Easterlings, Haradrim, and Others

[WellTemperedClavier]

Hey, everyone! I've been a LotR fan since childhood, though I've never before gotten involved in the online fandom.

So I've always been kind of fascinated by the various Men under the sway of Sauron. How this reflects on Tolkien's (and his time's) own attitudes on race has been discussed a great deal already. Suffice it to say, it's quite clear that these Men are not intrinsically any better or worse than the Men of Gondor or Rohan. What I am curious about is if fandom (or even ancillary materials) have ever done much to explore these groups?

Haradrim - Given their use of curved swords and oliphaunts, Tolkien obviously intended them as stand-ins for people from the Near East. Far Harad seems to have been a stand-in for Africa. But given the sheer size of Harad there would have likely been many different nations and cultures. I know there was some Numenorean influence via Umbar, and that the Haradrim were caught between Numenor and Mordor during the Second Age (which suggests to me that Numenor bears at least some blame for the Haradrim predicament in the Third Age).

Easterlings - I know that the Easterlings date back to the First Age, though my understanding is that the Easterlings of Beleriand are not the same as the Easterlings of later ages. I vaguely remember some of the movie tie-in materials indicating that they had big cities farther east, but I'm not sure I've seen this anywhere else. The movie also had them being heavily infantry-based. The books, so far as I know, don't speak of great cities and my impression was that the Easterlings were mostly nomadic.

Occasionally I see some fan art presenting Easterlings as East Asian in appearance. As someone of partial East Asian descent, I rather like this inclusion, but my feeling is that Tolkien himself probably envisioned them as more akin to Slavic or Magyar and other Central Asian peoples. The Wainriders, at the very least, were nomadic. Some maps of Middle Earth that propose to show the entire continent will have a sometimes enormous chunk of land east of Rhun, though I don't know if the people there would be considered Easterlings or not (I suppose by Dunedain standards they would be).

Variags - Distinct from the Easterlings, though functionally they seem pretty similar? The "Variag" name may come from Norse peoples who were in early Russia (and eventually drifted down to Constantinople).

Dunlendings - No one talks much about them, but they still qualify under this umbrella. Most of what I see suggests they took some inspiration from Celtic peoples, based on Tolkien's own notes regarding Dunlendish. It sounds like the Numenoreans treated them quite awfully. Apparently a lot of Dunlendings mixed with the Dunedain, at least up in Eriador.

That's about all I have. And this is all based on memory and a quick review of the available wikis. But is there much discussion of this? If I could choose one hypothetical Middle Earth media project to exist, it'd be something about resistance against Sauron in either Harad or the East (maybe both, though that would be tricky to do well due to the distances involved). You could even throw in the Blue Wizards, though I'd want to be pretty careful about that since it could dip into White Savior trope if done carelessly.

I can definitely see the difficulty, however. Tolkien never wrote in much detail about these regions even in his notes. While this provides more freedom to anyone inclined to make the attempt, it also creates a lot of pitfalls. There's also the issue as to how Tolkienesque it can (or even should) feel. Personally, I'd like to see something that maintains some of the same values--courage, the importance of common decency, respect for the natural world, and suspicion of power--as the source material.

I know that was a bit of a rambling post, but there was a lot on my mind. I'm mostly just curious if there's ever been much discussion about this sort of thing.

[Rivvy Elf]

@WellTemperedClavier Welcome! Given that uhh I am in haste (between adjusting to being an admin of this fun and awesome site to revising a book manuscript to an editor in which it originally touches on much of of what you want in hypothetical media), I'll just put this quote out here that should help answer some of your questions on Haradrim and Easterlings.

“Rhun is the Elvish word for ‘east.’ Asia, China, Japan, and all the things which people in the west regard as far away. And south of Harad is Africa, the hot countries" -JRR Tolkien

From: Henry Resnick, “An Interview with Tolkien [March 2, 1966],” Niekas No. 18 (Late Spring 1967).

[WellTemperedClavier]

@WellTemperedClavier Welcome! Given that uhh I am in haste (between adjusting to being an admin of this fun and awesome site to revising a book manuscript to an editor in which it originally touches on much of of what you want in hypothetical media), I'll just put this quote out here that should help answer some of your questions on Haradrim and Easterlings.

“Rhun is the Elvish word for ‘east.’ Asia, China, Japan, and all the things which people in the west regard as far away. And south of Harad is Africa, the hot countries" -JRR Tolkien

From: Henry Resnick, “An Interview with Tolkien [March 2, 1966],” Niekas No. 18 (Late Spring 1967).

Thanks! This manuscript is a story someone wrote about this sort of thing? I understand if you can't answer, but if so, it's cool to see someone had similar thoughts on the matter.

At some points I'd even considered tackling a fanfiction for this, but I'm not sure I'd have the time or energy for anything particularly detailed. I'd also want to do something fairly detailed linguistically (in Tolkien's way) and I haven't the faintest idea how I'd go about doing that.

[Rivvy Elf]

@WellTemperedClavier i would know, I’m the one writing it right now ;)

It’s over at the Cottage of Lost play, where we post our fanfics and fan art and fan stuff. Look for Outlaws of the Inland Sea.

