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euphronius posted:Bombadil saving them isn’t dues ex Machina as it carefully follows the logic of the world. So do the eagles, but even Tolkien admitted they were pretty much a deus ex machina. Mahoning fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 00:10
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I don’t know what sense the phrase had back when he used it but it would not be correct to call the eagles that today as salvation by providence had been a major them in all the books.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:57
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There's something a bit weird about edgy interpretations of LotR. Maybe it's the assumption that the guy who was orphaned as a kid and fought in WW1 as a teenager had an unsophisticated view of what evil is. And clearly this legendary linguistic scholar was in fact a bit of a simpleton, but we at least can see through his naivety. (I still don't like bombadil's songs though.)
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Nov 25, 2018 02:14
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Tree Bucket posted:There's something a bit weird about edgy interpretations of LotR. Maybe it's the assumption that the guy who was orphaned as a kid and fought in WW1 as a teenager had an unsophisticated view of what evil is. And clearly this legendary linguistic scholar was in fact a bit of a simpleton, but we at least can see through his naivety. Like people will often point out, fairly, that there are very few female characters in the books, and they are correct. They will also say that Arwen in the books is essentially a princess lurking to motivate Aragorn, and that is also correct. Rarely does it come up that the other two big female characters include probably the most physically courageous and self-motivated character in the books and the unquestioned (and not unwed, either!) queen of an ancient realm.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:29
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Tree Bucket posted:There's something a bit weird about edgy interpretations of LotR. Maybe it's the assumption that the guy who was orphaned as a kid and fought in WW1 as a teenager had an unsophisticated view of what evil is. And clearly this legendary linguistic scholar was in fact a bit of a simpleton, but we at least can see through his naivety. I'm not seeing how Tolkien writing Lotr the way he did necessarily implies he had simplistic views, especially given Tolkien went to great lengths to insist his work was not allegorical.
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Nov 25, 2018 07:49
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Ginette Reno posted:I'm not seeing how Tolkien writing Lotr the way he did necessarily implies he had simplistic views, especially given Tolkien went to great lengths to insist his work was not allegorical. Yeah, I worded that really badly - I meant that a lot of Tolkien criticism consists of sneering at him for writing about noble kings and good-vs-evil.
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Nov 25, 2018 10:55
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Nessus posted:Rarely does it come up that the other two big female characters include probably the most physically courageous and self-motivated character in the books and the unquestioned (and not unwed, either!) queen of an ancient realm. Both of whom are described as resembling men.
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Nov 25, 2018 11:13
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Tree Bucket posted:Yeah, I worded that really badly - I meant that a lot of Tolkien criticism consists of sneering at him for writing about noble kings and good-vs-evil. Tolkien's Kings are rarely noble in their actions. Even Aragorn pursues a bloody war of vengeance against the South for their part in the war, reinstating old Numenorean traditions. The author(s) of the text tend to view this behaviour as right and correct, being members of the privileged upper classes who directly benefit from a blood-soaked hand on the tiller. There's a distasteful idea throughout LotR (and appendices) that Better people may not always make good rulers, but they nevertheless have the right to try. Or more than that, it's a duty/responsibility that cannot be cast aside (Aragorn, Eowyn).
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Nov 25, 2018 11:37
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Bloody revenge is noble as gently caress, I couldn’t think of something more associated with nobility if I tried. The amoral, self-interested, violent quality of (most of) Tolkien’s kings and aristocrats has plenty of antecedent in folklore and fairy tales, but it also comes from life. Tolkien’s view of political history is nothing you can’t find in Gibbon really. I think I’ve posted before about how strongly the history of the Numenorean kingdoms in exile in the appendices draws on Decline & Fall, but it also draws heavily on the biblical narrative of the divided kingdom in Israel. These are books that celebrate their (noble) subjects, but in a bitter and ironic way, looking back and knowing that their nobility was ultimately pointless and now here we are. Aragorn reconquering all the territory of Elendil isn’t supposed to evoke triumphalism in us, it’s supposed to make us think of Hezekiah or Constantius III. This guy sure killed his enemies dead, but he was on a hiding to nothing. I think that kind of retrospective memento-mori quality is what balances out Tolkien’s unusual attachment to aristocracy as a concept. This book is not like Worm Ouroboros, it’s not about how astoundingly rich powerful people getting in feuds and slaughtering each other is unironically the best poo poo of all time.
