Tolkien's Fantasy World Too True To be Fantasy ?

[Adrian II]

one of my issues with the conventions of fantasy is that in every major work, the freedom-loving chivalric people with knights are always in the west, always bounded by a great western ocean, the 'boundless hordes' and darker skinned peoples are always in the east/south, the viking-esque peoples are always in the north. the steppe peoples are always in the east etc. which i just find silly.

That is why I find nearly all fantasy so utterly boring. It isn't fantasy at all, just a watered-down version of some mediocre writer's idea of reality. Every dwarf, every robot, every elf is another testimony to the author's lack of talent and imagination.

Y'all may hang me now.

[Azi Tohak]

Maybe he's not as exciting as some modern writers, but he was the first to create a fantasy world. I think GC is right about his skills.

I've read his letter about how he despises allegory, and I must say I'm thrilled by it I hate allegory too, and sure, while he had to have taken some of his own experiences and placed them in the book (WWI is too important to ignore), they aren't supposed to be 'true'. Their books and enjoy them (or hate them, whatever) as such.

Azi

[octavian]

That is why I find nearly all fantasy so utterly boring. It isn't fantasy at all, just a watered-down version of some mediocre writer's idea of reality. Every dwarf, every robot, every elf is another testimony to the author's lack of talent and imagination.

Y'all may hang me now.

keep in mind that Tolkien was not writing afaik a FANTASY book. rather he was trying to write something for the english people that was lacking in their history, that is, a mythological history filled with great deeds and legends.

also tolkien had a number of things in his life that affected his writing etc. one of these was a pet theory that is if the saxons had had horses they would not have lost the battle of hastings. therefore you have your saxon lookalikes (the Rohirrim) mounted on horses. you also have Tolkiens dream about a great wave washing over and sinking an island. this is referred to by numenor (read: atlantis) tolkien also had a theory that he was descended from some survivors (who had passed the dream down to him) of atlantis (read: gondorians). tolkien even references his dream directly in the LOTR with Faramir. (given in the movie to eowen). even shelob (etymological tangent she=female lob=spider not very creative really, but a very good feel and sound) had a real life counterpart, tolkien was severly frightened while he was a child in South Africa by a large spider (tarantula iirc).

thats all i can come up with off the top of my head i'll prolly post more later.

0ct

[Papewaio]

That is why I find nearly all fantasy so utterly boring. It isn't fantasy at all, just a watered-down version of some mediocre writer's idea of reality. Every dwarf, every robot, every elf is another testimony to the author's lack of talent and imagination.

Y'all may hang me now.

True when you compare the talent and imagination that modern media and political spin doctors put into their output it does make fantasy writers look like hacks...

[Soulforged]

That is why I find nearly all fantasy so utterly boring. It isn't fantasy at all, just a watered-down version of some mediocre writer's idea of reality. Every dwarf, every robot, every elf is another testimony to the author's lack of talent and imagination.

Y'all may hang me now.

You may want to try some of the books inspired on Faerun, those are the best fantasy that i know. A whole world with all language story and characters just like LOTR, but it's far from being cliche, and no page tries to give a message, it only tells a story, though that's what i felt.

[Stefan the Berserker]

-> Haradrim - real- Hamitic People

Early interpretations of the Bible led many Western scholars to believe that all of humanity was descended from Noah. Chapters 9 and 10 of the Book of Genesis deal with the branching off and splitting up of Noah's sons into the world, this is open to interpretation, but the name of Cush, Ham's eldest son, means 'black' in Hebrew. Noah curses Ham and Canaan, Cush's brother, saying that he and his descendants would be a "servant of servants". Hebrew scholars used this passage to justify the Israelite subjugation of Canaan. These scholars, working around the 6th century AD, introduced the idea that the sons of Ham were marked by dark skin.

In the middle ages Christian scholars picked up on the idea. Again, the depiction of the "sons of Ham" as cursed, "blackened" by their sins suited the ideological interests of the European elite; especially as the principal enemy of Christendom was Islam, which dominated North Africa. Despite the fact that Islam originated with the Semitic Arabs, European imagery often stressed the blackness of the Islamic Moors and associated them with the 'cursed' sons of Ham. Later, with the emergence of the slave trade, it justified the exploitation of a ready supply of black African labour.

-> Orcs - real - Grendel / Fomorii / Tommies

In Beowulf, ll: 112,the zombie-like Grendel's race is described as Orc-néas, which seems to mean "corpses of Orcus." Orcus, in Roman mythology, was an alternative name for Pluto, Hades, or Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. The name "Orcus" seems to have been given to his evil and punishing side, as the god who tormented evildoers in the afterlife. Like the name Hades (or the Northern Hel, for that matter), "Orcus" could also mean the land of the dead. Tolkien derived his 'Orcs' from this passage in Beowulf. (See below.)

With Grendel beeing the Prototype of the Orc as an individual, he created a whole species for the single Monster appearing in Beowulf. The society of Orcs is created by example of the Fomorians, as beeing hostile to the Gods and beeing organised in Armies to fight in Battles the second rally for Mag Tuireadh.

However with the social component of Orcs he created them after example of the Tommies. As beeing forced to keep up fighting and beeing somehow acting like Apparatschiki, he moved his negative impressions of the first worldwar into the Orcs.

"We were all orcs in the Great War"

[Steppe Merc]

Orcs can't be Turks. No horse archers. Their military is totally different from them, they suck at fighitng (thus can't be Turks), and I think that they represent far more the evils of any group of people, rolled into one.

P.S. If there are wrong translations with according to the proper nouns used in the book (i.e. is the Orcish language called black language really?) . I did not ever read the book.

Eh, it might be mentioned somewhere in the appendices. It's not officially called "The Black Language", though.