A rising dislike of Tolkein?

[sologdin]

superior had he failed in the quest and set himself up as a dark lord with 11 rings for hobbits in their holes. that's the real story--an anti-fellowship of gollums running around stealing everyone's fish and whatnot.

[TheButcherCrow]

superior had he failed in the quest and set himself up as a dark lord with 11 rings for hobbits in their holes. that's the real story--an anti-fellowship of gollums running around stealing everyone's fish and whatnot.

or, "if GRRM wrote LOTR" ;)

[Arakan]

With regards to Tolkien I will put my thoughts into an analogy inspired by the currentlly aired WC game of France vs. Ecuador...

Football nowadays is surely much more athletic, faster, more competitive and on a much higher level in general than 40/50/60 years ago and many of the past time legends wouldnt stand a chance in today's game...but this doesnt matter the slightest. Pelé, Di Stefano, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Maradona etc. will always be THE legends of the game no matter what. The Cristiano Ronaldos of this world come and go and from time to time a Lionel Messi fights his way up the rankings towards the legends. But no one will ever kick any of these legends out of the Pantheon, ever :).

Even if you dont like the style of an author like Tolkien, show him the respect he deserves. He is to Fantasy what Pelé is to football :).

by the way GRRM is (still) my Messi ;)

[Arakan]

All those people? Um no, there are plenty of fantasy fans who don't like Tolkien. This thread makes me laugh, implying that somehow there's something wrong with people who don't like Tolkien.

"not liking" is one thing but bashing and showing lack of respect for someone like Tolkien is a totally different story...

I even know people who dont like War and Peace and I am ok with that as long as they can acknowledge the impact of this masterpiece on world literature.

But I am not ok when people try to belittle the achievements of an author like Tolkien...

[James Arryn]

I actually watched some pele highlights the other day, and IMO he could play and dominate whenever.

[Real Heir of Bear Island]

I recently read Tolkein (at age 31) for the first time. I saw the movies a few years ago. I got into GRRM about 3 years ago and have been reading lots of fantasy since. I've read Rothfuss, Lynch, Abecrombie and of course Martin before circling back and deciding to read the guy who set it all off.

I must say it was tough to get through on some parts. The writing did seem to get me a little drowsy at times. It may have hurt me that I knew more or less what was going to happen. I just didn't get into it as much as I hoped I would. I wasn't engulfed like I was with Martin. I actually liked the Hobbit better than the trilogy.

[Zorral]

Why would that have made the story better in any way shape or form? Killing a character off does not automatically make it better, and I actually prefer the bitterness of Frodo doing all he has done to save Middle Earth, and then being unable to remain. I much prefer that to killing of a main character for.no purpose

:agree: It's also far more empathic to what happens with those -- the heroes we call them -- who survive prolonged terrible experiences and sights, as well as physical hardship and privation, all at the same time. Just killing somebody off is dumb. That Gollum, whose life was prolonged by his possession of the Ring so far beyond the natural span of a hobbit, died as part of the fulfillment of the quest -- is again, far more imaginative, creative and better writing than having Sauron zap Frodo with his Big Eye or something.

[Zorral]

or, "if GRRM wrote LOTR" ;)

That's rather putting the cart before the horse.

Without JRRT there wouldn't be this thing called Got.

[TheButcherCrow]

That's rather putting the cart before the horse.

Without JRRT there wouldn't be this thing called Got.

:leaving:

[JC Denton]

Why would that have made the story better in any way shape or form? Killing a character off does not automatically make it better, and I actually prefer the bitterness of Frodo doing all he has done to save Middle Earth, and then being unable to remain. I much prefer that to killing of a main character for.no purpose

Why was he "unable to remain"? How was his life really changed all that much? Sam, Merry, Pippin all come back healthy. They kicked out Saruman and Wormtongue out of the Shire, and got Bag End back from the Bolgers(I think) . I don't see any reason why he couldn't have rebuilt his life as his at once was. He's missing a finger. Big deal.

Now suppose Sam (or Frodo) had ended up dying on Mt Doom ... well now theres no chance for life to get back to normal ... death is final. In a war to save humanity (or Hobbits) and/or your home, you really do lose people. IIts a shit sandwich, but someone has to bite.

[James Arryn]

Why was he "unable to remain"? How was his life really changed all that much? Sam, Merry, Pippin all come back healthy. They kicked out Saruman and Wormtongue out of the Shire, and got Bag End back from the Bolgers(I think) . I don't see any reason why he couldn't have rebuilt his life as his at once was. He's missing a finger. Big deal.