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Nov 25, 2018 16:12
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skasion posted:This is what I mean when I say that it’s a surprisingly common take. Even people who have read enough of him to know better can still come out with it on occasion. The foundation he’s referring to there is not that of Lord of the Rings, it’s that of his entire project of writing fantasy fiction. The Book of Lost Tales was created to justify Elvish/Gnomish, but The Lord of the Rings was created to satisfy Allen & Unwin’s desire for a Hobbit sequel. That Tolkien managed to come up with a mostly coherent backstory for LOTR that links it to the then-unpublished Silmarillion material is definitely interesting, but it shouldn’t influence our consideration of how he actually set out to write (particularly the beginning of) the book. If you don’t understand what I mean by this then seriously, read Return of the Shadow. These aren't necessarily exclusive motivations. He wrote a Hobbit sequel because his publishers wanted one, but that sequel was LotR because he wanted it to be.
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Nov 25, 2018 16:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:These aren't necessarily exclusive motivations. He wrote a Hobbit sequel because his publishers wanted one, but that sequel was LotR because he wanted it to be. That’s true, but I am specifically talking about why book I spends so much time meandering about with stuff that doesn’t pertain very directly to the main plot of LOTR. It’s not because Tolkien had this premade world that he really wanted to show off, it’s because that part of the story was written before he had come up with the main plot, when he was still intending to write hobbity adventures and had only vague ideas of what the point of them would be.
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Nov 25, 2018 17:00
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skasion posted:Aragorn reconquering all the territory of Elendil isn’t supposed to evoke triumphalism in us, it’s supposed to make us think of Hezekiah or Constantius III. This guy sure killed his enemies dead, but he was on a hiding to nothing. The Elves faded and the Dwarves turned to stone but Aragorn created England.
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Nov 25, 2018 18:01
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Grim.
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Nov 25, 2018 18:14
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So what’s the deal with all the also-ran fantasy where elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, and humans drink ale in taverns before going on quests? Are they ripping off Tolkien, or are they ripping off D&D (I.e. ripping off Tolkien once removed)? I ask because the discussion here is about what the deeper resonance of the plot means, and even people disagreeing about the implications are all on board with it being about divine will, the way it affects kings and the divine right to rule, and all that jazz which doesn’t really translate well to the modern age. But it’s there and it’s affecting, and in the also ran books it’s conspicuously absent. It’s literally just a story about a group of people going on an adventure in a fantasy world. Weird that all the things Tolkien did that you’d think later writers would want to take and run with like adapting myths to modern sensibilities, inventing alternative histories, or creating analogies to the Great War, the one thing people really took is “elves live in forests and use bows”.
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Nov 25, 2018 18:26
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poisonpill posted:So what’s the deal with all the also-ran fantasy where elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, and humans drink ale in taverns before going on quests? Are they ripping off Tolkien, or are they ripping off D&D (I.e. ripping off Tolkien once removed)? Literature iterates on and responds to other literature. Fantasy writers these days are mostly avid consumers of other fantasy literature, so you end up with a lot of samey bullshit divorced from broader meaning in the real world. Photocopies of photocopies, but this time we'll do Elves right! Tolkien was a linguist with real-life experience of wartime, industrialisation etc. So while he "ripped off" a bunch of his favourite old Epics what he produced wasn't simply derivative pulp nonsense (or bland allegory). Steven Erikson's career in archaeology had a massive impact on the novelisations of his d&d campaign (and I assume the campaign itself). You can probably do interesting in-depth analysis of Eragon as well but I doubt many people can be bothered to. Tolkien is taken more seriously due to its influence and popularity in recent decades.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:11
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Eragon isn’t even ripping off Tolkien except at a remove, it’s Star Wars dressed up in the rotting hide of Tad Williams
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Nov 25, 2018 19:34
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Well the main difference between Tolkien and Eragon is that Tolkien is one of the many sources that Paolini plagiarized from. Eragon has been analyzed and the result was exactly what you would expect, being that Eragon is badly written LOTR/Star Wars fanfic.
