Tolkien general thread

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Instead, he writes of hope, beauty, good triumphing over evil, of brotherhood and courage in the face of despair and darkness. And he does so with a level of love and detail that no other author has ever matched.
Not to get all theological or whatever, but I do think Tolkien's faith can also be attributed to his strength in writing on top of his war experience. Tolkien hated allegory, but he did introduce the concept of eucatastrophe which is basically grace when things are desperate, which you can feel throughout his stories. There's someone larger at work within Tolkien and it's compelling. The fight against evil is noble, heroic, and worthwhile - which makes sense when you know he actually was in the worst part of WW1 and still came out believing we can all overcome evil and selfishness to be good. Like damn.

That concept is pretty obviously lacking in GRRM's work - the draft dodger who never experienced war and yet writes extensively on how bleak and hopeless it is. That humans are filthy scum and anyone with a modicum of honor will be killed for being naïve. I'm aware that if you get into ASOIAF, you're not looking for a feel-good story, but when you revel in writing bleakness and the darkness of humans, it makes you exhausted.

I think it's obvious why most people want to live in the Shire and experience the whimsy and beauty of the world than to live in Winterfell. Tolkien understands humans way better than GRRM and he's seen us at our worst.

:semperfidelis:

These people cannot create, only imitate in mockery.
Ironic that they are like Melkor and Sauron in that way. They can't create Ents, so they create Trolls. An imitation of a beautiful creation that only serve to destroy.
 
Not to get all theological or whatever, but I do think Tolkien's faith can also be attributed to his strength in writing on top of his war experience. Tolkien hated allegory, but he did introduce the concept of eucatastrophe which is basically grace when things are desperate, which you can feel throughout his stories. There's someone larger at work within Tolkien and it's compelling. The fight against evil is noble, heroic, and worthwhile - which makes sense when you know he actually was in the worst part of WW1 and still came out believing we can all overcome evil and selfishness to be good. Like damn.

That concept is pretty obviously lacking in GRRM's work - the draft dodger who never experienced war and yet writes extensively on how bleak and hopeless it is. That humans are filthy scum and anyone with a modicum of honor will be killed for being naïve. I'm aware that if you get into ASOIAF, you're not looking for a feel-good story, but when you revel in writing bleakness and the darkness of humans, it makes you exhausted.

I think it's obvious why most people want to live in the Shire and experience the whimsy and beauty of the world than to live in Winterfell. Tolkien understands humans way better than GRRM and he's seen us at our worst.

:semperfidelis:


Ironic that they are like Melkor and Sauron in that way. They can't create Ents, so they create Trolls. An imitation of a beautiful creation that only serve to destroy.
I think that's a bit harsh on GRRM. Flawed and pathological as a writer he undoubtedly is, but the grimdark genre (which ASOIAF basically is) when at it's best (not pure horror/depression porn) is supposed to highlight the small glimmers of hope in the dark.

GRRM does do that, like the Jamie Lannister redemption arc. It is not necessarily a blazing light in the dark, a journey of watching the embers slowly tended to.

Another thing to give him some slack on is that LOTR is a complete story, ASOIAF is, (if the TV writer follows his TV writing pattern) at the start of the fall right before the swell at the end. Imagine if Tolkien stopped writing LOTR right when Frodo was taken by Shelob.

I am not knee jerk defending the fat man, and I don't deny that its mostly 'revelling in bleakness' and a lot of people out there are into the 'life is awful' genre, but there is value in exploring such ideas.

Also I would suggest that Tolkien's Catholicism also had a strong hand in his optimistic writing style, much like CS Lewis, and that the Atheism of many Grimdark writers informs their view of humanity in much the same way.
 
GRRM is a great writer, I'll give him that. And Jamie is probably one of the best parts of the series (IF his redemption arc doesn't follow the terrible TV series end). But a lot of goodwill is drying up to GRRM because he simply won't complete ASOIAF. It was 2 years ago I remember reading an article that he was "nearly halfway through Winds of Winter." Then he said "If it's not out by 2020, lock me in a cabin!" Now he just plain well makes comments that the TV series ended differently than he intended, but nothing on his writing progress or whether or not he even intends to finish. Don't even bring it up to him. By the way, have you read Wild Cards? Here's an update on that!