As for how you want to start it, the question I think you should think about is why Tolkien created his languages to begin with, and whether you have similar reasons. I used traditional Chinese because it is completely different from the foundations of Elvish, but Chinese’s foundation comes from nature itself.

[Lail]

I have/had an idea to write a short story about a Harad woman working to fight against Sauron with the overall goal of having Harad rule Harad without a Dark Lord, Gondorian, or other foreign influence. Obviously, she would ultimately fail according to the plot laid out in the books, but may make some challenges/differences on a small scale. One specific idea I had, as an animal rights person, was for her to liberate mumakil being transported from jungles and trained for riding in combat and allowing them to live peaceful lives together as a herd somewhere safe. That said, I haven't had a chance to do so and not sure I will so it may forever remain just an idea, but I'd be interested in reading others' stories based on similar premises since each person will execute it in unique ways.

In my opinion, the books fail to mention or recognize that an entire nation or group of people will not always hold the same viewpoints and will not necessarily agree with leadership decisions being made for those peoples, and while some may have been loyal to Sauron or allied with him for their own reasons, I always felt there must have been many who would have disagreed and resisted (for various reasons), but we never got those stories because our reading is a very one-sided experience from the view of the Gondorians, elves, etc.

edited to add: also, if you're willing to step out of Middle-earth, there are a lot of excellent non-Euro centric fantasy books out there these days. happy to offer recommendations/talk more if you're interested.

[Silky Gooseness]

Intrigued by your note on Variags - I had never heard that before, so went off to Tolkien Gateway which yielded this:

In the Rus' chronicle of Nestor the name Variags is used for the people, which are usually named Varangians and which were Scandinavian rovers that overran parts of Rus' and reached Constantinople in the 9th and 10th centuries. A group of Varangians formed the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Emperor.

Variag is a Slavic word derived from Norse Varingar "mercenary people" (vár "contract"). The Varangian Guard were Norse body-guards of the Byzantine Emperor.

It has been suggested that Tolkien adopted the Slavic term to indicate that the Variags were possibly mercenaries serving a possible Lord of Khand.

[Eldy Dunami]

Following up on @Silky Gooseness's quote, I've previously had fun playing around with the Rus' analogy and I think it can easily be made to fit Middle-earth (preferably with less slavery). As Viking analogues we have the Germanic-coded Northmen of Rhovanion (discussed at length in UT, Cirion and Eorl), one branch of which, the Men of Dale, had a maritime tradition. At the very least, someone had to bring that Dorwinion wine north, and we're told that Bard's grandson's "realm now [as of III.3018] reaches far south and east of Esgaroth" (FOTR, II 2); i.e., along the course of the River Running (Celduin). I like to imagine there were other Northmen-related peoples faring up and down the other rivers of the Sea of Rhûn's drainage basin. Any southern branch—the "canon" maps of Middle-earth don't show any rivers flowing into the Inland Sea from the south, but surely there were some—would've been neighbors of Khand. It's easy to imagine some of them becoming mercenaries in the service of local rulers, as well as the ultimate suzerain of Khand (at some points in its history), Sauron.

[Rivvy Elf]

Khand, like Variags, also doesn't seem to have any etymology related to any of Tolkien's languages. And the only thing that sounds similar to Khand would be "Khan." If I were to pronounce Khand a certain way, it becomes "Khandi" which in Mandarin Chinese would be transliterated as the land of the Khans. Though in Mandarin Chinese, it would be "Sihandi (Genghis Khan is Chengdi Sihan in Mandarin)." We don't know the borders of Khand so one could equivocate it to the various nomadic hordes, like the Oirat, Golden, Ilkhanate, etc. who facilitated trade.

The fact that the Wainriders made an alliance with Khand implies that Rhun and Khand have had a checkered past with each other, just like how the East of the East (<insert Chinese Dynasty>) and <insert nomadic civilization> had past disputes.

Perhaps there is a Khan of Khand. Or a Khagan, or a Chanyu, perhaps?

[Hanasian]

Good post this. Fascinating read through all the replies too. Interesting connection between Variags and Varangians. There is quite the intricate reenactment society called 'The New Varangian Guard' that is broken into 'chapters' with a sub-name.

Haradrim
Easterlings
Dunlendings

I Don't really have anything to add as far as the deep lore or meanings of the various clans of men, but I did co-write a rather deep roleplay based in the 4th Age that was a mash-up of Tolkien's Middle Earth and Glen Cook's Black Company. Basically King Aragorn commissioned a mercenary company to help deal with various warlords that cropped up in the lands of Harad and Rhun post-war. It was based on the line that Aragorn and Eomer fought wars together in later years. Those who signed on were war veterans from all the combatant countries of men. Had an Easterling character, a Haradian character, and a Dunlending who became known as 'The Dirty Three'.

I can see a video game in this .... 'The Shadow of Mordor - The Wrath of Khand'

Anyway, I'll bow out and let you all get back to the deeper lore of it all.