The first time I saw a white nationalist account using a Gondor banner as their avatar, I laughed. Practically speaking, it was 2016, maybe 2017. The irony felt too thick to be real — a movement obsessed with racial purity rallying behind a story where the "pure" bloodlines of Númenor fell because they got arrogant and racist, while the "mixed" peoples of Middle-earth saved the world.
Then I kept seeing it. Because of that, the "You shall not pass" gif repurposed for border walls. It wasn't a joke. Usernames like Eärendil1488. That's why memes comparing orcs to immigrants. Shields with the White Tree. It was a strategy Simple, but easy to overlook. That alone is useful..
And it worked because most people — even Tolkien fans — don't actually know the books that well.
What Is This Phenomenon
Right-wing extremists didn't discover Tolkien yesterday. Practically speaking, the appropriation goes back decades. In the 1960s and 70s, far-right groups in Europe and the US began treating The Lord of the Rings as a kind of sacred text for white identity. Not because Tolkien wrote it that way — he didn't — but because the surface-level imagery maps neatly onto certain narratives: a besieged West, dark hordes from the East, a return of the king, the defense of tradition against corruption Simple, but easy to overlook..
The shorthand works like this: Gondor and Rohan = white Europe. Mordor and Harad = the Global South, immigrants, Muslims, Jews. The Ring = globalism, degeneracy, Jewish conspiracy (depending on who you ask). Aragorn = the strongman who restores order. Sauron = the shadowy puppet master.
It's lazy reading. But lazy reading spreads faster than careful reading.
The aesthetic matters more than the text
Here's what makes this stick: the visual language of Jackson's films gave the movement a ready-made iconography. The White Tree. The Evenstar. The Elvish script. The armor designs. Because of that, you don't need to have read the Silmarillion to deploy a Gondor banner on your Telegram channel. You just need to recognize the aesthetic — noble, martial, ancient, white Surprisingly effective..
And that's the point. Even so, the films made Middle-earth look like a white ethnostate. The books never did.
Why It Matters
This isn't just internet cosplay. The appropriation serves real rhetorical purposes.
When a movement can claim one of the most beloved stories in modern culture as "theirs," it creates a permission structure. That's why a young man who loves Tolkien — maybe he read the books at twelve, maybe he just watched the movies — encounters a community that also loves Tolkien. They speak his language. They quote the same lines. Consider this: they validate his fandom. And slowly, the politics slip in alongside the lore.
It's called "entryism." And it works because the cultural touchstone is genuine. The love for the story is real. The politics parasite on the fandom Which is the point..
The mainstreaming effect
There's a second layer. When extremist rhetoric borrows mainstream cultural references, it launders itself. "I'm not a neo-Nazi, I'm just a fan of Western civilization — like Tolkien." The plausible deniability is built in. Journalists and platform moderators hesitate to flag a Gondor meme because it's just Lord of the Rings. That hesitation is the point Easy to understand, harder to ignore..
Short version: it depends. Long version — keep reading Easy to understand, harder to ignore..
And it's not fringe anymore. Elected officials in multiple countries have used Tolkien references in anti-immigration rhetoric. A European parliament member once tweeted "The White Tree grows again" after an election. This is normalized.
How the Appropriation Works
The mapping isn't random. Extremist readers have developed a fairly consistent interpretive framework. Understanding it helps you spot it — and dismantle it Most people skip this — try not to. Which is the point..
The racial hierarchy of Middle-earth
The core move: treat the fictional races of Middle-earth as allegories for real-world racial categories.
Elves and Dúnedain (Númenóreans) = "Aryans" or "white Europeans." Tall, fair, long-lived, noble, inherently superior. Plus, never mind that Tolkien explicitly describes the Dúnedain as mixed — descended from Edain who intermarried with Elves and later with Middle Men. Never mind that the "high" Elves (Noldor) committed kinslaying, betrayal, and catastrophic pride. The surface traits — fair skin, light eyes, "high" culture — get extracted and frozen.
Short version: it depends. Long version — keep reading That's the part that actually makes a difference..
Men of Darkness (Easterlings, Southrons, Haradrim, Variags) = non-white peoples. That's why the books describe them as "swarthy," "dark-skinned," riding elephants, serving Sauron. Extremist readers stop at the description. They don't ask why these peoples serve Sauron — coercion, ancient grievances, Númenórean imperialism, the fact that Sauron was their god-king for centuries. They see: dark skin = evil That alone is useful..
