What kind of autism is required to actually enjoy this?How did he get away with Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn being the same exact person but only different because they are different races so they have some 'flavor' dialogue like it's a shitty RPG game where you sometimes get to pick the dwarf race option in dialogue but otherwise it is the exact same character.On top of that half the dialogue between them is this kind of "OOOOOH LEGOLAS YOU ARE SO COOL WITH YOUR ELF EYES. OH MY GOD THEY CAN SEE SO FAR AND WIDE AAAAAH." And for Gimli it's Galadriel and dwarves not riding horses... Aragorn is honestly the worst one. Don't even get me started on that embarrassment of a scene when he has to leave the sword at the door before speaking with Theoden. The whole thing reads like it was written for retarded toddlers.
>>25290774You have entered foundational literature with presuppositions stemming from its knock-offs which misunderstand the source material completely.Anyways, keep reading.
Gimli is the comic relief character. Legolas is the awesome sauce proto-anime-esque warrior. Aragorn is a king in exile. Pay more attention when reading.
>>25290779>foundational literatureNot gonna let you get away with calling something that is newer than 90% of the shit I read 'foundational'. Fuck off.
>>25290774It probably only feels that way because Tolkien didn't waste time going on tangents about the backstory of every single character, like many of its followers, especially in the litrpg garbage /lit/ likes to read.
>>25290774Why pretend to have read these books. Do u even read.
>>25290788Yeah because you totally cannot make a character distinct and interesting without delving into backstory.
>>25290785You’re retarded, see yourself out.
>>25290809Oh did I offended you by slandering baby's first book?
>>25290774A likely reason for you not 'getting' Lord of the Rings, including the myriad of archetypes represented therein, of which the rivalry of dwarves and elves is only one, comes down to you yourselves being rootless, and having no internal reference for the sense of nostalgia which the writing is meant to evoke.Do you not have a good relationship with your father? Did you never really have a place to call home? Do you not have many friends? Do you not see a true greater evil that all folk of Earth could and should unite against? Simply put - is there not a smidge of wanderlust in you, not a smidge of hero? Would you yourself stay home and not go on such an adventure? Then it is likely you don't like Lord of the Rings.https://youtu.be/lXAvF9p8nmM
>>25290774Edmund Wilson long ago pointed how trash LOTR is and one day history will vindicate him.>t is indeed the tale of a Quest, but, to the reviewer, an extremely unrewarding one. The hero has no serious temptations; is lured by no insidious enchantments, perplexed by few problems. What we get is a simple confrontation – in more or less the traditional terms of British melodrama – of the Forces of Evil with the Forces of Good, the remote and alien villain with the plucky little home-grown hero. There are streaks of imagination: the ancient tree-spirits, the Ents, with their deep eyes, twiggy beards, rumbly voices; the Elves, whose nobility and beauty is elusive and not quite human. But even these are rather clumsily handled. There is never much development in the episodes; you simply go on getting more of the same thing. Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form. The characters talk a story-book language that might have come out of Howard Pyle, and as personalities they do not impose themselves. At the end of this long romance, I had still no conception of the wizard Gandalph [sic], who is a cardinal figure, had never been able to visualize him at all. For the most part such characterizations as Dr. Tolkien is able to contrive are perfectly stereotyped: Frodo the good little Englishman, Samwise, his dog-like servant, who talks lower-class and respectful, and never deserts his master. These characters who are no characters are involved in interminable adventures the poverty of invention displayed in which is, it seems to me, almost pathetic. On the country in which the Hobbits, the Elves, the Ents and the other Good People live, the Forces of Evil are closing in, and they have to band together to save it.
