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Why D&D is not (just) Tolkien
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7273437" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Nah, just not all from Tolkien, him, the myths, and whatever else.</p><p></p><p>Thus the Norse dark elves providing 2 races and a monster, gorgons & medusae being separate monsters even though Medusa was an individual gorgon, etc... D&D was syncretic and profligate with the borrowing as the language it was written in...</p><p></p><p>Speaking of which, this is the thread where you brought up Shakespeare, right?</p><p></p><p>Another one occurred to me MacBeth's "no man born of woman" and Eowyn being able to defeat the Nazgul. Both were breaking a Geas in the traditional Celtic sense of a taboo that presaged the means or circumstances of your death. </p><p></p><p>I'd often thought the D&D geas an odd variation on that, then there was that short story someone linked, where it was straight up mind control, much more D&Dish.</p><p></p><p>Gygax pulled from all over, it seems, and the more you dig the more influences...</p><p>I wonder if any of it was original, at all?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7273437, member: 996"] Nah, just not all from Tolkien, him, the myths, and whatever else. Thus the Norse dark elves providing 2 races and a monster, gorgons & medusae being separate monsters even though Medusa was an individual gorgon, etc... D&D was syncretic and profligate with the borrowing as the language it was written in... Speaking of which, this is the thread where you brought up Shakespeare, right? Another one occurred to me MacBeth's "no man born of woman" and Eowyn being able to defeat the Nazgul. Both were breaking a Geas in the traditional Celtic sense of a taboo that presaged the means or circumstances of your death. I'd often thought the D&D geas an odd variation on that, then there was that short story someone linked, where it was straight up mind control, much more D&Dish. Gygax pulled from all over, it seems, and the more you dig the more influences... I wonder if any of it was original, at all? [/QUOTE]
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