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Worlds of Design: Reassessing Tolkien’s Influence
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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9206974" data-attributes="member: 7035894"><p>I love Tolkien's work, but I also think his impact on fantasy fiction has been mostly negative, and the same for RPGs.</p><p></p><p>Tolkien's writing style is profoundly anachronistic and only works because he is working at the level of myth and has the stupendous chops and devotion to pull it off. <em>The Lord of the Rings </em>could only have been written by an Oxford professor of languages who basically made it his life's work. Someone who had completely internalized Nordic sagas but also the Bible.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, it created a template for a <em>lot</em> of bad fantasy. Because a whole lot of writers were effectively trying to do Tolkien, and they didn't have anything like his chops. And given that fantasy is already an inherently conservative genre, we wound up with tons of derivative mush about dark lords and epic quests. I suspect a lot of D&D campaigns have fallen into this category. My early ones certainly did.</p><p></p><p>In particular, I blame Tolkien's influence for the profoundly simplistic character development that still plagues fantasy. Tolkien's characters are not really people, they are archetypes, and, once again, he gets away with it because he's that good. Fantasy's obsession with black and white morality is rooted in Tolkien; I blame it for alignments in particular (with an assist from Moorcock). It has taken fantasy decades to move past Tolkien's view of moral conflict.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9206974, member: 7035894"] I love Tolkien's work, but I also think his impact on fantasy fiction has been mostly negative, and the same for RPGs. Tolkien's writing style is profoundly anachronistic and only works because he is working at the level of myth and has the stupendous chops and devotion to pull it off. [I]The Lord of the Rings [/I]could only have been written by an Oxford professor of languages who basically made it his life's work. Someone who had completely internalized Nordic sagas but also the Bible. Unfortunately, it created a template for a [I]lot[/I] of bad fantasy. Because a whole lot of writers were effectively trying to do Tolkien, and they didn't have anything like his chops. And given that fantasy is already an inherently conservative genre, we wound up with tons of derivative mush about dark lords and epic quests. I suspect a lot of D&D campaigns have fallen into this category. My early ones certainly did. In particular, I blame Tolkien's influence for the profoundly simplistic character development that still plagues fantasy. Tolkien's characters are not really people, they are archetypes, and, once again, he gets away with it because he's that good. Fantasy's obsession with black and white morality is rooted in Tolkien; I blame it for alignments in particular (with an assist from Moorcock). It has taken fantasy decades to move past Tolkien's view of moral conflict. [/QUOTE]
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