>>25290836>There are Black Riders, of whom everyone is terrified but who never seem anything but specters. There are dreadful hovering birds-think of it, horrible birds of prey! There are ogreish disgusting Orcs, who, however, rarely get to the point of committing any overt acts. There is a giant female spider – a dreadful creepy-crawly spider! – who lives in a dark cave and eats people. What one misses in all these terrors is any trace of concrete reality. The preternatural, to be effective, should be given some sort of solidity, a real presence, recognizable features – like Gulliver, like Gogol, like Poe; not like those phantom horrors of Algernon Blackwood which prove so disappointing after the travel-book substantiality of the landscapes in which he evokes them. Tolkien’s horrors resemble these in their lack of real contact with their victims, who dispose of them as we do of the horrors in dreams by simply pushing them or puffing them away. As for Sauron, the ruler of Mordor (doesn’t the very name have a shuddery sound.) who concentrates in his person everything that is threatening the Shire, the build-up for him goes on through three volumes. He makes his first, rather promising, appearance as a terrible fire-rimmed yellow eye seen in a water-mirror. But this is as far as we ever get. Once Sauron’s realm is invaded, we think we are going to meet him; but he still remains nothing but a burning eye scrutinizing all that occurs from the window of a remote dark tower. This might, of course, be made effective; but actually it is not; we never feel Sauron’s power. And the climax, to which we have been working up through exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine large close-printed pages, when it comes, proves extremely flat. The ring is at last got rid of by being dropped into a fiery crater, and the kingdom of Sauron “topples ” in a brief and banal earthquake that sets fire to everything and burns it up, and so releases the author from the necessity of telling the reader what exactly was so terrible there. Frodo has come to the end of his Quest, but the reader has remained untouched by the wounds and fatigues of his journey. An impotence of imagination seems to me to sap the whole story. The wars are never dynamic; the ordeals give no sense of strain; the fair ladies would not stir a heartbeat; the horrors would not hurt a fly.
>>25290833Which is it, anon? Is he a rootless cosmopolitan or is he a drab homebody? You're accusing him of two diametrically opposite things and you're apparently too retarded to see it (typical for a Tolkien fan.)
>>25290836You can tell this guy was extremely concerned with the literature of his present day, rather than what it came from. This is somewaht typical of America, a country without history. Thus he misses the forest for the trees, as Americans do.
>>25290833What are these insane copes you Tolkien drones are coming up with? I live in a literal shire irl. I could leave my door unlocked and not be robbed in a hundred years. Im not criticizing the 'moral' of the story. Just how Tolkien writes his characters.
>>25290848I'm mostly accusing him of being Indian or black, really.
>>25290854Do you genuinely not see that accusing someone of being "rootless" and not having a home and then immediately thereafter accusing them of being devoid of "wanderlust" and wanting to stay at home instead of going on adventures is brain damaged?
But you aren't offering any criticism besides "this is pooppy caca and I don't like it and it's like an rpg".
>>25290858That's a contradiction which is already central to the book itself. Bilbo Baggins is a homesteader who should not be interested in the world, yet he is - and it is possible to fail on both accounts. To wander the world, and learn nothing from it.
>>25290774You've decided to not like one of the most enjoyable repeat reads and I pity you.
>>25290785You were the one who mentioned RPG, retard.
>>25290774so do you have any real critiques of the book (many of which do exist and are valid) or is it all just impotent screeching from some hormonal teen dork
>>25291026Are you the arbiter of what is and isn't a valid critique? The idea that you already have a list of valid ones and if the critique ain't on there already it's invalid is hilarious.
>>25291098It's invalid if it comes from a low place of mind, a shallow impression, and misunderstanding.
>>25290774Gimli is actually one of the more likeable characters in the story which isn't saying much.I remember thinking Faramir was the most insufferable, even more boring and pretentious than Aragon
>>25291098yes i am
nice bait
>>25290774It’s legally and morally ok to dislike a book.
>>25290774Post tits.
>>25291368He‘s probably under 400 lbs, unlike your average LotR fanboy.
>>25290779>>25290809The reddit-spacing plebeian recoils at being called out
legolas, gimli, and aragon (and boromir), as characters, are by far the weakest part of the story. But if you think that somehow ruins the whole text, you should stop watching youtube video essays about character arcs. The strength of the work is in its pathos and sensitivity to the changing of the times. Does the leaving of the elves not move you? If not, you're either too jaded or too illiterate for a work as sincere as LOTR.
>>25290863How could he? OP never read the book.