Tolkien clearly would have kept going if he hadn't passed away. And Tolkien loved his universe. Not that GRRM doesn't, but he reminds me a lot more of Patrick Rothfuss every day rather than Brandon Sanderson, who does weekly updates on his website on how much he's written of his books. There's a lot of differences of labours of love, and certain authors like GRRM and Rothfuss need to either outright state they're not going to finish their series, or to actually shut up and do the work. Those are the two authors whose books have 'surpassed' LOTR for the Best Fantasy Series on many lists on the Internet, yet they're incomplete and the authors seem to want to waddle around that fact.

I'm way more critical to them because I have a completed series sitting on my shelves, full of rich worldbuilding and a feeling of a larger world. Yet I'm told GRRM's way better because there's rape, sex, violence, and politics. Because there's a viewpoint now that LOTR is just some journey where a couple of people walk to a volcano and drop the ring into it, ignoring the human struggle and relationships within. Both have merits, but there's no way - to me - that ASOIAF is better than LOTR.

GRRM may have a better scope of his characters, but it means jackshit all if he won't finish it and leave the series with basically the TV ending, which caused so much badwill there's a thread on here full of the anguish and people dumping the series forever. Like, it's that sour. Besides... I feel like The First Law series does a better job as grimdark than ASOIAF. But that's my personal opinion. And that's completed too.
 
Question: could the Hobbit trilogy be saved by a fan edit?
Maybe.

I only say that because I think the failing of the Hobbit movies comes down to the writers falling into the prequel trap of trying to make The Hobbit fit the tone of Lord of the Rings. If you can edit it back to focusing on Bilbo and changing the tone, it can probably be saved.
 
Question: could the Hobbit trilogy be saved by a fan edit?
I haven't watched (endured) it except once apiece in the theater, but it seems like it would be hard to cut out all the garbage. Would you have anything intelligible left of Mirkwood if you cut out the nonsensical star-crossed dwarf-elf romance subplot? Would any of the fights make sense if you cut out the ninja antics? Would the "boss fights" clearly designed with the video game adaptation in mind be discardable?
 
I'm way more critical to them because I have a completed series sitting on my shelves, full of rich worldbuilding and a feeling of a larger world. Yet I'm told GRRM's way better because there's rape, sex, violence, and politics. Because there's a viewpoint now that LOTR is just some journey where a couple of people walk to a volcano and drop the ring into it, ignoring the human struggle and relationships within. Both have merits, but there's no way - to me - that ASOIAF is better than LOTR.
Its an unfortunate that the popular mind only has time for one pinnacle of fantasy at a time.

I think that LOTR is of a time where the anti-moral relativist stance of the Catholic Church was much more palatable to the popular culture, and his influence on fantasy was such that we were able to enjoy that for a long time, but just as Moore popularly brought grimdark to comics, GRRM brought it to fantasy, and after playing with that for a while, the consumer is sufficiently overloaded with darkness and falls into grey moral relativism.

The paradigm of 'deep' has fundamentally changed in the zeitgeist. LOTR is 'deep' because they (in my opinion) explore internal strength: The will of Frodo, Denethor, Aragorn, Saruman, and the Black hole strength gravity well of the evil of Sauron and the ring.

This is no longer a popular thing to explore because the nobility of free will has fallen in favour of the inevitability of determinism in literature. [And personally I think this is a Cope from the western public that they can't change anything meaningful about their world and merely consoom]

So now 'deep' is exploring the inevitability and pathology of people, and its usually them being awful to on another, and occasionally you get a Jamie Lannister who, when life kicked him one too many times, something from a long time ago shifted into a higher priority and he shifts into a more noble trajectory, not because he chose to, but because the culmination of a bunch of things made him.

Question: could the Hobbit trilogy be saved by a fan edit?
If you were to follow the books you would have to remove the majority of the last movie, bilbo was passed out for the entire battle of the 5 armies, we don't see any of it lol, we just get told it happened. And I think that would be a fan edit powermove lol.
 
I finished rereading the Hobbit after 15 years. I would highly recommend the Rob Inglis audiobook version and will provide it for free via PM.

Here are some hot takes and opinions:

Its interesting how out of place the Shire itself is. There are doorbells, people apparently play golf, and they have the economy and technology that lets people more or less live an idle middle class life. Its always interesting how things get less silly and whimsical the further ones goes from the Shire.