He's missing certitude. He's missing hobbitism. He's missing contentment. He's missing optimism about the life beyond these familiar comforts/restrictions. He's missing meaning. He's missing innocence. He's missing a desire for adventure. He's missing an ability to enjoy un-adventure.

I agree these concepts aren't as advanced as a material scorecard, and that probably shows how much more advanced Martin's scope is than Tolkein's simplistic vision. In Tolkein's defence, he was probably confused by his experiences in the trenches of WWI, and the whole 'all of my friends except one were killed' thing probably moved him even further from grasping the realities of war/post-war in the way GRRM does. Maybe if he'd lived long enough Tolkein could have read Martin and been able put his own life in a more realistic context, and therefore written better versions of LOTR,,etc.

Now suppose Sam (or Frodo) had ended up dying on Mt Doom ... well now theres no chance for life to get back to normal ... death is final. In a war to save humanity (or Hobbits) and/or your home, you really do lose people. IIts a shit sandwich, but someone has to bite.

Again, I wish you had been around to tell him how it works.

[Darth Richard II]

Why was he "unable to remain"? How was his life really changed all that much? Sam, Merry, Pippin all come back healthy. They kicked out Saruman and Wormtongue out of the Shire, and got Bag End back from the Bolgers(I think) . I don't see any reason why he couldn't have rebuilt his life as his at once was. He's missing a finger. Big deal.

Now suppose Sam (or Frodo) had ended up dying on Mt Doom ... well now theres no chance for life to get back to normal ... death is final. In a war to save humanity (or Hobbits) and/or your home, you really do lose people. IIts a shit sandwich, but someone has to bite.

Uh, because PTSD.

[Arthmail]

Yea. Sorry. Tolkien actually lived through a war. I find the notion of winning and returning home only to have everything you fought for to feel pointless to be far more terrifying than just killing someone off. Having friends from my army days with PTSD I think Tolkien was far more bleak.

[Raksha 2014]

Yea. Sorry. Tolkien actually lived through a war. I find the notion of winning and returning home only to have everything you fought for to feel pointless to be far more terrifying than just killing someone off. Having friends from my army days with PTSD I think Tolkien was far more bleak.

I've always found it ironic that Tolkien, who participated in and survived one of the most bloody battles of WWI (The Somme), put forth a worldview emphasizing hope as well as beauty and magic (though somewhat tinged with melancholy); while Martin, who never fought a war, advances a far more cynical worldview in ASoIaF. This is not a criticism.

Simply put, Frodo seemed to have endured too much pain to live any more. In the context of the LOTR narrative, some of that pain is from exposure to things far more dire than normal, i.e. the pressure of a mind-sucking ring crafted by and for a malevolent immortal spirit, the sting of a spider of demonic ancestry, as well as the worst wound, that of the morgul-blade. Frodo says, months after his return to the Shire: "I am wounded...it will never truly heal." Frodo is suffering from physical and emotional wounds, and they are draining his life-force; which could well be a metaphor for PTSD.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Why was he "unable to remain"? How was his life really changed all that much? Sam, Merry, Pippin all come back healthy. They kicked out Saruman and Wormtongue out of the Shire, and got Bag End back from the Bolgers(I think) . I don't see any reason why he couldn't have rebuilt his life as his at once was. He's missing a finger. Big deal.

It's called psychological trauma.

Now suppose Sam (or Frodo) had ended up dying on Mt Doom ... well now theres no chance for life to get back to normal ... death is final. In a war to save humanity (or Hobbits) and/or your home, you really do lose people. IIts a shit sandwich, but someone has to bite.

Funny thing is that for every person who dies in a war, there's someone else who comes back an amputee or an emotional cripple. Ever taken a look at the suicide rates for Vietnam veterans? They're incredibly high - because the effect of war goes beyond simply beyond people dying on the battlefield: it eats away at the psychology of the survivors, until, as at least one WWI veteran suggested, the living envy the dead. Tolkien understood that, which is why his handling of war is far more subtle and nuanced than the "Frodo should have died" brigade could imagine.

[Jo498]

yeah, writing "gritty" and brutal stuff comes fairly cheap.