>>25291430I don't think it ruins the whole text actually. But I did honestly expect the characters to meet a way higher bar of writing, or at the very least the dialogue between them. I nearly recoiled in horror at how garbage Boromir's death scene was compared to the movie. Yeah, yeah, them putting him in a boat and sending him off with the weapons of his slain foes is SOVL, but… that trash death scene itself dampens the impact of that quite a lot for me. And that is basically how a lot of the book's 'intended' impact becomes lost for me. Stuff like how the magic is leaving the world and all that is KINO, but fuck is it dragged down a ton by how "basic" the characters feel. (Not all characters just mainly those four you mentioned.) To be clear the book for me is about... 60% good 20% mid and 20% garbage.
>>25290774you can come back and comment once you're read the silmarrilion, not before
You can really spot the female readers because they will always complain about the characters. Of course they will. To women, the STORY is the characters' interactions and how they develop alongside the central (or side) drama. All the rest is secondary to this.
Lotr is anti-nerd. The kind of autistic 21st century nerd that needs irrelevant details about everything told them
>>25291591I read The Silmarillion four times as a wayward high schooler and he‘s exactly right.
>>25291654He is right, but I think the things he wants would have detracted from the storyA big part of Tolkien's appeal is capturing the feel of myth and folklore; those sorts of stories don't actually tend to have a lot of internal voice and character development, and would probably feel a bit weird with them
>>25291706That‘s fair. But the thing then becomes that we have actual myth and folklore to capture the feel of myth and folklore.
>>25291714We have fewer works which address our relationship to myth and folklore, which is essentially what Lord of the Rings does, as explained in the lecture linked in >>25290833Long story short, it's all simulacrums and degrees of separation all the way down. Lord of the Rings simulates fragmentary myth (primarily found manuscripts such as Beowulf), and has it create this emergent, modern commentary of itself, of how we think of the past, its immaterial ideals, and its material relics that we inherit. A fantasy writer may simulate other myths to provide other commentaries, using various other fables, and their success will depend on how aware they are of the heritage, the monomyths that are being commented upon - this is very much the case in Narnia or Conan, contemporary to Tolkien, or Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, or Elric, which only borrow a little from it, and provide their own commentaries on their own subjects.A bad fantasy writer, GRRM, doesn't get it, and creates a proper third order simulacrum, where the original content is close to being completely gone. Then comes the fourth order in isekai mmo slop light novels, which is seemingly useless and retarded with no relation to reality of any time... but, in fact, provides unwitting commentary through its inherent projection, a commentary on the Japanese occidentalist mindset, as we watch an attempt to colonize the medieval west by the japanese modern high-schooler, which obviously is the opposite of what happened in reality. And that is an attempt to outright rewrite the myth, and change the society's relationship with the past.
>>25291382>he
>>25291584well, it's the one thing the movies do better than the books. Sean Bean's Boromir, in particular, is fantastic. But personally, I only really felt this issue in Fellowship. The strongest writing in the whole trilogy is the character writing of Gollum, Sam, and Frodo traveling together. And everything going in Rohan just gleams with Tolkien's love and deep understanding of anglo-saxon history. The Two Towers, in particular, is an exceptional book.
I have tried to read that pile of trash so many times. It's not good. I put it down by Rivendell each attempt. I just get so bored with Tolkien's writing. The songs, the descriptions, the bland conversations. LOTR puts me to sleep every time. The Hobbit is good though.
>>25291771>you can come back and comment once you've read the silmarrilion, not before>>25291706>>25291654you can come back and comment once you've read the silmarrilion, not before
>>25291781I have read it anon, I don't see how it's relevant. It has some characters with more pathos than you see in LoTR, but that doesn't fix LoTR.
>>25290851>you don't get it 'cuz you are 'murricanFuck off brownie, that shit don't work no more.
>>25290853>I live in a literal shire irl. I could leave my door unlocked and not be robbed in a hundred years.The Tom Bombadill thing strikes me as a Hillbilly type of shit. Hell, the Hobbitses grow tomatoes and potatoes on their farms as well as tobacco (pipe weed they call it but it's clearly meant to be similar to tobacco) like these fags might as well be 18th Virginians.
