interesting, I never had that much insight on him because he wasn't part of school education
I doubt that we need to narrow it down so much. Great Eastern Threat, lets call it this way, is an ancient and very strong theme in European cultures, probably all of them. It is so widespread that propaganda of certain countries tried to paint this way even Germans and Russians, both nations doubtlessly European.
It goes way beyond Golden Horde, beyond even Atilla – I believe this idea derives from Greek-Persian wars. It would make sense given how much Greek heritage lies at the basis of European culture in general.
And if we take into account just how many times Europe faces threats from the east, the conclusion that Tolkien used this general idea seems evident. I even heard that whole Battle for Pelennor Fields was based upon Battle of Catalaunian Plains, and Gondor heavily inspired by Rome and Byzantium. It would suggest that Atilla is more likely candidate for sole source of inspiration.
But again, if look to some details, we would see a very diverse picture. Black Tongue is heavily inspired by Persian, Harad bears some resemblance of Middle East, Easterlings mostly reminds us of old nomads of Antiquity, Gondor is mostly based on Byzantium and Battle of Pelennor Fields is reminiscent of Battle of Catalaunian Plains. Meaning that Forces of Sauron may be a combination of every major threat from the east Europe had faced.
This video absolutely fucking floored me.
I love it.
They didn't vanish, his sons lead for quite some time…
It’s based on the Huns destruction of Burgundy. “Der Ring des Nibelungen” Richard Wagner is what Tolkien based the books on. Tolkien even described Orcs as Mongoloid. tUrks…or Turkish…is also part of the story. The Huns were stopped by the Goths…and Romans,
In studying the Siege of Vienna 1683, I was surprised how much it resembled the Siege of Minas-Tirith and the Battle of Pelennor Fields. There's an epic siege with a huge army. Allies have to arrive to the rescue and engage the enemy in an huge cavalry charge. Unfortunately, there were no elephants (or oliphaunts) at Vienna. These similarities may be coincidental, but who knows.
No. You're wrong. The dark forces represent modernity. If you're unfamiliar with political philosophy then you won't get it. Beyond that, Tolkien in his own words insisted that he does not write in allegory.
Interesting theory 😉
Genghis must had an affinity to golden rings then ☺️
The khans are still fascinating for many still.
this reminds me of something i loved about assassins creed Valhalla which was the trailer, say what you will about the game and the masses of historical inaccuracies but the trailer shows a really interesting juxtaposition of what viking civilisation was like and how the english (at the time) perceived it, the king (idk if that's actually what he is, but the dude monologuing) calls them heartless, savages, etc. but as he says all of these blatantly untrue things, it's over the top of the viking raiders playing with their families, sparing a defenceless mother and child, it's over the top of them being actual humans. is it on the nose? for sure. is it still pretty cool, fuck yea!
From what I've heard, the word orc is also related to the "giants" from Norse Mythology: some sort of "uncivilized" people
Do you have portal magic?
Right now russians impersonate orcs more
J.R.R. Tolkien used the term "horse-boy" when referring to orcs, which he most likely took from Charles Kingsley's novel Hereward the Wake from 1865. Yes, it is all based on the Mongols, the Huns, the Scythians and all the other horse-lords that came to disturb the peace of the Hobbits of Europe.
This isn't a theory, it's a fact. The Medieval mind (particularly) its Northern and Scandinavian variety had a deeply ingrained existential trauma of the Mongol and Hunnic invasions — combining that with the later context of the Crusades, and of course Tolkien would present grave existential threat to Middle-Earth in the form of Eastern Hordes. That's faithful to the Medieval vision of the world.
It's not meant to be taken literally, it's not closeted racism.. it's evolutionary psychology transformed into mythic symbolism.
Tolkien hated allegory. His world was based off of European mythology, not any traditional profane history. There may be a few similarities but the connections end there.
Great. Job. Outstanding message.
