8 ms·

LOTR is really cool. For example, Aragorn is a supersoldier and long lost true heir who's engaged to an immortal princess, but the world ends up being saved by

LOTR is really cool. For example, Aragorn is a supersoldier and long lost true heir who's engaged to an immortal princess, but the world ends up being saved by Sam who doesn't have any of those gifts. Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers.

spdionis 10y ago
>Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers. Which by the way I prefer. The cliche of the powerless humble guy who in the end saves the world has become boring and predictable.
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  It's only boring when done wrong. But so is any plot.
- notahacker 10y ago
  It's not exactly any less boring and predictable than the poor stupid proles needing the brave, noble righteous heir to come and dig them out of the mire
Ntrails 10y ago
I think claiming that any single member of the troop saves the world misses the point. All of them had a part to play. At best you could argue Gandalf was the one who moved the pieces into place and made it happen. I accept the premise that the gambit was won not through great warriors, but by folk of spirit, loyalty and fortitude disproportionate to their stature. One thing that really struck home as a youngster reading was of course Eowyn and the witch king.
- david-given 10y ago
  Of course, Sam and Frodo fail in the end... at the last moment, Frodo succumbs to the ring, claims it for his own, and turns away from the quest. The only thing which actually saves them and destroys the ring is blind chance. Or, maybe, providence? "Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker," says Gandalf. Once you start looking, that theme permeates the entire book. But then, so does free will: providence, if it exists in Tolkien's universe, cannot act except through people. Frodo's choice to let Gollum live allows Gollum to unwittingly destroy the ring later. And that theme permeates the book too. It's painfully dated in a lot of ways, but still fascinating, and a lot more complex than the simple adventure story it first appears to be.
  - BellsOnSunday 10y ago
    What's dated about it?
    - david-given 10y ago
      Weeeelll... From the writing style point of view: - we wouldn't pace it like that these days. When the story splits, Tolkien tells an entire story from the point of view of some of the characters, and then rewinds time by quite a long way to tell an entire story from some of the other characters. We'd tend to use more changes of PoV, so that all the events progress at the same time. This has the advantages that the climaxes all happen simultaneously, and also allows compare-and-contrast between different plot threads. - the writing style itself is pretty uneven; there are sections at the beginning which have the same forced-joviality-talking-down-to-children feel that the Hobbit had, but which is quite out of place in the much darker book. It gets better later on, though. (IIRC he only redrafted it once, due to not having a word processor.) From the worldbuilding point of view: - despite all the care behind Gollum's characterisation, the bulk of the antagonists get no characterisation whatsoever. Orcs are simple ciphers, portrayed as irredeemably evil; which doesn't fit in Tolkien's cosmology (only Illúvatar, God, can give or take free will). Tolkien was aware this was a problem later on and tried to address it in the Silmarillion, but apparently he was never happy with the solution there. Sauron, of course, famously never appears on stage at all. - there's a lot of 1950s attitudes, both subtle racism --- he's got a regrettable tendency to use dark skin or deformity as a marker of being evil --- and subtle classism --- and I'm not talking about Sam vs. Frodo here; what I mean is that outside the Shire, the only people we ever meet who matter are aristocracy. Ordinary people exist, because at one point our characters stand on Edoras and look out at the burning farmsteads, but only as comic relief or bit parts. And, of course, there's the famous lack of female characters. - Sam and Frodo's relationship is very alien to modern eyes: we just don't seem to do that master/servant relationship any more, or if we do, we interpret it as a sexual relationship (hence all the 'Sam will kill him if he tries anything' jokes). Tolkien uses this elsewhere; Saruman/Wormtongue is a perverted example. (There is, BTW, another excellent example of this done right in Kipling's Kim, which you should totally read.) None of this, BTW, is any reason why it's bad, because not, it's a great book; and the fact that a 60-year old book holds up so well today is a tribute to just how good it is; but it is still very much an artifact of its time, and needs to be remembered as such.
stevekemp 10y ago
Paul Atreides was literally designed/breed to have the special powers though, which makes his case a bad example. If not him it would have been whoever else was at the peak of the sisterhood's breeding plan.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  There are countless nods to aristocracy in Dune even if you ignore Paul Atreides & the BG conspiracy.
  - CodeMage 10y ago
    I wouldn't say there are "nods to aristocracy". The whole Faufreluches class system was quite deliberately designed for the Dune world. Herbert has his characters criticize it subtly at various points of the first three books and then has Leto II outright declare it as one of the biggest problems with the human society in "The God Emperor of Dune".
- douche 10y ago
  Paul Atreides was also a mistake in the sisterhood's breeding plan, since Jessica broke with their Illuminati-esque plan out of love for her Duke and to give him an heir, and thus jumped the gun a generation too early. Paul was supposed to be Paulina and marry Feyd-Rautha, rather than gut him in front of the Emperor.
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    True he wasn't supposed to be what he was, but he was definitely along the path, the golden path, towards the perfect person they'd be working for.
arethuza 10y ago
Sam is based on the ordinary British soldiers that Tokien served alongside as an officer while enduring the horrors of the Western Front in WW1 "“My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself.” " http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/02/26/87195-sam-gamgee-and-tolkiens-batmen/ http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/02/26/87195-sam-gamgee-...