There are actual legitimate criticisms that can be sustained when it comes to Lord of the Rings, but you're criticizing it almost from an "RPG"-like perspective. You're simply reading the book wrong (and I hardly even read fantasy anyway).
Tolkien ruined Fantasy forever.
>>25290774Asperger's syndrome
It is no matter of wonder that so many people are bored by, or detest, The Lord of the Rings. Judged by any of the Seven Types of Ambiguity that haunt the groves of Academe, it is totally inadequate. For those who seek allegory, it must be maddening. (It must be an allegory! Of course Frodo is Christ!—Or is Gollum Christ?) For those whose grasp on reality is so tenuous that they crave ever-increasing doses of “realism” in their reading, it offers nothing—unless, perhaps, a shortcut to the loony bin. And there are many subtler reasons for disliking it; for instance the peculiar rhythm of the book, its continual alternation of distress and relief, threat and reassurance, tension and relaxation: this rocking horse gait (which is precisely what makes the huge book readable to a child of nine or ten) may well not suit a jet-age adult. And there’s Aragorn, who is a stuffed shirt; and Sam, who keeps saying “sir” to Frodo until one begins to have mad visions of founding a Hobbit Socialist Party; and there isn’t any sex. And there is the Problem of Evil, which some people think Tolkien muffs completely. Their arguments are superficially very good. They are the same arguments which Tolkien completely exploded, thereby freeing Beowulf forever from the dead hands of the pedants, in his brilliant 1934 article “The Monster and the Critics”—an article which anyone who sees Tolkien as a Sweet Old Dear, by the way, would do well to read.Those who fault Tolkien on the Problem of Evil are usually those who have an answer to the Problem of Evil—which he did not. What kind of answer, after all, is it to drop a magic ring into an imaginary volcano? No ideologues, not even religious ones, are going to be happy with Tolkien, unless they manage it by misreading him. For like all great artists he escapes ideology by being too quick for its nets, too complex for its grand simplicities, too fantastic for its rationality, too real for its generalizations. They will no more keep Tolkien labeled and pickled in a bottle than they will Beowulf, or the Elder Edda, or the Odyssey.
In many fantasy tales of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the tension between good and evil, light and dark, is drawn absolutely clearly, as a battle, the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other. In such fantasies I believe the author has tried to force reason to lead where reason cannot go, and has abandoned the faithful and frightening guide, the shadow. These are false fantasies, rationalized fantasies. They are not the real thing. Let me, by way of exhibiting the real thing, which is always much more interesting than the fake one, discuss The Lord of the Rings for a minute.Critics have been hard on Tolkien for his “simplisticness,” his division of the inhabitants of Middle Earth into the good people and the evil people. And indeed he does this, and his good people tend to be entirely good, though with endearing frailties, while his Orcs and other villains are altogether nasty. But all this is a judgment by daylight ethics, by conventional standards of virtue and vice. When you look at the story as a psychic journey, you see something quite different, and very strange. You see then a group of bright figures, each one with its black shadow. Against the Elves, the Orcs. Against Aragorn, the Black Rider. Against Gandalf, Saruman. And above all, against Frodo, Gollum. Against him—and with him.It is truly complex, because both the figures are clearly doubled. Sam is, in part, Frodo’s shadow, his “inferior” part. Gollum is two people, too, in a more direct, schizophrenic sense; he’s always talking to himself, Slinker talking to Stinker, Sam calls it. Sam understands Gollum very well, though he won’t admit it and won’t accept Gollum as Frodo does, letting Gollum be their guide, trusting him. Frodo and Gollum are not only both hobbits; they are the same person—and Frodo knows it. Frodo and Sam are the bright side, Smeagol-Gollum the shadow side. In the end Sam and Smeagol, the lesser figures, drop away, and all that is left is Frodo and Gollum, at the end of the long quest. And it is Frodo the good who fails, who at the last moment claims the Ring of Power for himself; and it is Gollum the evil who achieves the quest, destroying the Ring, and himself with it. The Ring, the archetype of the Integrative Function, the creative-destructive, returns to the volcano, the eternal source of creation and destruction, the primal fire. When you look at it that way, can you call it a simple story? I suppose so. Oedipus Rex is a fairly simple story, too. But it is not simplistic. It is the kind of story that can be told only by one who has turned and faced his shadow and looked into the dark.That it is told in the language of fantasy is not an accident, or because Tolkien was an escapist, or because he was writing for children. It is a fantasy because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.
