All Art Is Political: Yes or No?

Lately something I've seen a lot on Twitter, where I follow a lot of writers and other creative types, is the notion that "all art is political." Here is a detailed explanation of this belief from someone who popularized it and here is a rebuttal. I first heard of this notion many years before from a college acquaintance who's now a minister in a very conservative non-denominational church and an active Christian home-schooler (he said that all art has "a message" and essentially there's no neutrality), but it has gained especial prominence in recent years with the rise of various social justice movements online.

Coming from who it does (conservative Christians and the Internet social justice crowd), the whole idea sets my teeth on edge. Although historically the former has had more power than the latter (disapproval by the Catholic Legion of Decency could doom a film), political criticism of art and culture has become more prominent lately with the young-adult fiction controversies. The author-withdrawn novels Blood Heir and A Place for Wolves (the links go to discussions of each controversy individually) are two significant examples. Seriously, the apologies the YA community (or at least some of its more belligerent members) have extorted from the writers in question sound like something out of a Cultural Revolution "struggle session" (I'm not the only one to think that) and speaking as a historian this also brings to mind things like McCarthyism. It sets a precedent for political critique of works not intended to be political and, at worst, political control.

(The U.S. constitutional arrangements make legal censorship all but impossible, but the outrage machines on both sides of the political spectrum can lead to books or movies getting shelved, creatives' careers getting ruined, etc. Criticism isn't censorship, but it can become that de facto if the critics can intimidate the object of their critique or convince gatekeepers like agents, book studios, movie publishers, radio stations, etc. Look how #NoConfederate is threatening to deep-six HBO's first alternate-history project since Fatherland or the hammering of the Dixie Chicks' career.)

However, whether all art is truly political or not depends on how one defines "political," as the rebuttal article above points out. Some books or films are clearly "message fiction"--Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale as a response to the growing power of the Christian Right and the Iranian Revolution and the TV adaptation is clearly about Donald Trump, while It Can't Happen Here is a warning of possible fascism. Get Out is about how even white liberals can be dangerous to minorities and Starship Troopers was written in response to the US limiting nuclear testing and the Soviets breaking their promise to do likewise and has a lot of commentary on citizenship and responsibility. Less subtly there's Orson Scott Card's Empire and the neo-Nazi The Turner Diaries (nope, not linking to it) or the gun politics of Newt Gingrich's 1945.

(German commandos mow down nuclear scientists and their families in Oak Ridge while gloating about how banning guns from the site only made them defenseless against armed attackers and are ultimately defeated and left hogtied by Tennessee good old boys led by either the recently-demobilized Audie Murphy or the retired Sergeant York. I'm not a fan of gun control but this is seriously overplaying one's hand. I would have depicted the good old boys ambushing the Germans, killing a bunch and slowing them down enough for the scientists to escape, but not defeating them so thoroughly and not without taking significant losses themselves once they lose the element of surprise. Considering how poorly 1945 sold, a bit of nuance would've probably been helpful.)

By the above standard, most literature isn't political. I can't think of any sort of "message" in the monster movie Deep Rising or The Hobbit (the book). Tolkien himself objected to the idea that The Lord of the Rings was "really" about World War II or that Mordor was Germany and even described what the story would have looked like if that were the case.

However, if you define "political" to include "reflective of the author's values" or "reflecting the historical or cultural context in which they're written" rather than explicit author soapboxing, things get a bit broader. Tolkien's work in general is all about human fallibility (and there's a lot of criticism of industrialization and nostalgia for rural England) and the story of the hobbits in particular is about how the humble can be more important than the great. The film adaptations of The Hobbit included the new character Tauriel because Tolkien's original book lacked female characters completely and although there were a few women in The Lord of the Rings, their roles were not substantial compared to the men. Meanwhile, Highlander has a moral of self-sacrifice--the Immortals are sterile and Connor's refusal to abandon his wife leaves her to grow old and die without the children she wanted (something she blames herself for). To avoid repeating this mistake (and save himself the pain of watching his lover age and die while he remains young a second time), Connor eschews romantic relationships for centuries.

