Astral Codex Ten

Tolkien

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Tolkien

Article

Tolkien is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 6 times across 6 issues between March 10, 2023 and February 05, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “She’s the American Tolstoy or Tolkien”; “he mentions that he’d once considered naming his car after something from tolkien”; ""Tolkien (yes, we’re in the “fantasy Godwin’s law” territory now, deal with it, dear reader) has created a stringent morality system in his world."". It most often appears alongside Twitter, Elon Musk, Russia.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 6
  • Issue count: 6
  • First seen: March 10, 2023
  • Last seen: February 05, 2026

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Links For March 2023
March 10, 2023 · Original source
There are two possible explanations for Rand's success. The first is that her politics are just that compelling and her philosophy that overwhelming in its logic (they're not). The second is that her prose is just that good. That she's the American Tolstoy or Tolkien.
Highlights From The Comments On Nerds And Hipsters
April 27, 2023 · Original source
as i said, i don’t think scott and i really disagree on all that much here. near the end of his piece, he mentions that he’d once considered naming his car after something from tolkien, but he’d rather die than name it after something from the mcu. why?
my answer, for what it’s worth, is: yes. personally, i’ve never really been into tolkien all that much; i’d rather skip the simarillion and go straight to the mabinogion. but like with sport, there’s clearly something there. scott - i assume - likes tolkien because of its literary and imaginative qualities. the mcu doesn’t have those; all it has is a set of puppet-strings, and an insistent demand to be liked. for some people, that’s good enough. we all need some crutches for our self-identity; we want to like things. but when too many people like things simply because they’re there, the quality of those things will inevitably fall off a cliff.
Your Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning
June 10, 2023 · Original source
Tolkien (yes, we’re in the “fantasy Godwin’s law” territory now, deal with it, dear reader) has created a stringent morality system in his world. Elves are good, Orcs, Trolls and Wargs are bad, Humans, Dwarves and Hobbits move on this one-dimensional scale from one end to the other. But Orcs have always been problematic. You see, unlike other bad creatures, Orcs have sentience and even some rudimentary sense of morality, we see it in the Lord of the Rings (e.g. encounter with Gorbag). So how can it be? And, more practically, can good characters slaughter them without reluctance or remorse?
Tolkien knew about this problem and tried to write his way out of it. He couldn’t directly “George-Lucas” it, but he famously changed the origin of Orcs several times. They were Elves enslaved and corrupted by Morgoth, then they were fully “brooded” by Morgoth, then they were “beasts of humanized shape”, or possibly, results of forced mating between Elves and beasts. Each one of those retcons brought more problems. The more canonical version, I believe, is still the “corrupted Elves” theory; at least it appears in more early texts and is corroborated by the Lord of the Rings. It certainly has dark implications for the good characters, both by modern standards and those contemporary to Tolkien. This is a whole other topic for another discussion. But it also recontextualizes the whole “Russians are orcs” thing.
Tolkien had such problems with this sentience dilemma because it exists in real life as well. How we treat our enemies during wartime and after, is morally mirky. If orcs are “beasts of humanized shape”, how can they have sentience? And if orcs are sentient, how can we kill them? Not every killing is strictly in self-defense. War has an answer: necessity surpasses morals. It is a true, but an immoral statement. That doesn’t mean that morality is meaningless, even in wartime. And if we try to stick to the “corrupted elves” narrative (“elves” being normal and moral people, and “orcs” being Russian troops currently killing and dying aimlessly and meaninglessly in Ukrainian fields), can we try to postulate, what corrupted them? And can we expand single-handed experiences, such as we saw above, to a whole group of people?
Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk
September 18, 2023 · Original source
I love Tolkien’s work, and, oddly, when I was reading this, my mind turned to Feanor in The Silmarillion.
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe
February 21, 2025 · Original source
Tolkien has a prologue where all of the archangels sing of the universe, and then God decides He likes it and gives it the Secret Fire that transforms it from mere possibility into existence.
Links For February 2026
February 05, 2026 · Original source
44: Ted Nasmith, famous for his Tolkien illustrations, also has art based on A Song Of Ice And Fire (example below):
Inline links: art based on A Song Of Ice And Fire