>>25292084No, I'm not. The characters, instead of being 'people,' are primarily used as stand-ins for their respective races. There is really no sense at all that Legolas is different from any other elf. Aragorn is, I think, an attempt at recreating Odysseus. However... Odysseus actually has feats and reasons for you to respect him. Meanwhile, Aragorn has done fuck all at this point. He is just riding on the fact he's the heir of Isildur and has a cool sword. If you had read any fantasy that comes after Tolkien, you would notice that nobody at all copies the way he writes characters. I suggest that this is likely because it is simply bad writing.
>"It's... It's utter fucking garbage">Has the gall to criticize anyone else's writing
>>25290836>>25290842Based
>>25290842>>25290836This guy (I've literally never heard of him before) is retarded, half of his observations aren't accurate, imagine getting filtered by LOTR of all things. >The characters talk a story-book language that might have come out of Howard Pyle, and as personalities they do not impose themselvesAnd are more beloved and remembered than this guy himself. Perhaps there's something to be said for writing things people enjoy instead of erecting masturbary obelisks to your own cleverness (or worse: Memorization)
>>25292527Interesting thoughts, never saw it that way. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
You have to be white in order to understand the whole substance of its material.
>>25290779kek, fpbp
>>25290779High IQ-Jester-LARP
>>25290774One of my favorite things about Tolkien is that he is a very concise author. He doesn't spend pages upon pages making sure that the reader fully understands the personality and the motivations of some side character. Instead, Tolkien relies on the reader's powers of observation to make inferences from dialogue and action, letting the character reveal his inner self in a natural way while the plot happens. Unfortunately a lot of people are so used to infodumps that explain everything that Tolkien's approach goes badly underappreciated.For example, Frodo isn't pure good and Aragorn... is going to be a tyrant and was never the destined true king, but the story ends before that part becomes obvious. It relates to Tolkien's theme about history being a big story in which happy endings are just nice stopping points after which the story continues.
>>25292706What makes you say Aragorn would be a tyrant? Tolkien says we ruled wisely and did a good job...
>>25292706Tolkien explicitly said Aragorn would be a good king, but did predict a long slow corruption starting with his great grandkids or something.
>>25292756With Tolkien it is important to pay attention to the in-world source of the information. Tolkien is a surprisingly postmodern author in that way and wrote LotR to be an in-world text to which textual criticism can be successfully applied to find out the hidden layers of the plot. It's the sort of thing that an academic used to dealing with ancient documents could find a fun thing to do. It turns out that the sources that say Aragorn was wise and good are far from neutral and contradict Aragorn's portrayal by Frodo who had no need to flatter his monarch and some of the historical facts that could not be completely ignored and smoothed away. Yes, I know this is all very hard to understand and requires paying a lot of attention to the text.As for something a little more clear from Tolkien himself, The New Shadow, Tolkien's abandoned LotR sequel that doesn't progress past the beginning pages, has a small aside that mentions that Aragorn had been feared by the people of Gondor. Maybe if the sequel had gone on longer we would have learned more.
>>25292627>This guy (I've literally never heard of him before)Because you are an underage ESL>half of his observations aren't accurateCope>imagine getting filtered by LOTR of all things.Imagine getting filtered by actual literature so you resort to shit written in the 50s>And are more beloved and remembered than this guy himself. Perhaps there's something to be said for writing things people enjoy instead of erecting masturbary obelisks to your own cleverness (or worse: Memorization)By your standards Mcdonalds is peak food because it's beloved and remembered. Idiotic tolkiendrone
>>25290836>>25290842Yeah this about sums up my problems with the book. I have yet to ever understand the "if he dosent show himself hes scarier!" thing about Sauron. Not being able to have him appear on page is an indictment against your writing. Why? Because it shows a lack of commitment. He does not actually "dare" to go as far as to actually SHOW us the the evils of Sauron. The whole thing ends up feeling rather childish as a result. This is why Bakker is king.
