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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9252133">Personally I am not terribly concerned about the insetting explanation on this aspect of it. Again, not a massive lord of the rings fan, so I don't really know if there is an explanation for why it impacts Gollum in this way (and if something like Hobbit hardiness is a factor). But I see the ring doing this to him being more about the corruption of his soul by greed for the ring. To me it is consistent with the morality and magical nature of the setting. But I don't need a break down of Hobbit DNA (and I don't see Tolkien as that type of world builder). When it comes to world building and Tolkien, the thing I like about him is 1) there is a sense of depth to the world in Lord of the Rings. How much was post hoc, and how much was done before pen hit the page I don't know. 2) The other thing is his idea that worlds are not created but discovered. And that he seemed to use linguistics as a bit of a creative prompt (at least I recall an interview or a book where I read this, that he would trace the etymology of a word to characterize something in the setting, like a hobbit for example). Not sure how accurate this is but I do like this idea, and I did something like it when I made a fantasy setting that made heavy use of arabic as an influence on name sounds (I would come up with a name, and use the three letter root to help me characterize the location). To me this was always an interesting creative prompt that also provided an interesting level of consistency 3) The silmarillion. I have tried to read this many times and only made it so far. I know there are people who enjoy reading it more. And while I am sure people overflow what it all really meant, my understanding is these are larger from stories and scraps he started writing before Lord of the Rings. And so it is an impressive piece of world building in that respect. I don't think something like this is necessary for fantasy and I don't think I have much interesting in reading a fantasy settings background material. But I believe this has quite a bit to do with point 1.  I also understand the Silmarillion wasn't all written in 1914 or something. But that an author would pay this kind of attention to the details of his world, I find that impressive, because it suggests the setting mattered a great deal to him. Again, like I said earlier writers revise. Whether world consistency issues are because of a bedrock foundation or because of revisions and later imaginings to bring everything into a coherent and stable world, the end result is that setting consistency is evident in the final product and was important to that writer. But of course that doesn't mean they aren't engaged in writing a novel where other things will matter. One of the problems Tolkien has as an influence is world building for its own sake dominates a lot of fantasy literature. And a lot of fantasy writers aren't as good at making that kind of world as Tokien is. And plenty of fantasy have been written more episodically, without tremendous concern for a world, which is also fine. At the end of the day, world building is just a tool, not an obligation. And setting consistency is going to be more or less important to certain writers</blockquote>

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