How tokien ruined modern fantasy

[Pozatronic]

I honeslty do not know why I'm responding to this, but it seems that maybe, warlord, you're not mad at Tolkein so much as you are mad at Peter Jackson, the director of the LOTR movies? Maybe? I don't know...

Samwise a crybaby? Oh man. Did you read the books? Did you see the movies?

 

[francisca]

So, Tolkien created his own world, with his own rationale for the way it, worked, created certain tensions and notions about races. Then all kinds of other people picked up those notions and ran with them. And it's Tolkien's "fault" that everyone copies his ideas.

Uh-huh.

Nice logic.

Step this way so you may have some acid dumped on you, Mr. Troll. (a non-Tolkien stereotype...)

 

[Delemental]

So mabye you can argue Tolkien didn't create modern fantasy but he has sterotyped elves for enternity everywhere I look I see Legolas ripoffs that is a problem.

(Sigh) I shouldn't waste time on a troll, but...

Wouldn't this then be the fault of those modern fantasy writers who continue to use the image of elves that Tolkien created, oh, several decades before any of these modern writers picked up a pen?

It would be like saying Arthur Conan Doyle "ruined" modern mystery novels because he created the "stereotype" of the lone investigator solving puzzles with obscure clues and deductive reasoning, and that everywhere you look you see Sherlock ripoffs.

(Not being a literary scholar, I'm sure that there are probably authors that predate Sir Doyle which use a similar convention, but the analogy holds even if it's not techincally accurate).

You can't fault the originator of a trend for its continuation.

I'll leave it to others to point out the contributions Tolkien has made to the fantasy genre (which includes, in some opinions, the very existence of the genre).

 

[Sir Elton]

Actually, I can argue that J.K. Rowling messed with Modern Fantasy in the same vein that Tolkien did. What Tolkien did was simply:

Create a commentary on the 1st World War that didn't offend anyone. He did it through an imaginary world that grew out of his invented languages and the desire that England would have a National Myth. Although personally, I always thought that Robin Hood and King Arthur was their "National Myth." And I have a good argument for both.

He also created a masterpiece on Military Theory. The Lord of the Rings is a Military Disertation on the idea that to win, all you need to do is to achieve the Objective. Something he learned from World War 1 at the battle of the Somm (or whatever).

However, the writing was so powerful that many tried to imitate Tolkien, but they don't have the depth of Experience that Tolkien had with war. Well, except for Robert Jordan, since he is a Vietnam Veteran. Although you say that Modern Fantasy was messed up by Tolkien, you should watch more Japanese Anime.

You'll see more Star Wars influence in Japanese Fantasy Anime than you would Tolkien influence. If anything, Star Wars had a bigger impact on today's fantasy than Tolkien has.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I'll leave it to others to point out the contributions Tolkien has made to the fantasy genre (which includes, in some opinions, the very existence of the genre).

Except authors like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Lieber were writing popular pulp fantasy stories over 20 years before LotR was published.

 

[Galethorn]

1.Uberelves now people think elves have to be demigods.
2.Legolas
3. dwarves hate elves
4.that alll dwarves are axe-weilding elf haters
5.he made everyone think gnomes suck
6. he made rangers gods
7. he created the half-orc barbarian
8.made halflingsa fat crybabies like sam gamgee
10. made gobilnoids universal cannonfodder

Now, I'm bored, and just got a discount set of troll-proof armor, so I thought I'd answer this as thoughtfully as possible. Everying is IMHO, and of course, YMMV when taking each point with a grain of salt, and all that rot.

So,

1. Before LOTR, the Hobbit, etc., there were only two kinds of elves; tiny, evil fay creatures, and norse demigod-like beings. That's it. They were the only ones. Now, there were a few mythical creatures/races (such as the celtic 'sidhe') which are somewhat like what we now know as elves, but there wasn't even the slightest connection between the two before Tolkien.

2. He's only bad in the movies, I say. In the books, he only had one knife, and he didn't go surfing down things, nor was he portrayed as a pretty-boy. For the Legophiles, blame Jackson.

3. You're probably right about that one, it is his 'fault', but I don't think it's that bad a thing compared to, for example, the default in D&D is that Celestials 'hate' Demons, clerics 'hate' undead, and druids 'hate' civilization.

4. Already answered this in part, but...
Would you agree that all paladins are evil-hating sword-wielders? Are all mind-flayers tentacle-wielding brain-eaters? Are all beholders eye-wielding everything-haters?

5. But they do! Or at least I think they do, in their current form. Now, if you make them short, nature-centric dwarves with narrower shoulders and pointy hats, then they're not so bad. But annoying tinkerers with spiky hair and a badger-fetish? Bleh, I'll take my game elsewhere.