spdionis 10y ago

>Sadly, most later genre fiction succumbed to nostalgia for aristocracy, with heroes like Luke Skywalker or Paul Atreides relying on inherited special powers. Which by the way I prefer. The cliche of the powerless humble guy who in the end saves the world has become boring and predictable.

guard-of-terra 10y ago
It's only boring when done wrong. But so is any plot.
notahacker 10y ago
It's not exactly any less boring and predictable than the poor stupid proles needing the brave, noble righteous heir to come and dig them out of the mire

Ntrails 10y ago

I think claiming that any single member of the troop saves the world misses the point. All of them had a part to play. At best you could argue Gandalf was the one who moved the pieces into place and made it happen. I accept the premise that the gambit was won not through great warriors, but by folk of spirit, loyalty and fortitude disproportionate to their stature. One thing that really struck home as a youngster reading was of course Eowyn and the witch king.

david-given 10y ago
Of course, Sam and Frodo fail in the end... at the last moment, Frodo succumbs to the ring, claims it for his own, and turns away from the quest. The only thing which actually saves them and destroys the ring is blind chance. Or, maybe, providence? "Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker," says Gandalf. Once you start looking, that theme permeates the entire book. But then, so does free will: providence, if it exists in Tolkien's universe, cannot act except through people. Frodo's choice to let Gollum live allows Gollum to unwittingly destroy the ring later. And that theme permeates the book too. It's painfully dated in a lot of ways, but still fascinating, and a lot more complex than the simple adventure story it first appears to be.
- BellsOnSunday 10y ago
  What's dated about it?
  - david-given 10y ago
    Weeeelll... From the writing style point of view: - we wouldn't pace it like that these days. When the story splits, Tolkien tells an entire story from the point of view of some of the characters, and then rewinds time by quite a long way to tell an entire story from some of the other characters. We'd tend to use more changes of PoV, so that all the events progress at the same time. This has the advantages that the climaxes all happen simultaneously, and also allows compare-and-contrast between different plot threads. - the writing style itself is pretty uneven; there are sections at the beginning which have the same forced-joviality-talking-down-to-children feel that the Hobbit had, but which is quite out of place in the much darker book. It gets better later on, though. (IIRC he only redrafted it once, due to not having a word processor.) From the worldbuilding point of view: - despite all the care behind Gollum's characterisation, the bulk of the antagonists get no characterisation whatsoever. Orcs are simple ciphers, portrayed as irredeemably evil; which doesn't fit in Tolkien's cosmology (only Illúvatar, God, can give or take free will). Tolkien was aware this was a problem later on and tried to address it in the Silmarillion, but apparently he was never happy with the solution there. Sauron, of course, famously never appears on stage at all. - there's a lot of 1950s attitudes, both subtle racism --- he's got a regrettable tendency to use dark skin or deformity as a marker of being evil --- and subtle classism --- and I'm not talking about Sam vs. Frodo here; what I mean is that outside the Shire, the only people we ever meet who matter are aristocracy. Ordinary people exist, because at one point our characters stand on Edoras and look out at the burning farmsteads, but only as comic relief or bit parts. And, of course, there's the famous lack of female characters. - Sam and Frodo's relationship is very alien to modern eyes: we just don't seem to do that master/servant relationship any more, or if we do, we interpret it as a sexual relationship (hence all the 'Sam will kill him if he tries anything' jokes). Tolkien uses this elsewhere; Saruman/Wormtongue is a perverted example. (There is, BTW, another excellent example of this done right in Kipling's Kim, which you should totally read.) None of this, BTW, is any reason why it's bad, because not, it's a great book; and the fact that a 60-year old book holds up so well today is a tribute to just how good it is; but it is still very much an artifact of its time, and needs to be remembered as such.

stevekemp 10y ago

Paul Atreides was literally designed/breed to have the special powers though, which makes his case a bad example. If not him it would have been whoever else was at the peak of the sisterhood's breeding plan.

sangnoir 10y ago
There are countless nods to aristocracy in Dune even if you ignore Paul Atreides & the BG conspiracy.
- CodeMage 10y ago
  I wouldn't say there are "nods to aristocracy". The whole Faufreluches class system was quite deliberately designed for the Dune world. Herbert has his characters criticize it subtly at various points of the first three books and then has Leto II outright declare it as one of the biggest problems with the human society in "The God Emperor of Dune".
douche 10y ago
Paul Atreides was also a mistake in the sisterhood's breeding plan, since Jessica broke with their Illuminati-esque plan out of love for her Duke and to give him an heir, and thus jumped the gun a generation too early. Paul was supposed to be Paulina and marry Feyd-Rautha, rather than gut him in front of the Emperor.
- stevekemp 10y ago
  True he wasn't supposed to be what he was, but he was definitely along the path, the golden path, towards the perfect person they'd be working for.

arethuza 10y ago

Sam is based on the ordinary British soldiers that Tokien served alongside as an officer while enduring the horrors of the Western Front in WW1 "“My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself.” " http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/02/26/87195-sam-gamgee-and-tolkiens-batmen/ http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/02/26/87195-sam-gamgee-...