Author: Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy / Source: WIRED
Fantasy author Andy Duncan was inspired to write his story “Senator Bilbo” after noticing that the segregationist senator Theodore Bilbo shares a name with J.R.R. Tolkien‘s hobbit hero Bilbo Baggins.
“‘Senator Bilbo’ is this parody in which you have this racist demagogue stomping around the world of the halflings, in a sort of desperate holding pattern to keep at bay all the change that is coming about as a result of what seems to have been the War of the Ring,” Duncan says in Episode 336 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
The story, which appears in Duncan’s new collection An Agent of Utopia, was also inspired by Michael Moorcock, who has criticized Tolkien for depicting creatures such as orcs, trolls, and goblins as intrinsically evil.
“It’s hard to miss the repeated notion in Tolkien that some races are just worse than others, or that some peoples are just worse than others,” Duncan says. “And this seems to me—in the long term, if you embrace this too much—it has dire consequences for yourself and for society.”
“Senator Bilbo” first appeared in 2001, but its references to border walls and a “Shire First” policy make it seem more relevant than ever. Duncan says that’s because the story deals with themes that are, unfortunately, timeless. “In many ways President Trump is unique, but in many ways we have seen his like before,” he says. “We have seen the forces that he has tapped into on the ascendency before.”
Duncan believes that these reactionary waves come in constant cycles, so it’s important for the response to be cyclical as well.
“As Tolkien well knew, the war is never quite…
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