Ayn Rand's Lord of the Rings.

Last week I re-watched Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. There's one scene in particular in the extended cut that I wish had made it to the theatrical release, where Faramir soliloquizes on a dead Haradrim mook:



It goes a long way towards ameliorating the pervasive racism of Tolkien's story. What of Harad, what of Rhun? They're the bad guys. All of them? Apparently.

Which is why Kirill Eskov's The Last Ringbearer impressed me so much. It's a pastiche of sorts, a revisionist history. LotR was the propaganda of the victors, demonizing the steppe-nomadic Orocuen and nascent industrial Mordor's Age of Reason.

I should do a post on Ayn Rand sometime.