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Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

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Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#101

Post by setr »

riffraff wrote: post #42
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did it so well that most "high" fantasy that came out after him felt derivative of Tolkien. I'd really like to see counter-examples though; I feel like I haven't dived into the genre enough, in part because I'm turned off by the sheer volume of some book (series) on the one hand, and the juvenile tropes (generic hero's journey formula) on the other.

I would think "high fantasy" to be defined as "tolkienesque" (great evil to defeat and save the world). But there's a ton of fantasy where the other important tropes of Tolkien (great lost past, the dark empire, all good on one side and all bad on the other, the pure heroes) is missing. The first that come to mind are "the wheel of time" and "the chronicles of Thomas covenant". Also if you move from high fantasy ther…

I normally define high vs low fantasy as a setting, differing by the level of magical infusion to the fictional universe -- a world where magic is thoroughly embedded into its structure is high fantasy (eg magic is not simply a power source of wizards, but a system that influences all things, and magical creatures/objects are the norm, not the exception).

The closer you get to reality -- the more magic becomes a tool, rather than a rule ala gravity, the "lower" your fantasy gets; the lowest essentially being the one guy who stumbles into magical powers, but no one else has anything close, or a portal dimension opens and thrusts magical creatures upon our universe for a bit.

tolkienesque would be more specifically the tropes of LOTR, as you've described.

But essentially any modern high fantasy film/tv/game (I don't read much fantasy, so I can't comment on books) either mimics tolkien's systems and races (elves are slender long-lived creatures of the forests, dwarves are short hole-digging mountain-men, glowing weapons and runes scattered throughout the lands, wizards as wise-men etc), or it is best described as a reaction to tolkien -- deliberately trying to be NOT-tolkien.

In my mind, the failure to detach wholesale from tolkien, but still exist as "high-fantasy", is because few attempt a more holistic attempt at it -- to craft the rules of the universe, run the (mental) simulation, to set the stage for whatever plotline. Instead the world is crafted in the void, but because the rules are never clearly defined, it naturally defaults to similar rules as tolkien (randomly broken to fit the story, because they were never defined well-enough to review).

However, there are stories more derived from gods & myths that would fit my given definition of high fantasy, though I'm not sure I'd put them under the same umbrella as tolkien

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#102

Post by MintelIE »

leereeves wrote: post #12
MintelIE wrote: post #10

I went to the site and started to read but then this page blocker kinda swooped in and faded the page out so I closed the tab. No I’m not giving web sites my email address.

Just click the X in the upper right corner.

It's totally easier to just close the whole tab with control-w.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#103

Post by thewhitetulip »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #90
thewhitetulip wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot about the stories I write. This is just like x or y or z. It is not original or unique, or it is just too cliched. I mean, yes, _something_ in the story is going to be repetitive. But the unrealistic expectations people have these days is that it that it should be 100% original. don't write stories about humans, write about aliens, but no, alien vs predator covered that.. it is never ending.

They’re gonna be mad when they learn that Star Wars is derivative haha

hahaha. Such people have an elitist attitude of fundamentalists. They think only Oxford dons should write novels. Who are you to write a sci fi book when GRRM is writing one? How dare you?

One such person had said to me a long time back that "you'll never write something like this". I was like, "you don't know me and never say never. Just because you lack the ability to write something down doesn't mean the rest of the world does, too."

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#104

Post by goto11 »

eredengrin wrote: post #95
goto11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just read the creation myth in the first chapters in Silmarillion. It's basically Paradise Lost with more diacritics. What other mythologies have angels anyway? The Tolkien mythology is monotheistic and morally dualistic (good vs evil), which is fundamentally different from the pagan cultures he is otherwise inspired by. I actually think this is key to his success: He takes a lot of cool stuff from pagan mythologies…

Yes, the creation of the Tolkien universe most certainly has the most direct inspiration from Christian myth, but to say the entire thing is based on it is a much stronger statement. Once the earth is formed to the point of the arrival of the elves, most of those stories afterward have very little comparison to anything in Christianity. Beren and Luthien, the creation of the rings, the wars over the Silmarils...perha…

Yes I was thinking of the creation/fall, not the whole of the Silmarillion, sorry for not making that clear.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#105

Post by thaumasiotes »

riffraff wrote: post #76
thaumasiotes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a ton of fantasy where the other important tropes of Tolkien (great lost past, the dark empire, all good on one side and all bad on the other, the pure heroes) is missing. The first that come to mind are "the wheel of time" We must see different things. As I see the wheel of time: - Great lost past. This one's obvious; the Age of Legend is a huge focus of the books. - The dark empire. Doesn't exist in the p…

Yes, the age of legends is the same trope, but I don't think the rest matches. There is one Big Evil but the lesser ones are all scheming against each other. In Tolkien there's just a bit with Saruman and the spiders, but you don't really have factions amongst the ringwraiths, for example. It's all just a battle between Sauron/everyone or Melkor/everyone. The good ones in WoT don't simply start separated but actively…

Hmm.

