Tolkien was fucking huge on monarchies. Despite writing multiple parts in his stories where someone having absolute power was also potrayed as a bad thing, he never seemed to put 1 and 2 together.
The original anarcho-monarchist
He actually said as much in a letter to his son: “the older I become, the more I find myself drawn to anarchism, that is, unconstitutional monarchy.”
It wasn’t problematic for Aryan-like white people to have a monarchy. Just the orcs, the dwarfs etc. who all happened to come from the barbaric east.
Remember how every Elf who did evil things was explicitly stated to be “dark” somehow? Whether it was hair, skin or just their “general look”?
Makes me really want to take my ideas for world building a ttrpg setting a bit more seriously, where inbred monarchists explicitly reviled and are almost solely responsible for an apocalyptic calamity destructive enough that each faction has enacted a revolution of some sort of is actively working towards it.
Surprise surprise, it’s explicately Marxist where magic isn’t consecrated by ancient bloodlines or esoteric race science but comes from ones connection with the land and their fellow man as a sort of natural resource that can be managed sustainably to bring about a post scarcity age of magic where all people’s lives are improved. But monarchies, as well as theocracies, functioned psychically as a sump for magic to extract and concentrate it from the people that work the land to the elites who viciously pursue further ruthless exploitation to empower themselves.
Main hallmarks include definitely-not-revolutionary-France, a fantasy year 30 years war, a democratic caliphate that successfully conquers and integrates “not Italy”, and an orc not-Karl Marx. (Orcs being one of the few “races” in the setting descending from people warped into cute wooly boarlike pigfolk as, essentially, explicately a consequence of pursuing a magical religious war at the behest of an unjust monarchy rather than-- y’know-- being green “incert racist stereotype here.”)
Oh and dwarf Soviets naturally, with the “dwarves” being entirely a false rumor for mundane humans basically of normal height appearing universally strong and stocky from factory work, quality food, excellent healthcare, and extremely inventive because of universal education. Essentially, finding creative ways to take established reactionary high fantasy tropes and filter them through a materialist lense.
