5 ms·

Perhaps LOTR is mainstream now? Rather much like comic books are billon dollar franchises for normal people not nerds.

by thinkingemote 4y ago

gpderetta 4y ago
True, although Blind Guardian sang about LotR well before it went mainstream.
- Schnitz 4y ago
  LOTR was already a mainstream novel when they wrote about it. Sure it wasn’t on TV but people that read novels surely knew about it and had read it by then.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR.
    - KineticLensman 4y ago
      > Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first, as the nation's best loved novel > The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR. Agree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read
      - sigstoat 4y ago
        > In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first that would be after two years of the movie trilogy being in theaters, and coincident with the release of the third movie? i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed.
        KineticLensman 4y ago
        > i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed. Two years before the films (same source) in a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".
      - gpderetta 4y ago
        Interesting! The British do like Fantasy! Harry Potter would probably be even higher today, and I would have expected Pratchett to be higher.
wolframhempel 4y ago
Haha, this was exactly our discussion: a) But, they made a whole album based on the The Silmarillion. b) Did your mom watch the Hobbit?. Your Grandma? Yes. exactly :-D
- bartread 4y ago
  Indeed but, honest question, was it mainstream when they created those albums? (I'm too unfamiliar with Blind Guardian's back catalogue to know.)
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" is from '98. Up to you to decide if it was mainstream by then. They do have plenty of Tolkien references in previous albums as well and generally their songs take inspirations from a lot of fantasy sources. "The bard's Song" is allegedly inspired by "the Bard's Tale" video game; that's pretty nerdy!
    - bartread 4y ago
      1998 was still very thoroughly the era when sysadmins were naming servers after characters and regions in Middle Earth. It was also the last time I read LOTR and The Hobbit (obviously read both multiple times - starting in 1988). LOTR has always fallen into this odd middle place though, where lots of people had read it, or at least started reading it, but it was still considered pretty fringey. Only real spods like me got completely obsessed by it at school. Same with D&D: lots of people dabbled (including me), not many stuck. And D&D is still, I think, considered pretty nerdy, unlike perhaps LOTR. The films - and the whole media and merchandising franchise that developed around them - really wrecked it all though: they weren't bad (in fact I enjoyed them) but LOTR and, later, The Hobbit was just everywhere for far too many years. Beyond that, they basically destroyed the imagery I had in my own mind of what Middle Earth was like. I can't say I'm particularly grateful. I haven't read the books since. Partly that's because my tastes have changed and broadened, but it's also that the films somehow removed the appeal and motivation. So I'd say the mainstreaming of LOTR really occurred with Peter Jackson's films meaning that, yes, Blind Guardian score high on nerdiness for creating albums around the books before this.

Perhaps LOTR is mainstream now? Rather much like comic books are billon dollar franchises for normal people not nerds.

gpderetta 4y ago

True, although Blind Guardian sang about LotR well before it went mainstream.

Schnitz 4y ago
LOTR was already a mainstream novel when they wrote about it. Sure it wasn’t on TV but people that read novels surely knew about it and had read it by then.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR.
  - KineticLensman 4y ago
    > Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first, as the nation's best loved novel > The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR. Agree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read
    - sigstoat 4y ago
      > In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first that would be after two years of the movie trilogy being in theaters, and coincident with the release of the third movie? i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed.
      - KineticLensman 4y ago
        > i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed. Two years before the films (same source) in a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      Interesting! The British do like Fantasy! Harry Potter would probably be even higher today, and I would have expected Pratchett to be higher.

wolframhempel 4y ago

Haha, this was exactly our discussion: a) But, they made a whole album based on the The Silmarillion. b) Did your mom watch the Hobbit?. Your Grandma? Yes. exactly :-D

bartread 4y ago
Indeed but, honest question, was it mainstream when they created those albums? (I'm too unfamiliar with Blind Guardian's back catalogue to know.)
- gpderetta 4y ago
  "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" is from '98. Up to you to decide if it was mainstream by then. They do have plenty of Tolkien references in previous albums as well and generally their songs take inspirations from a lot of fantasy sources. "The bard's Song" is allegedly inspired by "the Bard's Tale" video game; that's pretty nerdy!
  - bartread 4y ago
    1998 was still very thoroughly the era when sysadmins were naming servers after characters and regions in Middle Earth. It was also the last time I read LOTR and The Hobbit (obviously read both multiple times - starting in 1988). LOTR has always fallen into this odd middle place though, where lots of people had read it, or at least started reading it, but it was still considered pretty fringey. Only real spods like me got completely obsessed by it at school. Same with D&D: lots of people dabbled (including me), not many stuck. And D&D is still, I think, considered pretty nerdy, unlike perhaps LOTR. The films - and the whole media and merchandising franchise that developed around them - really wrecked it all though: they weren't bad (in fact I enjoyed them) but LOTR and, later, The Hobbit was just everywhere for far too many years. Beyond that, they basically destroyed the imagery I had in my own mind of what Middle Earth was like. I can't say I'm particularly grateful. I haven't read the books since. Partly that's because my tastes have changed and broadened, but it's also that the films somehow removed the appeal and motivation. So I'd say the mainstreaming of LOTR really occurred with Peter Jackson's films meaning that, yes, Blind Guardian score high on nerdiness for creating albums around the books before this.