Tolkien - Biased towards some animals...

[ingolmo]

Seems like no one's agreeing with me, so, like most true animal lovers, I will have to keep my thoughts to myself.
And AraCelebEarwen, the word for cat in Quenya is Meoi.

 

[Hammersmith]

Seems like no one's agreeing with me, so, like most true animal lovers, I will have to keep my thoughts to myself.
And AraCelebEarwen, the word for cat in Quenya is Meoi.

Sorry! I got caught up with the concept of staving off a feral horse with a stick!

To answer your original question, dragons (and all serpentile creatures) will always in the western mindset have negative connotations due to the Judeo Christian tradition. I heartily agree with whoever mentioned the whole scavenging aspect of the ravens, making them seem ignoble; also as (comparatively ugly) birds they have a long and seemingly unshakable tradition of trickery, foolishness and malice, both in legends and in fables.

I'm not totally sure why wolves and ravens are linked together (help anyone?) but they certainly are. Add this unsavoury connection with the fear of wolves as powerful predators and it is readily apparant why they are looked on as the enemies of men.

As for spiders, my only answer would be a hypothesis that people fear the inescapable trap, the claustrophobia of being cornered and bound, then killed slowly. With rightful reason! Though it isn't perhaps justification to label spiders as evil straight off, it is a handy excuse.

 

[AraCelebEarwen]

the word for cat in Quenya is Meoi.

Thanks

Where did you get that from? I know I haven't really spent a lot of time looking, but it would be fun to know...

 

[Retired Manwe]

Oh, woops, I guess I didn't answer your original question. I don't think Tolkien was necessarily biased towards different animals. It seems to me that all the animals he portrays as evil aren't actually the real animals that we think of but mythological versions of the creatures. The Wargs were weird versions of wolves, the crows might not have been real crows as Tolkien doesn't actually say thats what the weird bird spies are, and dragons are obviously mythological. Tolkien wasn;t biased to certain animals but he did use well known animals to make mythological animals that were evil.

 

[ingolmo]

Well, Hammersmith, dragons have a very postive image in Chinese mythology, and snakes are considered holy in Hindu cultures.

Wolves were first associated with werewolves to get them a negative image, and then the stuck up fantasy writers of the middle-ages wrote their stories with wolves in a bad image. Look at the Little Red Riding Hood, and the Three Little Pigs.

As for ravens and crows, I'm not too sure what's given them the bad mark.
Probably it's just that both are scavengers, and the crows also got his voice against him (which is personally my favorite of all birds after the owl.)
I'm befuddled about ravens though. In a lot of cultures, counting either Norse or Celtic, or both ravens are a symbol of wisdom and knowledge. A modern-day common example of that is Ravenclaw house in Harry Potter, where it is famous for it's brains. Now I've heard that Tolkien's taken a lot from Scandinavian mythology and culture, especially Norse. Then why does he have ravens in a bad image?

Now, the spiders. First of all I would like to state that only 17% of the worlds spiders are poisonous, and from those 17%, only about 10% can kill humans. That means that 1.7% of the world's spiders can kill humans, and most of those are either unluckily endangered, or they live in remote places such as rainforests or deserts where only nomadic, or native tribal humans live. So WHAT is there wrong with spiders?!

And Manwe, if Wargs were wierd versions of wolves, then why, is the word 'wargs', used only once or twice in the Fellowship of the Ring, while the word 'wolves' is used around 15 times?

And AraCelebEarwen, you asked where I got the translation of 'cat' in Quenya. Well, I am the Loremaster, so I should know that much.

 

[Hammersmith]

Well, Hammersmith, dragons have a very postive image in Chinese mythology, and snakes are considered holy in Hindu cultures.

Ah, but Tolkien is neither Indian nor Chinese

Wolves were first associated with werewolves to get them a negative image, and then the stuck up fantasy writers of the middle-ages wrote their stories with wolves in a bad image. Look at the Little Red Riding Hood, and the Three Little Pigs.

I think a lot of stuck up middle age writers can be blamed for the evil wolves. But at the end of the day, wolves *do* kill people, and there is a lot to be said for his contrast between the domesticated hound and the evil werewolf in the Silmarillion.

As for ravens and crows, I'm not too sure what's given them the bad mark.
Probably it's just that both are scavengers, and the crows also got his voice against him (which is personally my favorite of all birds after the owl.)
I'm befuddled about ravens though. In a lot of cultures, counting either Norse or Celtic, or both ravens are a symbol of wisdom and knowledge. A modern-day common example of that is Ravenclaw house in Harry Potter, where it is famous for it's brains. Now I've heard that Tolkien's taken a lot from Scandinavian mythology and culture, especially Norse. Then why does he have ravens in a bad image?

Aesop. Think of the crow and her cheese. I can't think off the top of my head of any other fables about crows or ravens, but I know they exist. It's another example of classical fantasy getting in the way of the Norse and other, fairer mythology.

Now, the spiders. First of all I would like to state that only 17% of the worlds spiders are poisonous, and from those 17%, only about 10% can kill humans. That means that 1.7% of the world's spiders can kill humans, and most of those are either unluckily endangered, or they live in remote places such as rainforests or deserts where only nomadic, or native tribal humans live. So WHAT is there wrong with spiders?!

Like I said. They trap things, which may provoke something adverse in the human psyche.