Now to examine some of my own currently-available work to see how it counts as "political," especially if one incorporates a more expanded use of the term.

Political

The Thing in the Woods-I didn't intend for this to be a "message book" but it does reflect my values in that it's pro-gun and anti-racist. And the context of the early 2000s in the United States plays a major role in the characterization of most of the cast. Although I didn't go in intending to write a "message book" (I was inspired by a Call of Cthulhu scenario about "Lovecraft country" getting suburbanized and wanted to set it in Georgia and not New England to be different), the tale grew with the telling. The immediate sequel The Atlanta Incursion (with the publisher now) ties in with Black Lives Matter, while the in-progress third novel The Walking Worm ties in with the opiate crisis. Early 2000s cultural-political context ahoy!

Nicor-The story is antiwar even though it's on the surface an action-adventure monster story. Also a commentary on the things a man will do for women, particularly in a warlike and patriarchal society--the protagonist hopes to get enough loot and glory from going a-Viking to get a wife "or two."

Ten Davids, Two Goliaths and Discovery and Flight-Two novellas written in Lindsay Buroker's Fallen Empire universe, during the rebellion against the tyrannical Sarellian Empire rather than the troubled aftermath. Although my stories avoid the shades of gray of Buroker's work (which I've noted resembles the Arab Spring), that the Empire created its own enemy by drumming the protagonist out of the Navy for disobeying orders by destroying the bridge of a hijacked ship with beam weapons rather than blowing up the whole ship with a torpedo and his friend is a recovering drug addict who'd been sentenced to personality-altering medical treatment of questionable value is a moral judgement. The world-building I did for Buroker goes into detail about how the Imperial system and its Alliance successor state function and that's definitely political. Basically the Empire is corrupt and abusive toward dissidents, politics and big-big business are incestuously entwined, and many of its economic policies are focused on make-work projects to keep the masses busy while the Alliance in seeking to avoid the tyranny of the Empire is rather weak militarily and perhaps a little too hands-off.

Lord Giovanni's Daughter-I didn't plan for this to be a "message story" either, but Adriana is deliberately characterized to not be a passive "damsel in distress." I also wanted to subvert the fantasy-barbarian stereotype with protagonist John Fiore, who wants to build a library with his mercenary wages. Encouraging women to take initiative? Statement on the importance of education?

Illegal Alien-This started out as a joke about the different meanings of the word "alien," but I wrote it at the time of the Si Se Puede immigrant marches and deliberately hoped to play on that. Plus the protagonist and his friends wouldn't be trying to sneak into the U.S. illegally if there was a guest worker program like the WWII braceros and the hero's back-story touches on NAFTA's effects on Mexico.

Ubermensch and Needs Must-Two stories featuring an Indian-American supervillain protagonist and his rivalry with the hero Silverbolt. I did write an Indian-American protagonist because I actually agree with people's concerns about the lack of representation. The superhero antagonist Silverbolt hates guns due to a domestic violence incident in his past and one character is a stripper and totally unapologetic and unashamed about it. Plus there's a whole lot of Nietzsche quoting. :)

"Coil Gun"-Part of the Pressure Suite collection, this one depicts global nuclear war as survivable (albeit still extremely, extremely sucky) with proper civil defense preparations and ground- and spaced-based missile defenses. It's also critical of racism and religious bigotry, as is the Afrikanerverse in general. You can see my discussion of that here and here.

Picking Up Plans In Palma-This one gets more into religion than politics in that a character (a Catholic) being in a sexual relationship with another (a Protestant) but not married is a major plot point, but it does share the same anti-bigotry moral of "Coil Gun." There's also the added twist that it's a critique of complementarianism and "biblical patriarchy" from a Christian perspective, something I also discuss in the above blog posts.

Debatable

Melon Heads-Not written with any political intention. However, the frat boys of Pi Iota Gamma are much more dangerous (and morally worse) than the titular Melon Heads, who are already suffering from diminished mental capacity and have been reduced to an essentially animalistic state by medical mistreatment and decades living in the woods. A #MeToo story written nearly 15 years early? And in the original draft the frat boys were a drug dealer and a couple of his goons, so you could argue the story makes moral judgments on drug dealing.

