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on hacker news, we STEM lords (of ring 0?) like to examine both sides of every issue, right guys? Guys? I'm sure he was a nice man, and I'm sure you've all der

on hacker news, we STEM lords (of ring 0?) like to examine both sides of every issue, right guys? Guys? I'm sure he was a nice man, and I'm sure you've all derived a lot of pleasure from time spent with his work, much like so many engineers over the years have spent so much time and earned so much of their livings from FORTRAN and COBOL. Because, it must be said, FORTRAN and COBOL are to Computer Science as Lord of the Rings is to English Literature. So I hope this man rests in blissful peace as earnestly as I could wish it of any good man. But let me go even further and say, if it turns out that if after we pass instead of sleep we are instead subjected to involuntary cage-fighting in our area of expertise, I earnestly hope that this nice man is not put in the cage with the recently departed literary critic and scholar Harold Bloom, may he also rest in peace having left us a cultural hole that's more than 6 feet in every dimension, but not as big as the "new ones" he and his friends tore in Lord of the Rings. [and lest you think I'm just being snarky, there's plenty of trash genre porn that I enjoy, I just don't exalt it. Quick quiz: who was the only credible protagonist in Lord of the Rings? answer after the jump]

mcguire 7y ago
Sam.
- fsckboy 7y ago
  Thank you! no. The answer is Gollum. He's the only character who undergoes character development. It's a tragedy, where early he is confronted with choice and he is blind to the mistake he makes due to his personal weakness, and suffers the consequences and realizes, but too late, the error of his ways. Compare him (favorably) to King Lear, or Hamlet, or Oedipus, etc. The other characters are essentially finger puppets, they have "a nature", a personality, but they don't change, it's just "and then this happens (but I don't actually change) and then this happens (and I don't actually change) and this happened (don't worry, I'm still the same old me you are comfortable with)". These are sidekicks, these are comic book characters. The richer human qualities of character development are what we can identify with as we look back at our lives and recognize our own growth, our own change, and the importance of setting aside our weaknesses in favor of larger themes of living up to our better selves. What makes Lord of the Rings weak as literature is that it wasn't written centered around its most interesting character, Gollum.
  - edflsafoiewq 7y ago
    Tolkien does not fit the mold of the modern psychological-realist novel with its fixation on the inner lives of its characters. His most important literary precursor is probably Beowulf. Simplistic formulas (character development = good), deployed like apotropaic amulets in the conveyor-belt writing of culture-industry hacks, are a poor attempt to reduce literary worth to an objective, analyzable and thus reproducible phenomenon—"good writing in a bottle". The polarity of description and prescription has been reversed.
vlunkr 7y ago
You know he didn't write Lord of the Rings, right? You're either really reaching for a way to be contrarian or your whole knowledge of the series is just borrowed opinions from critics.
- fsckboy 7y ago
  or I actually have taste in literature, and just because you enjoy something doesn't mean you know all there is to know about it? Huge numbers of people love McDonalds and "better" fast food burgers like Five Guys or In-and-Out. It's not "contrarian" or "borrowed opinion" to be one of the smaller number of people who have higher standards than that.

mcguire 7y ago

Sam.

fsckboy 7y ago
Thank you! no. The answer is Gollum. He's the only character who undergoes character development. It's a tragedy, where early he is confronted with choice and he is blind to the mistake he makes due to his personal weakness, and suffers the consequences and realizes, but too late, the error of his ways. Compare him (favorably) to King Lear, or Hamlet, or Oedipus, etc. The other characters are essentially finger puppets, they have "a nature", a personality, but they don't change, it's just "and then this happens (but I don't actually change) and then this happens (and I don't actually change) and this happened (don't worry, I'm still the same old me you are comfortable with)". These are sidekicks, these are comic book characters. The richer human qualities of character development are what we can identify with as we look back at our lives and recognize our own growth, our own change, and the importance of setting aside our weaknesses in favor of larger themes of living up to our better selves. What makes Lord of the Rings weak as literature is that it wasn't written centered around its most interesting character, Gollum.
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago
  Tolkien does not fit the mold of the modern psychological-realist novel with its fixation on the inner lives of its characters. His most important literary precursor is probably Beowulf. Simplistic formulas (character development = good), deployed like apotropaic amulets in the conveyor-belt writing of culture-industry hacks, are a poor attempt to reduce literary worth to an objective, analyzable and thus reproducible phenomenon—"good writing in a bottle". The polarity of description and prescription has been reversed.

vlunkr 7y ago

You know he didn't write Lord of the Rings, right? You're either really reaching for a way to be contrarian or your whole knowledge of the series is just borrowed opinions from critics.

fsckboy 7y ago
or I actually have taste in literature, and just because you enjoy something doesn't mean you know all there is to know about it? Huge numbers of people love McDonalds and "better" fast food burgers like Five Guys or In-and-Out. It's not "contrarian" or "borrowed opinion" to be one of the smaller number of people who have higher standards than that.