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Of course :) I do not at all mean to discredit Tolkein's moral complexity. I have simply personally found JY's more interesting and more compelling. That is jus

Of course :) I do not at all mean to discredit Tolkein's moral complexity. I have simply personally found JY's more interesting and more compelling. That is just a personal opinion, and could be simply explained by the fact that I'm a Chinese person who knows all too well the Cultural Revolution and it's impact on my society, and find that the questions JY asks relevant. The original intent of my comment, after all, was to question what it meant for Tolkein to be more "creative" than JY.

KineticLensman 8y ago
I'm a westerner who hadn't previously heard much about JY (but loves Tolkien ) and was being a bit pedantic, so I'm not sure my comment was entirely fair. I'm sure that a Chinese author discussing the impact of the cultural revolution is going to pose harder moral issues than Tolkien did in general, and its quite correct that Tolkien's best known works (TLOTR, Hobbit) have fairly simple morals.
- victoriasun 8y ago
  FWIW I don't think that moral complexity necessarily makes a work great. Harry Potter will always be one of my favorite series of all times, and it has very little moral depth. I'm currently playing Dragon Quest 11, which is an amazing video game but it's at it's core, a very, very good fairy tale with extremely straightforward morals, and I think it's a masterpiece. Meanwhile, John Green's work is all about the emotional depth and moral complexities of teenagers and they're just not that interesting to me. Ultimately authors have chosen for whatever reason to tell the story they want to the way they want to. George RR Martin famously likes to get on Tolkien's case for not answering the question of what exactly does it mean for Aragon's rule to be peaceful. I don't think that that criticism is entirely fair. In LOTR, Tolkien had a specific story he wanted to tell. He did it to amazing effect, with thorough character development and world depth. You could not look at his work and say that any of his characters did not behave logically to what was established within themselves. Particularly with the Hobbit I think you can tell that he chose to tell a specific story and to do that erred towards moral simplicity. But that doesn't make the story any less beautiful -- in fact, I would argue that the innocence and purity of the hobbits against this unknowable and extreme evil is part of LOTR/Hobbit's charm. It allows him to tell a story that is fundamentally different from the story JY or GRRM wants to tell -- which is how your innate goodness, if you continue to tap into it and grow it, can help you triumph over corruption and evil. Frankly, I find that this kind of story is something that we are quick to want to discredit because we think it lacks "depth" and is too much of a fairy tale. So, that he can tell this kind of story so effectively and meaningfully is something to be cherished.
  - KineticLensman 8y ago
    Great response! > But that doesn't make the story any less beautiful -- in fact, I would argue that the innocence and purity of the hobbits against this unknowable and extreme evil is part of LOTR/Hobbit's charm .... Frankly, I find that this kind of story is something that we are quick to want to discredit because we think it lacks "depth" and is too much of a fairy tale Yes, completely agree. Tolkien's formative experience (analogous to the Cultural revolution for JY??) was the First World War, the death in combat of most of his closest friends and the characters of the ordinary soldiers he met in the trenches. He explicitly made the connection between these people and characters such as Sam.

KineticLensman 8y ago

I'm a westerner who hadn't previously heard much about JY (but loves Tolkien ) and was being a bit pedantic, so I'm not sure my comment was entirely fair. I'm sure that a Chinese author discussing the impact of the cultural revolution is going to pose harder moral issues than Tolkien did in general, and its quite correct that Tolkien's best known works (TLOTR, Hobbit) have fairly simple morals.

victoriasun 8y ago
FWIW I don't think that moral complexity necessarily makes a work great. Harry Potter will always be one of my favorite series of all times, and it has very little moral depth. I'm currently playing Dragon Quest 11, which is an amazing video game but it's at it's core, a very, very good fairy tale with extremely straightforward morals, and I think it's a masterpiece. Meanwhile, John Green's work is all about the emotional depth and moral complexities of teenagers and they're just not that interesting to me. Ultimately authors have chosen for whatever reason to tell the story they want to the way they want to. George RR Martin famously likes to get on Tolkien's case for not answering the question of what exactly does it mean for Aragon's rule to be peaceful. I don't think that that criticism is entirely fair. In LOTR, Tolkien had a specific story he wanted to tell. He did it to amazing effect, with thorough character development and world depth. You could not look at his work and say that any of his characters did not behave logically to what was established within themselves. Particularly with the Hobbit I think you can tell that he chose to tell a specific story and to do that erred towards moral simplicity. But that doesn't make the story any less beautiful -- in fact, I would argue that the innocence and purity of the hobbits against this unknowable and extreme evil is part of LOTR/Hobbit's charm. It allows him to tell a story that is fundamentally different from the story JY or GRRM wants to tell -- which is how your innate goodness, if you continue to tap into it and grow it, can help you triumph over corruption and evil. Frankly, I find that this kind of story is something that we are quick to want to discredit because we think it lacks "depth" and is too much of a fairy tale. So, that he can tell this kind of story so effectively and meaningfully is something to be cherished.
- KineticLensman 8y ago
  Great response! > But that doesn't make the story any less beautiful -- in fact, I would argue that the innocence and purity of the hobbits against this unknowable and extreme evil is part of LOTR/Hobbit's charm .... Frankly, I find that this kind of story is something that we are quick to want to discredit because we think it lacks "depth" and is too much of a fairy tale Yes, completely agree. Tolkien's formative experience (analogous to the Cultural revolution for JY??) was the First World War, the death in combat of most of his closest friends and the characters of the ordinary soldiers he met in the trenches. He explicitly made the connection between these people and characters such as Sam.