Orcs = whatever group the reader hates most. Muslims. On the flip side, "They're not really human. In practice, immigrants. Jews. But the "corrupted" nature of orcs — twisted from Elves or Men — makes them perfect for dehumanization rhetoric. Which means black people. " "They can't be reasoned with." "They only understand force.
This is where a lot of people lose the thread Easy to understand, harder to ignore..
The "Great Replacement" narrative
This is the most direct mapping. Gondor's decline — the failing stewards, the mixing with "lesser" peoples, the loss of territory, the siege by dark hordes — gets read as a metaphor for white demographic decline.
Never mind that Gondor's "decline" in the books is political and military, not demographic. Never mind that the "mixing" Tolkien describes is cultural and linguistic, not racial in the modern sense. Never mind that Aragorn's claim to the throne rests on preserving the line of Elendil through the mixing, not in spite of it Less friction, more output..
The narrative is: the West is dying. The king must return. That's why the impurities must be purged. The borders must hold Easy to understand, harder to ignore. Simple as that..
The anti-modernity fantasy
Tolkien's legendarium is explicitly anti-industrial, anti-technological, suspicious of power and machinery. Worth adding: saruman's "mind of metal and wheels" destroys Isengard and the Shire. The Scouring of the Shire is about resisting industrialization and centralized control.
Extremist readers love this. It maps onto eco-fascism, anti-globalism, "blood and soil" agrarianism. The Shire becomes the ideal white ethnostate: homogeneous, rural, traditional, defended by violence when necessary Not complicated — just consistent..
They ignore that the Shire's salvation comes from four hobbits who left, changed, and returned — not from isolation. They ignore that Tolkien's anti-modernity was Catholic, distributist, and deeply suspicious of all concentrated power, including the state.
What Most People Get Wrong
"Tolkien was a racist, so the appropriation makes sense"
This is the most common take. And it's wrong in a way that matters Small thing, real impact..
Tolkien was a man of his time and
…a product of the early‑twentieth‑century British milieu in which casual ethnic stereotypes were commonplace, yet his personal writings reveal a more complex stance. Consider this: in his private correspondence he repeatedly condemned the pseudo‑scientific racism that was gaining traction in Europe, describing it as “a pernicious folly” and insisting that “no man’s worth is measured by the colour of his skin. ” His Catholic worldview emphasized the universal dignity of all peoples created in the image of God, a belief that surfaced in his letters to his son Christopher and in his essay “On Fairy‑Stories,” where he argued that myth should transcend narrow nationalisms rather than reinforce them.
At its core, where a lot of people lose the thread.
Worth adding, Tolkien’s legendarium deliberately blurs rigid racial lines. Even the Orcs, though depicted as irredeemably corrupt, are presented as fallen beings whose misery stems from the malice of Morgoth, not from an inherent racial essence. Consider this: the Half‑elven, such as Elrond and Arwen, embody a synthesis of divergent lineages, and the eventual reunification of the Dúnedain with the peoples of Rohan and the distant lands of the East and South is portrayed not as a threat but as a necessary step toward healing the wounds of the First Age. This theological nuance undercuts any simplistic reading that equates darkness with moral evil.
When extremist groups appropriate Tolkien’s imagery, they are projecting contemporary anxieties onto a text that was never intended to serve as a political manifesto. The author’s own skepticism of absolutist ideologies — whether industrial capitalism, totalitarian states, or ethnic chauvinism — stands in stark contrast to the slogans they co‑opt. Recognizing this dissonance is essential: it allows us to enjoy the mythic richness of Middle‑earth while resisting the temptation to let it become a banner for hatred Simple as that..
In short, Tolkien’s work is a tapestry woven from language, faith, and a deep love for storytelling, not a treatise for racial supremacy. In practice, by examining his letters, his theological convictions, and the internal logic of his mythos, we see that the appropriation by extremist movements is a misreading — one that ignores the author’s own warnings against the very hatred they now invoke. A proper appreciation of Tolkien, therefore, demands both an acknowledgment of his historical limits and a firm rejection of any attempt to weaponize his imagination for divisive ends No workaround needed..