The Beast of the Bosporus-I started writing this as essentially "a Lovecraft story in the Ottoman Empire and not New England," but I elaborated on Sokolli's Janissary bodyguard a bit due to concerns from members of my writing group that the story could be interpreted as anti-Muslim. Now there's a Muslim character who isn't a drunk (Sultan Selim II) or a practitioner of dark magic with possible anti-Semitic tendencies (the protagonist Sokolli). Still not a "message book" and not intended to make a statement about anything.

Not Really

I am the Wendigo-My first story for which I was paid and most definitely not a "message book." However, it's also incredibly short. Furthermore, one could wring a moral out of it--the human father is a predator (albeit under utterly extreme circumstances) and is prey himself. However, that's really pushing it.

Lord of the Dolorous Tower-Two young men go meddling in the tomb of a fallen Dark Lord and trouble ensues. One of the two is clearly the dominant party in the relationship (stronger personality and somewhat more educated) and both parties' motivations include impressing girls so one could make some kind of sociological commentary, but really?

Sam-A Doberman vs. a monster that only it can detect. Perhaps a commentary on not being believed when one warns of danger? That's pushing it too.

So getting back to the original point, based on my own work alone I argue that not all art is political, but the stories that are longer and have more depth often touch on significant political, social, or cultural themes. And in the long run, it's these works that have staying power. The Handmaid's Tale will be discussed for years to come, while many schlocky paperback space opera or monster books written at the same time are sold at library book sales for a buck each. It is my hope that The Thing in the Woods is and its sequels are remembered as "horror of the early aughts" and discussed by cultural historians and the like in the same way as, say, the horror of the 1980s.

What do you think?

On "Problematic" Elements in a Fantasy World

On Twitter this morning, I came across the following Tweet by Avery Edison, re-tweeted by well-known author Dan Wells, whose John Cleaver books I am a fan of.

Avery Edison ‏@aedison 20 Feb 2013

I HAVE CREATED AN EPIC FANTASY WORLD WHERE DOGS CAN FLY AND GOLD CAN SPEAK and also women are subjugated sorry that's how it was then OKAY?

This isn't the first time I've seen that argument. A particularly vocal member of New Millennium Diverse Fantasy (a Facebook group I would join if it weren't for how aggravating some of its members are) insisted the manifold cruelties of A Song of Ice and Fire cannot be defended on the grounds of "realism" because this is a world where there are dragons (capable of nursing from lactating human women no less) and the Others.

The argument is superficially plausible, but emphasize "superficial." The pre-industrial societies most fantasy worlds are based on (including Martin's) for the most part sucked. For everybody (by modern standards even nobles were poor), but women in particular had it bad. A feudal economy and/or social structure is going to produce elements the Internet Social Justice crowd will call "problematic" by its very nature. Power corrupts and putting all the power in the hands of rich, strong young men is going to have bad consequences for women, the poor, etc. For all its vaunted power, the medieval Catholic Church tried and failed to restrain private war, violence against the Jews, forced marriage, etc., and this was an institution that supposedly had authority over said rich, strong young men's everlasting souls.

(If anything, this is a reason to call out fantasy worlds with princes, princesses, etc. for how they idealize a time that was very bad for almost everybody. George RR Martin's brutalities deconstruct these tropes--the handsome prince Joffrey Baratheon is a spoiled sadist, the pretty princess Sansa Stark is unbelievably naive and suffers for it, and rather than being a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, the union between King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister is unequal and abusive. And the violence the brutish Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch inflict on the Riverlands is based on a specific military tactic from medieval warfare.)

J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has been criticized by SF author David Brin due to how, despite its feudal-ish nature, the society is depicted as fairly benign. Perhaps the Stewards of Gondor keep a close eye on the nobles so they don't oppress the common people (in the vein of the Chinese emperors or certain Byzantine dynasties--and Tolkien himself compared Gondor to Byzantium, so that might actually work), but I don't remember this from the text. The Knights of Dol Amroth, in order to have the leisure time needed to become effective cavalry, almost certainly rely on the labor of a large number of peasants. Human nature being what it is, a more realistic portrayal of this type of society would see peasant unrest and complaints, especially in bad times. It's not like real history lacked for them in England or in France.