There are many videos on "What pipe weed is"... and Tolkien outright just calls it Tobacco throughout the book. Alright then.

The book is a masterclass in character development. Bilbo goes from a crying mess to an epic rogue in a very believable way and all of the dwarves character traits shine through in a very subtle way. You know exactly what they're like just through their actions over the course of the book.

You can tell pretty quickly that reading this book to somebody would be fun. I'm fairly certain that it was specifically designed with that in mind, from the narrator hinting at events to come in a cheeky way to Tolkien shoving a bunch of dwarves in your face and forcing you to sort them out in a way that will inevitably cause interruptions. Lots of opportunities for voices, lots of riddles to poke people with, and I'm sure singing a song or two would cause some laughs. I don't think the LOTR was made in the same way.

Its a pretty god tier prologue. You get an idea of every race, most key concepts are touched upon, and even Tolkien's understanding of everything being directed by God is discussed at the very end. You can also tell that the core parts of the LOTR were already planned out based on all of the hints.



I've said it before and I'll say it again.
These people cannot create, only imitate in mockery.
Like remember that one dude who kept disrespecting Tolkien, calling him "an old WWI dude that's outdated" and in his hubris said his work would be better because it would be modern and not "outdated"?
Well where is he now? He is forgotten, in the now outdated while Tolkien remains timeless.

This also applies to Moorcock a bit since he dismissed in his essay of "Epic Pooh" and is now barley remembered by anyone except for enthusiasts of old science fiction and fantasy.

Ironic that they are like Melkor and Sauron in that way. They can't create Ents, so they create Trolls. An imitation of a beautiful creation that only serve to destroy.
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Question: could the Hobbit trilogy be saved by a fan edit?
Its not terrible, but its also not as good as it should be. Tolkien kept stuff brief for a reason and everything is too stretched out. Cutting stuff like long chases would just look ugly. Moreover, I simply dislike the fundamental changes.

Big one for example:
Bilbo proves himself to the business-like and pragmatic dwarves through his actions. He escapes the Goblins, sneaks up on Balin, kills the spiders and frees everybody to get what could be called real respect. In the films he wins the dwarves over right away through sentimental nonsense. Dwarves have a high bar for who they'll accept as a friend, but god damn are they reliable allies when it matters.
 
Its interesting how out of place the Shire itself is. There are doorbells, people apparently play golf, and they have the economy and technology that lets people more or less live an idle middle class life.

You can tell pretty quickly that reading this book to somebody would be fun. I'm fairly certain that it was specifically designed with that in mind

It started out as a silly bedtime story for Michael and Christopher, IIRC. More and more of his mythic history that became the Silmarillion, got mixed into it as it went on. There are some quotes about that, I should go look up.

The Hobbit was rewritten to bring parts of the Gollum scene more in line with LotR. Originally Gollum was much less obsessive and treacherous about losing the riddle game and the ring. Tolkien had started on a third, more extensive rewrite that would set Bilbos Shire more firmly within Middle-Earth. He either thought better of it, or popped off before getting very far. I forget which.

Bilbo proves himself to the business-like and pragmatic dwarves through his actions. He escapes the Goblins, sneaks up on Balin, kills the spiders and frees everybody to get what could be called real respect. In the films he wins the dwarves over right away through sentimental nonsense.

I've done my a-logging in this thread already, but honestly, it's shit like this that already put me off Tolkien-based films. The MECU? Ah, if only they could not only be based on Tolkien but also based like Tolkien. I hated reimaginings with nice effects but shitty writing before 2014 made it cool,
 
finally bought a lot of his books, second hand and in english. can't wait to read them.

Hope you enjoy them! They still hold up very well, even today. And the internet is actually helpful if you ever get lost in the books or want to know more. For example: Middle Earth Map if you're a more visual person and want to see the world. Even if you don't, they're great stories on their own.

:semperfidelis:
 
Hope you enjoy them! They still hold up very well, even today. And the internet is actually helpful if you ever get lost in the books or want to know more. For example: Middle Earth Map if you're a more visual person and want to see the world. Even if you don't, they're great stories on their own.

:semperfidelis:
Thank you! Used to be a super fan of the movies and have always wanted to read them. That map will surely come in handy
 
Ladies & gentlemen, we hath arrived.
Comments & ratings disabled, naturally.
I tried my hardest to watch some these honestly Guv I did, I can usually stand these sorts of things, and even if I disagree I can appreciate the scholarship and have my horizons expanded, but my god were these were dull or clearly they didn't read the fucking book in a constructive way or both. Even the problem of pain one, which I had some hope for, had the most fucked interpretation of Frodo's injuries and psychological trauma.
 
