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Worlds of Design: Escaping Tolkien
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<blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 8091752" data-attributes="member: 6845520"><p>Perhaps I was a bit aggressive in quoting yourself, it was not my intention to imply you said those words directly. It was, however, on theme with the thread as you described it. I <em>VEHEMENTLY</em> disagree with many of the points this article is trying to argue and frankly feel that at best it is poorly researched or quickly written and being granted more credibility than it deserves by being a front page article rather than just a forum post, and at worst it is ACTIVELY spreading misinformation and deflecting from what is the real problem here. I suspect the author of this article is the one who dislikes lazy authors as I described in my previous post and has not realize that this is his real issue. At least that's what I hope is the case because the other real possibility is that they are hypocritically just as lazy as those others he fails to correctly critique.</p><p></p><p>And as for your comments regarding 'decorating a house', I again disagree with your point both in principle and in practice. In principle the mere existence of elves and dwarves does NOT mean you are aping Tolkien. Elves being long lived forest connected beings comes from celtic mythology. Dwarves and gnomes as we know them being associated with metal, earth, and crafting are from Nordic myths. THEY PREDATE TOLKIEN. PERIOD. Arguably the only original thing he created was halflings/hobbits. Hell even his story about a magic cursed ring is an obvious retelling if the Nibelungenlied from Germanic myths and Tolkien has even gone on record as stating he was heavily influenced by Wagner's play. I am not belittling his contribution to fantasy in that many people have taken elements (often lazily) from his works, but by <em>YOUR</em> very definition of other authors only decorating a house if they don't make brand new structures, all Tolkien did was slap up some wallpaper on Germanic and Christian myths. It was top quality wallpaper and the furniture was crafted by an absolute master mind you, but it was still just decorating none-the-less.</p><p></p><p>The reason I bring up this point is to once again show why I disagree with your assertion in practice: execution is <em>precisely</em> what matters. You are welcome to disagree with this opinion if you wish, but I will fervently argue that crafting a world by adding your own details on classic imagery is no less important than making something new. I don't give a d*** if someone has elves and dwarves in their setting, what matters is what they <em>do</em> with them, and I personally find the idea of belittling a work for having classic elements as inherently lazy or bad as insulting not only to other authors, but also to Tolkien himself.</p><p></p><p>A quick example of such: are we to fully argue that Game of Thrones is mere windowdressing in Tolkien's house or does G.R.R. Martin's works have a very different feel to Lord of the Rings. He has even stated in interviews that he deliberately wrote his books to be a critique of Tolkien and has spoken about his influence from him on multiple occasions. Are the children of the forest or Others merely just elves? They fit the description of long-lived superhuman nature aligned humanoids with pointy ears. Has Martin escaped the house of Tolkien? I'd argue yes strongly, but there is a lot of evidence to say he has not. It is why we cannot just boil this down to something as simplistic as <em>if there are elves, it's still Tolkien.</em></p><p></p><p>Again, this is what the original article seems to imply is the case and if the person who posted it (or this site itself for that matter) are going to be making money or ad revenue off of it, then they deserve to be open to criticism and dissenting discussion (which is what I'd assume is the intent behind having it be on a forum).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MostlyHarmless42, post: 8091752, member: 6845520"] Perhaps I was a bit aggressive in quoting yourself, it was not my intention to imply you said those words directly. It was, however, on theme with the thread as you described it. I [I]VEHEMENTLY[/I] disagree with many of the points this article is trying to argue and frankly feel that at best it is poorly researched or quickly written and being granted more credibility than it deserves by being a front page article rather than just a forum post, and at worst it is ACTIVELY spreading misinformation and deflecting from what is the real problem here. I suspect the author of this article is the one who dislikes lazy authors as I described in my previous post and has not realize that this is his real issue. At least that's what I hope is the case because the other real possibility is that they are hypocritically just as lazy as those others he fails to correctly critique. And as for your comments regarding 'decorating a house', I again disagree with your point both in principle and in practice. In principle the mere existence of elves and dwarves does NOT mean you are aping Tolkien. Elves being long lived forest connected beings comes from celtic mythology. Dwarves and gnomes as we know them being associated with metal, earth, and crafting are from Nordic myths. THEY PREDATE TOLKIEN. PERIOD. Arguably the only original thing he created was halflings/hobbits. Hell even his story about a magic cursed ring is an obvious retelling if the Nibelungenlied from Germanic myths and Tolkien has even gone on record as stating he was heavily influenced by Wagner's play. I am not belittling his contribution to fantasy in that many people have taken elements (often lazily) from his works, but by [I]YOUR[/I] very definition of other authors only decorating a house if they don't make brand new structures, all Tolkien did was slap up some wallpaper on Germanic and Christian myths. It was top quality wallpaper and the furniture was crafted by an absolute master mind you, but it was still just decorating none-the-less. The reason I bring up this point is to once again show why I disagree with your assertion in practice: execution is [I]precisely[/I] what matters. You are welcome to disagree with this opinion if you wish, but I will fervently argue that crafting a world by adding your own details on classic imagery is no less important than making something new. I don't give a d*** if someone has elves and dwarves in their setting, what matters is what they [I]do[/I] with them, and I personally find the idea of belittling a work for having classic elements as inherently lazy or bad as insulting not only to other authors, but also to Tolkien himself. A quick example of such: are we to fully argue that Game of Thrones is mere windowdressing in Tolkien's house or does G.R.R. Martin's works have a very different feel to Lord of the Rings. He has even stated in interviews that he deliberately wrote his books to be a critique of Tolkien and has spoken about his influence from him on multiple occasions. Are the children of the forest or Others merely just elves? They fit the description of long-lived superhuman nature aligned humanoids with pointy ears. Has Martin escaped the house of Tolkien? I'd argue yes strongly, but there is a lot of evidence to say he has not. It is why we cannot just boil this down to something as simplistic as [I]if there are elves, it's still Tolkien.[/I] Again, this is what the original article seems to imply is the case and if the person who posted it (or this site itself for that matter) are going to be making money or ad revenue off of it, then they deserve to be open to criticism and dissenting discussion (which is what I'd assume is the intent behind having it be on a forum). [/QUOTE]
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