 

[ingolmo]

Ah, but Tolkien is neither Indian nor Chinese

And neither was he Scandinavian. A lot of Tolkien's tales had something in common with Norse mythology, and Quenya was based on Finnish.

I think a lot of stuck up middle age writers can be blamed for the evil wolves. But at the end of the day, wolves *do* kill people, and there is a lot to be said for his contrast between the domesticated hound and the evil werewolf in the Silmarillion.

More humans kill wolves than wolves kill humans. And if on a rare occasion wolves do attack humans, they were probably provoked by humans.

Aesop. Think of the crow and her cheese. I can't think off the top of my head of any other fables about crows or ravens, but I know they exist. It's another example of classical fantasy getting in the way of the Norse and other, fairer mythology.

*No comment* But that's still unfair.

Like I said. They trap things, which may provoke something adverse in the human psyche.

But they don't trap humans do they?

 

[Greenwood]

But at the end of the day, wolves *do* kill people,

Actually, stories of wolves attacking and killing people are greatly overblown. In North America there was not a single, documented human fatality due to a wolf attack in the 20th Century. Of the relatively few known instances of aggression by wolves on humans the vast majority were either by rabid animals or were provoked by the humans involved. Anyone interested in wolves can get information at The Wolf Society.

 

[Hammersmith]

And neither was he Scandinavian. A lot of Tolkien's tales had something in common with Norse mythology, and Quenya was based on Finnish.

But the Scandinavians are spread throughout Europe historically, and their stories are more part of the collective European mindset

More humans kill wolves than wolves kill humans. And if on a rare occasion wolves do attack humans, they were probably provoked by humans.

And @ Greenwood - NO! Of course, wolves have a bad deal of it. But I'm not talking about modern wolves. No, for settlers, in dark age and medieval Europe, wolves were cast as evil in tales because they were a daily threat to livestock and thus the livings of the people. Also note my reference to the use of the wolf as the "evil version" of the dog.

*No comment* But that's still unfair.

Of course it's unfair! But it's part of a literary tradition.

But they don't trap humans do they?

No, but their acts seem unnatural and alien to the human psyche. Just like how humans are put off by animals who eat/are eaten by their young, or cannibal animals.

 

[ingolmo]

Okay, you do have a good argument, but you can't deny that all fantasy writers up to date, Tolkien included, have used some certain animals in a negative role, though truly, they aren't bad. I think that is bad and unfair, and it is putting that sort of mindset on the public about those animals that was shown negatively in the story, thus increasing the hatred and fear for that animal. That is what I think is one of the few flaws that medieval and modern fantasy has, and I oppose it.

 

[Hammersmith]

I agree completely. I was not offering an excuse for Tolkien writing the way he does about certain animals, but a reason.

 

[ingolmo]

But still it's not such a good reason.
I correct my statement that all fantasy writers up to date have used some animals in such a negative role. True, I haven't read too much fantasy, but in the amount I've read, Christopher Paolini doesn't use animals in a negative role in his trilogy, Eragon.

 

[Alatar]

some animals have always been used for bad as in steven kings the stand" the wolves will always be his"(HIM being the devil) and some animals are portraid as good haun being the example.

 

[ingolmo]

Alatar, do you have to start the argument all over again, just when it seemed to have met a conclusion?
Still, just to know, what are your views? Do you think that discriminating some animals as good or bad is right, or wrong? I think you've got my opinion by now.

 

[Klaatu]

Tolkien absolutely leaned into old mythic associations when it came to animals, ingolmo. He wasn’t writing as a modern zoologist but as a sub-creator steeped in Northern legend. Wolves and crows had been omens of death for centuries in Germanic and Norse traditions; spiders were linked with dark, monstrous forces long before Shelob scuttled into Mordor; dragons were chaos and greed incarnate in virtually every medieval tale. On the other side, eagles had been divine messengers since antiquity, and horses were tied to nobility and loyalty. Tolkien wasn’t inventing the bias so much as channeling an inherited symbolic language.

But—and here’s where the deep dive gets fun—he also complicates it. Smaug is wicked, yes, but he’s fascinatingly articulate—dangerous precisely because he’s more than an animal. Gollum is often likened to something spiderish or wormish, yet he’s pitiable. Even wargs in The Hobbit are described as having their own speech and councils, which hints that they’re not mere beasts but corrupted intelligences. And the eagles? They don’t come when whistled like good doggies—they act on their own terms, aloof, almost perilously close to being divine arbiters.

So Tolkien wasn’t exactly “fair” to the animal kingdom—but fairness wasn’t the point. He was writing within a mythic frame, where creatures embody moral archetypes. The spider isn’t just a spider—it’s the shadow of hopeless entrapment. The eagle isn’t just a bird—it’s eucatastrophe with wings.

And here we are, twenty plus years after you opened this thread, still gnawing the same bone like hungry wargs. That’s the delight of Tolkien—his “biases” lead us into deeper tunnels of myth, where every creature has more than one layer of meaning.

Meanwhile, I’ve met spiders on the moons of Klythra who spend their days weaving tapestries of star maps out of moonlight, and wolves on Zarnath who volunteer as librarians. Middle-earth might have leaned into the darker myths, but the cosmos… well, it has a wider menagerie.

Klaatu, Deep Diver into the Jelly Trenches of Saturn, Keeper of the Seven Howling Librarian Wolves, Amateur Star-Spider Cartographer, Once Knighted by a Platypus Wearing Sunglasses