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<blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 7727853" data-attributes="member: 40166">Just like a scale opens the box of misinterpretation of the color of an object. Author's intention is at best overrated; many hacks grinding out what the commercial machine needs has produced much better work than many an inspired amateur with high hopes and dreams, and nobody cares about author's intention until the work or author is canonized. In the 1950s and 1960s, nobody picked up the Lord of the Rings with a good idea of who Tolkien was, and many of them with little idea who Dante or Beowulf were. The text had to stand by itself. Even today, why should what Tolkien intended be more important than what he wrote and what people read from what he wrote? Particularly when talking about D&amp;D and Tolkien's effects on it, both the published version of D&amp;D and what's getting played out on tables?Again, the authorial intent of Gygax doesn't mean much to most of the people playing D&amp;D. Certainly quoting BX, a work by Moldvay, based on a work by Holmes, is an example of the problem of Gygax's authorial intent. While I would guess (from his recommendations) that Gygax was a subscriber to The Magazine of Fantasy &amp; Science Fiction it wasn't huge then (60k subscribers), and even less so now. I can't tell you exactly what fantasy looked like to D&amp;D players in the 1980s, but today it looks a lot like Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Dragonlance and Drizzt. The races aren't identical. But the main old-school D&amp;D races, the elves, dwarves, humans, and <s>hobbits</s> halflings are exactly the major protagonist races of the Lord of the Rings, and I suspect when you say &quot;elf&quot; or &quot;dwarf&quot; to D&amp;D players, the majority or at least the plurality of them will visualize the LotR movie versions of Legolas and Gimli.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="prosfilaes, post: 7727853, member: 40166"] Just like a scale opens the box of misinterpretation of the color of an object. Author's intention is at best overrated; many hacks grinding out what the commercial machine needs has produced much better work than many an inspired amateur with high hopes and dreams, and nobody cares about author's intention until the work or author is canonized. In the 1950s and 1960s, nobody picked up the Lord of the Rings with a good idea of who Tolkien was, and many of them with little idea who Dante or Beowulf were. The text had to stand by itself. Even today, why should what Tolkien intended be more important than what he wrote and what people read from what he wrote? Particularly when talking about D&D and Tolkien's effects on it, both the published version of D&D and what's getting played out on tables? Again, the authorial intent of Gygax doesn't mean much to most of the people playing D&D. Certainly quoting BX, a work by Moldvay, based on a work by Holmes, is an example of the problem of Gygax's authorial intent. While I would guess (from his recommendations) that Gygax was a subscriber to [i]The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction[/i] it wasn't huge then (60k subscribers), and even less so now. I can't tell you exactly what fantasy looked like to D&D players in the 1980s, but today it looks a lot like Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Dragonlance and Drizzt. The races aren't identical. But the main old-school D&D races, the elves, dwarves, humans, and [s]hobbits[/s] halflings are exactly the major protagonist races of the Lord of the Rings, and I suspect when you say "elf" or "dwarf" to D&D players, the majority or at least the plurality of them will visualize the LotR movie versions of Legolas and Gimli. [/QUOTE]

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