some people seem to think aotearoa new zealand is just fields and hills and grass. maybe some mountains. maybe a fjord or two. which is so fascinating to me because we have so many different biomes and landscapes it's bonkers.
we have massive volcanic fields. we have native palm trees and mangroves up north. we have huge swaths of geothermal areas that have geysers and bubbling hot mud and multicoloured pools. we have dense temperate rainforests. we have fern trees that grow ridiculously tall. we have huge tussock grasslands. we have a freezing cold desert. we have huge black sand beaches. we have sand dunes that stretch for kilometres. I love you aotearoa. this isn't even all of it these are just a few examples man
it's ridiculously beautiful and varied over here and yet when you say "new zealand", a lot of people imagine grass fields and sheep. which to be fair. we do also have. BUT STILL
long story short: it's not all fields and sheep. p.s. yes those are people at the top of the sand dune in the last photo
tags by @sufficientlylargen endorsed:
#I have a suspicion that a lot of people think aotearoa is a lot smaller than it actually is #I think there's a tendency especially for europeans and east-coast americans to think of it as 'a small island off of australia' #which like #it's small compared to australia #but most countries are small compared to australia #aotearoa has a greater area than the entire united kingdom #it also spans about 15° of latitude #which is 50% more than england #and also more than any US state except Alaska
"off of australia" is also a bit misleading; the distance looks small on a map, but that's because your brain is comparing it to the entire pacific ocean on the other side.
sydney (eastern coast of australia) to auckland (nz north island) is a three hour plane flight.
EXACTLY!!!!! we stretch from florida to new york if you put aotearoa on a map of the US. it's like saying "japan is a small island off the coast of china" to me
BIG!
unfortunately one of the main reasons people think we only have mountains and fields and european trees is because of the LOTR movies. smiles. those movies are fun but the reason they were filmed here is because a lot of aotearoa's native landscapes were destroyed and replaced with idyllic european landscapes 150 years ago. which made it the perfect place for a european fantasy film series. so yes there are hobbits! but at what cost!
To add onto this, back in the late 19th and early 20th century the primary goal of the colonists was to create an idyllic paradise, or an image of an imagined pre-Industrial Britain. They saw Aotearoa as a prime candidate for this project, and art that highlighted Aotearoa's natural beauty was very popular. Paintings such as the one below were used to help New Zealand's tourism industry and get Europeans to visit or migrate over here.
(Source: The valley of the Wilkin from Huddleston’s run, 1877, by John Gully)
Tolkien lived during this time in British history, and Lord of the Rings is written with this same nostalgia for English pastoralism. The Shire is an idealized version of pre-industrial England, and many of the themes of Lord of the Rings are rooted in this early 1900s nostalgia for a pre-industrial society. So the fact that Peter Jackson's films merge these two elements is unsurprising. Compare the above painting of the Aotearoa with the following painting of Edoras, and then the film version of it.
(Source: Edoras and the Palace of Meduseld, Alan Lee, 1993)
(Source: Shot from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson, 2002)
They're all very similar in style. Now, was Peter Jackson being nefarious with this? No, I don't think so. But he is filming an adaptation of a book rooted in nostalgia for a pre-industrial Britain in a country where that very same nostalgia was used as a carrot to get British people across the world and help terraform Aotearoa into the very same image that allowed it to be the perfect setting for the films. Settlers who displace and disempower the Māori in the process of this project.