Now, this is not to say any story based on such a society HAS to be an atrocity pit. Even the pre-modern societies all of us can agree were cruel and restrictive (toward women and others) weren't nearly as restrictive as one might think. Misogynistic medieval Europe still produced personalities like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. And in fact, fantasy elements can actually serve to undermine social injustice.

For example, the Wheel of Time series (which I admit I haven't read) depicts magic as something only women can use safely. Such women would have a much greater capacity to defend themselves against male violence, which would reduce the need for male protection and thus male control. Even oft-criticized Martin depicts the ruling Targaryen dynasty, whose members of either sex have a unique ability to bond with dragons and thus have an overpowering weapon in war, forbidding the conquered Westerosi nobles from claiming the right of First Night over peasant women.

So if you're going to base your fantasy world on a pre-industrial society, depict it with all its rough edges. If you're going to depict it being less unpleasant than it was, justify it. Although Avery Edison's flying dogs and talking gold wouldn't make faux medieval Europe a less misogynistic place, a woman with feminist inclinations and a fire-breathing dragon (and the ear of a man with similar assets) just might.

Good Uruk-Hai and a Female Robb Stark? Some Fan-Fics For You

The keen minds of my alternate-history forum are at it again, with two new alternate-universe stories taking place in the worlds of A Song of Ice and Fire and Lord of the Rings respectively.

The first one is entitled "The She-Wolf Reborn" and the gist of it is that Robb Stark is born a girl named Anna. Although she looks a great deal like her mother Catelyn Stark, she takes after her late aunt Lyanna in personality. Mayhem ensues.

"Butterflies" from this divergence include Theon Greyjoy at the Wall (for trying to rape Anna), Sansa Stark betrothed to Eddard Karstark and having the dreams of a three-eyed crow, actually meeting Willas Tyrell, and others I won't describe for reasons of spoilers. Author JBO has been so kind as to use some of my ideas, such as a different fate for Mycah the butcher's son. Although he said things are still going to go to hell, they'll go to hell rather differently from canon and I'd like to see it.

The second story is entitled "Saruman of Many Devices." The premise is that the palantir Saruman used in canon to communicate with (and be corrupted by) Sauron has some kind of defect. Instead of connecting Isengard to Mordor, it connects Isengard to Center, the artificial intelligence from David Drake and S.M. Stirling's "The General" series. Saruman in the books is an innovator already, with his Uruk-Hai using gunpowder at Helms Deep and Isengard being transformed into an industrialized war-production site. With the aid of Center, he brings rifles and artillery into Middle-Earth and hilarity (and awesomeness) ensue. Among other things, the Uruk-Hai (under the command of Lurtz) come to the aid of Arwen when she flees with Frodo from the Ringwraiths and earn grudging admission to the anti-Sauron alliance and Uruk armies battle Sauron's horse barbarians as they attack north of Gondor. But the secret of gunpowder weapons has begun to spread...

(As those more familiar with the LOTR books vs. the films can tell, the story draws a lot from the films, like the character Lurtz, Arwen being the one who takes Frodo to Rivendell, etc.)

You all have fun!

Another Note On "Martin's Middle Earth"--Female Warriors

I've given some more thought to "Lord of the Rings if done by George R.R. Martin" scenario I posted here and I've come up with some more ideas.  Here there be spoilers, so watch out...

Despite the faux medieval setting, Martin has included several notable "warrior women" like Brienne of Tarth (who's as big and strong as most men), Asha Greyjoy, Maege and Dacey Mormont and the other women of Bear Island, and the pint-sized death machine Arya Stark.  Although the Norse had "shieldmaidens," women being active combatants in medieval times was fairly rare due to cultural norms and physical size issues.