>>25292789Can you post examples of what you are saying, specifically the Frodo contrast.
>>25292564>If you had read any fantasy that comes after Tolkien, you would notice that nobody at all copies the way he writes characters. I suggest that this is likely because it is simply bad writing.Agree. They copy the "detailed world building" but his characters a pretty one-dimentional.
>>25290774Hi Moorcock!
>>25290774>The whole thing reads like it was written for retarded toddlers.No, that'd be Harry Potter.
>>25293603Or China Mieville. A Marxist bugman either way.
>>25292232By pre-emptively mogging it.
>>25291771Then I guess children's stories are about your level. Stick to comics.
>>25293879LotR is a childrens story.
>>25290836>>25290842Accurate, amongst many other criticisms. I enjoy many aspects of LOTR but I don't know why tolkiendrones can't just admit that he's a highly flawed writer with high highs and low lows. People treat him like an author of scripture or some shit, and it's more online faux-conservative children than redditors who do it.
>>25291706Tolkien does not have the feel of myth. He only has the form of myth, taking bits and pieces from old Germanic literature, but inserts his own very basic worldview into it. The work is hollow, his characters do not accurately depict archetypes like real myth does.>>25291753You've been filtered by GRRM then because he does this far better than Tolkien does. The central message of ASOIAF is why all this stuff matters beyond just a naive conservative interpretation like Tolkien's. Why the importance of honour survives the harsh realities of war and Machiavellian politics.
>>25294395>Tolkien does not have the feel of mythYes he does
>>25293339Projecting spic detected
>>25294471The fact that you've never heard of Howard Pyle is the tell-tale that you are from a country where English ain't the first language.
>>25294395>The central message of ASOIAF is why all this stuff mattersThe central theme of ASOIAF is that nothing matters. No lineage, position, god, magic or dragon. No life there is worth living. But he does do characters well, just likes torturing them a bit too much.
>>25290774no one gave a shit about tolkien until picrel made him famous
>>25290774It's one of those things where the kinda people who like that sort of thing, like that sort of thing. It's not for me, but I appreciate the lengths Tolk went to to create a new language and such. He's one of the only acceptable long-nosed writers I can think of. LOtR fans are really just proto-weebs, in a way. Eez what it eez.
>>25291602Women love Tolkein
>>25294518that's not true. he had the best selling fantasy books by an enormous margin, like 100 million sales before peter jackson made his movies.
>>25294542They especially love Aragorn.
>>25294503indeed, he's fine as a narrator, I think he has a nice sense of pacing and his characters are as likeable or unlikable as they need be. But he's outlook in life is no different than that of the sóyest of the redditors.
>>25290833Going on adventures is Satanic.
>>25294615Luciferian. Going on a prowl is satanic.
>>25294497Some of us were born this century.
>>25294650My condolences
>>25294503You didn't even read the books faggot. Maybe stop taking reacting to marketing from the shitty tv show. Nobody who actually read the books would think GRRM is a nihilist, especially with the northern plotline.
>>25290774>The whole thing reads like it was written for retarded toddlers.Okay, I thought I was being hyperbolic... But now after finishing the Palantir chapter, where at the end of it, we are told for the 20th something time that Shadowfax is the fastest and coolest horse around, I'm 100% vindicated. If I have to hear about how fast the horse is one more fucking time, I will throw the book from my window into the dumpster across the street. We are like at, like, 6 pages worth of just Shadowfax glazing, and I'm still not impressed by him. Does Tolkien not know that for the horse to actually feel 'epic' it has to do things like arrive in the hour of need or be the only horse that dares to charge some enemies? Not just be fast... That's incredibly lame, especially when it gets repeated so damn much.