In the wheel of time, good and evil are objective. (Well, evil is objective.) Everyone, good or evil, agrees on what it means to be evil. By definition, everyone evil ultimately reports to the same leader. Good is a little less unified than that, but they likewise all agree that they're on the same side. If one good person in the wheel of time wants to kill another good person for being evil, that doesn't reflect different views of what evil is; it's just a simple mistake of fact.

And that's pretty much what I understand by "all good on one side and all evil on the other", I guess.

> The good ones in WoT don't simply start separated but actively hating and fighting each other, Rand has to go to war with many nations and specific groups within nations, and some of them just split and start killing each other. This is not the same as Gondor and Rohan being on bad terms

On the other hand, it is the same as e.g. the relationship between the Mirkwood elves and the dwarves, as depicted in The Hobbit.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#106

Post by [deleted] »

morelisp wrote: post #85
goto11 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the quote is just Tolkien getting really annoyed that people read LoTR as an allegory for WWII. If I understand the quote correctly, he is rejecting the form of allegory where the reader is supposed to "get it" and use the allegory to "decode the message". But Tolkien wasn't trying to say anything about the Jewish people through the vehicle of Dwarwes, he was just drawing on some inspiration.

But - really? You don't think he was saying anything about the Jewish people when he had a friendship between a dwarf and elf succeed over timeless racial antipathy? Or by having the plight of the dwarves be what ultimately moves a member of the extremely comfortable hobbit gentry to direct action? Or even by the simple mixing of the unquestioned Norse "supreme contribution to Europe" with Jewish mythology, he wasn't…

[deleted]

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#107

Post by goto11 »

morelisp wrote: post #85
goto11 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the quote is just Tolkien getting really annoyed that people read LoTR as an allegory for WWII. If I understand the quote correctly, he is rejecting the form of allegory where the reader is supposed to "get it" and use the allegory to "decode the message". But Tolkien wasn't trying to say anything about the Jewish people through the vehicle of Dwarwes, he was just drawing on some inspiration.

But - really? You don't think he was saying anything about the Jewish people when he had a friendship between a dwarf and elf succeed over timeless racial antipathy? Or by having the plight of the dwarves be what ultimately moves a member of the extremely comfortable hobbit gentry to direct action? Or even by the simple mixing of the unquestioned Norse "supreme contribution to Europe" with Jewish mythology, he wasn't…

> Or by having the plight of the dwarves be what ultimately moves a member of the extremely comfortable hobbit gentry to direct action?

I curious what you think he was trying to say with this?

> Or even by the simple mixing of the unquestioned Norse "supreme contribution to Europe" with Jewish mythology, he wasn't hinting that, maybe, also, the Jewish people had contributed in the same way?

Jewish mythology was by far more well known than Norse, through the Old Testament and its influence on Christianity. So I don't see why Tolkien would want to make that a point of that.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#108

Post by einpoklum »

danans wrote: post #78
simonh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For post-Tolkien fantasy with little or no Tolkien influences or tropes, the most obvious recent example is Game of Thrones. I suppose it's arguable whether it's High Fantasy, but looking at the character arcs of John Snow and Daenerys I think it clears the bar.

> For post-Tolkien fantasy with little or no Tolkien influences or tropes There's perhaps no direct borrowing of names and character types, but by George R.R. Martin's own attestation, he sought to write a story with a scope approaching Tolkeins but disposing of Tolkiens idealism and dualism. He was deeply influenced by Tolkiens writing, and sought to correct it's flaws. https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2019/09/george-…

So, an unoriginal _scope_ ? Hmm... I don't know about that.

Re: Tolkien’s Mythic Plan for England

#109

Post by jacobr1 »

pjc50 wrote: post #54
have_faith wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have an unhealthy obsession with trying to achieve 100% original thoughts and ideas, to the point that people often hide their influences unless they feel people will understand that they didn't borrow too much. Feels like a psychological trap.

> I think we have an unhealthy obsession with trying to achieve 100% original thoughts and ideas This is pretty much forced on people by the nature of the intellectual property system. If it's ""derivative"" of something written in living memory, you have to pay.

This isn't very true. Modern copyright, with its many problems, is saner than that and has a more literal view of derivation. There needs to be actual copying involved, not just influence. Likewise with patents claims needs to be unique but also specific. Overly broad and obvious claims are regularly dismissed (if not by the examiner, then in the course of a suite). The problems mostly stem with the litigious ways IP is abused (which of course reflects on the value of the whole system) in that claims of derivation can be made with limited evidence and the recourse will be costly to rebuke.
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