It's been a long time since I've read Lord of the Rings or seen the movies, but the only female combatant I recall depicted in action is Eowyn.  Galadriel is described as having thrown down both during the War of the Ring and in the era depicted by The Silmarillon, but that could have been in a command role as easily as physically grappling with an enemy.  The movies depict Arwen as a better rider than Aragorn who evades the Nazgul to bring Frodo to Rivendell and even draws steel on them, but I don't think the rather old-fashioned Tolkien would have gone for that.

So, basically Martin's version of Lord of the Rings would have a far more active and violent female cast.  I'm drawing comparisons now to the Elves, who are different from the other peoples of the West due to being immortal and the oldest race, and the Dornish of A Song of Ice and Fire who practiced equal inheritance regardless of gender, allow their women much more sexual freedom, and were never conquered by the Targaryens.  The Elves could be a more gender-equitable society due to their smaller numbers and how long-lived the Elves are.

(Even if Elves have the same physical strength differentials than humans have, due to the Elves being so long-lived, Elven women would have more time to learn ways around that--think martial arts.  Even if they'd still be at a disadvantage against Elven men who would still be stronger and have the same thousands-of-years-of-free-time thing going, they'd be a very dangerous opponent for a man, a dwarf, or an Orc.)

Thus Martin's LOTR, if it included the flight to Rivendell from the Nazgul, would resemble the movie more than the book.  I'm thinking we might see Galadriel throwing down with the Forces of Darkness at the Battle Under The Trees and the destruction of Dol Guldur as well.  I'm thinking you'd see female Elf warriors as well, probably more in the vein of Asha Greyjoy (who is fairly normal in looks and size and seems to rely on non-grappling weapons like throwing-axes) than Brienne of Tarth (who is physically man-like to the point some fans have guessed she had a glandular problem).

As far as humans are concerned, Eowyn would still be there.  Making her, the one who slew the Witch-King of Angmar, into some Sansa Stark analogue who gets abused and forced into marriage for dynastic reasons, comes off as dubious and almost insulting even if there are some similar circumstances (a man who desires her, regardless of her opinions, and the dynastic thing) and the brutality is par for the course in Martin's work. 

However, if she's the one who kills Wormtongue, makes the decision about what to do with his rape baby (be it abortion or telling her infanticidal brother that she isn't going to allow a child to be killed because the father is a pervy traitor) if Martin's LOTR includes that plot element, and engages in hard-core warrior stuff like in canon, that might make up for it.

She could still kill the Witch-King of Angmar per canon or perhaps Saruman, especially since in the latter case there'd be a revenge element.  Even with the One Ring Sauron's physical body could be destroyed, so Eowyn could relieve Saruman of the hand with the Ring on it and then relieve him of his head.  If she manages to avoid thrown fireballs or other magical attacks or telekinetic wizard-staff-kung-fu like in the movie, it'd be a fight worthy of her canonical battle with the Witch-King.

(Of course, apparently one reason Bilbo could carry the Ring for so long without ill effect is because of his good heart and how he pitied Gollum and spared him when he could have killed him while invisible.  An embittered, angry Eowyn might be in serious danger of being corrupted by the Ring.  Unless of course she's wise enough to have it gotten away from her immediately, and she seems like she's got a brain based on what I remember from the books.)

Great...now I'm tempted to write a fan-fic depicting the battle between Eowyn and Saruman, with the latter's taunts and mind-games expositing the whole sick back-story.

Not sure who else there'd be.  If we want an analogue to Bear Island, where the women became warriors because the Ironborn and wildings would attack them while the men were fishing, maybe the Gondorian provinces closest to Umbar and its corsairs or the Easterling borders have a military tradition among the women as well?

About female warriors and the Dwarves, that might be trickier due to the fact that I think Tolkien said only a third of Dwarves are female and many Dwarven men never marry and instead devote themselves to their work.  Such a culture would have even more surplus males to expend in war and would have even more reason to be protective of women, even though I can imagine female dwarves being very physically formidable.

Thoughts on "Lord of the Rings"...If Written By George R.R. Martin

On my message-board, someone asked what The Lord of the Rings would be like if it were written by George R.R. Martin, he of the complicated characterizations and moral grayness, rather than by J.R.R. Tolkien.  The user whose handle is Jello Biafra said in Martin's Middle-Earth, one of the protagonists who try to use the One Ring.  Granted, that happened at the end anyway, but I imagine much earlier and with more impact.