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Nov 25, 2018 19:35
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sassassin posted:There's a distasteful idea throughout LotR (and appendices) that Better people may not always make good rulers, but they nevertheless have the right to try. Or more than that, it's a duty/responsibility that cannot be cast aside (Aragorn, Eowyn). That's because in Lotr people like Aragorn literally are stronger/more powerful than others simply because of their blood. It's important to note though stronger doesn't necessarily mean better for Tolkien. The most powerful people in the setting are the ones who gently caress it up the most, and it's often the little people (Frodo, Sam, etc) that ultimately set things right. And even Aragorn says he's a pale imitation of ancient kings yet because he is that it grants him the Tolkien superpower of humility which allows him to do things like treat Hobbits with respect/loyalty, listen to Gandalf, etc.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:14
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sassassin posted:The Elves faded and the Dwarves turned to stone but Aragorn created England. Would Aragorn be for or against Brexit? Discuss.
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Nov 25, 2018 20:22
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skasion posted:Eragon isn’t even ripping off Tolkien except at a remove, it’s Star Wars dressed up in the rotting hide of Tad Williams Wasn't Eragon written by like an 11 year old kid?
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Nov 25, 2018 20:50
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It's impressive when viewed as a child's first fanfic. Less impressive as a book you pay money for, and he was an adult by the time he finished the series and it still sucked by all accounts
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Nov 25, 2018 21:06
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Ginette Reno posted:That's because in Lotr people like Aragorn literally are stronger/more powerful than others simply because of their blood. It's important to note though stronger doesn't necessarily mean better for Tolkien. The most powerful people in the setting are the ones who gently caress it up the most, and it's often the little people (Frodo, Sam, etc) that ultimately set things right. As I said, distasteful ideas. Listening to Gandalf isn't a superpower. Almost everyone listens to Gandalf. Like two guys in the whole book don't listen to Gandalf and they're pretty much deranged due to Sauron's influence/deception.
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Nov 25, 2018 21:07
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I'm gonna write a sequel to Eragon, it's called Fragon
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Nov 25, 2018 21:11
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skasion posted:Eragon isn’t even ripping off Tolkien except at a remove, it’s Star Wars dressed up in the rotting hide of Tad Williams My brother told me recently that he was re-reading the Eragon series, and I told him "the first book is literally, exactly Star Wars," and he didn't believe me at first. If anyone doesn't know, here's the plot of Eragon and Star Wars: A princess is pursued by an evil Empire. She is in possession of a macguffin that will help defeat the Empire, but in desperation sends it away before being captured. The macguffin falls into the hands of a young orphaned farm boy who lives with his uncle. Upon obtaining the macguffin, he seeks the advice of an old wizard. The old wizard tells the orphan that he is to learn magic and gives him a special sword. The orphan is initially reluctant, but upon returning to his farm, the orphan discovers it burned to the ground, and having no home, agrees to help the wizard deliver the macguffin to the group of rebels fighting against the Empire. Shortly thereafter, they meet up with a scoundrel who agrees to help them travel. Along the way, though, they travel into one of the Empire's strongholds, which contains an incredibly powerful weapon, and rescue the princess. However, as they are escaping, the wizard suffers a mortal wound. From there, the scoundrel, orphan, and princess manage to make it back to the stronghold of the resistance. Unfortunately, the Empire is on its way, so the rebels prepare to defend themselves. The orphan takes part in the battle, and with the help of the macguffin, destroys the Empire's powerful weapon. Droid becomes dragon, Force becomes elf-magic, Death Star laser becomes "Shade," etc. It's an incredibly lazy swap of "sci fi thing -> fantasy thing." The plots diverge in the second book, from what I remember, and I never finished reading the series, but other parallels are still there, like how the second book ends with a revelation about his family. The author wrote it when he was about seventeen, and while it's well written for a seventeen-year-old, it's still pretty derivative and juvenile.
