Are there any other fantasy stories where the protagonists start with possession of the MacGuffin and seek to destroy it while the antagonists seek to recover it, or is LOTR so famous, and that plot so strongly associated with it, that if any other writer tried to do it he'll be accused of ripping off LOTR?
>>24760092the last book of harry pottet
>>24760092The ring story started with The Hobbit, not LOTR. The protagonist gets the ring in The Hobbit. The ring is not a MacGuffin, it is central to the story. A MacGuffin is an excuse.
>>24760151The Hobbit and LOTR are two separate works, though. You don't need to read the Hobbit to understand the plot of LOTR.In the Hobbit the ring isn't even that important, it's just a random ring of invisibility. It's only in LOTR that it's revealed as the One.
>>24760255The ring didn’t have a big backstory when The Hobbit was written. It’s just stolen from the ring of Gyges and the later variant myths in Euro folktales.
>>24760092Tolkien ripped the plot off from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Most educated people recognised this in Tolkien's day.
>>24760255>>24760335I read the silmarillion first and I'm glad I did