That's a nice intellectual exercise, so I think I'll give it a spin.  Here there be spoilers, so be ye warned...

*In A Game of Thrones, Ned Stark reveals to Queen Cersei Lannister that he knows she's been passing off the children of an incestuous affair with her brother as the heirs to King Robert Baratheon and tells her flee while she can.  She has her cousin assassinate the king and Ned ends up being executed.  In Martin's more cynical Middle Earth, I'm imagining the result of Aragorn's refusal to take the One Ring at Amon Hen (at least that happens in the movie) would be that Boromir successfully claims it or, more realistically, it is captured by the Uruk-Hai and taken to Saruman.

*As a result of possessing the One Ring, Saruman becomes MUCH more dangerous.  In addition to his whole "evil persuasive ability" being cranked up to eleven, I'm imagining him becoming an even more powerful physical combatant and being able to supernaturally accelerate the breeding and growth of the Uruk-Hai.  Rohan is forced into submission, with Eowyn made the puppet of her "advisor and consort" Grima Wormtongue.  The Rohirrim are then forced to fight alongside the Dunlendings, the Uruk-Hai, and other minions of Saruman against their former allies in Gondor, much like how the Lannisters forced the Riverlords to lay siege to their own allies in Riverrun after the Red Wedding.  Maybe Eomer survives Saruman's victory and wages a guerrilla war, hoping to rescue his sister and assassinate Wormtongue.  This would be like the Brotherhood Without Banners and (maybe) what the Blackfish is up to after the fall of Riverrun.

*If you want to get really dark, have Eowyn become pregnant as a result of Wormtongue's...attentions.  If Eomer is able to successfully rescue her and kill her "consort" (or, knowing her, she does it herself and escapes with her brother), she could try abortion and, given how crude the methods were back then, end up dead, infertile, or crippled.  If the child is born, there'd be the choice of killing someone who, though personally innocent, represents a dynastic threat to any of Eomer's children or Eowyn's children with a better husband, or keeping it alive on the chance Eomer is killed in battle before fathering an heir of his own and that said child could be used to command the support of the Dunlendings.

(Given how Wormtongue is shorter than the other Rohirrim and darker while they're blonde, I'm guessing he has Dunlending blood.  A half-Dunlending King of Rohan could be used to win them over if, say, Saruman suffers a major reverse or, if the Dunlenders get really hammered, he could be imposed on them as a vassal of Rohan.)

This would be analogous to how Tyrion Lannister marries Sansa Stark as a means of getting a claim on Winterfell, or how the vile Ramsay Bolton marries the (fake) Arya Stark for the same purpose.  I can imagine Wormtongue being far more like Ramsay than Tyrion, although given the fiction that Eowyn is queen and he's her prime minister (or something close enough), he couldn't be as openly nasty and abusive.

Poor Eodred Grimasson or whatever his name would be.  An tyrannical dad, a very unhappy mom, and an uncle who wants to kill him, use him for political shenanigans, or perhaps even both.

*Meanwhile, Gondor faces the possibility of being crushed between Saruman and Sauron.  To avoid this fate, they resort to breeding their own armies of Orcs (possibly using the wild men who helped the Rohirrim get to Gondor in the canonical books as breeding stock, since they'd escaped from the orc breeding-pits in the past) and scorched-earth campaigns to deny the enemy resources.  Since Gondor's armies are too small to challenge Sauron's in open battle, I'm imagining a brutal chevauchée across the Anduin into territory under Sauron's control to kill as many of his subjects as possible and bug out before Sauron can bring his armies to bear.  This would be analogous to Tywin Lannister using Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch, etc. to ravage enemy territory and strip it of supplies.  And meanwhile, Denethor and Aragorn would plot against each other.  Hopefully Aragorn will have learned from not taking the Ring to be more ruthless and sneaky--if he's still alive at this point.