Its weird how time bends the meaning… Men… china men… Directions are arbitrary so what we hve here is a vagueness of apetite that is filled with error. Is Sauron Genghis Khan? Meh..
Again dehumanisation wasn't a part of any communtiy refer to the immitatiosn of christ in teh examination of strangers coming into lands in harmony causing a great ammout nof pain. You jsut state your ignorance, the oglden rule was in most realms towns and villages. Genghis Khan made no sense, nothing but for booty or for the sake of killing, there was no reason. Sauron had their own reason or rational. Christianity today is like Genghis Khan relgion in comparrison to how it operates but you have ot udenrstand the philosphy and the other stuff he took and the shcolars and artisans forced ot join his nonsens,e in that words were writte nfor constnat fear and nonsense deployed into the public… Hardly a system of law in or by any means.
Various land movement groups had intereactions many times, so this is not entirely true, the post writings woudl convey a picture of error, but to the writings of the time and day it stood as a confused lot of being harrassed and amde demands, tehy stormed up into china, and when the scholars walked through the land in wastes it was a headless system, there was no more leadership of COM conenction between the systems of trade, and it was rapidly de evolvoing into clan and gang warefare where the strong or stupid… would betray teh sense of ocmmuntyi and then beging devourign or raping its own kind.
I woudl refer to the attic wars and the almsot ocplete fall of the republic during the britannia nad gaelic times, but a casesar title was made out of that war becasue peopel claimed it was the deal of the devil… Then we have all the cults that had their freedoms removed abomination like hersiology and proto chrsitianaity, Judaism is a cult. They stoned peopel for making phoenetic soudns thus there is lakcing of udnerstanding in a cult and they perceive nad act iwthout delveopment to rule as genghis Khan over what is an actual civlisation, to which actual history of tiberious and Marcus and the meditations of god and more have more a resounding truth to what structure is… So what we ahve is a method of madness and nonsense, to than the brits but not brits killing the romans, but most tribal groups would go to capture and want the breed or seed of the sorceror, so we are already dealign in a rational world against compeltel morons.. and dogs of humans… as persay.. a relam of madness searching for udnerstanding to define reality to act in accordance to its nature better. Even the cannibalistic tribes and Japanese, if a warrior faught well even if they are your enemy and are to die you would make sure you would save their seed to re-bondage tehir children to your tribe, increasing your POWER..
You really have to udnerstand the heartless madness of a world in darkness, with a base level of understanding of husbandry… all of which lacked order, clarity…
Sauron… hmm one oculd say its germany… or anything.. to super impose common vlaue of the good and evil is not complicated….
We live upon a world that dwells in cruelty because of its ignorance… when the ligth goes to war (learned) the peopel fear…. but what od you do against so mcu hhatred and nonsense that is generated in teh time span of ones life… clearly chidlren are innocent to a degree, but what then is of that environement, like Canada is a great exmaple of a falling soicety of standards and value and quality of life… the marxism and other ideals that often used to supplant and take something from others rather then workgin and ocmmunciating on a levle ground of means… so we get the who is god among you attitude……….
Dehumanisation is the art of the athor or media or narrator…
Common thread of most humans on this planet withotu any influence, is care calm and out of ignorance attempt to help the other, and their common human link. It is life….
That becomes pervert from the machination / imaginations of those then captivated in the bondage of say that tribe that captures the seed, but in this case its conversion wars to their ideals obtuse ot truth and reality… all cutls.. what little they get wrong or right the rest are condemned, rather than being open and buidling humanity one step at a time, what we see is the steps are covered, or destroyed and many are confused to what is reality or how, giving power to … propsoerity goispels or others out for simpyl money, peopel forgetting truth to what pain is.. in the pain all around htem to the actsin which were free all along to do what ought ot be done.. form suc ah position of privallge. we can see thsoe with money can never solve problems… because it is the act.. not hte commond of those acts… so only by action is their peace… which one act of kindness builds great strength… a great network…
The demonisation of knowledge is from psychotic groups tribes or cults.. which is an abomination … knowledge is important…. and industry and dstructure and automation and art.. it al lworks together… but peopel are out their ot cause grief..