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Nov 25, 2018 23:50
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His publisher parents wrote it based on his scribblings.
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Nov 26, 2018 00:21
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DontMockMySmock posted:My brother told me recently that he was re-reading the Eragon series, and I told him "the first book is literally, exactly Star Wars," and he didn't believe me at first. If anyone doesn't know, here's the plot of Eragon and Star Wars: yub nub
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Nov 26, 2018 01:51
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poisonpill posted:Weird that all the things Tolkien did that you’d think later writers would want to take and run with like adapting myths to modern sensibilities, inventing alternative histories, or creating analogies to the Great War, the one thing people really took is “elves live in forests and use bows”. Lots of people DO run on adapting myths and inventing alternate histories, it's just they mostly know jack poo poo about myths except what other fantasy writers have written about myths and their alternate histories are mostly based on other fantasy books alternate histories.
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Nov 26, 2018 01:55
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Only good fantasy other than Tolkien is The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King which is good for the same reasons: it was written by an author who doesn't give a poo poo about the fantasy genre, the world feels well lived-in, and it doesn't hold your hand.
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Nov 26, 2018 06:58
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Eyes of the Dragon is better than most of what King writes but it’s still very Kingy. The fact that he’s not as dreadful as I don’t know, Brandon Sanderson or whoever is not a great qualification. If you want good fantasies that don’t depend on post-post-Tolkien mass marketing cliches then you should read those fantasies. There’s a lot of them. Virtually anything republished as a Ballantine Adult Fantasy in the late 60s/early 70s is at least going to be free of modern genre self-congratulation, whatever its other flaws. David Lindsay couldn’t freakin’ write and his world makes no sense, but his book is a great book.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:35
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The broken earth trilogy is good recent fantasy. I guess it might be science fiction.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:52
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It is bad (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 26, 2018 14:11
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Are you a MRA or something equally insane ?
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Nov 26, 2018 14:53
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Immediately suggesting a person is insane seems like an overreaction to someone thinking that a popular trilogy of mainstream fantasy fiction is bad.
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Nov 26, 2018 15:21
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No. I was remebering the mra reaction to the authors Hugos.
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Nov 26, 2018 15:25
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It's interesting seeing The Eyes of the Dragon well-regarded here. It's been one of my should-get-around-to-that-someday books for years, and normally when I encounter a description of it, the perspective is of some disappointed King fan who didn't realize how different from his other books it would be.
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Nov 26, 2018 15:26
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euphronius posted:The broken earth trilogy is good recent fantasy. I guess it might be science fiction. I thought it was decent but overhyped -- not bad, but it had this sort of "Michael Bay does LeGuin" feel to it. It was good but not three-Hugos-in-a-row good. Roger Zelazny and LeGuin each only won the Hugo for best novel twice. I think without the MRA's hysteria it would've gotten maybe one Hugo but the whole thing went political. That said, let's move further discussion of Jemisin or other non-Tolkien fantasy out of the Tolkien thread and into the general fantasy thread. [I should go back and reread Eyes of the Dragon again]
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Nov 26, 2018 15:31
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Ok, no problem.
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Nov 26, 2018 15:33
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So I just finished Book III and it is so good. I think the whole thing takes place over the course of a week or so, you get tons of cool character moments (especially from Gimli), and the plot just overall flies compared to much of the first two books.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:00
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Ynglaur posted:Would Aragorn be for or against Brexit? Discuss. Numenexit.
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Nov 26, 2018 23:46
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I've decided my favourite line from LotR is Gollum speaking about Sauron: "he cannot see everything, not yet." Such a simple, wonderfully chilling little line that paints such a vivid picture of what the future could look like. On a similar note there's Frodo's "is there anything he does not hate."
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Nov 27, 2018 02:46
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