It's got nothing to do with depth, realism or literary quality. This works both ways, of course (i.e. also gore comes cheap, it does not mean that a book is bad, just becauses it's gory). But I get the impression that nowadays many people really seem to believe that Tolkien is "unrealistic" whereas modern fantasy, informed by action thriller, splatter movies etc. is not while it may be the other way round in many aspects. But historical or psychological realism is not the main point. Rather, Tolkien was inspired by sagas and romances (and the very little of literary fantasy that was there before him, like Lord Dunsany etc.) whereas modern authors are inspired by other genres, mainly the huge corpus of 20th century SFF, including Tolkien, but also RPG, action and martial arts movies etc. I believe that the extensive fight scenes, the gore and torture of e.g. Abercrombie's books are clearly influenced by or even modelled after respective movie scenes.

My pet peeve is "Eaters" having superhero strength and speed or time-stopping abilities like catching arrows from the air. Also the radiation poisoning at the end of the first law trilogy (which felt very out of place for me)

There is nothing wrong with said, of course. But it is simply wrong to claim that these writers are "more advanced" or "more realistic" than Tolkien. They are different, and often they are, IMO, weaker in many respects (e.g. atmosphere and poetry), but of course they also contain aspects that Tolkien was not interested in at all.

[Crixus]

Thinking the nazis were daft doesen't neccessarily make you not antisemitic. (for the record, no one has claimed that Tolkien was antisemitic in the sense of actively hating jews, but rather that he had internalized certain stereotypes of jews, and yes, that very answer he does kind of reinforces that point)

He also wrote to his son: "I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler ... Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light."

Seems his ire against Hitler wasn't based entirely on anti Semitism, but also on befouling the 'noble northern spirit' of Europe. Which makes sense, I suppose.

[JC Denton]

It's called psychological trauma.

Funny thing is that for every person who dies in a war, there's someone else who comes back an amputee or an emotional cripple. Ever taken a look at the suicide rates for Vietnam veterans? They're incredibly high - because the effect of war goes beyond simply beyond people dying on the battlefield: it eats away at the psychology of the survivors, until, as at least one WWI veteran suggested, the living envy the dead. Tolkien understood that, which is why his handling of war is far more subtle and nuanced than the "Frodo should have died" brigade could imagine.

The living envy the dead, true. Problem is, from Frodo's perspective at least, nobody really important died. Only one out of nine of fellowship died, who turned out to be a turncloak anyway. In any case, I don't recall how Boromir's death as much effect on Frodo's mental state at all (not his treachery, which obviously does have implications for breaking up the Fellowship). And apparently Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry after such traumatic experiences, aren't shellshocked enough that they can't kick out Saruman and Womtongue out of the Shire as well as deal with the Bolgers at get back /Bag-End/Hobbiton. Tolkien spent all of one(or was it two?) chapters on this in any case, so if that was a theme he wanted to flesh out, he sure didn't devote many pages to it. I don't find it sublte or nuanced at all. More like glossed over. When you look at the basic plot arc, The War for Middle Earth didn't feel like a war so much as a camping trip where Frodo gets teased by a bully (Boromir) bit by a spider, and Sam squished some bugs (orcs), and when they got tired and wanted to go home, mommy and daddy (the Eagles) come and pick them up. This is a far, far cry from Hemmingway's Soldier's Home

[Skythe1]

The living envy the dead, true. Problem is, from Frodo's perspective at least, nobody really important died. Only one out of nine of fellowship died, who turned out to be a turncloak anyway. In any case, I don't recall how Boromir's death as much effect on Frodo's mental state at all (not his treachery, which obviously does have implications for breaking up the Fellowship). And apparently Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry after such traumatic experiences, aren't shellshocked enough that they can't kick out Saruman and Womtongue out of the Shire as well as deal with the Bolgers at get back /Bag-End/Hobbiton. Tolkien spent all of one(or was it two?) chapters on this in any case, so if that was a theme he wanted to flesh out, he sure didn't devote many pages to it. I don't find it sublte or nuanced at all. More like glossed over. When you look at the basic plot arc, The War for Middle Earth didn't feel like a war so much as a camping trip where Frodo gets teased by a bully (Boromir) bit by a spider, and Sam squished some bugs (orcs), and when they got tired and wanted to go home, mommy and daddy (the Eagles) come and pick them up. This is a far, far cry from Hemmingway's Soldier's Home

I'm sorry but as soon as you referred to Boromir as a 'turncloak' I realised that you don't seem to have much of an understanding of the depth of the characters that Tolkien created. And that continued reading through the rest of your post...

Your summation of the plot shows a level of immense understanding though, well done. :bowdown:

[sologdin]

the ring itself causes injury, beyond regular war PTSD.