Tolkien's Fantasy World Too True To be Fantasy ?

[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