lord. you're welcome to your interpretation of Tolkien's racism, but since you reference the Maiar, I'm going to assume you're being purposefully reductive to make your point.
> And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty.
He's basically the archetypal benevolent dictator. He may get his claim to rule from his heritage, but he has practically the world's crappiest life until Sauron is destroyed, not out of circumstance but out of a sense of duty. He clearly believes that a king is in service to his subjects.
> And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood.
a) Denethor had royal blood b) he was considered very wise and a great king of Gondor. It was only when he took up the tools of the enemy that he had his fall
> And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption.
you reference the Maiar but you say this. have you read the silmarillion?? (perusing the wikipedia article will suffice)
> And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity.
Will they are a fictional race specifically constructed to be a defilement of life. no, there's not a whole lot of subtle moral ambiguity there, but that's why it's good that there's more than one author ever.
> The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)
This is the dumbest part. Look at the inherent contradictions of the numenoreans: benevolent and exploitive, generous but envious, and -- the ultimate sin in tolkien's universe -- so very proud. the dwarves often fought for good, but just as often did so for vengeful or petty reasons. the elves were just totally fucked, and even when they finally grew wise to the morgoths and the saurons of the world, they could find no peace in it, only weariness. the maiar, as you note, were often tempted to evil ways. and who caused all this? The ainur, the highest order of beings. And I don't just mean Melkor, though he of course sewed evil into every living thing. The Ainur were selfish with the elves, they were petty with Feanor and his sons, and they were cruel to humans. They might have wisdom "now," but, like the elves, they screwed everything up in the process.
The point isn't which attributes the different races have, it's that their race defines them as a person -- not their upbringing, their experiences or their values. Their race.
Given that they mostly appear to grow up in racially homogeneous surroundings, can you really tell which attributes are genetic and which are environmental?
> And Aragorn is noble and powerful and should be followed unquestioningly because he's distantly descended from royalty.
He's basically the archetypal benevolent dictator. He may get his claim to rule from his heritage, but he has practically the world's crappiest life until Sauron is destroyed, not out of circumstance but out of a sense of duty. He clearly believes that a king is in service to his subjects.
> And Denethor is crazy and wrong because he has the audacity to disagree with Aragorn despite not having royal blood.
a) Denethor had royal blood b) he was considered very wise and a great king of Gondor. It was only when he took up the tools of the enemy that he had his fall
> And elves are all naturally good and pure by nature of their race — to the point where they are basically immune to Sauron's corruption.
you reference the Maiar but you say this. have you read the silmarillion?? (perusing the wikipedia article will suffice)
> And orcs are their inherently evil cousin race. There is not a single good orc in the whole world. You can feel OK about killing them with impunity.
Will they are a fictional race specifically constructed to be a defilement of life. no, there's not a whole lot of subtle moral ambiguity there, but that's why it's good that there's more than one author ever.
> The only race that seems to actually have any moral subtlety is the Maiar, who can be good or evil with no obvious genetic reason. (I mean, they're still inherently superior beings, but they can at least be evil.)
This is the dumbest part. Look at the inherent contradictions of the numenoreans: benevolent and exploitive, generous but envious, and -- the ultimate sin in tolkien's universe -- so very proud. the dwarves often fought for good, but just as often did so for vengeful or petty reasons. the elves were just totally fucked, and even when they finally grew wise to the morgoths and the saurons of the world, they could find no peace in it, only weariness. the maiar, as you note, were often tempted to evil ways. and who caused all this? The ainur, the highest order of beings. And I don't just mean Melkor, though he of course sewed evil into every living thing. The Ainur were selfish with the elves, they were petty with Feanor and his sons, and they were cruel to humans. They might have wisdom "now," but, like the elves, they screwed everything up in the process.