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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8348573" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree that D&amp;D has this tension (or, to speak less politely about it, this incoherence). I personally like how 4e D&amp;D handled it - the core setting embraces the questing knights and basically drops the S&amp;S elements; Dark Sun drops the questing knights and runs with S&amp;S instead.I wanted to reply to this in the same post as what I've said above, to make it clear that I'm not dissenting from your bigger picture.But clearly Aragorn has to more than find it within himself to take that responsibility. That's probably truer of Frodo, though even there it understates things. But Aragorn had to go on his many years of errantry, prove himself as a warrior and ranger, and really become the greatest living exemplar of either. While the AD&amp;D 10th level ranger ability is in many ways silly - a shallow trope shorn of all its thematic weight - it does get something right: &quot;1st level&quot; Aragorn could not have wrested the Orthanc-stone to his will no matter the rightness of his claim.And turning to Conan, he does get supernatural help from &quot;cosmic forces&quot; - in The Phoenix on the Sword, and again The Hour of the Dragon.I don't think these elements of convergence break down the contrast between Tolkien-esque &quot;high&quot; or romantic/reactionary fantasy, and REH-esque S&amp;S/&quot;modernist&quot; fantasy. But they suggest the contrast is quite nuanced. It's about the through-line of history: Middle Earth has one; S&amp;S doesn't. That's also what makes it &quot;existentialist&quot; at least in a loose sense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8348573, member: 42582"] I agree that D&D has this tension (or, to speak less politely about it, this incoherence). I personally like how 4e D&D handled it - the core setting embraces the questing knights and basically drops the S&S elements; Dark Sun drops the questing knights and runs with S&S instead. I wanted to reply to this in the same post as what I've said above, to make it clear that I'm not dissenting from your bigger picture. But clearly Aragorn has to more than find it within himself to take that responsibility. That's probably truer of Frodo, though even there it understates things. But Aragorn had to go on his many years of errantry, prove himself as a warrior and ranger, and really become the greatest living exemplar of either. While the AD&D 10th level ranger ability is in many ways silly - a shallow trope shorn of all its thematic weight - it does get something right: "1st level" Aragorn could not have wrested the Orthanc-stone to his will no matter the rightness of his claim. And turning to Conan, he does get supernatural help from "cosmic forces" - in The Phoenix on the Sword, and again The Hour of the Dragon. I don't think these elements of convergence break down the contrast between Tolkien-esque "high" or romantic/reactionary fantasy, and REH-esque S&S/"modernist" fantasy. But they suggest the contrast is quite nuanced. It's about the through-line of history: Middle Earth has one; S&S doesn't. That's also what makes it "existentialist" at least in a loose sense. [/QUOTE]

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