Tolkien Fans’ Personal Attacks on Scholar Backfire
Some subjects are so inflammatory and divisive people resort to personal attacks almost immediately when they hold the minority point of view. Here is an example: have you heard of Balrogs? Do Balrogs have wings? You may not care but don’t surprised to learn that many thousands of people have wasted hours, sometimes days or years of their lives arguing over the question. Most surveys reveal that at least 75% of all readers (of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books) conclude that the Balrog mentioned in The Lord of the Rings has some sort of wings.
In fact, in an essay that discloses the truth about Balrogs, noted Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez showed readers just exactly why the whole debate is pointless. Tolkien described his Balrog as being a creature of fire and darkness, and it is the darkness surrounding the Balrog that takes on the shape of two wings. Some people wrongly conclude that the wings are metaphors but the narrative structure of the story does not support the metaphorical argument.
Not long another pro-metaphor essayist decided to rehash old arguments that had already been rebutted in numerous discussions. Posting by the screen name of Elenhir, this wannabe Tolkien scholar took offense when Martinez refused to rebut the essay in detail. Elenhir (joined by Australian fan David Gransby, posting as halfir) launched a series of personal attacks on Martinez in order to discredit him. But can two mean-spirited people really discredit one of the Internet’s leading experts on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien? Michael Martinez’ more than 200 essays are referenced on thousands of Websites, and some of them have been quoted in newspapers and magazines around the world.
Although Elenhir and his friend felt it is justifiable to publish false allegations about the quality of Martinez’ work — that he does not provide citations to back up what he writes — they took an easily refuted lie. Martinez is considered to be the king of citations by many Tolkien fans and scholars. His reputation for thorough, contextually-appropriate citations from the Tolkien books is unmatched. So Gransby and his friend Elenhir made themselves into laughing stocks by trying to support bad scholarship with unbelievable personal attacks.
They would have accomplished more and earned more respect by attempting to explain their position, addressing each of the facts carefully, without relying on errors of omission, using inappropriate citations, and making personal attacks on someone who never attacked them. Martinez presents his own personal position on the matter without making personal attacks on anyone. Gransby and his friends would do well to emulate Martinez.