6. No, he made rangers, period. Before LOTR, rangers were one thing, and one thing only (not counting the modern park-tending variety); soldiers who went on long patrols, and did a lot of traveling through the wilderness, and happened to use a lot of guerilla warfare. Now, to say that he made rangers godlike would be like saying he made magic rings the centerpiece of all fantasy to follow. They're not, and rangers haven't become the be all, end all character type either. And besides, they've been the most misinterpreted and poorly represented class in D&D since 1e. Except maybe the monk...who taught Friar Tuck martial arts?

7. He did no such thing. In fact, he actually invented the entire concept of the orc completely. Look as hard as you can; you won't find any pre-tolkien creature known as an orc, barring the 'ork', which was a large sea-monster. As for them being hulking brutes...well, that's not his fault; it's everybody else's for making their orc/half-orcs like the big, dumb, beefy ones instead of the small, nasty ones that liked stabbing each other's backs, and poisoning things.

8. He made them that way, and all other interpretations (which you may blame/thank the creators for) came after he made the whole short guy without a beard concept up. Like most of the things you've mentioned, this could be blamed more on the people who made their stuff up afterwards than Tolkien himself. Sort of like the blaming the greeks; they ruined modern society! 1. They made spartans into spear-wielding turk-haters, 2. They made math, and I hate geometry! etc.

9. You forgot number nine, but I'll answer either way; Step 3: Profit!

10. I'm not even going to answer that one because you made me so mad with 9...

So, to blame Tolkien for ruining modern fantasy would be like blaming Copernicus for the snarkiness of modern cosmology.

In conclusion, you're a troll. And no, you don't have lame, writhing hair, and an aversion to fire and acid; you're Morgoth's mockery of the ents, in the same way that the orcs were a mockery of elves.
---------------------

Anyway...uhhh...yeah...that started out pretty uninflamitory, but I couldn't stand it after number 5...well, I'm going to go work on writing up my "short, nature-centric dwarf with narrower shoulders and a pointy hat" version of the gnome...and while I'm at it, I'll go burn an effigy of Drizzt.

My hat for drau know no limpit.

Yes, I meant 'limpit'. Heh, limpit

 

[JVisgaitis]

Tolkien gave Legolas a bow and a knife, not two long swords. You can blame a lot of the typical fantasy mold on people being afraid to try something different. We're on somewhat of a crusade to bring new light to what I think is a genre in need of a facelift.

Check out violetdawn.com, it might be something your interested in. You'll get nothing but agreement from me that modern fantasy is downright boring, but please cut the good professor some slack.

 

[mojo1701]

I'm surprised you haven't blamed your parents for telling you that Santa Claus' elves are all wrong, too. That people can't have imaginations, and can't stray from the beaten path.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Re: Assertion that Tolkein created the Orc:

Not quite...

Orcneas in Beowulf. An Orc-giant derived from the word orcus.
- Oxford English Dictionary

"... His term orcneas, a hybrid composed of a Latin word for "infernal demon" and a Germanic word for the walking dead, epitomizes the dual perception of the monsters."
- Fred C. Robinson Beowulf and the Appositive style 1985 page 83

"eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas" -Old english

"etins and elves and orcs
such giants" -translation
- Beowulf lines 112-13

"A different word orc, alluding to a demon or ogre, appears in Old English glosses of about AD 800 and in the compound word orcneas ("monsters") in the poem Beowulf. As with the Italian orco ("ogre") and the word ogre itself, it ultimately derives from the Latin Orcus, a god of the underworld. The Old English creatures were most likely the inspiration for the orcs that appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy."
- Encyclopedia Britanica

Orcus, in Roman mythology, was an alternative name for Pluto, Hades, or Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. The name "Orcus" seems to have been given to his evil, punishing side, as the god who tormented evildoers in the afterlife.

Pliny the Elder wrote of orcs in his Historia naturalis, describing a sea monster with large teeth. In Orlando Furioso, an epic by Ludovico Ariosto, the name of "orc" was given to a sea monster that captured the damsel Angelica, and was fought by the hero Rogero riding a hippogriff. It is this use of the word that gave us the word orca as one name for the killer whale (now known by the scientific name orcinus orca).

From this usage, the word "orc" made it into English by being borrowed by Michael Drayton in his Polyolbion, an epic poem about Brutus the Trojan and the mythical founders of Britain, and also appears in the epic poem Paradise Lost, by John Milton. William Blake names one of the characters in his complex mythology "Orc"; Blake's Orc, a proper name, seems to be the embodiment of creative passion and energy, and stands opposed to Urizen, the embodiment of reason.

Even the influential have influences.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think he meant Tolkien created orcs as we now know them, not that he originated the word.

And I think he may be right.