For isntance the other day.. I was yelled at by using apparently the wrong pronou.. and the person was liek oh its okay don't worry about it… I was like thinking… sure okay.. yeah… I talked in a diminishing tone ot subdue any ill feelings, but in retro spect I shoudl of replied.. Hey whats your name, I suck with that entire scope of pronouns I got a memory ofa gold fish, sorry, heart shape… Using dialogue ot disarm their madness without upsetting nad lecturing their they are litearlly metnally ill in the choice ot define the linguistic nature of a pronoun as to be a name…. so yeah… the frtiend of theres was hyper aggresive, I coudl gene calssify her as a ground or shit breed of human like in Europe 4k bc, but that would be of error and cruel, but they often ahve a lacking of objective thinking and are highly aggresive and sexually aggressive female archtype and have stubby body type… See.. I am nto haitng but to al lthat i have met wit hte disposition has been identical. in reality they are the unlcoed seekign truth in the wrong places.. and can't admit when they are wrong so like good little nazis in that old film. when the teachers re create a movement in how to / or nazis came ot power…. the friend was chill with my error.. but it catches you off guard when al lthigns are calm and a person suddenly for no reason attacks you… You see the choice for ap erosn to react is a choice, she oculd of just not cared like more peopel, lie the word guys, or thems or theirs… it doens't matter these are the wrong fights ot pick…
How woudl you like it if I used my attacks ot lay waste to food production and paper produciton you will no longer have those things how about collapse hte surface of the paper crust of this earth and its a molten ball of liquid with the tectonic plates tosses like sky high mountains onyl to re solidfy… how much anger is in a person to react in a system. To me.. the pronoun nonsense is linked to a god complex to control society, this is stemign from a lack of educaiton in teh civics that has been poured out of hte public by the private cults in the system.. whic hare all on the end list since they are an abomination of crimes amongst them all… lamp stands they call chruches to whcih is nothing more then a littany of corruption and hatred. in which they openly go about under the judah spell to have their own king, itsl ike the dubmest thing.. if your christ returns, pretty sure what you say, tehy will kill and take all thigns back for your cult the myirad of them.. or would you crush your christ again from your ow nignraonce, perhaps christ came back as wind or a baby , I Don't know but. yeah.. sauron… who cares man.. just enjoy it… why you amkign division….. everywhere.. division shoudl be made where we put a body back together and we make categories ot make sense.. of reality.. this constant destruction against peopel for cpativiation is angering me… I clearly do nto wnat ot be amongst any of these humans.. to some degree… cruelty… a great part of me just wants ot drift into music and let the iditos finally kill themselves in whatever.. good evil war tehy have planend in their theatre of tricks.
The Mongols did nit just pack up and go home or become dismayed and run when the great Kahn died
They continued to conquer and grow. They at one point even after Temujens( Gengis Kahn's) death they had am empire larger than Rome. It didn't reach its peak until Gengis Kahns successor was in power.
Tolkien comments in a letter on thinking about orcs as Mongols. Both in skin colour and eye shape.
Love your passion for beautifully flawed and rich humanity. Right there with you.
Totally logical theory. Makes sense in way. I’m kinda mind blown right now. Great vid buddy
I think the statement Tolkien made to film producers on the appearance of orcs is absolutely racist language. But that doesn't mean Tolkien was racist. He was writing from his perspective and that perspective was molded by sometimes racist views of the other. Tolkien loved his home country and mythology. He was also a devout catholic and you can see those influences in his work. The orcs are described as short, slant eyed, bow legged with swarthy skin, and while the history of the orcs might have more in common with European folk lore "monsters in the forest" There is something that we can still analyze and pick apart.