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Ladies & gentlemen, we hath arrived.
Comments & ratings disabled, naturally.
I'd rather walk through the Black Gates screaming 'Shoot Me' than watch past a second of that. All I needed to see was the uwu twans flag with shitty text to know the entire thing is probably 20 minutes of massive copium and projection.

It really feels like that entire "seminar" was a bunch of faggots trying to validate their fanfiction.
"Look, Éowyn represents the struggles of the trans AND black community! Therefore, BLM and trans rights are valid in Middle Earth! Remember to Kudos and Comment on my 105 Chapter Fanfic where I insert myself into the universe and change every character's personality so they 'validate' me! Even Sauron! I am in no way mentally ill or clinically retarded!"
 
I finished rereading the Hobbit after 15 years. I would highly recommend the Rob Inglis audiobook version and will provide it for free via PM.

Here are some hot takes and opinions:

Its interesting how out of place the Shire itself is. There are doorbells, people apparently play golf, and they have the economy and technology that lets people more or less live an idle middle class life. Its always interesting how things get less silly and whimsical the further ones goes from the Shire.

There are many videos on "What pipe weed is"... and Tolkien outright just calls it Tobacco throughout the book. Alright then.

The book is a masterclass in character development. Bilbo goes from a crying mess to an epic rogue in a very believable way and all of the dwarves character traits shine through in a very subtle way. You know exactly what they're like just through their actions over the course of the book.

You can tell pretty quickly that reading this book to somebody would be fun. I'm fairly certain that it was specifically designed with that in mind, from the narrator hinting at events to come in a cheeky way to Tolkien shoving a bunch of dwarves in your face and forcing you to sort them out in a way that will inevitably cause interruptions. Lots of opportunities for voices, lots of riddles to poke people with, and I'm sure singing a song or two would cause some laughs. I don't think the LOTR was made in the same way.

Its a pretty god tier prologue. You get an idea of every race, most key concepts are touched upon, and even Tolkien's understanding of everything being directed by God is discussed at the very end. You can also tell that the core parts of the LOTR were already planned out based on all of the hints.






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Its not terrible, but its also not as good as it should be. Tolkien kept stuff brief for a reason and everything is too stretched out. Cutting stuff like long chases would just look ugly. Moreover, I simply dislike the fundamental changes.

Big one for example:
Bilbo proves himself to the business-like and pragmatic dwarves through his actions. He escapes the Goblins, sneaks up on Balin, kills the spiders and frees everybody to get what could be called real respect. In the films he wins the dwarves over right away through sentimental nonsense. Dwarves have a high bar for who they'll accept as a friend, but god damn are they reliable allies when it matters.
As said earlier, The Hobbit was rewritten to fit more with Lord of the Rings as he was writing the latter. It was just a story he wrote to entertain his children, in fact Bilbo was named after one of his sons koala plush (he had a whole family, and Frodo’s original name that I can’t recall was also based on another) and Tom Bombadill was inspired by a doll. That’s what I like about older fantasy stories, they’re more whimsical and fun. It’s hard to strike a nice balance between serious and light-hearted, and I think of all fantasy the Hobbit nails it perfectly.

Re-reading right now, I always imagined the door bell to be an actual bell. I tried reading the songs out loud, and I can’t quite get the rhythm right, but it’s a lot of fun. More fun than the way the Jackson movies made it IMO. I can’t stand Ed Sheerans version.

EDIT: Bingo! Bingo Baggins was Frodo’s original name. Changed it in the third draft. You don’t get fun names like that much anymore.
 
Good news! The Society of Tolkien has uploaded it's webinar to youtube!

Society of Tolkien Webinar


I threw it on, and it's pretty nice. It's pure fans appreciating and celebrating Tolkien and his works. He states outright the point is not to deconstruct, it's to lift up his works, and even though it may not be that illuminating to long-time fans, I found it pretty charming regardless and a good brushup on how intricate Tolkien's fiction was. Nice to know there's super nerds out there who want to keep the integrity of his works and just sperg out on how brilliant he was.

:semperfidelis:
 
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