A
The Lord of the Rings fanfic by Kirill Eskov, offering an examination of the War of the Ring from
Mordor's point of view, based on the assumption that Tolkien's account was
propaganda written by Gondor. Originally written in Russian, it has been translated and sold in many languages, although the Tolkien estate has prevented the work from being commercially released in English. As such, the English translation can be downloaded for free
here
.
This work provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Éowyn.
- All Trolls Are Different/Our Orcs Are Different: The Orocuen and Trolls are described as different ethnicities of humans, rather than different races.
- The Atoner: Tangorn, even though all he did wrong was write a report that was misused by others. Eventually gets Redemption Equals Death, but never knows he'd been redeemed. It's that kind of story.
- Black and Nerdy: Halladin. Sort of; his people's appearance does not fully correlate to any modern Earth race.
- City of Spies: Umbar.
- Demonization: Of Elves, Valar, and magic in general.
- The Dung Ages: Gondor and Rohan, especially if compared to enlightened Mordor.
- Evil Prince: Eloar, who enjoys massacring civilians, including women and children for no reason.
- Fantastic Racism: Elves think of humans like about animals, and value their human allies not more than domestic animals.
- Happiness in Slavery: Sharya-Rana says that many humans will find elves' dominance quite comfortable and pleasant.
- Henpecked Husband: Aragorn is treated by his wife as a mere puppet. He isn't.
- The Magic Goes Away
- Magic Is Evil
- Magic Versus Technology
- Necessarily Evil: How Haladdin views himself.
- Our Elves Are Different: Elves are smug, racist, genocidal, and arrogant.
- Perspective Flip: The fic is LotR through the eyes of the orcs.
- The Republic: Mordor.
- Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The narrative is very pro-Enlightenment, in direct contrast with the original book which was actually balanced and held both mindsets have good and bad sides.
- Scary Black Man: The Haradrim.
- Science Is Good: Mordor is a democratic, highly-enlightened, technology-using human civilisation, and they're the good guys. The Elves, meanwhile, are a bunch of smug, genocidal pricks who want to conquer Arda, enslave or exterminate humanity and stop all progress forever. The whole point of the work is an examination of the War of the Ring from Mordor's point of view.
- Screw You, Elves!
- Shining City: Barad-Dûr.
- Written by the Winners: The entire premise.
- Invoked in a mean-spirited example by Aragorn, who challenges a Mordorian general to an honorable duel, only to have him shot in the back, quipping "the history books will say you got shot by a midget and a broad".
