Westeros, Middle-Earth, or Medeival Earth?

[Ramsay Gimp]

 

 

 

I don't think Kirill was insulting or denigrating Tolkien's work. His universe is clearly a completely different one, and his characters aren't the same. He's just saying that you shouldn't believe any story where a side is perfectly good and the other perfectly evil, and uses Middle Earth as a metaphore of our own world.

 

Manipulation of history is a recurring theme in his books. He also wrote a book about how Jesus was an orthodox hebrew and a political rebel against Roman occupation of Israel, but his teachings were modified by later generations.

 

 

I think the idea of flipping the tables in LOTR and exploring things from the other side's POV could be a fun exercise and an interesting read. But based on your comment, it seemed like Kirill was openly claiming that his goal was to address a "shortcoming" in Tolkien's work. Which IMO would be classless and arrogant. Maybe I misunderstood and he never made such a remark.

[Ser Lepus]

 

I think the idea of flipping the tables in LOTR and exploring things from the other side's POV could be a fun exercise and an interesting read. But based on your comment, it seemed like Kirill was openly claiming that his goal was to address a "shortcoming" in Tolkien's work. Which IMO would be classless and arrogant. Maybe I misunderstood and he never made such a remark.

 

Kirill wasn't writing the same story from the side of the orcs. He was writing another, completely different story. For example, in his book, "Sauron" was the title of the kings of Mordor, but centuries of manipulating history turned all the kings of Mordor into a single, superhuman figure.

[Whitering]

Middle Earth, no question, there have only been lots of orcs for a little while, and they were only looking for the Ring for the most part. I am not tall, but I ain't no halfling either. Plus, I've spent enough time in LotRO to know I like it there.

[Jon Flowers]

Some strange views of Middle Earth here. Just because Tolkien doesn't focus on the internal politics of his realms in the Lord of the Rings trilogy doesn't mean that they don't exist.  If it's internal strife that you crave, try the Silmarillion instead.  And if anyone thinks that it's all about good triumphing over evil and everything being perfect afterwards could probably do with a closer reread as well.  The whole premise of LOTRs is that in order to finally destroy the threat that the ring represents, "good" must in large part, destroy itself in the process.  The ending of the series is in many ways, incredibly sad.  I wonder sometimes where some of these overly simplistic readings and misconceptions come from.  Maybe the books get read during childhood and never reread, or maybe they aren't read at all and people just repeat other people's criticism, ironically, without critically analyzing it first.  I don't fault anyone for not liking it, but to so badly misunderstand it is just so strange to me.

[Jon Flowers]

To address the OP though, I think that all three of the choices have so many possible permutations based on the specific time period and locality in question.  For example, living in early third-age Arnor would be quite nice, but in the mid third-age would be fighting it's death struggle and by the end of the third-age, it would be nothing but haunted ruins and it's people, all but extinct.  That's obviously only one timeline for one local in one of the three choices given.  I think I'd need more information to make a solid decision.

[Orphalesion]

 

Kirill wasn't writing the same story from the side of the orcs. He was writing another, completely different story. For example, in his book, "Sauron" was the title of the kings of Mordor, but centuries of manipulating history turned all the kings of Mordor into a single, superhuman figure.

 

Him using Tolkien's setting instead of making his own version makes less and less sense the more you tell about it.

[Orphalesion]

Some strange views of Middle Earth here. Just because Tolkien doesn't focus on the internal politics of his realms in the Lord of the Rings trilogy doesn't mean that they don't exist.  If it's internal strife that you crave, try the Silmarillion instead.  And if anyone thinks that it's all about good triumphing over evil and everything being perfect afterwards could probably do with a closer reread as well.  The whole premise of LOTRs is that in order to finally destroy the threat that the ring represents, "good" must in large part, destroy itself in the process.  The ending of the series is in many ways, incredibly sad.  I wonder sometimes where some of these overly simplistic readings and misconceptions come from.  Maybe the books get read during childhood and never reread, or maybe they aren't read at all and people just repeat other people's criticism, ironically, without critically analyzing it first.  I don't fault anyone for not liking it, but to so badly misunderstand it is just so strange to me.

:agree:

 

Anybody who says the Lord of the Rings is a run of the mill archetypal Good vs Evil story hasn't read the books very closely.