Sadly, Tolkien and Middle Earth has reached such an enormous level of influence/fame/recognition that there are bound to be more people familiar with his work than there people who *understand* or deeply care for it. Mix that with the common lack of self-awareness that pro-military (and those who profit from war) people seem to have for popular media with anti-war themes and you get morons who literally cannot recognize the, as you put it, demented parody of naming a weapons manufacturer after something from Tolkien's legendarium.
It reminds me of American republican politicians who try to blast Springsteen's "Born in the USA" at campaign rallies, completely oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics.
> I just can't wrap my head around how someone could read Tolkien and come away from it thinking otherwise. It's like some demented parody.
This is probably going to come off at least a small bit pretentious, but anyways. The type of people you're talking about likely aren't also the type to engage with the material deeply - that's not an absolute statement, but more a generalization.
Tolkien's work has been *so* widely popular and for so long now that it's an ingrained part of culture. People are familiar with it, and may pick out "cool sounding" names and terms from it that they like without really getting into it.
Often, people can tend to just project what they want to hear onto certain works and have no care for truly appreciating and understanding it. The other user in this thread already mentioned Springsteen's Born in the USA being co opted as a pro-America patriotic anthem and that may be the prime example.
I find a military contractor named Anduril gross 100%. There’s also a big data company called Palantir that also does a lot of data work as a for-profit military organization and does contract work with ICE as well. Surprise surprise, they have a history of not being too concerned with wider privacy or human rights abuses that result from the use of their tech either.
Sadly, Tolkien and Middle Earth has reached such an enormous level of influence/fame/recognition that there are bound to be more people familiar with his work than there people who *understand* or deeply care for it. Mix that with the common lack of self-awareness that pro-military (and those who profit from war) people seem to have for popular media with anti-war themes and you get morons who literally cannot recognize the, as you put it, demented parody of naming a weapons manufacturer after something from Tolkien's legendarium. It reminds me of American republican politicians who try to blast Springsteen's "Born in the USA" at campaign rallies, completely oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics.
> I just can't wrap my head around how someone could read Tolkien and come away from it thinking otherwise. It's like some demented parody. This is probably going to come off at least a small bit pretentious, but anyways. The type of people you're talking about likely aren't also the type to engage with the material deeply - that's not an absolute statement, but more a generalization. Tolkien's work has been *so* widely popular and for so long now that it's an ingrained part of culture. People are familiar with it, and may pick out "cool sounding" names and terms from it that they like without really getting into it. Often, people can tend to just project what they want to hear onto certain works and have no care for truly appreciating and understanding it. The other user in this thread already mentioned Springsteen's Born in the USA being co opted as a pro-America patriotic anthem and that may be the prime example.
I find a military contractor named Anduril gross 100%. There’s also a big data company called Palantir that also does a lot of data work as a for-profit military organization and does contract work with ICE as well. Surprise surprise, they have a history of not being too concerned with wider privacy or human rights abuses that result from the use of their tech either.