After all, in Tolkien's letters, he wrote that Sauron was so evil that all kinds of "extreme" methods were justified in fighting him, including the West "(breeding) or hiring its own legions of orcs" or deliberately ravaging the land to deny it to the enemy.

In order to compete with the more industrialized regimes of Mordor and Isengard, maybe Gondor could impose Stalinist industrialization policies that involve squeezing the surplus of the agrarian population to feed industrial cities (and thus causing mass starvation) and slave labor.

*The Ents would be as genocidally destructive of the orcs per canon, with this being graphically depicted.  Bonus points if the Ents have a druid-like cult of human followers that practice human sacrifice, much like how in A Dance With Dragons (I think) features flashbacks to human sacrifices being offered to the Old Gods in the weirwood groves.

*We'd have POVs in the areas where the armies are marching to show just how destructive the war is to the common folk.  In A Clash of Kings, even though it's been a long time since I've read it, I recall Arya and her friends traveling through the Riverlands and seeing all sorts of horrible things.  The Riverlands were being ravaged by war, with the soldiers of both sides preying on everyone.  Maybe Mordor's armies use Gondorian peasants as human shields when laying siege a la the Mongols, or whole regions are stripped of men (conscripted or killed) and food (to feed the armies), leaving the women and children with the choice of starvation or attaching themselves to the armies as camp followers (i.e. providing labor or sex for the soldiers, who might not even be human).

*However, we'd have villain POVs that humanize the villains far more than Tolkien's world did.  After all, I actually empathized with Tywin Lannister, who is a thoroughly despicable human being, after reading the following excerpt from A Feast for the Crows.

Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight, that his daughter would be a queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them (AFfC Harper ed. p. 835)

We might have the POV of the Orcs who hate Sauron and his Nazgul for brutalizing them but fight for the forces of darkness because they fear extermination at the hands of the humans (when Sam rescues Frodo in Mordor, I think he overhears a conversation between Orcs about this). 

Or Wormtongue.  Someone wrote a fan back-story for Wormtongue depicting him as the sickly son of one of Rohan's generals and his Dunlending wife who was rejected for military service and became a bureaucrat instead.  He becomes infatuated with Eowyn and seeks out Saruman for advice.  Saruman, who has at this point become evil, uses this to manipulate Wormtongue until he's too emeshed in scheming and treason to back out.  He's still the selfish, treacherous pervert he was in canon, but he has a more sympathetic back-story and a reason for being evil.  That would be a really interesting basis for a Wormtongue POV, especially if we add the ethnic issues into the mix--he could justify his abuse of Eowyn by citing the abuses of Dunlending women by Rohan's soldiers in the past.

Heck, given how the Silmarillon describes how Sauron may have legitimately repented after Morgoth fell but feared punishment by the Valar, hid in Middle-Earth, and fell back into evil as a result of his desire to repair it, you could have a Sauron POV.  There are Sauron-defenders out there who claim he's a defender of a multiracial industrial state against a bunch of racist reactionary feudalists--if from Sauron's POV he's doing this for the good of the peoples of Middle-Earth, it's a lot more morally gray than "I WANT TO BE GOD AND WILL KILL ANYONE WHO RESISTS."  The same with Saruman, who also has multiracial armies (Uruk-Hai and Dunlendings) and a nascent industrial complex.

And there'd definitely be a Gollum POV, especially since some people have compared Theon Greyjoy in ADWD to Gollum.

*Crank up the racial emnity between the Elves and Dwarves, as well as the jerkass behavior on both sides.

*Martin said there'd be a "bittersweet" ending to the whole series, at least according to the gossip I've seen on the A Song of Ice and Fire forums.  I imagine Martin's LOTR would end with the defeat of Saruman and Sauron as the canonical books did, but it would be much darker and more costly for the forces of good.

So, what do you all think?  I'm starting to think a "Martinized" LOTR would be really interesting, even if it'd be much less pleasant to read at times.  Anybody want to take a crack at it?  Martin doesn't like fan-fiction, but this would technically be LOTR fan-fic, which is tolerated.

EDIT: Added some more pondering about female warriors in Tolkien vs. Martin here.