Is Middle-Earth supposed to be our Earth?

I just watched a video where some guy was talking about history of the one ring and I realised one thing.

LotR ends with the elves leaving the ME and dwarves going into exile from rest of the world and eventually probably disappeared. So the age of men and only men began.

I was wondering if Tolkien did ment his work as some sort of fictional ancient legend. Someone believes that we came from monkeys or we were create by gods or we just jumped out of caves while he create something much more complicated, beautiful and more logical than most of the religions.

Do you think it is possible?

@princearagorn1

Maybe LotR is history, but Tolkein dressed it up as fiction because he knew nobody would believe it.

@darthmummy: That would be the smartest thing in literature. Dress up the history as the most famous fantasy in the world :P

The way Tolkien chose to describe hobbits in The Hobbit always left me with that impression. He very specifically described them as something you don't see "nowadays" and how they hide from us. It felt very much like he was talking from the perspective of a modern man describing them to his son, which he was given the story started as a bedtime story he told to his kid.

@penderor: Truth can be stranger than fiction. World War II was one of the inspirations for the epic.

Middle Earth is a continent not the planet

I thought the same thing before. That's one epic history to have, imagine aliens visiting, trying to understand our history and you showing them LOTR for it.

I do believe that Tolkien meant for lotr to be a form of England's own myth since he didn't consider it to have its own myths in the way that Ireland or some other country's do. He also saw King Arthur as being more of a French story. So in that regard I do think he meant for middle earth to be ancient earth.

I'm pretty sure Tolkien wrote Middle Earth as it was supposed to be like our world, like events in the books happened long ago in the world's history

Yes, the idea is that he translated ancient texts. He was a bit peeved that the British had no tales and legends (Arthurian legends probably originate from French tales), so he made LotR as one for Britain. He also flat out states it's our world in one of his letters. Middle Earth is Europe, Far Harad is Africa etc.

That still counts.

Don't know :I

@rogueshadow: Far Harad is Africa.??? I didn't see any blacks or heard about any of them in lotr...

Its based losely off world war 2

'black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues'

@rogueshadow: What book is that from..??And is that real.??Lol

The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter VI: "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"

I'm pretty sure that Tolkien was racist.

@rogueshadow: You know bro,every time I looked that up it said otherwise.?Do you really believe he was..??

I do. I've read lots of sites that attempt to deconstruct it, intellectualise it and prove that he wasn't, but yeah, when you look at the text in regards to the times he lived, I'm pretty sure that he was. I mean, it's pretty funny how nearly all of the humans who team up with Sauron are brown skinned and are never given any depth.

I know a lot of people here might disagree, but he was pretty clearly racist in my opinion, you don't basically call black people half trolls if you aren't.

It doesn't bother me much, he's a product of the times in which he lived, I'd imagine that the majority of writers, scientists, leaders etc born pre -1940 are racist, regardless of what race they were.

I think its sort of safe to say English in general were racist back then. They saw themselves as the chosen people fit to rule over most others through the British Empire for centuries and that all the non white races were beneath them. I'm not saying that Tolkien himself believed that exactly but it was kind of a common way of thinking back then so it wouldn't really surprise me if he did.

@penderor: In your theory, where does the reptilians stand?

Pilasy:La Voix d'un homme

no..

actually yes

I think it's meant to be New Zealand...

@rouflex: Creatures of Morgoth.

I think the LOTR world is more of an analog to our world, for example the dwarves are analogous to jews, their homes were taken and now they're up and about. also good with money. The one ring is analogous to power. Everybody wants it, but when you posess it it destroys you.

@penderor: Can they count the money?

Pilasy:La Voix d'un homme

@rouflex: Reptile counting money?

@penderor: Banksters.

Pilasy:La Voix d'un homme