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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7389428" data-attributes="member: 82106">Honestly, JRRT's world building never impressed me in the slightest. Between the Declaration of the Doom of Mandos (which comes at almost the same time that the Sun and Moon first appear and thus the start of real timekeeping in the First Age) when the Noldor returned to ME and the Fall of Sauron at the end of the Third Age is something on the order of SIX THOUSAND YEARS, and yet only 3 human nations exist amongst the Dunedain in all this time, and they can trace their individual ancestries back all the way to men like Hurin and Turin (or at least their generation). Vast periods of time fill just the Third Age, 3000 years, in which basically NOTHING happens, society is in complete stasis. There's NOTHING realistic about the history of ME, nothing at all!It has no realistic (or really any) economy, very little society (most areas are simply lawless wilds which seem to remain so throughout the entire period), a completely static technology, etc.In fact it is the very AVOIDANCE of all of these things which gives ME its mythic abstract character. It is NOT really a living breathing world, its a sort of diorama. Its a bit like a train set, the trains go round and round, but nothing else ever changes. The Shire is the exception, and it is no coincidence that all the really humanized characters and details of everyday life are pretty much drawn from that one location. The Hobbit and LotR (some parts at least) are VERY different from the rest of Tolkien's mythic work, and required their own little reservation to inhabit. All of this is great, but what is the common reality?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7389428, member: 82106"] Honestly, JRRT's world building never impressed me in the slightest. Between the Declaration of the Doom of Mandos (which comes at almost the same time that the Sun and Moon first appear and thus the start of real timekeeping in the First Age) when the Noldor returned to ME and the Fall of Sauron at the end of the Third Age is something on the order of SIX THOUSAND YEARS, and yet only 3 human nations exist amongst the Dunedain in all this time, and they can trace their individual ancestries back all the way to men like Hurin and Turin (or at least their generation). Vast periods of time fill just the Third Age, 3000 years, in which basically NOTHING happens, society is in complete stasis. There's NOTHING realistic about the history of ME, nothing at all! It has no realistic (or really any) economy, very little society (most areas are simply lawless wilds which seem to remain so throughout the entire period), a completely static technology, etc. In fact it is the very AVOIDANCE of all of these things which gives ME its mythic abstract character. It is NOT really a living breathing world, its a sort of diorama. Its a bit like a train set, the trains go round and round, but nothing else ever changes. The Shire is the exception, and it is no coincidence that all the really humanized characters and details of everyday life are pretty much drawn from that one location. The Hobbit and LotR (some parts at least) are VERY different from the rest of Tolkien's mythic work, and required their own little reservation to inhabit. All of this is great, but what is the common reality? [/QUOTE]

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