I enjoyed reading The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and various other works by J.R.R. Tolkien as much as the next person.
However, having read them many times, I now find a few things rather disturbing:
- The notion of a race that should be exterminated at any cost (i.e. the Orcs) gives me pause. The word "folk" is used to refer to the Orcs in one place in The Lord of the Rings.
- The whole story of the Dúnedain and the Downfall of Númenor is chillingly similar to twisted mythology concocted by Adolf Hitler and his cronies for the origin of their Aryan Master Race (they professed themselves the survivors of Atlantis).
Now, it's most likely that Tolkien was merely spinning a good yarn, and I'm overreacting. Given the emotional investment I have made by reading these stories, I have to work from that assumption.
But I'm keeping this in the back of my mind in case other evidence pops up.